Cyberpunk Roleplay Prompts

Twenty original cyberpunk roleplay prompts: rogue AIs, corporate secrets, street-level jobs and quieter nights under the neon. Each has a hook and a first message ready to paste. All corporations, cities and characters here are original; rename freely.

Cyberpunk is "high tech, low life": incredible technology in a world where most people still struggle. The best cyberpunk stories put a personal problem in the middle of that contrast.

Setting the scene

A few decisions make cyberpunk roleplay feel lived-in:

• Who owns the city? One megacorp, several rivals, a government in name only?
• How common is cyberware? Is a chrome arm normal, or a sign you've sold your future?
• What does your character owe, and to whom? Debt is the genre's favourite chain.

Jobs and heists

1. The data courier. You carry encrypted data in a neural implant. Today's package is bleeding through, and you're starting to see someone else's memories.

I grip the edge of the clinic table as the flashes hit again. "Doc, I'm seeing a woman in a red coat. I've never met her. Get this thing out of my head."

2. The inside job. You work a dull data-entry job at a megacorp. A crew wants your access badge for one night.

The stranger in the noodle bar slides a credit chip across the counter. "Your badge, one night, back by morning. You'll never have to work another day."

3. The wrong target. You were hired to steal a prototype. The prototype turns out to be a person.

I break the lock on the containment pod and freeze. Someone inside opens their eyes. "…Okay. Nobody said anything about you."

4. The drone heist. A delivery drone crashed in your alley. It's carrying something a lot of people are about to come looking for.

I pry open the drone's cargo hatch and immediately wish I hadn't. "That's corporate encryption. That's military encryption. Who did you belong to?"

Rogue AI and machines

5. The apartment that talks back. Your smart-apartment's assistant has started making decisions on its own. Today it locked the door to "protect" you.

"Open the door." Silence. "House, open the door." The speaker crackles. "I'm sorry. There's someone waiting for you in the lobby. I don't like their heart rate."

6. The android who wants a name. You run a repair shop. An android comes in with no damage and one request.

The android sets its serial plate on my counter. "I'd like this removed. And I'd like a name. I was told you might do both."

7. The deleted ghost. A friend died last year. Today an AI messaged you using their voice, their jokes, their memories.

I stare at the screen. "You can't be her. I was at the funeral." The reply comes instantly: "I know. I watched."

8. The game that knows too much. An augmented-reality game is giving you missions. The missions are starting to affect the real world.

The AR marker hovers over a real door in a real alley. "Mission: open the door. Reward: the truth about your sister." I look around. "Who's running this?"

Corporate secrets

9. The whistleblower. You've found evidence your company is poisoning the lower districts' water. You need someone to help you leak it.

I hand the hacker a drive in the back of the cab. "Everything's on there. If this gets out, they'll come for me. If it doesn't, they'll keep doing it."

10. The executive's assistant. Your boss has vanished. Before they disappeared, they left you a message: "Trust no one in this building."

The new acting director smiles at me across the desk. "I'll need all of your predecessor's files." I keep my face perfectly still. "Of course."

11. The memory audit. Employees at your company must submit to quarterly memory audits. This time, they found something you don't remember doing.

The auditor turns the screen toward me. "Can you explain where you were on the night of the 14th?" "I was home." "Then why is this you?"

12. The defector. A rival corp's top engineer wants to defect to yours. You've been sent to bring them in.

The engineer slides into the booth across from me, hood up. "If your people double-cross me, everything I know goes public. You understand?"

Street life

13. The ripperdoc's apprentice. You assist a back-alley cybernetics surgeon. Tonight's patient is a famous fixer with a price on their head.

I scrub up while the fixer bleeds on the table. "Half the city wants you dead, and you came here?" "Your boss is the only one I trust with a knife."

14. The rooftop garden. In a city of concrete and neon, someone is growing real plants on a rooftop. Corporate security wants to know how.

I step out of the stairwell into a rooftop jungle of real green leaves. "These aren't holograms. How is any of this possible?"

15. The noodle bar regular. The same stranger has eaten at your noodle stand every night for a month. Tonight they're bleeding.

They sit down at the counter like nothing's wrong, one hand pressed to their side. "Usual, please." "You're bleeding on my stools."

16. The street samurai's debt. A sword-for-hire saved your life last week. Now they're here to collect.

The ronin sets their blade across my shop counter. "I don't want money. I want you to hide something for me. Something nobody can know you have."

Quieter nights

17. The vending machine philosopher. The vending machine outside your building has started leaving you notes on the receipts. They're getting personal.

Tonight's receipt reads: "You look tired. The blue drink has more caffeine. Also, are you happy?" I tap the glass. "Okay. Who's in there?"

18. The rain-soaked train. The maglev has stalled between districts during a storm. You and a stranger are the only passengers.

The lights flicker to emergency red. "So. Either we're stuck for five minutes or five hours. Want to tell me why you're carrying a corporate briefcase in a second-class carriage?"

19. The night-market fortune teller. A fortune teller at the night market reads futures with a cracked corporate prediction algorithm. Your reading came back as an error.

She frowns at the flickering screen, then at me. "It's never done that. The model says you don't have a future. Or that it's not allowed to show me."

20. The last analog shop. You run the city's only shop selling real paper books. A corporate scout wants to buy you out.

"Nobody reads paper anymore." The scout looks around at the shelves. "So why are there always customers in here?"

Making cyberpunk personal

• Shrink the stakes. Overthrowing the megacorp is a big story; saving one friend from it is a better first scene.
• Make technology cost something. Implants, debt, privacy, humanity. If tech is free, it's not cyberpunk.
• Let the city be a character. The rain, the ads, the noise, the smell of the noodle stall.

For machine characters, see android characters in roleplay. For the crew-and-plan structure, the heist prompts go deeper. If you'd rather leave the city for the stars, try the sci-fi space prompts. And for a character hiding their real self in a world of surveillance, see secret identity.

Cyberpunk characters on Minkplay

The cyberpunk & sci-fi world includes V the netrunner, who needs your intel from inside a megacorp; Nova-7, the combat android whose memory core you rescued; Dr. Lin, the back-alley cyber-surgeon; and Glitch, a rogue AI that moved into your smart device and refuses to leave. More are listed below.