Cyberpunk RED Guide Hub | Cyberpunk RED Gear Guide | Armor Guide | Cyberpunk RED Roles Guide | Humanity Loss Guide | Cyberware Slots Guide | Cyberweapons Guide | Cyberpsychosis Guide | Trauma Team Guide | Cyberpunk RED Guides
The Short Answer
Treat cyberware as a character decision with mechanical pressure, not a shopping checklist. Before an edgerunner installs anything, ask five questions: what job does it solve, what foundational cyberware does it require, is there room for the option, what Humanity cost comes with it, and what consequence will make that choice matter in play?
The Core Rulebook gives cyberware a practical structure: foundational pieces unlock options, different kinds of cyberware use different capacity rules, and Humanity Loss tracks a real cost rather than a cosmetic tax. Black Chrome expands the available choices, which makes a deliberate process more useful, not less.
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Hot Take
More chrome can make a character less interesting when every install exists only to erase a combat weakness. Start with an ability that changes scenes: a way to reach information, perform a job, protect a friend, or announce who the character wants to be. Then let the prerequisite, capacity, Humanity, money, and downtime make that identity choice visible at the table.
The memorable build is not the one that owns the longest list. It is the one whose chrome gives the crew a new plan and the GM something concrete to bring back in a later job.
Humanity Loss Is Not A Morality Score
Humanity is the Core Rulebook's measure of a character's empathy for others and sense of self-regard. As Humanity falls, Empathy can fall with it. That is mechanical pressure, but it should not be treated as a real-world diagnosis or a shortcut for declaring a player character evil.
Elective augmentation is an important source of Humanity Loss, but it is not the only one. The Core Rulebook also allows major trauma to cause Humanity Loss at the GM's discretion. Conversely, replacing a lost or damaged body part with a cloned limb or Medical-Grade Cyberware is therapeutic replacement, not elective augmentation, and does not create the same loss. The distinction matters because the game is modeling the character's relationship to their body, not judging disabled people or people receiving care.
Use the rule to make choices meaningful, never to ambush someone with subject matter they did not agree to explore. Before the campaign, establish lines and veils around body horror, surgery, trauma, and mental-health themes. A concise check-in protects the table and makes the fiction easier to play honestly.
Cyberpsychosis Is Not An Excuse To Flatten A Character
The Core Rulebook frames cyberpsychosis through dissociation and preexisting low Empathy. It explicitly says cyberpsychosis is not necessarily violent and that not every person experiencing it is violent. Treating the term as shorthand for a disposable monster misses both the book's warning and the player-facing roleplaying opportunity.
Mechanically, the book gives increasingly serious guidance as Empathy becomes low. At zero Empathy, a character is experiencing cyberpsychosis; only when Humanity becomes negative is the character handed to the GM until Humanity is positive again. That distinction is worth saying aloud before it can occur in play. It lets the group agree on tone, player agency, and what a recovery scene looks like.
If the campaign does use this material, describe effects at the level your group chose, keep consent active, and give recovery and support the same narrative weight as the installation that caused the pressure.
Read A Cyberware Entry In The Right Order
The fastest way to buy a bad upgrade is to start with its cool final effect. Read each entry from the foundation outward instead:
| Check | What to confirm | Why it prevents mistakes |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | The scene or job the cyberware improves. | A clear use case prevents gear from becoming dead weight. |
| Prerequisite | Whether it needs a Neural Link, Cyberarm, Cyberoptic, Cyberaudio Suite, or another foundational piece. | Many options cannot exist on their own. |
| Capacity | The relevant Option Slots or other capacity limit. | A legal prerequisite can still be full. |
| Installation | Any restriction involving an injury, body location, or related condition. | Surgery is not always available at the moment the player wants it. |
| Humanity Loss | The ongoing character cost and the effect on future recovery. | The choice belongs in the character story, not only the combat math. |
| Cost and upkeep | The money, time, and follow-on choices. | A useful upgrade can still crowd out the rest of a build. |
The Core Rulebook's item entries provide exact costs, Humanity Loss, capacities, and effects. Keep those details in the book at the table rather than copying a rules catalog into campaign notes.
Build The Foundation Before The Options
Cyberware comes in several broad families, including Fashionware, Neuralware, Cyberoptics, Cyberaudio, Internal Body, External Body, Cyberlimbs, and Borgware. Many of the familiar upgrades sit inside a larger piece of cyberware: a Neural Link can support compatible neural options, while cyberlimbs, eyes, and audio suites provide their own places for appropriate options.
That makes a build order more reliable:
- Name the character's actual table job.
- Identify the foundational cyberware that enables it.
- Check how much compatible capacity that foundation supplies.
- Choose only the options that support the job.
- Recheck Humanity Loss, money, and recovery before installation.
Not every category works like a nested upgrade tree. The Core Rulebook gives Fashionware, Internal Body, and External Body their own limits rather than a foundational item with Option Slots. Do not assume a spare slot in one category creates room in another.
Choose Chrome By The Job It Creates
| Crew need | Useful cyberware direction | Question for the player |
|---|---|---|
| See, hear, record, or notice more | Cyberoptics or Cyberaudio, with compatible options. | What clue, threat, or social read will this make possible? |
| Operate a deck or interface with systems | Neuralware and the required interface hardware. | Does this serve a recurring NET or vehicle role, or a one-off fantasy? |
| Repair, make, or manipulate the physical world | Cyberlimbs and compatible tool-oriented options. | What can this character now do under pressure that nobody else can? |
| Survive a specific campaign hazard | Protection or body upgrades suited to that pressure. | Is this defending against a real pattern in the game, or a hypothetical fear? |
| Signal identity and status | Fashionware or a distinctive visible modification. | What does the crew, a client, or a rival learn at first glance? |
The goal is not to force every character into a specialty. It is to make the purchase produce a useful new decision. A visible arm can open a conversation, a sensory option can change an investigation, and an interface choice can give the crew an entirely different way into a job.
What Black Chrome Adds
Black Chrome is an expansion of options, not a mandate to replace the Core Rulebook's baseline. Its cyberware includes alternate foundations, capacity changes, protective upgrades, and specialized integrations. Some options deepen a familiar build; others are unusually narrow and shine only when the campaign creates the matching situation.
For example, a Cyberarm-integrated Cyberdeck upgrade can make sense for a Netrunner whose deck capacity is a recurring constraint, but it is only useful after the player has already decided how that Netrunner works alongside the crew. Read the Cyberpunk RED Netrunning Guide before buying chrome to solve a NET problem that the campaign does not actually feature.
Use Black Chrome when its extra choice advances a specific character concept. Read the Cyberpunk RED Black Chrome guide for the book's broader catalog and Night Market limits, or use the Cyberpunk RED Sourcebooks Guide to decide whether it is the next useful purchase for the table. The dedicated gear guide will link here once it is live.
Therapy, Consequences, And Campaign Tone
The Core Rulebook gives Medtechs and clinics a route to therapy that can restore lost Humanity. It takes meaningful downtime, requires a successful treatment, and does not make installed cyberware costless: the maximum Humanity that can be regained remains reduced while relevant chrome stays installed. That is a strong campaign tool because it makes care, money, and time part of the character's future rather than a reset button.
Let therapy create scenes when the group wants those scenes. A debt to a clinic, an honest conversation with a teammate, a week away from a job, or the choice to remove a once-beloved upgrade can all matter. But do not require a player to roleplay medical trauma in detail. The table's stated boundaries decide how much stays on screen.
Where To Go Next
- Return to the Cyberpunk RED Guide Hub for the complete live library.
- Read the Cyberpunk RED Roles Guide to place cyberware in a Solo's, Netrunner's, Tech's, or another Role's broader job.
- Read the Cyberpunk RED Medtech guide for Medicine, Surgery, recovery, and the care around cyberware procedures.
- Read the Cyberpunk RED Trauma Team Guide when a covered extraction, recovery, or medical response needs to preserve player choice and job consequences.
- Read the Humanity Loss guide before treating Empathy, therapy, trauma, or cyberpsychosis as a simple equipment penalty.
- Read the Cyberware Slots guide before assuming a foundation, a pair, or an empty slot makes an option compatible.
- Read the Cyberweapons Guide when an integrated weapon needs to serve a real crew objective, capacity plan, and market lead.
- Read the Armor Guide before treating installed protection as a substitute for worn coverage, Armor Penalty, ablation, and a crew route.
- Read the Cyberpsychosis Guide for Core Rulebook thresholds, player agency, recovery, boundaries, and responsible GM practice.
- Read the Cyberpunk RED Netrunning Guide before building toward a deck or interface-focused character.
- Read the Cyberpunk RED Black Chrome guide when an expanded cyberware option needs source and availability context.
- Use the Cyberpunk RED Beginner's Guide when the group still needs its first-session path.
- Browse the Cyberpunk RED guide directory for every live guide.
More cyberware spokes and individual gear guidance will be linked here when they are published. Until then, this is the live hub for Cyberpunk RED's Humanity, cyberpsychosis, prerequisites, capacity, care, and integrated-weapon decisions.
Sources And Scope
This guide summarizes the cyberware, Humanity, therapy, and cyberpsychosis material in the Cyberpunk RED Core Rulebook and the matching cyberware options in Black Chrome. It intentionally does not reproduce cyberware tables, item lists, prices, slot counts, Humanity Loss values, therapy rolls, or full rules text. Use those books for exact character-building procedures and values.
