Cyberpunk RED Terminal Setup Guide

Why Diegetic Terminals for Cyberpunk RED?

Cyberpunk RED runs on a world where megacorps own everything and information is power. When the GM puts a real terminal in front of the players (one that actually locks, responds to button presses, and flickers under ICE countermeasures), the fiction stops being abstract. The corpo system feels real because it behaves like one.

Every button press, state change, and atmosphere effect syncs in real time to every player's screen. When you trigger a critical warning during a netrun, the whole table sees the terminal degrade simultaneously, no narration required.

Step 1: Choose Your Theme

Diegetic Terminals includes several theme presets that work well for Cyberpunk aesthetics. From Terminal Settings (palette icon in the terminal header):

Layer on Signal Degradation and CRT intensity for a worn, black-market terminal feel. For a slick corpo aesthetic, keep the display clean and only trigger degradation when ICE hits.

Step 2: Button Layouts for Night City Scenarios

Different scenarios call for different terminal configurations. Here are three common setups:

Step 3: Access Control for Night City Politics

In Cyberpunk RED, who has access to what is the entire game. Map that directly to Diegetic Terminals' permission system:

• 1. Add each player as an Operator so they can join from their own phone, tablet, or laptop.
• 2. Use Password Protected buttons for classified data. Give players the password through play: hack it, find it on a body, social engineer it from an NPC. Different buttons can have different passwords.
• 3.Can Operate for crew members who have legitimate access. Can View for characters watching a feed but not in control. Different characters get different access, assigned per player.
• 4. Use Door buttons for access-controlled rooms or server vaults. The GM controls whether they open; the players can push the button and wait.

Step 4: ICE Encounters with the Atmosphere Panel

When the crew hits ICE during a netrun, the Atmosphere panel is your GM toolkit. Changes sync to every player instantly:

• › Trigger Warning Mode when a Skater or Asp ICE is detected, and the terminal shifts to amber alert across all screens simultaneously.
• ›Critical Mode for Black ICE contact or system breach: full red, alarm sounds, the table knows this is bad.
• ›Glitch effects for a compromised system or a netrunner losing control mid-run.
• ›Signal Degradation for a dying connection or a system crash, and the terminal visually deteriorates.
• › Save ICE encounter sequences as Macros to fire the whole escalation (atmosphere, audio, and locked doors) in one click.

Countdown Timer: Data Extraction Runs

Every data extraction run needs a clock. Open the countdown timer (stopwatch icon in the terminal header), set the duration, and choose the expiry action. Every player sees the same countdown in real time.

For a Cyberpunk campaign:

• ›Shutdown: system wipe, files destroyed, run is over
• ›Break: the connection shatters, netrunner takes damage
• ›Explode: full facility lockdown, alarms everywhere

Combine the countdown with a macro: "Data Extraction" fires a 5-minute timer with the Shutdown ending, triggers Warning Mode atmosphere, and plays an alarm audio button, all at once.

A Sample Scene: The Corpo Data Grab

Here's a Night City moment: the netrunner jacks into a corpo server and the GM triggers ICE mid-run. The Atmosphere panel fires "Black ICE Contact": Critical Mode washes the terminal red, a Glitch effect stutters the display, and the Classified Files password button locks itself out. The player is now staring at a terminal that's visibly fighting back, with a countdown running underneath: 90 seconds, Shutdown expiry, before the connection gets traced.

If the crew pulls the data before the timer hits zero, the GM lifts the lock and the Corp Facility Terminal quietly returns to its idle blue glow: job done, trace avoided. If not, the Shutdown fires: the terminal goes dark, the Server Room door button seals, and the run is over. No narration needed either way.

Cloud vs. Desktop for Cyberpunk Campaigns