Genre Discussion: Cyberpunk

[Paul Farquhar]

Those who wrote the core book likely have access to data and assumptions that may not be public.

Just like the secret ingredients in snake oil.

Game design theory is well known to anyone who cares to take an interest, and has moved on since many rules were laid out.

if we are trying to align with the core

Why would we want to align with anything? The point is to have fun, not be boringly conformist.

 

[Scribe]

Why would we want to align with anything?

Because unless you are looking to design for just your own table, there could be expectations of balance that people are looking for in a 'designed for X' product?

 

[Cergorach]

Nonsense, that’s assigning a godlike level of competence and altruism to the original creators.

The only thing you should trust is your own judgement. Use what you like, by whoever you like, and discard anything you don’t like, even if it was part of the original authors vision. They are a person just like you, their judgment is no better than yours or anyone else’s.

I don't know, not everyone is created equal. These successful IPs/projects are not your average vanity publisher... They are professionals in their field, just like a doctor or a lawyer is a professional in their field. There might be hacks, but we do not tend to talk about the hacks in RPGs and I suspect the popular IPs we're talking about here were not written by hacks.

That said, you are still the arbiter of what you like and do not like. If I like to display the Mona Lisa in it's Lego form, so be it, and Leonardo da Vinci can 'suck it'! But by that same measure, there are others that want to experience x in it's natural form. Two different people can have two different opinions on that and neither be right or wrong...

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Because unless you are looking to design for just your own table, there could be expectations of balance that people are looking for in a 'designed for X' product?

I don’t believe “original designers” are likely to be any more “balanced” than anyone else. I’ve seen plenty of terribly balanced stuff produced by original designers. It usually takes an edition or two to get the wrinkles sorted out.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

doctor or a lawyer

I know of some pretty terrible lawyers, and as for doctors, I’ve taught A level Physics to a lot of kids who went on to do that, so I am very well aware of their limitations.

As with any profession, some are good, some are bad, most are mediocre.

 

[MGibster]

Why would we want to align with anything? The point is to have fun, not be boringly conformist.

If you purchased a new supplement for a specific game you'd likely expect it to align with the core rulebook, right? For example you'd expect a supplement for Bladerunner to have a similar noir atmosphere rather than turning into a dumb action movie. Don't get me wrong, dumb action movies are fun, but that's not what I'm looking for in a Bladerunner game. You could certainly do something a different, perhaps make a supplement all about playing a replicant or a human ally on the lam, but you'd likely still expect it to somehow align with the core product.

 

[Valetudo]

Every other scene ended in violence in that movie. So I can see someone going the action route for bladerunner.