Reinventing the Cyberpunk genre!

[JamesDJarvis]

Im sorry but any scifi that goes into space that think itself cyberpunk is not true cyberpunk IMO. Cyberpunk to me has always dealt with streets, the cyberspace the tech and megacorps.

Depends on what "space" folks are goign out into. The movie Outland has all the trappings of a cyberpunk story (excpet for cybernetics, which they all don't have anyway). The situation is entirely bounded by the technology on hand and how it sustains and limits the characters and the moral and ethical capactities of the characters. Illicit elements within the company threaten human decency in an environment the compnay already utterly controls and the protagonist is only able to identfy and deal with the situation at hand through his chutzpah , a bit of technology and the wits to manipulate the articficial environment around himself to his advantage. Sounds cyberpunkish to me.

 

[JamesDJarvis]

Net running as it is often shown in cyberpunk gaming ans some fiction is a little sillly. The whole concpet of virtual net-scapes making information porcessing anf gathering more efficient is a little flawed, still fun in and of itself but flawed. I can do image and tech research now that used to take at least a coupe of hours trip down to a big library in moments, if it takes me hours it is becasue of the vast range of information at my fingertips so i'm more capabe of sifting thorugh it all then i'd be in a library. A google search can turn up hundreds, thouands or tens of thousands of bits of information on a topic and all are a couple of clicks away, having to run through a virtual library from room to room would not increase my capacity to get at that information and make use of it.


make those net-runners or deckboys effectively wizards of the integrated netscape that surrounds folks in a likely cyberpunk future and they stop being boring. Chasing someone in a car - what happens if the nethead can change the traffic lights ahead to his advantage?
Being abe to see around the next corner through a building security cam being played on ones retinal screen could sure prove advantageous.

 

[sukael]

A great anime that uses the concept JamesDJarvis is talking about is, of course, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. (Saturdays at 12:00 P.M. on Cartoon Network.)

One of the recurring villains in it is the "Laughing Man," who is so incredibly good at hacking that he can blank out his face from the sight of ANYONE with cybernetics, replacing it with a smiley-face graphic (thus, the moniker "Laughing Man").

Make it less of a dive-into-the-Net and more of a manipulate-the-world-around-you setup, and you've got a workable netrunner PC archetype.

EDIT: wrong time for GitS.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

For Netrunning, I think the main problem is the way the archetype has been implemented in past RPGs. Essentially, they character just got a "Netrunner" ability, which gave it access to an entirely tacked-on system of programs and mini-dungeons and the like. It's like saying that the only ability a mage has is "magic" and then having them do an hour of solo play for every spell they want to cast. It just doesn't work.

To me, the closest thing to the way a Netrunner should be done has been the Snoop from Spycraft. Rather than making net access their skill, it instead becomes (in Hero terms) their source. They then get a unique set of abilities such as tracing people, installing backdoors, etc. Basically, it's just assumed that the character works with the net, just like it's assumed that a fighter works with weapons and combat. They then get specific abilities to do stuff, rather than a clunky system that seperates them from the rest of the game.

Granted, probably the one main reason that the other games had for keeping the Net as a system as it's own was that anyone could go into it and do the thing- Netrunners were just better at it (this was especially stressed in later CP 2020 books). From that perspective, this mirrors the way things are heading today- with everything chipped and connected to a network, almost veryone is going to be the equivalent of a console jockey, just like almost everyone knows how to drive a car. So, just as everyone in D20 gets a BAB, everyone in a cyberpunk setting should be using the net. Netrunners should just get a lot more tricks and abilities with it- ie fighter bonus feats.

 

[twofalls]

Im sorry but any scifi that goes into space that think itself cyberpunk is not true cyberpunk IMO. Cyberpunk to me has always dealt with streets, the cyberspace the tech and megacorps. But as I said before is why have we not seen that many cyberpunk RPG in the past? And the ones that was made and released have not done so well in the market even with so many movies like the Matrix triology and video games like Deus Ex have come and gone.

No need to be sorry, but the title of the thread was reinventing cyberpunk right? Transhuman space has a large number of cyberesque themes to it. Monolithic corporations, cyberspace, implants, futuristic weapons, and a dark feel. It's a modern interpretation of the not too distant of human exploration. I do feel it qualifies, but then I also agree to disagree.

 

[Pip-Boy 2000]

Although Shadowrun is the grandfather of all Cyberpunk RPGs, it's not the be-all and end-all. There's no Cyberpunk Bible that says spaceships aren't allowed. The important thing is to try and preserve the mood, tone, and feel of the game. Keep it dark, gritty, and conspiratorial; these, among others, are the elements that make a Cyberpunk setting Cyberpunkish. The presence of spacefaring craft shouldn't change it at all.

 

[JamesDJarvis]

I can't beleave i didi not mention this earleir- Baderunner.
Now that is a cyberpunk setting, with space ships and aliens, granted the aliens are man made but the tone and methode certainly plop that tale in the realm of cyberpunk.

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

Cyber-punk to me is a reflection of high technology on the present world. It was always a mater of tech getting better, but society getting worse. The trends in 80's were both taken to extremes. Big buisness under regulated turned into big buisness = government. Computers started getting good enough to control certain things, so from this came computers controlling everything. The problem with that is both ideas lacked real world change. Being the bigest buisness of them all, governments would be hard replace. And while computers controlled eveything, WHAT they controlled never advanced. A car was still a car, a gun was a gun, a phone was still a phone, no real innovation.

To make the genre relevant, you would need to take todays trends to their logical extremes.

Govenment power creep, mostly in the form micro managing daily life for the populace.

Celebs and special interest groups gaining power.

Smaller tech, thus easier to insinuate into anything you touch

Over specialization. Computers become so complex that no one thing can be made/fixed/programed/used by one person. This gives you high tech, plus abuse factor by those in power, controling the compartmentalized knowledge, and a way for hacker prodigies to have a place in the world. This could even meld in with the psi aspect, as they are not programmers, but will the tech to work.



As for reinventing the genre, cyber-punk has always had a dark edge. The bad guys were either winning, or had won, and the game was about survival and small victories. A new way to go might be to have a number of miracle discoveries, like nanobots, FTL, food replicators, etc be discovered, and have the story be about the heroes having the power to turn earth into a paradise, but fighting a war to see it happen. In a day and age where you have to fight legal battles to eat a certain herb because its not aproved by the FDA or its euro equivalent, imagine how hard it would be to pass out a universal food suppliment. Perfect health would be popular, right? Telepathy phones would revolutionize the world, whats not to like? Such things would be suppressed, stolen, or held for power instantly.

This could turn into a supers game or X-files very easily, but if played right it could be cyber punk with hope, which could prove interesting.

 

[Runesong42]

To me, part of the Cyberpunk genre was about eliminating the social middle-class. If you were rich, you were very rich, and if you were poor, you were very poor. Your social standing depended largely on who you worked for.

I use, for example, the movie Demolition Man. You have the upper class government, with their pristine laws and their pristine lives where nothing seems to go wrong because everyone is provided for... as long as you are willing to live within the somewhat strict dictates of the government. Then you have the group of people who choose to live free, driven underground by those in power, forced to exist on whatever they can scrape up or steal. You're either working for "the man", or against him. There is no middle ground.

By the same token, Shadowrun emphasizes this by offering elaborate services and health care for the wealthy, while those who cannot afford even their basic needs are forced to eat recycled food and live on the streets, where you use what you find or can kill for and take.

 

[Andor]

Although Shadowrun is the grandfather of all Cyberpunk RPGs, it's not the be-all and end-all. There's no Cyberpunk Bible that says spaceships aren't allowed. The important thing is to try and preserve the mood, tone, and feel of the game. Keep it dark, gritty, and conspiratorial; these, among others, are the elements that make a Cyberpunk setting Cyberpunkish. The presence of spacefaring craft shouldn't change it at all.

Actually the Grandfather of all Cyberpunk RPGs is.... Cyberpunk.

What was the name of that cyberpunk/psi/monster game (no Not rifts, it was not even vaugely a Palladium game)? Anybody remember? Dark something I think.