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Heroic Knight
 
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| So I had a nose at the new Cyberpunk tabletop the other day and I think its utter bollocks. Instead of using the setting to talk about our real world the writer seems to have extrapolated the old game to take it further into the future! To me the point of Cyberpunk is that it says something about the world we live in now, to extrapolate the present and talk about our fears for the future. We're in the age of 9/11, Stem-Cell research, Nuclear Power, the rise of China etc etc so I ask you, looking at the issues we face today, social and scientific, what would you put in a Cyberpunk setting to reflect the times?
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Squire
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| I'd probably emphasise the dissolution of the ice caps and make sure the players knew that England was now considered a small tropical island off the coast of the United States of Europe.
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Heroic Knight
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Smitt (7/19/2006)
So I had a nose at the new Cyberpunk tabletop the other day and I think its utter bollocks. Instead of using the setting to talk about our real world the writer seems to have extrapolated the old game to take it further into the future!
To me the point of Cyberpunk is that it says something about the world we live in now, to extrapolate the present and talk about our fears for the future. We'rein the age of9/11, Stem-Cell research, Nuclear Power, the rise of China etc etc so I ask you, looking at the issues we face today, social and scientific, what would youput in a Cyberpunk setting to reflect the times?
Just to clarify, your talking about RTG's Cyberpunk 3.0 RPG, yes? If not then feel free to ignore the rest of this response.
I don't think there's any harm in retaining an established timeline. Re-invention would have struck me as a little pointless. This is a game set in a fictional future setting. RPG's are often escapist. That said, nothing prevents you playing in a world extrapolated from today.
The RTG Cyberpunk setting wasn't extrapolated from the real world of the 80's (the game turned up in 89-90 as I recall) but from the 80's cyberpunk fiction of Gibson, Sterling, Cadigan, et al. I don't recall that work reflecting the age all that well. At the time I first played it we were at the brink of war in the gulf, emerging from recession and seeing the the collapse of Communist rule in Eastern Europe. None of this was reflected in the game background. Expecting a U-Turn now, particularly with an iconic product is a bit much.
My only quibble with the new one is the change of system. But I can always rewrite as needed, as can you for the background if you wish.
T.
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CP - Kjell Larssen, Iron Wolves
PD - The L-plate Ref
SG - JT van Horne
Bristol Vampire - Julius Linnett, Tremere
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Heroic Knight
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| zumbum: Nice one, I had quite forgotten about that but today's weather seems to make your point! Maybe it would be a bit of a Casablanca/Berlin situation with a unique diplomatic relationship with Europe? Full of spies and ambassadors. tzanti: OK all fine. To me the original did seem to reflect the issues of the late 80's pretty well, maybe not 100% up to date but still very satirical in places. Oil, new information technology, the power of corporations over goverments, Thatcherism and Reganomics etc. But I guess that is how I read the original. Still dont like the new one, seems like a wasted opportunity. But my question was: What would you put in a Cyberpunk system if you didn't want to be escapist and wanted to talk about events today?
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Wag
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Well, for starters I wouldn't call it Cyberpunk. For me that's chrome and virtual reality and cybernetic limbs and big corps ruling everything.
So what would I put in a "Nu-Cyberpunk" game? Well, it'd be a quasi-political game, I think, where maintaining the look of whatever you're doing is actually far more important than what you're doing. So media management, the continuing slow dissolution of Western society and the ever-growing subculturalisation of all poplations.
Tech wise, nanoware, genetech, immortality and near-sentient machines.
PD - Brother Farael of the Ordo Dictum Dominus
EOS - Some Raggard Scum, previously Some Arimin Scum
6P - System creator (now retired), Andrei Treune of Clan Suner (for the moment)
RL - Will Robinson
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Heroic Knight
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chalicier (7/19/2006)
Well, for starters I wouldn't call it Cyberpunk..snip...Wow, cool ideas! Love the whole 'image matters' idea, that is totally relevant. But if not "Cyberpunk" then what?
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"Stick around!"
-Governor of California throwing a hunting knife into a man's chest
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Live roleplaying's greatest cheerleader...
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Smitt are you asking about cyberpunk as a tabletop RPG or as an LRP?
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RL: Mr Sofar
Curved core weaponry and bespoke stuff.
ShelfordFX
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Wag
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I have no idea, Smitt. But Cyberpunk is, for me, something very specific - as I mentioned.
Other ideas - celebrity obsession taken to dangerous levels, with television programmes which risk people's lives in the search for fame. North America divided to the point where towns and cities have liberal and conservative areas and no cultural crossover (similar to some places in Northern Ireland now, only with politics replacing religion). The Middle East already a plain of radioactive glass, and the Arctic tundra and Canadian oilsands being the most strategically important places in the world.
PD - Brother Farael of the Ordo Dictum Dominus
EOS - Some Raggard Scum, previously Some Arimin Scum
6P - System creator (now retired), Andrei Treune of Clan Suner (for the moment)
RL - Will Robinson
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Heroic Knight
Group: System Moderators
Last Login: Saturday, October 04, 2008 5:20 PM
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