In tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs), grand castles, gloomy dungeons, and forests filled with dragons and elves usually dominate. However, for players and game masters who want to step away from traditional fantasy, exciting new horizons await. Moving adventures into a modern metropolis or futuristic cyberpunk setting offers a unique experience where familiar elements of our world blend with magic or high technology. Unlike static backdrops, these settings are active participants in the story, breathing with secrets and their own harsh rules. This requires the game master and players to take a new approach to storytelling, turning ordinary city locations into a seamless, dynamic game world where every street and district matters.

Urban Fantasy: Dark Magic in the Concrete Jungle

The key task of the game master in a modern setting is to transform an ordinary city into a living, captivating game world. This goes far beyond simply describing locations. The city must have a soul, becoming not just a backdrop but a full-fledged character in the story. Unlike fantastical kingdoms, a modern metropolis offers extraordinary verticality and layers to explore: from rooftop chases across skyscrapers to underground tunnels and sewers hiding secret cults or monsters. To enhance realism and create the illusion of a living world, it is worth including random urban events such as traffic accidents, street robberies, or unexpected encounters.

A practical tool for game masters is using real city maps found online or in tourist centers. Marking neighborhoods, streets, and landmarks helps players navigate, creating a strong sense of realism and freedom of movement. This highlights the need to maintain internal consistency, which is the essence of “realism” in TTRPGs. A good game master must clearly establish the rules of their world and stick to them. For example, if magical fire in the first adventure cannot burn clothes, it should not suddenly destroy a wheat field in the third. Breaking such rules risks making players feel cheated, as their actions lose predictable consequences.

Because the scale of a modern city is too vast for one person to detail, collaboration with players in world-building is one of the most effective tools. Allowing players to help shape the city, naming a neighborhood, describing a favorite café, or defining a key character’s residence, not only spreads the creative load but also ensures deeper engagement. A world that players helped create feels more personal and “belongs” to the whole group.

Systems That Bring Urban Legends to Life

Choosing a system for urban fantasy determines the tone and style of the game. Each system provides a unique way for characters to interact with the world.

City of Mist is a narrative game based on the Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) engine. Its core concept is a neon-noir city where ordinary people are reincarnations of myths, legends, or fairy tale characters. The system replaces traditional attributes with “tags” that describe abilities linked to everyday life (for example, “bag of cash”) and mythical essence (for example, “stone skin”). This creates constant dramatic tension between two sides of identity. The game encourages cinematic storytelling through Moves such as Investigate for clue-hunting or Go Toe to Toe for tense confrontations.

Chronicles of Darkness (CoD), formerly known as World of Darkness, offers a world of modern horror where supernatural beings hide behind the veil of everyday life. The system uses a d10 mechanic and is considered “medium rules,” balancing detail and playability. Campaigns, called “chronicles,” can focus on mystery, intrigue, or brutal conflicts. The CoD universe also includes dimensions like the Underworld for ghosts and the Shadow for spirits.

The choice between systems such as City of Mist and Chronicles of Darkness depends on the desired play style. City of Mist leans toward narrative and cinematic stories, while CoD’s d10 system better supports investigations requiring detailed mechanics. The mechanics directly shape the tone and themes of the game.

Cyberpunk: High Tech, Low Life

The cyberpunk genre is inherently dualistic. The term, first coined by Bruce Bethke, combines “cybernetics” and “punk.” The cyber side symbolizes high technology such as cybernetic implants, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and corporate networks. The punk side reflects social decay, dystopia, economic inequality, and the dominance of megacorporations.

Cyberpunk is instantly recognizable: neon-lit cities, constant rain, and fog amplifying hopelessness and grit. These visuals are not just decoration; they emphasize the genre’s message that technological progress has not solved humanity’s problems but made them worse. The core dramatic conflict is survival in a world on the brink of collapse.

Advice for Game Masters: Capturing the Punk Feel

To convey authentic cyberpunk, the game master should focus on several key aspects:

• Survival and style. In cyberpunk, it is not enough to be strong—you must have style. Characters succeed by being resourceful, daring, and distinctive, not just effective.
  
• Contacts and connections. Unlike dungeon crawlers, cyberpunk characters survive through networks of contacts and “favors for favors.” Building these ties is central to play.
  
• Episodic play style. Running the game as “one job per session” keeps pacing tight and matches the dynamic, high-stakes tone of the genre.
  

System Showdown: Cyberpunk RED vs. Shadowrun

The key choice for a game master running cyberpunk is whether to stick to a “pure” version of the genre or mix it with fantasy. This leads to the two most popular systems: Cyberpunk RED and Shadowrun.

Cyberpunk RED is a modernized version of Cyberpunk 2020, streamlined and beginner-friendly. Its d10 mechanics make it faster and more accessible. One major update is the Netrunning system hackers now work with local DataPools rather than one global net, making their role more tactical and integrated with the team. The setting takes place during the “Time of the Red,” after the Fourth Corporate War, shifting the narrative from individual resistance to collective rebuilding. With no magic, Cyberpunk RED keeps stories grounded in desperation and survival, the essence of the genre.

Shadowrun is a unique hybrid that merges cyberpunk with high fantasy. Elves, orcs, and dragons coexist with megacorporations and hackers. The setting is widely praised as rich and immersive, but the system itself is heavily criticized. Its mechanics rely on rolling handfuls of d6s, often considered overly “crunchy” and complicated. Managing three simultaneous planes, physical, astral, and matrix, can fragment the party and bog down gameplay. Many in the community describe Shadowrun as a “10/10 setting stuck in a 3/10 system.” Some players also argue that adding magic and fantasy races dilutes cyberpunk’s core message, making survival less desperate and undermining the “punk” theme.

Conclusion: From Idea to Table

Shifting from traditional fantasy worlds to modern or cyberpunk settings opens new opportunities for creative storytelling. Urban fantasy challenges the game master to build a living, consistent city filled with hidden magic, while systems like City of Mist and Chronicles of Darkness offer approaches ranging from mythic noir to modern horror.

Cyberpunk, on the other hand, is about high tech and low life, where survival intertwines with moral dilemmas. Choosing between Cyberpunk RED and Shadowrun sets the campaign’s tone: RED for grounded, fast-paced play, Shadowrun for mixing cyberpunk grit with fantastical lore despite mechanical complexity.

Ultimately, the game master’s greatest tool is not the rules but flexibility, creativity, and willingness to experiment. The best stories emerge when players are encouraged to shape the world together. Regardless of the chosen setting, the true magic of TTRPGs lies in collaborative storytelling that can transform any idea into an unforgettable adventure.