Not your father's Cyberpunk
- Thread starter Doctor Doom
- Start date
What any cyberpunk game should include, whether 'modern' or not:
* Highly advanced personal weaponry. Things that we can imagine existing in practical use (like rail-guns) but not things that are "way out there" (like antimatter rifles).
* Cyberware. Regardless of how we envision cybernetics in the future, most of it should remain inorganic, whether metal or ceramic, while "bioware" should be very rare and extremely expensive (if available at all).
* Weak or nonexistent law enforcement at the street level. In an era of having to deal with lots of big stuff (i.e., terrorism and such), dealing with comparatively minor illegal activities will be put on a back burner.
* Psionics. Psionics goes well with technology because they are both children of the sci-fi genre, but they both have their own home turf (technology can dominate your body, but only psionics can dominate your mind). This "separate of powers" approach is handled very well in the d20 fantasy/space game Dragonstar (technology can be used by anyone, but interstellar travel is only possible with magic).
* A powerful criminal element. This goes hand-in-hand with weak law enforcement, but bears repeating (an unpoliced society where everyone is law-abiding isn't cyberpunk). Not super-corporations, but the gangsters of Chicago during the '20s, or the Klan in the South during the '60s, or the drug lords in South America today are some examples of this. Such organizations can be very dangerous and influential without necessarily having the ability to control and operate their own arcology(s) or some such.
* Secret organizations. Again, not necessarily mega-corporations or secret government agencies, but *someone* or someones who are interested in achieving the ancient dream of global domination through politics, technology, or maybe psionics.
What a cyberpunk world doesn't need:
* Evil megacorporations running everything. It's been done before, and it's trite. Like someone else said, the subtle anti-capitalism message is also a bit annoying.
* Magic, or traditional fantasy-type magic at least. Shadowrun works great but is a genre unto itself. Only Shadowrun can or should be Shadowrun. Anything else that tries to mix fantasy and cyberpunk would just be a bastardization, or be thought of as silly, or both.
* Other species of sentient humanoid life. However, having enhanced primates (chimps or gorillas) or smart dolphins presents interesting possibilities that haven't been fully explored yet (save for "Planet of the Apes" and "SeaQuest").
* Necessarily outrageous aesthetic styles. "Punk" is out. How about a revival of medieval clothing styles? Draw straight from the PHB. Heck, even attribute this trend in-game to the meteoric rebirth of a classic fantasy RPG, now in it's 3rd edition ...
I'm sure there's more to both lists that can be added, but there's my two lists.
* Highly advanced personal weaponry. Things that we can imagine existing in practical use (like rail-guns) but not things that are "way out there" (like antimatter rifles).
* Cyberware. Regardless of how we envision cybernetics in the future, most of it should remain inorganic, whether metal or ceramic, while "bioware" should be very rare and extremely expensive (if available at all).
* Weak or nonexistent law enforcement at the street level. In an era of having to deal with lots of big stuff (i.e., terrorism and such), dealing with comparatively minor illegal activities will be put on a back burner.
* Psionics. Psionics goes well with technology because they are both children of the sci-fi genre, but they both have their own home turf (technology can dominate your body, but only psionics can dominate your mind). This "separate of powers" approach is handled very well in the d20 fantasy/space game Dragonstar (technology can be used by anyone, but interstellar travel is only possible with magic).
* A powerful criminal element. This goes hand-in-hand with weak law enforcement, but bears repeating (an unpoliced society where everyone is law-abiding isn't cyberpunk). Not super-corporations, but the gangsters of Chicago during the '20s, or the Klan in the South during the '60s, or the drug lords in South America today are some examples of this. Such organizations can be very dangerous and influential without necessarily having the ability to control and operate their own arcology(s) or some such.
* Secret organizations. Again, not necessarily mega-corporations or secret government agencies, but *someone* or someones who are interested in achieving the ancient dream of global domination through politics, technology, or maybe psionics.
What a cyberpunk world doesn't need:
* Evil megacorporations running everything. It's been done before, and it's trite. Like someone else said, the subtle anti-capitalism message is also a bit annoying.
* Magic, or traditional fantasy-type magic at least. Shadowrun works great but is a genre unto itself. Only Shadowrun can or should be Shadowrun. Anything else that tries to mix fantasy and cyberpunk would just be a bastardization, or be thought of as silly, or both.
* Other species of sentient humanoid life. However, having enhanced primates (chimps or gorillas) or smart dolphins presents interesting possibilities that haven't been fully explored yet (save for "Planet of the Apes" and "SeaQuest").
* Necessarily outrageous aesthetic styles. "Punk" is out. How about a revival of medieval clothing styles? Draw straight from the PHB. Heck, even attribute this trend in-game to the meteoric rebirth of a classic fantasy RPG, now in it's 3rd edition ...
I'm sure there's more to both lists that can be added, but there's my two lists.
UD
First Post
You dont believe that megacorporations will eventually be in control of everything?Matthias said:
There doing a damned good job of it so far:
Microsofts amazing court reversal regarding the monopoly thing.
Americas entire presidential election campaigns are only possible due to massive financing by corporations. Therefore only people who are highly likely to bow to the corporations rather than whats good for the public will come to power. Like George dubya Bush. And his relaxing of so many laws and throwing so many international treaties out the window.
Most of the western world is at the very whims of the middle eastern oil industry.
The recent tarrifs of steel imports into the USA.
MTV.
Murdoch press. You only get to hear what he wants you to.
And the list goes on... Mybe were not at quite cyberpunk level of power but I think its slowly getting there....
Zappo
Explorer
I think that you can have advanced cybernetics and bioware in the same world. Let me explain.
You cannot change your DNA. Either someone finds a virus that can get into each and every cell of someone's body and drop the desired DNA segment into it (without killing you in the process), or the genetical alteration of humans will have to be planned and implemented before birth and will be unchangeable afterwards. Assuming the second hypotesis...
We end up with a world with very, very, extremely, immense differences between the young (who were engineered with the latest technology) and the old (who only had the first, less powerful, and maybe sometimes faulty, genetical implants).
And furher differences between the rich (who can afford the latest genetech for their future sons and daughters) and the poor (who have to rely on chance the old way).
So, we have people with superhuman strength and stamina, 200+ IQs, and whatever you can imagine, then we have the ones who are "only" long-lived and immune to most diseases, and then the common guys who are of course looked down on by these rich and young godlings.
What do the old and the poor do to fill this huge gap? And what about those whose genetical alterations went horribly wrong?
They resort to metal and silicon, of course.
There you are... in such a society, the possibilities for conflict (and adventure) are endless.
You cannot change your DNA. Either someone finds a virus that can get into each and every cell of someone's body and drop the desired DNA segment into it (without killing you in the process), or the genetical alteration of humans will have to be planned and implemented before birth and will be unchangeable afterwards. Assuming the second hypotesis...
We end up with a world with very, very, extremely, immense differences between the young (who were engineered with the latest technology) and the old (who only had the first, less powerful, and maybe sometimes faulty, genetical implants).
And furher differences between the rich (who can afford the latest genetech for their future sons and daughters) and the poor (who have to rely on chance the old way).
So, we have people with superhuman strength and stamina, 200+ IQs, and whatever you can imagine, then we have the ones who are "only" long-lived and immune to most diseases, and then the common guys who are of course looked down on by these rich and young godlings.
What do the old and the poor do to fill this huge gap? And what about those whose genetical alterations went horribly wrong?
They resort to metal and silicon, of course.
There you are... in such a society, the possibilities for conflict (and adventure) are endless.
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