Street-level runners work for factions in a corporate-dominated cyberpunk city, taking jobs, upgrading their bodies and dodging trouble.
From 16 firsthand play reports in 5 r/rpg threads. The threads alone average 6.9.
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88 r/rpg posts named it, October 2023 to October 2026.
Medium. Hype 5.5 for its age.
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Across five r/rpg threads, the players who report actual play mostly like Cities Without Number. They praise the character building, the Trauma and Soak combat, and the city and hacking tools. Their complaints are about d20-style gunfights, a mission-heavy structure, and the amount of GM prep and rules tracking. Many comments in these threads are comparisons with other games, not play reports.
Each thread is rated for the play it describes, from the firsthand reports in it. Load one here or read it on Reddit.
A group that finished a six-session mini-campaign and a few other players and GMs report that character building, Soak and Trauma combat, and quick hacking are fun. They also report problems with mission-heavy structure, vague downtime, and the network-traversal hacking, so the experience is mostly good with real friction. 5 firsthand · 26 comments
The few people who say they ran or played Cities Without Number mostly like it. They praise the city creation tools and the hacking, but a couple find it dense, with hacking and Heat that don't suit every table. Most of the thread is praise for Kevin Crawford's games in general, reading impressions and purchases, plus comments about Ashes Without Number that were ignored here. 4 firsthand · 74 comments
The thread is a broad opinion poll on CWN against Shadowrun and Cyberpunk Red, and most comments are impressions or comparisons rather than play reports. The few that read as real play say CWN is a solid, flexible system that needs a competent GM to keep combat and one overpowered option in check, and one commenter found the combat dull. 3 firsthand · 76 comments
The thread is mostly a comparison with Cyberpunk 2020 and Cy_Borg, and only a few commenters appear to have actually played CWN. Those who did call it straightforward, flexible and moddable, with interesting characters. They also find it the weakest of the Without Number games, with D&D-style gun combat and levels that don't suit every campaign. 3 firsthand · 39 comments
The thread is mostly about Shadowrun editions, and only one commenter reports playing CWN: a play-by-post Shadowrun-using-CWN game that worked surprisingly well. The only reservation was d20 combat, which that player mostly dislikes, and they saw the missing Shadowrun options as a plus. 1 firsthand · 25 comments