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Cities Without Number SRD

Overview

The SRD provides a complete, openly reusable rules chassis for cyberpunk campaigns with strong support for mission loops, urban factions, and augmentation-heavy characters.

Key Utility

  • Full character pipeline with attributes, skills, and focuses.
  • Cyberware integration tied to cost, risk, and capability.
  • Mission-facing GM structure for jobs, contacts, and fallout.
  • Strong compatibility with toolkit-driven prep workflows.

Referee Leverage Points

For worldbuilding and session operation, the SRD is strongest in three places:

  • Character-facing constraints that create believable urban behavior.
  • Mission structures that naturally generate consequences.
  • Faction and contact mechanics that keep cities socially alive.

District Prep Loop

Use this loop to prep one district quickly:

  1. Define district identity (industry, class profile, security posture).
  2. Add two active powers (official and unofficial).
  3. Add one scarce asset and one unstable pressure.
  4. Seed three actionable hooks (job, favor, threat).
  5. Attach one consequence trigger if the PCs intervene.

Repeat across 3-5 districts for a campaign-ready metro map.

Urban Settlement Generator (10-Minute Pass)

To generate a playable city quickly, define:

  1. City role: extraction hub, trade choke, admin capital, or shadow market.
  2. Three district identities with distinct day/night behavior.
  3. Two legal powers and two extra-legal powers.
  4. One critical utility chain (power, water, data, medicine, food).
  5. One social fracture line (class, ethnicity, aug-status, immigration, ideology).
  6. One upcoming civic shock (election, strike, blackout, crackdown, festival).

This gives enough structure for mission play and faction diplomacy immediately.

Mission Lifecycle (Referee Frame)

  • Offer: who hires and what hidden agenda exists?
  • Recon: what can be learned safely vs. at risk?
  • Execution: what clock escalates during the run?
  • Heat: who reacts after the run and how fast?
  • Fallout: what shifts in faction posture or street economy?

Treat fallout as mandatory. It is where worldbuilding becomes visible.

Faction Heat Tracking

Track faction temperature with simple states:

  • Cold: watching, no direct action.
  • Warm: indirect pressure, surveillance, rumors.
  • Hot: active disruption, assets deployed, reprisals.

Move one step when players steal assets, expose secrets, or break territory norms.

Faction Diplomacy Turn

Run one diplomacy turn per active faction each session cycle:

  1. Objective: what does the faction want this week?
  2. Posture: cooperate, pressure, isolate, or escalate.
  3. Offer: what concession or bait can they present?
  4. Cost: what backlash do they risk if they act?
  5. Public signal: what visible move telegraphs their stance?

If two factions choose incompatible postures, generate a conflict incident and push heat.

Contact Web Mapping

Maintain a contact graph across the metro:

  • Tier 1: personal contacts and crew adjacencies.
  • Tier 2: institutional gatekeepers.
  • Tier 3: hidden financiers or ideological operators.

Track edge types as favor, debt, rivalry, surveillance, and dependency. Re-tag one edge per mission fallout.

Domain Pressure Clocks (Urban)

Use metro-level clocks for long arc worldbuilding:

  • Policing legitimacy
  • Infrastructure fragility
  • Labor unrest
  • Organized crime consolidation
  • Information control

Every clock at crisis threshold should alter mission offers and district baseline difficulty.

Integration Pattern

Pair CWN structural rules with table-heavy city kits:

  • Use CWN for mission consequences and capability boundaries.
  • Use random-table toolkits for names, texture, and scene dressing.
  • Feed outcomes back into district and faction state each session.

See Also

Sources

  • https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/452790/cities-without-number-system-reference-document