# CBR+PNK tags: #game/rpg/cbr-pnk ![[CBR-PNK (cover).jpg]] **CBR+PNK** (*Cyber Plus Punk*) is the anti-prep argument made pamphlet: a **[[Forged in the Dark]]** game compressed into a stack of dry-erase brochures and aimed squarely at one-shot cinematic cyberpunk. No campaign bible, no hour-long character build — you and a crew of **Runners** get exactly one **LAST RUN**, the job you've already decided is probably going to kill you. It's the game that answered *"what if the whole table fit in your pocket and there was no time for the slow part of the pitch?"* ## Setting **Runners** are the players: mercs, criminals, and rebels living on the edge, built as a team and pointed at a job by the **Operator**, an anonymous fixer who only ever speaks as a flat voice over the comlink and who regards you as so much disposable hardware. They run the **Sprawl** — an overcrowded megacity consumed by high tech, class struggle, intrusive advertising, corporatocracy, poor-quality automated services, climate crash, and the increasingly futile search for humanity in any of it. Data flows through the **Grid**, public records and media on the surface, sensitive files locked behind ICP (Intrusion Countermeasure Protocols) and megacorp private servers reachable only from secured terminals. Each game is one LAST RUN: a high-stakes operation with a clear Objective, played to find out what happens. The GM preps a couple of locations and a short list of obstacles on purpose, then deliberately stops — telegraph trouble, follow through on established threats, don't pull punches, cut to the action. The tone is ultraviolent and lean; the whole pitch is "you die glamorously or you don't go home." ## Mechanics Resolution is a single, tight **Action Roll** with a strong risk/effect lever at its center. ### The Action Roll When your Runner faces a risky or troublesome situation, describe what you want and which **Approach** — **Aggressive, Smart, Empathic**, or **Stealthy** — plus which **Skill** (analyze, athletics, close combat, coding, influence, piloting, ranged combat, rigging, sciences, streetwise, or the weird-flavored *attune*) you're leaning on. The GM sets **Threat (T)** and **Effect (E)**, each usually at Level 2, telling you what a failure costs and how much a success gets you. You may then **raise T and E together** — betting a nastier consequence for more reach — or leave them and accept the modest payoff. There is no "wrong" approach, only less effective ones the GM is happy to punish. Gather your dice pool from your **Approach + Skill** ratings plus any bonus dice from **Push** or **Assist**. If you end up at zero or fewer dice, you roll two and keep the lowest — because nothing says "min-wage netrunner" like enforced incompetence. Roll once and read only the single highest die: - **6,6 — Critical:** a success with extra style. - **6 — Success:** as well as it could possibly go. - **4–5 — Partial Success:** it works, with a **Complication** on top (the GM's new favorite word). - **1–3 — Failure:** it goes sideways, and the Complication lands face-first. ### Character Creation Chargen trades rigid playbooks for quick custom builds: a **Handle** and a few evocative **Look** words; an **Angle** (what it's ultimately all for — among them *Get Out, Upgrade Life, Make Them Pay, Learn the Truth, Look After Them, Take a Stand*); and **Approaches** — of the four (Aggressive, Smart, Empathic, Stealthy), mark one `++` and two others `+`, the fourth left unrated — then spread **8 dice** over Skills, with a third die spent to claim an **Expertise**. You define a starting **Signature Augmentation** (cybernetics, biotech) and do **not** pick Gear yet — you circle what interests you and declare load on the fly during the Run. ### The rest of the toolkit - **Push** — mark 2 stress (or add a *Glitch*) for +1 die, a bump in Effect, or to act while **Out**. - **Assist** — mark 1 stress and expose yourself to consequences to hand a teammate +1; only one Runner can assist a given roll. - **Flashback** — declare you acted earlier to shape the moment, at a stress cost by plausibility; the classic way to reveal an **Asset**, an **Augmentation**, or an **Upgrade** (at the price of a **Drawback** — extra Load, a Glitch, a **Hunter** on your tail, or a **Debt**). - **Take a Breather** — roll a relevant Approach (no skill) to clear stress and harm when the fiction gives you a beat. - **Resist** — roll a relevant Approach to blunt or dodge a Consequence, marking stress by how cleanly you shrug it off. - **Load & Harm** — declare up to **Light 3 / Medium 5 / Heavy 7** on-hand items; harm is leveled (*Superficial, Serious, Incapacitating*...) and each degree imposes its penalty. Marking your last stress triggers **Overload**, glitching an Approach until you breathe. - **Progress Tracks** — multi-stage obstacles are tracked as tension-building tracks you chip away at across rolls. The whole apparatus exists to keep you moving and in danger — the game is allergic to downtime, and every lever pushes either toward a better roll or toward a worse consequence. That asymmetry is the point. ## Editions - **CBR+PNK** (core brochure set) — *In the library.* - **CBR+PNK Runner File** (2021) — *In the library.* - **CBR+PNK GM Guide** (2022) — *In the library.* - **CBR+PNK Framework** (2023, GM consequences + campaign mode) — *In the library.* - The library also holds the brochures in several print **layout** variants (fold / panels / letter / low-ink) — those are page-size and ink differences, not editions. - **[[CBR+PNK - Weird|CBR+PNK: Weird]]** (2022) — the supernatural **/plugin setting**; *in the library* (its own note). - **CYBERPUNK HUNTERS** (2021) — a third-party plug-in (Catscratcher Studio) adding elite Hunters sent to take the Runners down; *in the library.* - **Mona Rise Megalopolis** (2022, Leonardo Azevedo) — a micro-setting run packed with extra tables, threats, and factions; **MIND THE GAP** (2023) — a fast-paced /RUN; **PRDTR** (2023) — a survival-thriller setting-scenario; all *in the library.* - **Kaguya Protocol** (2026) — a run. - **Rookie** (plug-in). - **CBR+PNK: Augmented Edition** — the current revised edition (streamlined Load/Gear, reworked Resistance/recovery, overhauled epilogues), funded on Kickstarter and sold as the myth.works boxed set; *in the library* (the library's brochure set — e.g. the **Katalog** and 2026 brochures — is this edition's content). ## References - [CBR+PNK Core — itchio (official)](https://emanoelmelo.itch.io/cbrpnk-core) - [CBR+PNK — myth.works (physical boxed set)](https://www.myth.works/pages/cbr-pnk) - [CBR+PNK Plain-Text Core Rules (English)](https://cbrpnk.cabinetofcuriosities.games/docs/en/index) - [CBR+PNK Augmented digital bundle — itch.io](https://itch.io/b/2456/cbrpnk-augmented-digital-bundle) - [CBR+PNK — RPGGeek](https://rpggeek.com/rpg/68271/cbr-plus-pnk)