RPG systems frozen in time

[jian]

The next time I run FASERIP, it'll be Marvel circa 1987-1993, as intended.

Yup, my most recent two campaigns were set in 1984 and 1993. The first one was based on Secret Wars and the second one on X-Men 97. Made it a lot easier to use the material from the sourcebooks and The Marvel-Phile.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

When I run Cyberpunk 2020, and it's been more than 10 years at this point, I run it in the year 2020 as it was imagined way back in the 1980s. There are still newspapers in the form of screamsheets, there's no social media, the Soviet Union is still around, etc., etc.

 

[GrimCo]

Were I ever to run an oWoD game again, I couldn't imagine running it any other time than the early-to-mid 90s.

Yeah, that game captures zeitgeist of 90s edgy pop culture perfectly. I bet those were fun years to be teen/young adult.

When I run Cyberpunk 2020, and it's been more than 10 years at this point, I run it in the year 2020 as it was imagined way back in the 1980s. There are still newspapers in the form of screamsheets, there's no social media, the Soviet Union is still around, etc., etc.

Personally, i view Cyberpunk and Shadowrun more like alternative timeline. I'm cool with tech being both more advanced and more outdated at the same time, compared to current tech we have.

 

[Aldarc]

I do enjoy running most of my pulp adventure games in the early half of the 20th century. Outgunned Adventure, for example, can be used to run Tomb Raider and Uncharted but why would you when you can use it to run Indiana Jones and The Mummy?

 

[Staffan]

I set my East Texas University game in 2010 (well, 2011 now after one in-game year) both because it fits the backstory timeline better and because that way I don't have to deal with the current madness.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

The next time I run FASERIP, it'll be Marvel circa 1987-1993, as intended.

Updating FASERIP to present-day seems like it would be terribly odious. Comic book continuity was already hanging together by a thread back then. Now, it's pretty hopelessly convoluted.

Yeah, that game captures zeitgeist of 90s edgy pop culture perfectly. I bet those were fun years to be teen/young adult.

The thing about oWoD is that it's so steeped in the counterculture of that time. The art, all those quotes from songs and books. It's all rooted in that specific time. Yeah, being a bunch of moody young teenagers back then, it kinda hit the spot.

Personally, i view Cyberpunk and Shadowrun more like alternative timeline. I'm cool with tech being both more advanced and more outdated at the same time, compared to current tech we have.

Agreed. The Dark Future's timeline had already started diverging from ours in its past.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Just like modern screenwriters, I struggle with games-set-now and what to do with ubiquitous communication and information-gathering and how many information-gap holes they close.

Much of my GURPS book collection is 3e, and even if you ignore the actual IRL numeric issues (dollar values, etc.) some of the tech assumptions look very dated.
GURPS: Cyberpunk treats having built in watches, calculators, cameras, and low-level binoculars as separate abilities (a modern version might be a single 'non-disarm-able smartphone' ability, costing less but not having the specific skill bonuses, etc.). Cyberpunk games in general run into the issue that we are already living in the cyberpunk future, and it doesn't look like we thought it would.
A lot of the basic near-future and GURPS: High-Tech weaponry was borrowed from original Traveller, which borrowed it from 1950s&60s Popular Mechanics issues (what the 'battlefield of the future' looked like when Marc Miller was growing up) -- gyrocs, caseless or electrothermal ammo, railguns as ridiculously high rate of fire weapons, armor piercing fin-stabilized discarding-sabot tank shells, etc. Little of it is wrong (well, outside the already fantastical stuff like monowire), and some of it actually seems prescient -- lasers chewing through armor, so you add all your shots per second together before subtracting damage reduction vaguely models how missile defense lasers work over time, railgun tech being perfected for really small bore sizes ('needlers') first. However, a lot of it does feel a bit antiquated; and things like drone warfare, AI targetting tech, ECM vs ECCM, and the movement from dogfighters to long-distance missile fighter jets deserve more specific rules coverage.
Credit where credit is due, GURPS: Transhuman Space is set to get the timelines for solar colonization wrong (most near-future fictions have), but predicted meme warfare, online monitoring, and verifying authenticity and a lot of things we're actively dealing with now at least broadly-speaking correct.

Yeah, that game captures zeitgeist of 90s edgy pop culture perfectly. I bet those were fun years to be teen/young adult.

It had its ups and downs.