Reinventing the Cyberpunk genre!

tecnowraith · Apr 7, 2005

I like to ask everyone here what would be a good way to reinventing the Cyberpunk genre? What would bring players back to a genre that kinda outdated from 80's? What new ways would be different enough for the genre of today?

Torm · Apr 7, 2005

Firefly, the RPG.

Jdvn1 · Apr 7, 2005

Rifts d20?

I think some other systems do cyberpunk pretty well, so it's not a big deal to me.

Tarrasque Wrangler · Apr 7, 2005

I think the whole "Corporation as BBEG" trope is played out. I always hated how monolithic evil is in cyberpunk RPGs. I think lots of smaller, petty evils might work better. I'm not saying ditch the Evil CEO's entirely, just make them one part of a nasty machine conspiring to make the world a less cheery place.

reanjr · Apr 7, 2005

Get rid of the grid. It's so stupid.

deltadave · Apr 7, 2005

Check out Ex Machina. Its got some really good paradigms for a cyberpunk campaign, and they are supposedly working on a d20 conversion due out this summer.

I'm currently running a cyberpunk campaign with a strong supernatural element and it's really freaking the players out. IMHO I've done a pretty good job of capturing the creepyness of the supernatural and infusing it into the near future game.

hexgrid · Apr 7, 2005

I think of cyberpunk as the future of the 1980s, and when you look at it that way, it doesn't need to be updated. (and maybe even shouldn't be updated.)

BigFreekinGoblinoid · Apr 7, 2005

I have never played any type of Cyber-Punk game, so here is an out of the box idea that probably reconceptualizes the genre past the point of previous recognition:

The new Urban Warfare minis by Urban Mammoth ( formerly I-Kore ) have conjured up some Cyberpunk type ideas in my head - I'm imagining an off earth Cyberpunk scenario where the "war" passed through a particular planet, basically leaving it in Chaos. Different gangs vie for control over various resources and turf. Goals can include stabalizing a territory, protecting it's non-combat population, pin pointed back ops to weaken enemy positions, adventures to obtain a rare power source for help in reconstuction, etc...

http://www.urbanmammoth.com/um/html/home.htm

got to
urban war tab

then hit the
miniatures gallery option

Janx · Apr 7, 2005

So assuming we're talking about the cyberpunk genre and not the specific rpg, I'm not so sure the cp genre is outdated. Perhaps we're simply catching up to it.

Let's see we've got:
pervasive network that interconnects everything? Check.
Corporations that run things and act unethically? Check.
People who work behind the scenes doing dirty wet work and black ops? umm, I don't know, they've been pretty sneaky so far.

As a computer guy, I'd like to see a matrix/grid/net presentation that is somewhat plausible and realistic. From an rpg design standpoint, i'd like the implementation to be one that doesn't drag the game down for hours while the decker does a run that takes 6 seconds game world time

Corporations are often the bad guys because we see the trend now, that businesses are getting more powerful. Extrapolate that to an extreme, and it is the businesses that are running things. It's not communism to fear, it's TacoBell.

Cyberpunk is often presented as a dark themed setting. To support that, the bad guys are always hidden agenda organizations with a mysterious plan. It doesn't have to be a corporation, it can be a government or fruitloop cult (snow crash anybody?).

Plus you've got the recurring theme of technology. It scares us, it enslaves us, it transforms us and releases us.

I don't think the motif of cyberpunk is outdated or inapplicable. Though it may be tired, because we, as a people are getting more depressed about the world around us (beats me, I'm not depressed, I'm happy, I trust the Computer.).

Janx

Ralif Redhammer · Apr 7, 2005

Much of what was considered futuristic in the cyberpunk genre is happening now. Cybernetic limbs, brains interfacing directly with computers, a massive & omnipresent internet, gigantic corporations. Enormous urban sprawl and pollution as well. Advanced weaponry. Not to mention electronic music.

Cyberpunk has generally blended the near future with modern attitudes (hence cyber + punk). To revitalize cyberpunk, I'd look to what's on our far horizon of technology, and combine that with current underground aesthetics.