Cyberpunk RED Roles: All 10 Explained, With Who Should Play Each

How a Role Ability works#

Every role in Cyberpunk RED gets one signature ability, and it is the whole reason to choose that role. In Cyberpunk 2020 these were loose special abilities. In RED they are ranked, and they grow as you spend improvement points, so a Fixer at rank 1 and a Fixer at rank 6 play differently.

Role Abilities are also the only thing locked to your role if you build with the Complete Package method. Everything else can be bought freely. The character creation page covers the three build methods.

Opinion: read the ability, not the flavor text. Flavor text says everyone is a rebel with a cause. The ability tells you what you will actually be doing at 9 p.m. on a Friday.

The ones who hit things#

Combat in RED is lethal, and these three are built to survive it or to bring it. Picture the first firefight in a parking structure: the Solo is already spending points, the Nomad is already behind the wheel, and the Lawman is already talking into a radio.

• Solo: Combat Awareness: You hold a pool of points and split it among sub-abilities when combat starts, outside combat, or as an action mid-fight: Damage Deflection, Fumble Recovery, Initiative Reaction, Precision Attack, Spot Weakness and Threat Detection. At the table you are the person who decides how a fight goes, and you re-decide every fight. Pick it if you like tactics and want your build to be a choice, not a number. Example: Morgan Blackhand, who led the strike team into Arasaka Tower in August 2023.
• Nomad: Moto: Bonuses to drive, pilot and repair, plus access to vehicles from your family or pack motorpool. The pool scales with rank: Moto 3 gets you three stock vehicles, or two (one upgraded), or one with two upgrades, on land, sea or air. At the table you are the party's wheels, which in Night City is also the party's exit. Pick it if the heist is not a heist until the getaway. Example: the Aldecaldos, the Nomad clan that led Night City's rebuilding after the bomb.
• Lawman: Backup: You call for backup when things go bad, and your rank decides how good the response team is. At the table you are the only character who can say a badge out loud and have it mean something, which is useful and also a leash. Pick it if your group wants a morally complicated cop in a crew of criminals. Example: River Ward, the NCPD detective of Cyberpunk 2077. See River Ward.

The ones who fix and break systems#

These roles have the most to do between gunfights, which is exactly why a GM should love them and exactly why they can stall a session if the player disappears into rules.

• Netrunner: Interface: Interface is how you run the NET and the set of basic actions you can take in a NET Architecture without a program. Your rank sets how many NET actions you get each turn. At the table you are on site with the crew, goggles on, hacking a building's locked doors while the Solo covers you. Pick it if you enjoy planning and rules and you can explain them fast. Example: Rache Bartmoss, whose dead man's switch started the DataKrash. See the RED netrunning guide and the general Netrunner page.
• Tech: Maker: Fix stuff, upgrade stuff, fabricate stuff, invent stuff. At the table you turn scrap and a good Lifepath contact into the thing the plan needs. Pick it if you want to own the loot economy and see a problem as a build order. Example: Judy Alvarez, the braindance editor from Cyberpunk 2077, filed under the Techie archetype. Our Judy Alvarez page has the rest.
• Medtech: Medicine: You can heal Critical Injuries no one else can, mix drugs, and keep someone alive and immobile with cryotech. Medicine has three specialties: Surgery, Pharmaceuticals and Cryosystems. At the table you are why a bad roll does not end a character, and you also install the cyberware. Pick it if you are comfortable being needed more than being the star. Example: Viktor Vektor, the ripperdoc behind Misty's shop in Cyberpunk 2077.

The ones who move people and money#

None of these roles pay off in the first fight. All of them pay off in the second session, when the crew needs a name, a favor, a scoop or a crowd.

• Fixer: Operator: A spread of contacts, the ability to source goods, a bonus to haggling, and the knack for blending into different cultures, with bonus languages. At the table you are the job board and the shopping mall. Pick it if you like being the person everyone has to call. Example: Rogue Amendiares, queen of the Afterlife. See Rogue Amendiares.
• Rockerboy: Charismatic Impact: Outside combat, you turn non-fans into fans: roll Charismatic Impact plus 1d10 against DV 8 for one person, DV 10 for a small group of up to six, DV 12 for a huge one. Your rank decides which favors you can ask. Fail, and that group will not do that favor for you for a week. At the table you are the crowd, the cover story and the mood. Pick it if you will actually perform. Example: Johnny Silverhand, front man of Samurai. Start with the Johnny Silverhand page.
• Media: Credibility: You find rumors and leads, then use them to craft stories that can move a whole city. At the table you are the one who turns a crew's dirty work into something that sticks to a megacorp. Pick it if you love investigations and long-running plots. Example: Network 54, a news Neocorp that makes headlines in the Time of the Red. It is an outfit, not a person, but it is the kind of employer a Media either works for or works against.
• Exec: Teamwork: Your corp gives you free clothes and housing, Trauma Team coverage at higher ranks, and underlings: a bodyguard, a driver, even a netrunner. Push them too far and their Loyalty drops until they walk. At the table you are the boss, which means you also have a boss. Pick it if you want to run a small team inside the team. Example: Meredith Stout, the Militech Corpo in Cyberpunk 2077.

Fixer's notes: building a crew#

Opinion: a good first crew is a Solo, a Netrunner or Tech, a Medtech or Fixer, and one person who talks (Rockerboy, Media or Exec). That covers fighting, systems, healing, and the jobs. Easy Mode ships five pregens: a Rockerboy, a Solo, a Tech, a Medtech and a Media, which is a decent hint at what the designers think a first table needs.

Opinion: the role that causes the most table trouble is the one that works alone. A Netrunner who cannot explain their turn in two sentences will make three players check their phones. Hand them the RED netrunning guide before session one.

Opinion: Lawman is the hardest to fit and the most fun if the table agrees on the premise. Settle it in session zero: does the crew know there is a cop in the van, and does the cop have a line they will not cross?

If this is your first game, the first session guide picks a starter pack. Pondsmith talks through the roles in an official R. Talsorian video below.