Cyberpunk RED netrunner rules at the table

The Cyberpunk RED netrunner rules put one player inside a NET Architecture while the rest of the crew holds the room, and they run on a cyberdeck, a loadout of programs, and a floor-by-floor descent that happens on the Netrunner's own turn. There is no separate netrunning scene and no second clock. The Netrunner jacks in through Interface Plugs, takes a set of NET Actions, and comes back up with whatever they took, while the Solo across the table is still counting rounds in the same fight.

That single design decision is what everything else hangs off. Because the run shares a turn with the gunfight, the architecture has to be short enough to finish inside one, and the Netrunner's kit has to be decided before the session rather than improvised inside it.

The deck and the plugs

A Netrunner needs two things in the body and one thing in the hands. The plugs are the interface: Interface Plugs are listed at 500eb, in the Expensive price category, from page 359 of the core rulebook, and the same index puts an Integrated Cyberdeck at 500eb from page 364 and a Bodyweight Suit at 1,000eb from page 350. The deck itself comes in three grades: Poor Quality at 100eb, Standard Quality at 500eb, and Excellent Quality at 1,000eb, all from page 353.

That price ladder is the real character-creation decision. Deck quality decides slots, which is to say how many programs and pieces of hardware the Netrunner can carry into an architecture at once. A Poor deck forces a specialist. An Excellent deck lets one player carry an attack program, a defender, a booster and a piece of hardware and still have room to react.

The role also costs something in the body. The corrected cyberware packages take 2 EMP from the Netrunner, the same as the Solo, Tech, Medtech, Exec, Fixer and Nomad, while the Rockerboy, Media and Lawman lose only 1 EMP. Netrunning is one of the chromed-up roles, and the Empathy loss is the price of admission rather than a punishment for going too far.

Programs, and the one rule people get wrong

Programs come in three jobs. Attackers hurt things in the NET, defenders keep the Netrunner alive, and boosters change what a NET Action can reach or how fast it resolves. The costs are flat and low enough that a working loadout is affordable at first level: Banhammer, Sword and Vrizzbolt sit at 50eb in the Costly category, while DeckKRASH, Hellbolt, Nervescrub, Poison Flatline and Superglue are 100eb Premium. On the defensive side, Armor and Flak are 50eb and Shield is 20eb, the Everyday band. Boosters run from Eraser and See Ya at 20eb up to Speedy Gonzalvez at 100eb.

The rule that trips new tables is what happens after a program fires. Attack programs are not persistent. R. Talsorian's errata to page 201 makes it explicit: Attack Programs are activated when making an Attack and, once used, automatically deactivate themselves. Every other program stays up until something knocks it down, so a Netrunner who reads the base text without the errata will happily fire Sword four times off one activation and wonder why the Black ICE never wins. That errata was published against the first and second printings of the core rulebook, and the digital version marked v1.25 was carrying the correction.

Black ICE and where the damage lands

Black ICE is the architecture fighting back, and it is priced like gear because that is what it is to the person who installed it. Raven and Wisp cost 50eb. Asp and Scorpion are 100eb. Hellhound, Killer, Liche and Skunk sit at 500eb, and the four that end runs, Dragon, Giant, Kraken and Sabertooth, are 1,000eb apiece. A gamemaster stocking an architecture is spending a fictional budget, and a corporation that can only afford Ravens is telling the players something about itself.

Damage from the NET does not behave like damage from a gun. A Data Pop added to page 204 sets it out plainly: brain damage is applied directly to HP, is not affected by worn or implanted armor, and cannot cause a Critical Injury. The Bodyweight Suit that keeps a Solo standing does nothing here. A Netrunner at low HP is one bad floor from unconsciousness, and the only real defence is the Shield and Flak programs, plus the discipline to jack out before the architecture escalates.

Architecture length

An architecture is a vertical stack of floors, each holding either a piece of Black ICE, a password, a control node, or a file worth stealing. Length is the gamemaster's main dial. The Single Shot Pack, released in February 2021, collects ten pregenerated edgerunners and NET Architectures ranging from three floors long to nine floors long.

Three floors is a door lock. Nine floors is a set piece the whole table watches, and it will not fit inside a single combat unless the Netrunner has boosters and a plan. Five floors sits in the middle of that published range, deep enough that the Netrunner has to choose between Pathfinder scouting ahead and Zap clearing what is already visible, shallow enough that the Solo is not left rolling initiative alone for twenty minutes.

Running it without losing the table

The practical problem is bookkeeping. Every floor has contents, every program has a rules line, and the Netrunner is the only player who needs any of it. The published answer is cards. The Cyberpunk RED Netrunning Deck, released in October 2021, holds sixteen program cards, thirty Black ICE cards, eleven floor cards and three Demon cards, with the full rule text printed on every program, Black ICE and Demon card. Dealing an architecture face down and flipping floors as the Netrunner descends turns a page-flipping exercise into something the rest of the table can watch.

Single Player Mode, published in September 2025, is a solo play guide that contains rules for abbreviated combat and Netrunning, built with Peter Norton of HollowPonds Solo Sagas.

If you are setting up a first run, build a three-floor architecture, put one 50eb Black ICE on the second floor and the file on the third, and hand the Netrunner a Standard deck with Sword, Shield and Eraser loaded. That fits inside one combat, teaches the deactivation rule the first time Sword fires, and the deck and its three programs come to 590eb at core-book prices.