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The other thing Cyberpunk Red added into the genre is post-apocalyptic landscapes. Just like in Blade Runner 2049, the spaces outside of the cities are blasted zones, with Road Warrior-style vehicle gangs and plenty of ruins to explore.

So if you get bored with neon cities, go out into the wastes!
To be fair, thats in 2020 too. The whole Nomad thing has a very Mad Max, kind of Boy and His Dog post eco apocalypse vibe.

And the cities, with their Combat Zones, felt right out of Terminator, Escape from New York and so on.

The RPG was very much rooted in what I call Movie Cyberpunk. Think 80s action movies with Arnold Schwarzenegger. RoboCop and the like. Or Pitlander, Blade Runner and other more subtle pieces. But not so much the works of Gibson or Sterling.

As for netrunning, I used to ignore the whole crossword grid thing and running all a bit more abstract. It seemed to work well and was way faster.
 
To my mind the most Cyberpunk thing I felt I ever read was Sterling's Shaper Mechanus stories - and they're light years away from the typical Cyberpunk rpg setting

Frorm Twenty Evocations.
7. FLOW PATTERNS. "You're worried about something," his wife told him. Nikolai shook his head. "Yes, you are," she persisted. "You're upset because of that deal I made in pirate contraband. You're unhappy because our corporation is profiting from attacks made on your own people." Nikolai smiled ruefully. "I suppose you're right. I never knew anyone who understood my innermost feelings the way you do." He looked at her affectionately. "How do you do it?" "I have infrared scanners," she said. "I read the patterns of blood flow in your face."
 
This is where my issues 'cyberpunk' RPGs stem from. They are aping - most of the time in a very surface level way and with what is becoming an increasingly grating and hackneyed aesthetic sensibility - the conventions of the other cyberpunk RPGs, with little understanding of what cyberpunk was (or might have been).
A good example of this is the way so many cyberpunk games have something along the lines of the cyberpsychosis rules from the R. Talsorian’s Cyberpunk. It’s something that makes a useful game balance mechanic, so it it was widely copied, but it has no place I can think of at all in the original genre.
 
A good example of this is the way so many cyberpunk games have something along the lines of the cyberpsychosis rules from the R. Talsorian’s Cyberpunk. It’s something that makes a useful game balance mechanic, so it it was widely copied, but it has no place I can think of at all in the original genre.

Absolutely. And there are more and more games emerging that are aping '2nd generation' CP RPGs (so, the ones that came in the wake of the Cyberpunk 2013/2020) that in themselves aped the 1st gen games. There seemed to be so much bandwagoneering around CP:2077's release, with everyone and their dog bringing something out. And most of them are terrible, derivative rubbish. There was one current one I was looking at recently where I was gnashing my teeth in frustration. The designer had clearly decided to "do a cyberpunk game". But it was all just aesthetics, and the verbiage surrounding it indicated they had no actual understanding of a) what their game was about and b) what other games had done previously. "It does this thing in a unique way!" No, no it doesn't. Hundreds of people have done that. "Here's a cool thing!" Yes, but you've stated that players can't do that cool thing, so why is it central to your game? Old man shaking fist at cloud, yet again.
 
The RPG was very much rooted in what I call Movie Cyberpunk. Think 80s action movies with Arnold Schwarzenegger. RoboCop and the like. Or Pitlander, Blade Runner and other more subtle pieces. But not so much the works of Gibson or Sterling.

Good point. But then most cyberpunk roleplaying games lean towards "movie cyberpunk", the term has become a short hand for "near future action/adventure".

I know I am that way too. I can enjoy a serious cyberpunk novel as much as the next guy, but when it comes to games, I like my Johnny Mnemonic to be more Keanu than Gibson. Yes, I actually said that and I am not taking it back.
 
Is it just me or did we go from just a few cyberpunk games, CP2020, Gurps, Shadowrun if you consider its mashup sufficiently cyberpunk, to a huge number now?

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Cryptomancer, The Veil, Retropunk, The Sprawl, CP Red, the 5e cyberpunk game whose name escapes me, Crystalpunk for 5e, is there a BitD game too (yes there is, Hack the Planet)? and more.

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Which of the more recent games have people tried out and what are your experiences with them? The Sprawl seems tightly designed, The Veil is intriguing but I have trouble wrapping my noggin around its distinct ruleset, Retropunk may be the ticket for me with its stated influences like White Hack.

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I liked CP2020's very deadly combat but like most cyberpunk games hacking seemed half-assed. It is strange to me how important the net and hacking is in a lot of cyberpunk but it continues to get short shrift in most rpgs.

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Cryptomancer remains the best game I've encountered in that regard but it is set in a fantasy cyberpunk mashup setting, I wonder about importing its mechanics into a purely sf setting? Perhaps we need a purely Hacker focused rpg.

How is CP Red? Does it simplify chargen? I liked chargen in CP2020 but it took a long while and PCs could die so easily I felt it should have had quicker character creation.

Have they done anything to make hacking actually worthwhile?
You missed the two games that I would say are actually making hacking fun:thumbsup:.
Fates Worse Than Death and Zaibatsu. The difference is, in FWTD hacking is collective effort that everyone must participate in. Yes, even those PCs that don't know how to switch on the computer can contribute.
Zaibatsu is Gibson-style hacking, and it actually seems (haven't tested it yet) like it might work, but I'm not sure until I try it:shade:.
 
Oops. I wasn’t aware of that.

Yeah I don’t know if other cyberpunk RPGs include that aspect. That’s something for Pondsmith’s score card.

ICE's Cyberspace had an entire Mad Max-esque campaign setting in the form of Death Valley Free Prison. I still have it tucked away in a box. It's not that good.
 
ICE's Cyberspace had an entire Mad Max-esque campaign setting in the form of Death Valley Free Prison. I still have it tucked away in a box. It's not that good.

I used to have that. I remember it being very, very detailed with a real desire to make the setting appear workable in real terms. I am sure that appeals to some, but much more of a "just give me the fun, gameable stuff" kid of guy. I am shallow that way.
 
I may have mentioned it, but I'm working on an end of Cyberpunk era game. New technology is replacing the old, cybernetics are used less; but still, there, body modifications are common though (notably "Lacing" lent to me by a friend is a big thing that changes human chemistry to make them identical to bioroids--think Blade Runner's movie, they can't tell whether your human or not. Even with a genetic test and that's common, White lacing is things wealthy do for themselves and children, Black Lacing is illegally done wetware. Red lacing is a rumor to most--and its purpose is still something unknown)

Uplifted canines wear arm harnesses to give them manipulative limbs (they're still dog shaped.)

Micro-printers that can manufacture almost anything are common, small ones can be wired into a trenchcoat or heavy jacket and manufacture a half dozen small firearms, ammo, and so on and drop it into a holster or your hand. Nanotech existed but it's now very controlled after the 'burn, and outside arcologies clouds of dead rusting nanite of rust turn the landscape red.

Bioroids, humans, and canines are playable. Bigger printers can be carried in a vehicle and produce a lot of things you need for a mission, your characters are Knights, literally caught up in what most think is an A. I. gone mad or a virus it created, that spurred a drive to fight back against the Glass Tower Lords(mid level corporate workers with a LOT of power) and Orbital Kings who oversee the Earth from a distant and detached view from space. Most characters are driven by their Knight status to change the world for the better, since over 3 billion people died in the burn, and another billion suffer from nerve or other damage from nanites.

Cybernetics often won't interface for them anymore, leaving the old guards who are essentially walking wounded. Most people can hack a little, the tools are in their head, and yes hacking other people with mods is allowable. Inspirations are Appleseed, Matrix, Blade Runner, Hardwired, Neuromancer, and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, as well as other things here or there--it's not transhuman, yet, but it's on the edge of that transfiguration if power can be shifted back to the people, rather than being hobbled by the Corporations.
 
To be fair, thats in 2020 too
And in Shadowrun too. XD

Btw, can we have an actual cool smiley that resembles this "XD" ? I dislike the one we have ( = :hehe: ) as it feels more like mocking than an innocent laugh.
 
Got an email about this one, with 48 hours to go. There's a free beta on Drivethru that I forgot I had

 
I spent a lot of time thinking about the hacking when working on Mythras cyberpunk. I’m still very torn by a full blown Gibson-esque cyberspace using animism as a template or a more D&D rogue thing using folk magic as a template. Even funneling all of the skills (anything you can do with a computer) is remarkably strong.

I have more to say but I’m beat
 
I've read The Sprawl, Hack the Planet, The Veil (and the offshoots), and CP Red, and they've all just pointed me forward- I like Transhumanist games better. They have a lot in common, but there are some elements of Transhumanism that resonate more with me and my gaming style. I think I realized that with Cybergeneration, which I don't think gets enough credit. For all the focus on cyber in the other games, there is a dissonance between the cyber and the human that Transhumanism does away with, and that appeals to me.
 
ICE's Cyberspace had an entire Mad Max-esque campaign setting in the form of Death Valley Free Prison. I still have it tucked away in a box. It's not that good.

The supplements didn't rise to the level of the main book- they just seemed rushed. I liked Cyberspace though and ran it. It was a lot like MERP for SpaceMaster.
 
I've read The Sprawl, Hack the Planet, The Veil (and the offshoots), and CP Red, and they've all just pointed me forward- I like Transhumanist games better. They have a lot in common, but there are some elements of Transhumanism that resonate more with me and my gaming style. I think I realized that with Cybergeneration, which I don't think gets enough credit. For all the focus on cyber in the other games, there is a dissonance between the cyber and the human that Transhumanism does away with, and that appeals to me.
That really gets to the heart of my problem with the standard template for cyberpunk RPGs. Literary cyberpunk was full of the kind of themes that would later get labelled as transhumanist. The Shaper/Mechanist series by Bruce Sterling is a great example of that. For balance purposes, RPGs tend to wall off the transhumanist themes with mechanics like cyberpsychosis.

My ideal cyberpunk game would be transhumanist as well.
 
So it wasn't just me, I couldn't tell if it was just the difficulty of a groking a new system, the writing or what.

I got The Veil 2020 and while it could still be presented better, bullet points are desperately needed, because it is the World of Dungeons version of The Veil (i.e. stripped down and simple) I feel I understood it better than from the main book.
Yeah, I found The Veil pretty hard going. It's overwritten and a bit dense I think.
 
I liked CP2020's very deadly combat but like most cyberpunk games hacking seemed half-assed. It is strange to me how important the net and hacking is in a lot of cyberpunk but it continues to get short shrift in most rpgs.

Serious question. Is hacking really even necessary for a Cyberpunk game?

I know it was important to the literary genre (somewhat), but it feels fairly incidental to the rpg genre which is all about carrying out physical infiltrations.

I think it's important to many stories, but it's not essential. One could easily move the computer stuff to the background. I think some do this by making hacking a single skill and it can do "computer stuff". I think that's ok, and support it in many ways

and I don't think it's necessarily about physical infiltrations, which is where I think the computer stuff really does shine (see above about the D&D rogue but a hacker).

This brings up a larger question about cyberpunk and what the genre is about, which you allude to

Really if you want something that deals with cyberpunk literary themes you probably want something that hews closer structurally to Noir and mystery rather than the violent infiltrations of Shadowrun and Cyberpunk.

I would argue that Cyberpunk isn't necessarily about that. They have archetypes that direct you away from it - cops, journalists, rockerboys, etc. That's about changing the system. There may be some break ins involved, but it's sort of incidental. I won't argue Shadowrun though - that's the name.

I ran into that thinking about how i wanted Mythras cyberpunk to work - the default structure of career and culture was not a very strong fit for the Shadowrun mold, since there were so few careers that made sense. It ended up fitting a point buy/pyramid better. Cyberpunk emulation, though, fit very nicely with career and culture. Ultimately, I like the story being about sticking it to the Man and Fighting the System and Chrome Robin Hoods, so I'm leaning towards the latter. I still like SR's magic though :smile:

It's not that you can't do this in the existing cyberpunk systems, but the world they build and the shiny gun lists and cyberware and the like are a distraction.

Oh, I agree. It feels more meaningful when the cybernetics are moved into the background a bit more. Happens with a lot of sci fi.

A good example of this is the way so many cyberpunk games have something along the lines of the cyberpsychosis rules from the R. Talsorian’s Cyberpunk. It’s something that makes a useful game balance mechanic, so it it was widely copied, but it has no place I can think of at all in the original genre.

I so dislike cyberpsychosis. I ended up removing it and moving character creation to a point buy for augmentations and powers. Gaining more costs experience or money.
 
What we really need is a Cyberpunk game crossed with Lawnmower Man graphic design and aesthetics.
On that note, there was a completely random 5 second cameo from Jeff Fahey in season 14 of Criminal Minds. As a tattoo artist. Just thought it was odd. Anyway, as you were ladies and gents.
 
I was joking Chuck. I really like Eclipse Phase setting. My problem is it's rules, which my crew found unnecessarily arcane the couple times we played it.

Oh, I knew that you were kidding. :thumbsup: As far as the rules... I'd never use those rules. I can tell just from the reading that I'd not enjoy it. I've been veering more towards Fate (using Transhumanity's Fate), but I've actually settled on my own hack, using a combination of Fate Condensed, Fate Accelerated, and Fate Core, with some custom bits.
 
Yeah, I feel transhumanism is a part of what cyberpunk bleeds into heavily. So not planning on any "drawbacks" for cybernetics, unless a player wants one and that wouldn't be more than a cyber limb/nerve connection is glitchy, other mods have additional feedback "noise" and so on--but they don't make you crazy.
 
Yeah, I feel transhumanism is a part of what cyberpunk bleeds into heavily. So not planning on any "drawbacks" for cybernetics, unless a player wants one and that wouldn't be more than a cyber limb/nerve connection is glitchy, other mods have additional feedback "noise" and so on--but they don't make you crazy.
Yeah the new Cyberpunk Red dealt with this well. Non-voluntary needed cyberware doesn’t cause issues. Or even just cosmetic stuff or medically reasonable biological changes within the scope of normal human possibility. Its when someone goes excessive, goes too far with disassociation (eg, implanting blades into knuckles, changing face into fire breathing silver tiger) where things go bad and cause Humanity loss.

Also psychopathy and sociopathy is only worsened due to cyberpsychosis when the user already had those issues.

I find this tastefully done, personally.
 
Seems totally normal. Not sure why this one causes humanity issues.
I know, right? Now, a literal silver tiger (tail, four legs, torso etc) coming out of your neck would be a bit much though.
 
The deeply underrated Cybergeneration was pretty transhumanist given that it was about a nanoplague
About a plague that had happened sevetal years ago, killed lots of adults while giving kids superpowers. And left a totalitarian state for super powered kids to rebel against.

Which was what the game was really about.
 
About a plague that had happened sevetal years ago, killed lots of adults while giving kids superpowers. And left a totalitarian state for super powered kids to rebel against.

Which was what the game was really about.
I thought it was pretty well realised.
 
Shadowrun 5 already had this concept, but the actual hacking rules was as painfully slow and complex as ever.

Are CP red rules more practical/simpler/faster?
The CP Red rules a much, much simpler and easier to use. The hacking runs concurrently in the same initiative order and systems are broken down into a linear system of levels with occasional branching paths.

I quite like it. It keeps things flowing and gives the hacker plenty to do without bringing the game to a grinding halt when hacking is going on or the "Network Timeout problem" as I like to call it.
 
It was ok. But it sold itself as a sequel to Cyberpunk 2020 when it was really something very different.
It was in the same timeline, so a sequel. Just not an expansion, etc.
 
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