There's also the fact that the bulk of the original short fiction that composes Mirrorshades and arguably formed Cyberpunk as a movement, didn't have anywhere near as much impact upon the genre as later authors.

I mean John Shirley's City Come A-Walkin' or Stephenson's Snow Crash?

The problem is that while cyberpunk may have started as a proper literary movement, it soon developed into a sub-genre and I think that many of the members of the original movement had much less of a say in defining what the genre was about than some (Paul Riddell) would have you think.

Had rpg.net a decent search function, I would repost my post of a few years back where I argued that a modern cyberpunk rpg would be set today (as at the time of posting) and posted how I saw it working.

Sadly, it is lost to the ether and the void that must consume us all.

Well... "us" being people who post on forums running on servers held together with rubber bands and paperclips.

I intend to be consumed by a better class of ether *sticks nose in air, flounces off*

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalWell... "us" being people who post on forums running on servers held together with rubber bands and paperclips.

I intend to be consumed by a better class of ether *sticks nose in air, flounces off*

I was thinking more of the howling void of oblivion, waiting ultimately to consume all posts, posters, planets and other particulate phenomena as we tumble towards the slow heat death of the universe.

rpg.net's shitty search function just brought the process forward a bit for that post.

Oh that void.  Fair enough then...

Cyberpunk, for better or worse, is not at all defined by the literature anymore.  It's defined by Ghost in the Shell, The Matrix and Appleseed.  A commercially-viable RPG must have that stuff present in abundance.  So you need Big Fucking Guns, Power Armor (and the occassional large-scale mecha), Martial Arts/Gun-Fu, cyberware everywhere (especially full-conversions) and real-time hacking/cyberspace that's more-or-less wireless.  You might as well include AIs and transformable mecha while you're at it.  Anything less and you just fail.

Quote from: Bradford C. WalkerA commercially-viable RPG must have that stuff present in abundance.  So you need Big Fucking Guns, Power Armor (and the occassional large-scale mecha), Martial Arts/Gun-Fu, cyberware everywhere (especially full-conversions) and real-time hacking/cyberspace that's more-or-less wireless.  You might as well include AIs and transformable mecha while you're at it.  Anything less and you just fail.

That's....not....cyberpunk to me, anymore.

Okay.  Here.  This is cyberpunk to me.  Ready?

Cyberpunk is walking down a street, under a wild canopy of holograms and neon, probably in Mexico City, on a steamy hot night after it's rained, with your best threads and mirrorshades after dark to broadcast just how bad you are, even though there's a lump in your throat and you hope that Russian bastard doesn't get to you before you get his data to Ringo, but hot damn you're good 'cause you snagged it right out of his machines without him knowing until the very last second, and you're crossing the street between the music store and the arcade and you spot one of Petrenko's joeboys on the corner and he spots you then too and you tense up and the synth music from the store is soaring and the machines in the arcade are thuimp-thump-thumping and the muscle comes across the street and you don't have a gun and then, just then, the prettiest girl you've ever seen walks by, long black hair and two-tone jeans, and her friends don't look at you but she does, and she scans you up and down and she smiles.  And in that moment, you are

So.

Motherfucking.

Alive.

That's why I never seem to run games in the genre.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!That's....not....cyberpunk to me, anymore.

Okay.  Here.  This is cyberpunk to me.  Ready?

Cyberpunk is walking down a street, under a wild canopy of holograms and neon, probably in Mexico City, on a steamy hot night after it's rained, with your best threads and mirrorshades after dark to broadcast just how bad you are, even though there's a lump in your throat and you hope that Russian bastard doesn't get to you before you get his data to Ringo, but hot damn you're good 'cause you snagged it right out of his machines without him knowing until the very last second, and you're crossing the street between the music store and the arcade and you spot one of Petrenko's joeboys on the corner and he spots you then too and you tense up and the synth music from the store is soaring and the machines in the arcade are thuimp-thump-thumping and the muscle comes across the street and you don't have a gun and then, just then, the prettiest girl you've ever seen walks by, long black hair and two-tone jeans, and her friends don't look at you but she does, and she scans you up and down and she smiles.  And in that moment, you are

So.

Motherfucking.

Alive.

That's why I never seem to run games in the genre.

Screw catagories, if you think it's cool (I do), then RUN it.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!That's....not....cyberpunk to me, anymore.

Okay.  Here.  This is cyberpunk to me.  Ready?

That's fantastic, but isn't that Noir

(ok, so it's both - same tropes, different Macguffins)

I'm wondering if it's worth bringing in Robin's Laws at this point.  Both those visions of cyberpunk would appeal to different categories of gamers he identifies in that book (I don't have it in front of me so someone else will have to fill in the details)

Therefore, a commercially successful cyberpunk game will have to hit both visions

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!That's....not....cyberpunk to me, anymore.

Okay.  Here.  This is cyberpunk to me.  Ready?

Cyberpunk is walking down a street, under a wild canopy of holograms and neon, probably in Mexico City, on a steamy hot night after it's rained, with your best threads and mirrorshades after dark to broadcast just how bad you are, even though there's a lump in your throat and you hope that Russian bastard doesn't get to you before you get his data to Ringo, but hot damn you're good 'cause you snagged it right out of his machines without him knowing until the very last second, and you're crossing the street between the music store and the arcade and you spot one of Petrenko's joeboys on the corner and he spots you then too and you tense up and the synth music from the store is soaring and the machines in the arcade are thuimp-thump-thumping and the muscle comes across the street and you don't have a gun and then, just then, the prettiest girl you've ever seen walks by, long black hair and two-tone jeans, and her friends don't look at you but she does, and she scans you up and down and she smiles.  And in that moment, you are

So.

Motherfucking.

Alive.

That's why I never seem to run games in the genre.

Works for me, Bradford's definition I didn't recognise at all.

Back when I lived in Brixton, I came one morning out of the tube and the sun was shining and the socialist workers party had a sound system set up playing White Man at Hammersmith Palais by the Clash at full volume, that's closer than Bradford's post.

I tell you, there are few finer things in life than the Clash played at full volume in Brixton on a Saturday morning.

Quote from: BalbinusWorks for me, Bradford's definition I didn't recognise at all.

Look me in the eye and tell me "The Ghost in the Shell" isn't cyberpunk

Even Gibson gets into technoporn - look at the intricate way that the weapons and equipment are described during the setup for the "shadownrun" in "Count Zero" or when Case tries to get hold of a gun at the start of "Neuromancer"

Quote from: Hastur T. FannonLook me in the eye and tell me "The Ghost in the Shell" isn't cyberpunk

Even Gibson gets into technoporn - look at the intricate way that the weapons and equipment are described during the setup for the "shadownrun" in "Count Zero" or when Case tries to get hold of a gun at the start of "Neuromancer"

The ghost in the shell is a very small part of Bradford's definition.

Also, sometimes the same term covers actually quite different genres.  Punk for example, I see it used in relation to contemporary US bands who have nothing to do with British punk of the 1970s.  It's a correct usage, but a wholly different genre of music rather confusingly with the same name as another genre.

Cyberpunk similarly, the anime stuff is cyberpunk, but it's not remotely the same genre as literary cyberpunk.  They just rather oddly have the same name.

Full body conversions, power armour, mecha, gun-fu, that has nothing particularly to do with the work of Gibson, Sterling, Rucker et al.

Quote from: Hastur T. FannonLook me in the eye and tell me "The Ghost in the Shell" isn't cyberpunk

Even Gibson gets into technoporn - look at the intricate way that the weapons and equipment are described during the setup for the "shadownrun" in "Count Zero" or when Case tries to get hold of a gun at the start of "Neuromancer"

Oh, the setup bits in Gibson are because it's basically a crime/noir novel, focussing on the tech is missing the point IMO.

Oh, and since one doesn't need to be especially polite here, to be honest I think the whole full body conversion/mecha/anime style cyberpunk thing lacks the emotional depth of the literary stuff and is rather dull.  They took a genre which was a form of updated noir talking to issues of future shock and turned it into an adolescent power fantasy.

That simply doesn't interest me.

For some odd reason, films from the 70's inform my Cyberpunk jones. I'm thinking of stuff like The Samurai (Alain Delon), The Killing,  The Asphalt jungle ,The Conversation and The Parallex View. IMO there's a tone in those type of films, that scream Cyberpunk...

Regards,
David R