Not your father's Cyberpunk

[DMaple]

From the way technology is going today the advances in body improvement will be from genetic manipluation more than cybernetics. I'ld like to see more of that in any new Cyberpunk game.

Firearm wise it looks like the SMG is on its way out, and the Sub-carbine is a better replacement, so the range of weapons needs to reflect that.

Drugs are an other issue, I'ld expect to see the prohibition on mood altering drugs lifted.

Also terrorism in its many forms would probably feature highly.

 

[UD]

On second thoughts why do I need cyberpunk... mongoose is publishing Judge Dredd d20 in the summer.... For all your worst scenario needs....

 

[gustavef]

Personal preference, I would stick with Shadowrun if I wanted "magic" and Cyberpunk 2020 if I did not. Mainly because those versuons of Cyberpunk are rife with 80's nastagia. Reminds me of the better days of my misspent youth.

However, if you were to "modernize" the Cyberpunk Genre here are the things I would consider to be key:

Cyber :
Technology must be advanced and personal. It should be so ubiquitous that it is second nature. This could be thing like vat grouwn organs, cloning, or implated electronics and computers.

Punk:
The must be the "haves" and the "have nots." The difference should be huge, and only about 1% are of the "haves" and they expolit the "have nots"

Everything else is details. 8*). (ie who are the haves? the rich, the governments, the corporations?)

Cyberpunk is part attitude that came out of the 80's. Like Goth/Horror (ie World of Darkness) is part attitude that came out of the 90's.

I would recomend reading "Snow Crash" and "Diamond Age" by Neil Stephonson. Two different types of "CyberPunk" like world.

-gustavef

 

[Henry@home]

UD Said...

You know Microsoft has the resources to buy quite a few small countries...

Actually, are you aware that during the Stock Market recession of 2000-2001, More money was lost than the ENTIRE G.N.P. of France????

Utrecht said:

- If it is Asian - it must be good. Many of these games were written at the nadir of Janpanese prosperity. I think that Chinese or Latin Americanization is far more likely.

- Megacorps - The simple fact of the matter is that there is no way that a corporation will ever (under current social settings) have the resources that a nation has (even a relatively poor one like Gambia)

- World-wide Cataclysm. This is always the ace in the hole for the game designer. Something "bad" happens and the world suddenly changed. I think that we have all learned after Sept 11th that governments and societies are more resilient than we gave them credit for.

-America is not going to Balkanize - we as a nation are simply to homogenic - in reality there is nothing to differentiate a Coloradan from a Georgian......

-Science always moves quicker than we think it will - and in directions not anticipated.

Utrecht is on to some good ideas here. Multi-national corporations will hold much political and autonomic power in the future, but they will not hold enough clout and capital to subsume governments unless something truly catastrophic were to wipe out ALL Governmental control and leave a massive power vaccuum that a Military leader cannot fill.

I truly doubt we will ever see portable rayguns and teleporters - the real sci-fi stuff. However, we are one or two tests away from human clones and regrowing someone's organs from their DNA Right Now. Given the limited success of artificial hearts and kidneys, etc. We will likely see plausible biogenetic engineering before we see cybernetics. Albeit we might be seeingcrude cybernetics at a far future point. Machine and man are very, very difficult to marry, but genetically engineered people carrying OICW's (is that right?) with exploding mini-grenades and high-speed caseless ammo would not be that far-fetched.

Extremely powerful computers would become watch-sized and able to access any database with voice or maybe even thought-interface with the screen on the insides of sunglasses that provide starlight scope vision (or screw the starlight sunglasses - we are born with it by this time!

Drugs - Drugs - lots of DRUGS! Speed you up, slow you down, pick you up, drop you quick, inst-kill, bring-you-back-from-the-brink DRUGS! Although side effects are a must! In the real world, where even things as simple as aspirin STILL have side effects, that we've know about for a century!

IN short, it starts turning from Cyberpunk, to Spycraft 2020.

 

[Zenon]

I'm probably going to repeat previous posters, but here goes:

What do you look for in a cyberpunk setting?

Call me old fashioned, but I prefer the 80's style cyberpunk like Gibson's Neuromancer. Netrunners gathered around monochrome green phosphor screens, trading black ice on bulletin boards. Cyberware that's not as good as a replacement rather that better than the real thing. So I'm retro, don't hold it against me. If I see a game with something better that catches my eye, I wouldn't reject it.

What do you particularly like?

Faceless corporate power grinding the little guy down. Corps so big that in their own territories the have their own laws, but not so big they can stand toe-to-toe with national governments. Super-toys that most people can't have or can't afford. Restriction on weapons that are legal to carry. Rules for improvising equipment. Any equipment guide should have the past twenty years worth of stuff in it because it will be the most mainstream.

What do you particularly like dislike?

Magic. Super-duper nanotech. Make it gritty and personal. Everyday should feel like a struggle to survive.

What would you like to see added, changed, or updated?

If anything, I could stand from an updated netrunning section like another poster said. Originally I thought that the Netrunner CCG would make a great addition to Cyberpunk 2020. I could set up the Corp net using cards and the netrunner would have his cards that represented the program he had. I could then play my cards while dealing with the rest of the group while he did his run. Having a good system for netrunner is a top priority.

The humanity loss in CP was a good idea. I can think of two sources of the top of my head that show that as your power increases, you no longer consider yourself part of humanity. Both are relatively old:

Star Trek (original) "Where No Man Has Gone Before" - brief synopsis - Gary Mitchell gains super ESPer power and has delusions of godhood.

"The Watchmen", DC Comics - brief synopsis - Doctor Manhattan, the ultimate superhero. He can do just about anything. Melt a tank, teleport masses of people, see the future. But he has trouble relating to how people feel, no longer seeing how his actions affect those around him.

Ok, you can laugh at the examples, but both have had an impact on how I see people gaining "miracle" or "super" powers from cyberware would consider themselves.

BTW, does anyone have a link to the Cityscape by Battlefield Press? It sounded interesting...

 

[shadow]

I would like to see a somewhat dark world much like the world presented in the Final Fantasy 7 video game which mixes fantasy and high technology. Although others disagree, I would like to see science, psionics, and fantastic technology mix. I don't want it done like Shadowrun though, where every other person is a mage and elves and dwarves walk the streets. Rather I would like to see it like the X-files or Akira: Whereby top secret expreriments, the corps have created gene-engineered mutants and psionic characters. Paranormal powers lurking just below the surface, not out in plane view like Shadowrun.

Also I would like a setting that isn't so nihlistic. Although a dark setting is at the core of cyberpunk, it doesn't have to be completely nihlistic. I find that the whole Shadowrun worldview doesn't work very well for any type of campaign. My experience is that it degenerates into dungeon crawl with guns. (Instead of loot the dungeon and slay the orcs, it's loot the corporation and shoot the guards.) Moreover players get frustrated after all the corporations continue to betray them and they're always some expendable mercenaries. That said, I think it would be interesting to play a 'heroic' cyberpunk game. The world would still be dark and gritty, but the players would be trying to change it. Perhaps characters could be rebels or freedom fighters. Or just someone trying to fight against the system rather than succumb to it...

 

[Zenon]

Also I would like a setting that isn't so nihlistic. Although a dark setting is at the core of cyberpunk, it doesn't have to be completely nihlistic. I find that the whole Shadowrun worldview doesn't work very well for any type of campaign. My experience is that it degenerates into dungeon crawl with guns. (Instead of loot the dungeon and slay the orcs, it's loot the corporation and shoot the guards.) Moreover players get frustrated after all the corporations continue to betray them and they're always some expendable mercenaries. That said, I think it would be interesting to play a 'heroic' cyberpunk game. The world would still be dark and gritty, but the players would be trying to change it. Perhaps characters could be rebels or freedom fighters. Or just someone trying to fight against the system rather than succumb to it...

I'd just like to point out that I had the opportunity to speak with Mike Pondsmith (R Talsorian Games - Cyberpunk) at Origins in 1987(?) in Baltimore, and his view exactly mirrored yours.

In his game, the PC's worked a lot with the University in Night City, always trying to fight the system and make things better, sort of a light against the darkness thing. They were 'heroic', always going against the corporation "party line", exposing wrongdoing by corps and others, etc. It sounded great.

As you said, too often people make the Cyberpunk genre into a "hi-tech dungeon" adventure.

 

[Enforcer]

If any of you have played the computer game Deus Ex, I think that it's a fine example of Cyberpunk. Genetic engineering, nanotechnology, cyber enhancements, secret societies bent on world domination, powerful corporations, increased government authority, rich vs. poor, etc.

Check it out for a good cyberpunk feel--also because I think it's a very well done game. It's in the style of a first-person shooter, but you control what skills your character has, and there are plenty of rpg elements as well (dialogue choices, your actions affects others' opinions). Don't install the patch though, it actually prevents you from passing one stage in the storyline...

 

[Henry]

Zenon said:

Call me old fashioned, but I prefer the 80's style cyberpunk like Gibson's Neuromancer.

You know, I NEVER EVER thought that I would hear "old-fashioned" and "Cyberpunk" used in the same sentence.

 

[mkletch]

Cyberpunk equals...

... a blend of Blade Runner and Gibson's Neuromancer.

Let's face it - from a movie perspective, no 'cyber' flick has come even close to Blade Runner in terms of vision. Sure, there have been special effects or more 'futuristic' technology, but movies completely hollow in terms of profundity.

Both Blade Runner and Neuro have the following 'core characteristics' of cyberpunk that DEFINED the genre when it was created:

* Mega corporations
* Cyber enhancements
* Drugs (both 'good' and 'bad')
* Genetic engineering
* Massive disparity between rich/poor
* A 'dark' picture of the future easily extrapolated from the present
* 'One Big World' where technology (not just internet) transcends borders
* Androids
* Environmental 'tension' (i.e. ruin, ambivalence, exploitation, escapism)

Sure, all of these elements draw from older SF novels like Aasimov, but bringing it all together is what makes cyberpunk. Magic/psychic power are NOT a part of this definition, but there are variations on every theme (i.e. to each his/her own). Personally, cyberpunk is tech driven only.

-Fletch!