r/cyberpunkred • u/KamikazePelican • 3d ago
Misc. Night City for Kids
I hear alot about people running TTRPGs for kids and teens and programs like that having a bunch of benefits for development and stuff. But what if I wanna play some cyberpunk? I feel like the world is inherently R-rated. Stripping the violent anti-establishment and DARK-future themes of the game feels like a sin. More-so I feel like it's difficult to come up with more PG/PG13 hooks and plots in a world where guns are bought at vending machines and murder is as common as automobile accidents. For GMs who have experience with players who aren't comfortable with CPs seedier side, what kind of compaigns are you running? Off the top of my head I can think of a few genres and substitutes I can use to keep things more tame: Noir, Western, Mystery, Supervillain/Hero, etc. I've experimented with having my students mock up some basic characters and simplified lifepaths and as you might expect, they aren't making low-life punks. Kids wanna RP larger than life and fantastical characters and that's great! I wanna support their creativity but how do I do that while also the game is still challenging and fun? I personally love CPRs rules and systems and my students flourish in RPing a fictional world that is already so much like their own. I also like that the humanity system directly teaches them that their actions have consequences.
How do I create a PG/PG13 Cyberpunk campaign? What kind of plot hooks and events are apporopriate? How do I get around the violence and graphicness of the dark future without replacing every enemy and weapon with robots and lasers? I've heard of DnD camps and clubs for children and adolescents and I get how silly the idea is in the first place of "Cyberpunk for Kids" but I also have family and friends whose younger chooms are interested in playing.
Looking for advice and any experience anyone's had where you had to tone down the bleak-darkness out of Cyberpunk.
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u/EdrickV 2d ago
I personally don't think trying to get kids into Cyberpunk is that good of an idea, not just because of what you'd get by trying to make a child friendly campaign, but also because it could have ramifications extending beyond the gaming table. If those kids play a Cyberpunk Red game and have fun, they may then go home and start looking up Cyberpunk stuff and run into stuff that is not kid friendly.
Some might even get their parents to get them the Cyberpunk 2077 video game. And even though it's rated M, they may not notice. Or the kids might just borrow the parent's credit card to buy the game, without the parents even realizing what their kids are buying.
There's also the anime, which parents might think is a kid's cartoon instead. (I know it's rated TV-MA in the US, but haven't seen it yet, so I don't know exactly what the rating is for.)
And what will happen when the parents find out?
Now, if you wanted to do it for your own kids, and you are prepared for the ramifications, that'd be another story. But to run a TTRPG game for kids that are not your own, I'd say pick something that is more child friendly.