Cyberpunk 2020 audiobook will let you listen to classic GM advice from creators of the RPG
From getting your campaign started to keeping combat fair.
Cyberpunk 2020’s classic game master guidebook Listen Up, You Primitive Screwheads!!!! is being released as an audiobook, letting players listen to advice on running sessions of the seminal sci-fi RPG and its latest edition, Cyberpunk Red.
Originally released in 1994, Listen Up, You Primitive Screwheads!!!! is less a rulebook than a collection of advice on helming games of Cyberpunk 2020 as a Referee - the RPG’s own term for GMs - written by creator Mike Pondsmith and a half-dozen players and designers. The book’s more general discussion of how to run sessions rather than defining specific rules means that much of it still applies to the most recent iteration of the game, last year’s Cyberpunk Red.
The advice covered includes guidance around character rules, ways to balance combat to avoid killing players (too quickly, at least), managing characters’ lifepaths and ways to start a campaign of Cyberpunk 2020. The volume does include some more specific rules too, including a system for explosives, a simplified set of combat rules and a reference section for the RPG’s many other skills and rules. Pondsmith also discusses the relationship between the GM and players, giving advice on managing a group that strays away from the rules.
If you’d like a startling reminder of the passage of time, the original print book included a congratulations to R. Talsorian founders Mike and Lisa Pondsmith for the birth of their son, Cody - who co-designed Cyberpunk Red and the Witcher tabletop RPG.
The audiobook version of Listen Up, You Primitive Screwheads!!!! is read by Colby Elliott and is being produced by Last Word Audio, which has previously put out recordings of GM advice from Gumshoe designer Robin D. Laws and Dungeons & Dragons advice series The Lazy Dungeon Master.
The Listen Up, You Primitive Screwheads!!!! audiobook will be released on Audible and iTunes on July 5th.