How Does Netrunning Work in Cyberpunk Red?
Short answer
Netrunning in Cyberpunk Red happens inside the normal combat round, not in a separate scene. The netrunner spends their turn climbing a NET Architecture one floor at a time while the rest of the crew is still in the firefight.
Netrunning in Cyberpunk Red happens inside the same combat round as everyone else. The netrunner takes their turn alongside the rest of the crew, diving into a NET Architecture and working through it floor by floor while the firefight continues around them. This is the single biggest change from the older edition, where a netrun was effectively its own scene and the rest of the table waited.
What a NET Architecture is
A vertical stack of floors. Each floor holds something: a password gate, a file worth stealing, a control node wired to a physical door or camera, or hostile software waiting for you. The netrunner descends one floor at a time, and what is on the next floor is unknown until they look.
What the netrunner is doing
Using programs. Attack programs to break defences, defence programs to survive what fights back, and utility programs to scan ahead and control what they find. The interesting tension is that going deeper is where the valuable nodes are, and also where the dangerous software is.
Why the risk is real
Hostile software in a NET Architecture can damage the netrunner directly rather than just ejecting them. That is what keeps the subsystem tense rather than procedural, and it is why a good netrunner player thinks about when to pull out, not just how deep they can get.
Why the design change matters at the table
Because everyone stays in the same scene. The solo kicking a door and the netrunner opening it from the inside are acting in the same rounds, so the crew coordinates instead of taking turns being bored. If you played the older edition and remember netruns as the part where three players checked their phones, this is the fix.
Running it online
A NET Architecture is a structure, not a paragraph, which makes it a good fit for a tool that understands it. Our Cyberpunk Red tabletop models architectures as real floors with real contents, alongside critical injuries and reputation. It is in development now, and it will be free to use with no caps, no subscription, and no paywall of any kind.
Requires Cyberpunk Red. Cyberpunk Red is a trademark of R. Talsorian Games. This is an unofficial fan-made tool released under R. Talsorian Games' Homebrew Content Policy, and it is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by R. Talsorian Games.
Related questions
- Is netrunning in Cyberpunk Red done in a separate scene?
- No. Unlike the older edition, netrunning resolves inside the normal combat rounds, so the netrunner acts on their turn while the rest of the crew is still in the fight.
- What is a NET Architecture?
- A vertical stack of floors the netrunner descends through. Each floor holds a password, a file, a control node, or hostile software, and the contents are hidden until the netrunner reaches them.
- What is the difference between Cyberpunk Red and Cyberpunk 2020?
- Cyberpunk Red is set decades later and rebuilds several subsystems, netrunning most visibly. The older edition ran netruns as a separate scene, while Red folds them into the same rounds as everyone else.
- Can a netrunner be useful in a fight?
- Yes, and that is the design intent. Opening doors, blinding cameras, and taking control of nodes are combat actions in Red because they happen in the same rounds as the shooting.