Reference

Intro

A compact, handwriting-first way to record the dice state of a Cyberpunk TCG game — for a pen-and-paper scoresheet at a tournament, and for checking the result by machine. This page is the whole specification. Every piece of notation on it explains itself if you hover it, focus it, or tap it.

Anatomy of a move

A move is two to four characters. The letter names the die, a trailing prime marks the other player’s die, and the value is what it now shows. Who acted is never written — it comes from the Turn. The one exception in shape is a swap, which names two dice and no value: A<>B'.

Moves

The seven moves. Every demo is a whole Transcript, so the Turn it falls on is a Turn its player owns.

Any player may modify any Gig die on their Turn, including dice the Rival controls. Stealing your own die back is a Steal.

Structure

A Transcript is an optional header, then one Turn per line. Whitespace between entries is required on paper for legibility, though the parser tolerates its absence.

first: WE

Who took turn 1. Optional; without it, WE went first.

3|

The turn number. Printed on the scoresheet, optional when typing; it must match the line.

..

A pass: this player did nothing this turn. A blank line is an error, never a pass.

(-A’2)

A reaction: the other player acted during this turn, in the React Step, right where it resolved.

; note

A note to yourself. The checker ignores everything after a semicolon.

Grammar

document := header? turn*
header   := "first:" ("WE" | "THEY")          ; optional, default WE
turn     := prefix? ( entry+ | ".." )         ; one turn per line; ".." = pass
prefix   := number ("|" | ".")?               ; optional, must match line position
entry    := move | "(" move+ ")"              ; parenthesised = reaction by the other player
move     := swap | action? die owner? value?
swap     := die owner? "<>" die owner?        ; two dice, no value; either order
action   := "x" | "+" | "-" | "=" | "~"       ; absent = roll
die      := "A" | "B" | "C" | "D" | "E" | "F"
owner    := "'"                               ; THEY's die; absent = WE's
value    := 1..20                             ; required except on a steal
comment  := ";" to end of line                ; ignored

Turn order

Odd Turns belong to the first player, even Turns to the second; the first: header says who that is, and without it WE went first.

Every Turn begins with one Roll: a die from your Fixer, rolled in and placed in your Gigs, before anything else. A player has six dice, so after six Turns the Fixer is empty and there is nothing left to roll. That is also when a Turn may be a pass — ...

Reserved: Reactions

Cards can be played in the React Step (§9.7), where the defending player may react to an attack, but no card in the current pool changes a die there — so there is nothing to write down yet. The syntax is held in reserve for when one does. Parentheses wrap a Reaction: a move the non-active player made during the active player’s Turn, written where it resolved, in resolution order rather than declaration order. A Reaction may change values only — never Roll, Steal or Swap — and the checker already understands it.

Winning

• Regulation. A player who starts their own Turn controlling 7 or more Gigs wins. The win is declared at the start of that Turn, so it can land on a row never written: a sheet that ends after turn 9 with WE holding 8 dice reads “WE wins at the start of turn 11”.
• Overtime. Overtime begins as turn 14 ends — one die a turn, six each, has emptied both Fixers — so turn 15 is always its first. From then on a Steal that brings the actor to 7 wins immediately, and a player already holding 7 as it begins wins at once.
• Undecided. The checker declares a win only at the start of the Turn immediately after the last one written. If the Rival’s intervening Turn is missing, the outcome is undecided.

What the checker enforces

Two kinds of rule. The game rules are the Cyberpunk TCG’s own, each with the section of the Comprehensive Rules that backs it. The conventions are only about how a Transcript is written.

Game rules

• Every Turn begins with exactly one Roll — a die rolled in from your own Fixer — while your Fixer has dice. Once it is empty there is nothing to roll in, and a Turn may be a pass. CR §8.6, §8.6.5
• A die is rolled only by its own player, and only from their Fixer. CR §8.6.5, §1.7.1
• The d20 may only be rolled when it is the last die left in the Fixer. CR §8.6.5.1.1
• A Steal takes a die from the Rival’s Gigs only; the die keeps its value. CR §6.8, §11.5.1.2
• Increment, Decrement, Set and Reroll act on a die in anyone’s Gigs, including one the Rival controls. CR §6.4, §6.5, §6.1.4
• A Swap exchanges one die in your Gigs with one in your Rival’s. Both keep their values, and a Swap is not a Steal. CR §6.7, §6.7.1, §6.7.2
• Every value is from 1 to the die’s sides. Increment must raise the value; Decrement must lower it. CR §6.3.3, §6.4.3, §6.5.1
• Turns alternate, starting with whoever went first. Odd turns are theirs. CR §7.5.2, §8.18
• A player who starts their own Turn controlling 7 or more Gigs wins. CR §1.10, §8.6.1
• Overtime begins as turn 14 ends — one die a turn, six each, has emptied both Fixers. From then on a Steal that brings the actor to 7 Gigs wins immediately, and a player already holding 7 when it begins wins at once. CR §1.11, §1.11.1, §1.11.2, §8.17

Conventions

• A blank line mid-game is an error, never a pass. A pass is written ...
• Comment-only lines are not Turns; a ; starts a comment that runs to the end of the line.
• The checker declares a win only at the start of the Turn immediately after the last one written. If the Rival’s intervening Turn is missing, the outcome is undecided.
• Any move or pass written after the game has ended is an error.
• A turn number, if written, must match its line’s position.
• A game longer than 16 turns is warned about, not rejected. Nothing in the rules sets a limit; the warning is a guard against a typo.
• Draws, concessions and time are not dice state. They live in the scoresheet’s result box.

A whole game

Ten Turns. Hover any move to read what it did. WE wins at the start of turn 11.

And one with mistakes

Every line the checker refuses, with its reason. The board keeps threading past each error, so one slip does not hide the rest.

Why it is built this way

Why letters for dice

A digit die next to a digit value (63) is unreadable in ink. A letter always leads a move, so B3 cannot be misread, and B versus 8 is settled by position.

Why the prime is relative to the sheet’s author

In a best of three the loser chooses who goes first, so an absolute scheme would flip the prime between games on one sheet. Two players’ sheets of the same game differ by a consistent prime flip plus the first: circle, so one can be normalised to the other.

Why + and − survive although they are derivable

They are checksums. A + on a die that went down is a transcription error, caught on the spot.

Why no value on a steal

The die keeps its value. One may be written as a checksum and must match. An effect that changes the value on a steal is a separate move: xB -B2.

A steal that changes the value, written as two moves: turn 2 takes the die, then lowers it.