Welcome to the Shattered NET
Imagine the internet as a vast city, and then imagine that city after a nuclear war. The global NET of the 2020s is gone. The DataKrash wrecked it, and what was left of the Old NET is sealed behind the Blackwall. What a netrunner in 2045 actually runs are NET Architectures: small, local, self-contained systems guarding a single building, office or gang hideout.
Netrunning isn't browsing the web - it's digital break-in work. You're not clicking links; you're climbing down through a system whose security can literally kill you. Your mind becomes a weapon, your cyberdeck carries your programs, and every floor could be your last.
⚠️ Warning: Flatline Risk
In Cyberpunk RED, netrunning can kill your character - not an avatar, not a copy. When Black ICE hurts you, the damage comes off your real Hit Points (the book calls it brain damage), and armor doesn't stop it. Die in the NET and you die for real. No respawns, no continues, no extra lives.
The Broken Architecture of the NET
There is no seamless global network to roam any more. Every NET Architecture stands alone, and the only way into one is to go there in person: you jack in through an access point, and you have to be physically within 6 m/yds of it while you run. Your body stays in meatspace, standing in someone else's building, which is why the rest of the crew comes along.
The Shape of a NET Architecture
Many floors
Heavy Black ICE
Control Nodes
Doors, cameras, turrets
A few floors
Light defenses
The Old NET beyond it
Not a place you run
Real-world analogy: Think of the NET in 2045 like a land of castles after the roads have all washed away. Each castle (Architecture) stands alone, with guards (Black ICE) on its stairs. You can't ride from one castle to the next through the wilderness any more; you have to walk up to each castle's gate in person, and your crew has to keep you alive while you're inside.
Your Tools: Cyberdecks and Hardware
A cyberdeck is like a fighter jet for your mind: it carries the programs you fight with and defend with. But a deck alone doesn't get you in. Netrunning takes three pieces of kit working together.
🖥️ What You Need to Run
Cyberware
The cable in
Your programs
From the access point
Every Netrunner needs a Neural Link and interface plugs to connect to a cyberdeck at all. Cutting corners here isn't an option; without them, there is no run.
💀 What a Cyberdeck Holds
Hurt Black ICE
Protect you
Help your checks
Add-ons
A deck has a limited number of slots for programs and hardware, and a better deck holds more. Choosing what goes in those slots before the run is half the job.
The Netrunner's Kit
- Neural Link: The cyberware that lets your brain talk to machines
- Interface Plugs: How the deck physically plugs into you
- Cyberdeck: Holds your programs and hardware
- Programs: Attackers, Defenders and Boosters
- Hardware: Deck add-ons, such as insulation against ICE that sets your deck on fire
Programs: Your Digital Weapons and Tools
Programs in cyberspace are like spells in a fantasy game, except instead of casting fireballs, you're running code that breaks Black ICE or keeps it off your brain. Programs aren't the same thing as your Interface abilities: Backdoor, Cloak, Scanner and the rest are things you can do because you're a Netrunner. Programs ride in your deck's slots, have their own ATK, DEF and REZ (their "hit points"), and can be derezzed (knocked offline) or destroyed outright.
⚔️ Attackers
Job: Damage Black ICE (and, for some, enemy Netrunners)
Example: Sword, the basic anti-ICE blade. Think of it as a digital combat knife - reliable, effective, and always useful.
Effect: Its damage dice come off the target ICE's REZ.
🛡️ Defenders
Job: Keep brain damage off you
Examples: Armor soaks some of the brain damage you take while it runs; Shield blocks a hit and then goes down.
Effect: They are why a Raven, which derezzes a Defender, is such bad news.
🏃 Boosters
Job: Add a bonus to one kind of Interface check
Examples: Boosters back up abilities such as Backdoor, Cloak and Pathfinder, or help you act sooner in the NET.
Effect: Small bonuses, but on a d10 every point counts.
ICE: The Digital Guardians
Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics (ICE) are the guard dogs of cyberspace. Some bark, some bite, and some will tear your brain apart without breaking a digital sweat.
Cyberpunk RED’s Black ICE splits into three jobs, and confusing them is how netrunners die. Some ICE hurts you. Some ICE hurts your programs. Some ICE just makes you worse at everything for the next hour. Knowing which one you are looking at decides whether you fight or run.
Black ICE that attacks you
Damage from these goes straight to the Netrunner’s brain. This is the category that ends characters.
Wisp
The weakest of them, and still not harmless.
Effect: 1d6 damage direct to your brain, and you lose one NET Action next turn (down to a floor of 2).
Hellhound
Effect: 2d6 to your brain — and it sets fire to an uninsulated cyberdeck and the clothes you are wearing. Insulation is not a luxury purchase.
Giant
Effect: 3d6 to your brain and you are forced to Jack Out unsafely, which is its own injury.
Kraken
Effect: 3d6 to your brain, and while it lives you cannot move deeper into the Architecture or jack out safely. It does not just hurt you, it traps you.
Raven
Effect: 1d6 to your brain and it destroys one of your Defender Programs at random — softening you up for whatever is on the next floor.
Black ICE that attacks your programs
These never touch you. They strip your loadout instead, which is worse than it sounds: a netrunner with no Attacker left has nothing to do but retreat.
Asp
Effect: Destroys a random Program on your cyberdeck outright. No damage roll, no save.
Killer
Effect: 4d6 damage to a Program. Despite the name, it is not trying to kill you.
Sabertooth
Effect: 6d6 damage to a Program.
Dragon
Effect: 6d6 damage to a Program — and if that Derezzes it, the program is Destroyed instead, meaning it is gone for good rather than just switched off.
Black ICE that degrades you
No damage at all. These follow you out of the Net, and the debuff outlasts the run.
Liche
Effect: Psychosomatically reduces your INT, REF and DEX by 1d6 each (minimum 1) for a full hour. You survive the Net and then discover you are useless in the firefight on the way out.
Scorpion
Effect: Reduces your MOVE by 1d6 (minimum 1) for an hour. Same trick, applied to your ability to run away.
Skunk
Effect: All your Slide Checks take a −2 penalty until it is Derezzed. It does not stop you escaping — it just makes escaping unreliable.
Read those three groups again and notice how badly intuition serves you. Killer attacks programs. Wisp, which sounds like nothing, does real brain damage. Liche does no damage at all and is still one of the worst things on the board, because it follows you into meatspace.
A netrunner who assumes the scary-sounding ICE is the dangerous one will spend their Attacker programs on a Sabertooth that was never going to hurt them, and then meet a Wisp with nothing left.
How a Black ICE Encounter Goes
NET Actions: What You Can Do in the NET
Every action in the NET is a calculated risk. Move too fast and you walk into Black ICE you never saw coming. Move too slow and your crew runs out of time holding the corridor.
Your Interface rank (the Netrunner’s Role Ability) is your budget: it sets how many NET Actions you take per Turn. A starting Netrunner has Interface 4, so 3 NET Actions.
| Interface rank | NET Actions per Turn |
|---|---|
| 1–3 | 2 |
| 4–6 | 3 |
| 7–9 | 4 |
| 10 | 5 |
Every Interface ability below is rolled as Interface + 1d10 (plus any Booster) against a DV the GM sets for that Architecture, and you must beat it. Interface is doing double duty as both your action economy and your entire skill at this, which is why it is the one number a netrunner raises first.
Note what is not in that formula: INT. Unlike most checks in Cyberpunk RED, these don’t add a STAT and a Skill. The Interface rank replaces both.
Netrunning Action Simulator
A starting Netrunner (Interface 4) tries an ability against an example DV of 8, or Zaps an example Black ICE.
📡 Scanner
Roll: Interface + 1d10 vs. DV
Used out in meatspace before you jack in: it finds the access points and NET Architectures around you.
Success: You know where you can jack in
Failure: You miss what is there
🗺️ Pathfinder
Roll: Interface + 1d10 vs. the Architecture’s DV
Map the Architecture below you. Knowledge is power, and power keeps you alive.
Success: Reveals what is on the floors ahead (the better the roll, the deeper it reaches)
Failure: You keep going blind
🚪 Backdoor
Roll: Interface + 1d10 vs. the Password’s DV
Get past a Password floor. Sometimes the service entrance is the only way down.
Success: The way down opens
Failure: You’re stuck on this floor until you try again
💾 Eye-Dee
Roll: Interface + 1d10 vs. the File’s DV
Identify a file or piece of data. Not all data is created equal, and you want to know what you’re taking.
Success: You learn what the file is
Failure: It stays a mystery
🎮 Control
Roll: Interface + 1d10 vs. the Control Node’s DV
Take command of whatever the node runs and turn it against its owners.
Success: Cameras, doors, turrets or other systems are yours to operate
Failure: The system stays out of your hands
⚡ Zap
Roll: Interface + 1d10 vs. the target’s DEF + 1d10
The attack every Netrunner has built in, no program needed.
Success: 1d6 damage to a Black ICE’s or program’s REZ, or 1d6 brain damage to an enemy Netrunner
Failure: Nothing, and the ICE still gets its turn
🏂 Slide
Roll: an opposed check against the Black ICE
Get away from a Black ICE that has engaged you, instead of fighting it.
Success: You slip away from it
Failure: It still has you
👻 Cloak
Roll: Interface + 1d10, which sets how hard you are to find
Hide the signs that you were ever in the Architecture.
Success: Anyone checking later has a harder time spotting your run
Failure: You leave tracks
🦠 Virus
Roll: Interface + 1d10 vs. a DV set by what you want the virus to do
Once you reach the bottom of an Architecture, you can leave something behind that keeps working after you go.
Success: The virus does its job
Failure: It doesn’t take
🏃 Jack Out
Leaving the normal way is safe, unless a Black ICE (such as a Kraken) is stopping you.
Sometimes retreat is the better part of valor.
Note: Being forced or yanked out is an unsafe Jack Out, and that hurts.
Combat in the NET
NET combat isn't about physical strength or reflexes - it's about your Interface, your programs, and the will to survive when your opponent is trying to delete your consciousness. It happens in the same initiative order as the firefight in meatspace: your NET Actions are your Turn.
One run, floor by floor: 🟢 You | 🔴 Black ICE | 🟡 What you came for | ▢ Not seen yet
A Netrunner's Turn
Attack Resolution in the NET
- Declare Target: Choose which Black ICE (or enemy program) to attack
- Roll Attack: Interface + 1d10, plus your Attacker Program’s ATK if you use one, against the target’s DEF + 1d10. The defender wins ties.
- Roll the damage — the dice come from the Attacker Program you used (or Zap’s 1d6), not from your Interface. Interface decides whether you hit, not how hard.
- Apply Damage: Reduce the target’s REZ
- Check Destruction: At 0 REZ it is derezzed
💀 When Black ICE Fights Back
Black ICE attacks work the same way in reverse, and the ones that target you hit your body directly:
- ICE rolls: its ATK + 1d10 against your Interface + 1d10 (you win ties)
- Damage: Brain damage comes straight off your Hit Points
- Seriously and Mortally Wounded: the usual penalties and Death Saves apply
- No armor: Your body armor can't protect your mind; only Defender programs help
NET Architectures: Digital Dungeons
An Architecture is a dungeon in a box: a stack of floors protecting something valuable. Each one is unique, reflecting the paranoia and resources of whoever built it. Bigger ones can branch, so not every floor sits on the way to the prize.
🏰 Example: A Corporate Office Architecture
Difficulty: Set by the GM; it gives the DV for your Interface checks
Black ICE: A Wisp near the top, a Killer guarding the vault
Control Nodes: The office cameras, so the crew can walk in unseen
Valuable Data: Corporate secrets, employee records, financial data
What You Find on a Floor
- Passwords: A locked stair down; Backdoor it
- Files: Data worth taking; Eye-Dee tells you what it is
- Control Nodes: The building’s doors, cameras, turrets and the like
- Black ICE: Programs that hunt you or your programs
- Demons: Programs that run an Architecture’s Control Nodes, and fight to keep them
- Branches: Larger Architectures fork, so the map matters
Approaches to a Run
🎯 The Careful Approach
Pathfinder first, so you know where the Black ICE is, then Slide past what you can't afford to fight. Slower but safer.
⚔️ The Assault Approach
Load your deck with Attackers and smash through the ICE. Faster, but every fight is a chance to flatline.
🔧 The Physical Approach
The Architecture only exists where its access points are. Get the crew to the right access point, or to the hardware itself, and some floors never have to be run at all.
🎭 The Social Approach
Get the password from someone who knows it. Most elegant when it works.
Beyond the Run
Covering Your Tracks
Breaking in leaves marks. If the owners look later, they can find signs that someone was there. It’s like burglarizing a house and leaving muddy footprints on the carpet.
- Cloak: Hides the signs of your run
- Meatspace evidence: Your body was standing next to their access point; cameras and guards remember faces
- Control the cameras: A Control Node is often the best way to stay off the record
- Consequences: An owner who works out who hit them can send people, not programs
Leaving Something Behind
Not every run is about taking data. Reach the bottom of an Architecture and the Virus ability lets you leave code that keeps working after you’ve gone:
- Sabotage: Make the system misbehave on your schedule
- Access: Leave yourself an easier way in next time
- Difficulty: The more you want it to do, the higher the DV
- GM call: What a virus can do is a conversation with your GM
The Old NET, the DataKrash and the Blackwall
Older Cyberpunk books, and Cyberpunk 2020 in particular, had a single worldwide Net that netrunners could fly across. That’s history in 2045. During the Fourth Corporate War, the DataKrash (a dead-man-switch virus set loose by the legendary netrunner Rache Bartmoss) turned the Old NET into a ruin full of rogue AIs. It was sealed off behind the Blackwall, and NetWatch now polices what’s left: the local CitiNets and stand-alone Architectures you actually run.
- Rogue AIs: Live behind the Blackwall, not in the systems you run
- Behavior: Unpredictable and far beyond anything a Netrunner can fight
- NetWatch: Exists to keep them in, and doesn’t like people poking at the Wall
- At your table: A plot device for the GM, not a destination for a run
Corporate Netwar
The corporations still fight with code, but without a global NET they have to do it the same way you do: someone has to get physically close to the other side’s access points. That makes corporate netwar a meatspace business too, and it’s exactly the kind of job a crew gets hired for.
- Attack: Corporate Netrunners sent in alongside a strike team
- Defense: More floors, nastier Black ICE, and guards on the access points
- Collateral Damage: Whoever happens to be in the building
- Aftermath: Someone always wants to know who let the runner in
Building and Running Netrunning Scenarios
For GMs, netrunning scenes should feel like a combination of heist movie, war film, and horror story. The stakes are life and death, the tension should be constant, and every success should feel earned.
Scenario Structure
- Preparation: Intelligence gathering, choosing which programs go in the deck
- Infiltration: Getting the Netrunner’s body within 6 m/yds of an access point
- Navigation: Working down the Architecture floor by floor
- Obstacles: Passwords and Black ICE
- Objective: Stealing data, taking over Control Nodes, planting a virus
- Extraction: Jacking out and getting the body out alive with the goods
Pacing and Tension
- Time Pressure: The crew can only hold the corridor for so many rounds
- Resource Management: Programs get derezzed or destroyed as the run goes on
- Escalating Stakes: Deeper floors guard better things with worse ICE
- Meaningful Choices: Risk vs. reward decisions constantly
Integrating with Meatspace
The best netrunning scenes connect with the physical world:
- Team Coordination: Other players provide physical security
- Real-World Consequences: Control Nodes open doors and turn turrets
- Time Synchronization: Both worlds share one initiative order
- Mutual Support: Success in one realm helps the other
Netrunning Ethics and Philosophy
In a world where information is power and corporations control everything, netrunners occupy a unique moral space. They're digital Robin Hoods, cyber-terrorists, freedom fighters, and criminals all at once.
The Netrunner's Code
- Information Wants to Be Free: Data belongs to everyone, not corporations
- Privacy is Sacred: Personal data should be protected
- Power Corrupts: Those with digital power will abuse it
- The NET is Neutral: Cyberspace shouldn't be controlled by any one entity
Moral Dilemmas
- Stealing corporate secrets vs. exposing corruption
- Protecting privacy vs. fighting crime
- Personal profit vs. the greater good
- Digital violence vs. physical harm
The Future of Netrunning
The NET in 2045 is broken, but people are slowly building on the ruins. Local systems are multiplying, new threats are developing, and the balance between security and freedom continues to shift.
As a netrunner, you're not just a digital thief or warrior - you're an architect of the future. Every system you crack, every piece of data you liberate, every Black ICE you derezz is a vote for what kind of digital world will emerge from the ashes of the DataKrash.
The question isn't whether you can survive in cyberspace - it's whether the cyberspace that emerges will be one worth surviving in.
🌐 Remember: The Stakes Are Real
Netrunning in Cyberpunk RED isn't a game within a game. It's break-in work with lethal consequences, and your body is standing in hostile territory the whole time. Every time you jack in, you're risking your character's life, and the lives of the crew guarding you.
Make it count.