I'd say class and generational conflict were central to cyberpunk, whether you dress it up in leet cyberware or not.

Ned

I don't really recognise Bradford's definition either.

Ghost in the Shell is undeniably Cyberpunk and is some of the most intelligent cyberpunk out there but I really don't think it's the mechs and the gun=play that make it cyberpunk.

The Matrix is to Cyberpunk what Star Wars is to SF;  Fantasy in drag.

Quote from: Jared A. SorensenI'd make a neo-noir style game. Lots of double-crossing, doomed romances, misplaced guilt/innocence and shadowy deals. And then, once everything was perfect, I'd set it in the future.

That is what cyberpunk ought to be.

Sadly, a notable number of players just want to 'borg up their character to Full Metal Ninja and slaughter hordes of Evil Corporate Mooks with an M2HB in each hand whilst screaming Ahnuld one liners.

I'd say play it noir, or espionage, or both. Remove the guns and the tech to the status of plot points or incidental eye candy. I always say that films like Sneakers are cyberpunk in ethos.

Quote from: BalbinusOh, 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.

This thread is about what [makes|would make] a commercially successful cyberpunk RPG.  Robin's Laws identifies (IIRC) six different types of gamers, one of which (the power gamer) is motivated by obtaining more cool tools to play with and another (always-plays-a-ninja-guy) is motivated by playing a type of character that gets cool toys to play with and a third (the tactician) is motivated by playing with the cool toys in the most tactically appropriate manner

I may not be using Law's exact terms, but if you write a cyberpunk game that ignores or plays down the cool toys then you've just lost all these potential players

The technology is what makes it cyberpunk.  Deckard could have just as easily been hunting down escaped prisoners, but that would have made Blade Runner a noir thriller

However, it's not just about the technology otherwise "Dirty Pair" and the various mecha-focused anime would all be cyberpunk and they're not

Therefore: "Noir + Technology = Cyberpunk"

If the technology isn't important why do Stephenson, Sterling, Gibson, Cardigan and even "post-cyberpunk" writers like Ken Maclode insist on describing it in such a lovingly intricate manner?

Quote from: Hastur T. FannonThis thread is about what [makes|would make] a commercially successful cyberpunk RPG.  Robin's Laws identifies (IIRC) six different types of gamers, one of which (the power gamer) is motivated by obtaining more cool tools to play with and another (always-plays-a-ninja-guy) is motivated by playing a type of character that gets cool toys to play with and a third (the tactician) is motivated by playing with the cool toys in the most tactically appropriate manner

I may not be using Law's exact terms, but if you write a cyberpunk game that ignores or plays down the cool toys this then you've just lost all these potential players

The technology is what makes it cyberpunk.  Deckard could have just as easily been hunting down escaped prisoners, but that would have made Blade Runner a noir thriller

However, it's not just about the technology otherwise "Dirty Pair" and the various mecha-focused anime would all be cyberpunk and they're not

Therefore: "Noir + Technology = Cyberpunk"

If the technology isn't important why do Stephenson, Sterling, Gibson, Cardigan and even "post-cyberpunk" writers like Ken Maclode insist on describing it in such a lovingly intricate manner?

They don't always.  Pattern Recognition is set right now, Zeitgeist was set in the then immediately near future.  Neither had much by way of tech.

And I don't think you've made a genre commercially successful if the commercially successful game guts the heart out of the genre.  You've made a commercially successful pastiche.

But the technology simply is not what makes cyberpunk, that's just wrong, Islands in the Net is not about the tech, nor is the Shockwave Rider, nor Pattern Recognition, nor Zeitgeist and arguably nor is say Distraction though that gets closer.

Where there is tech, it's about the impact of that tech on the person, not about the tech in its own right.

I'm interested in cyberpunk gaming, not in a game that takes a few of the surface elements in order to give us the D&D experience with different trappings.  The trouble with most commercial Cyberpunk games to date is that they did exactly that, they gave us D&D with a change of scenery.

I already have D&D for my D&D needs.

Oh, I'm not sure by the way the thread is about making a commercially successful cyberpunk rpg, I thought it was about updating cyberpunk rpgs.

A cyberpunk rpg that reflects the genre IMO has relatively little chance of being commercially successful, which in no way affects my interest in it.

For the record, I do think that "technoporn" has its place in cyberpunk, too, and that it's very integral as well.  To me, cyberpunk is about the intersection of human and machine in immediate, if often stylish, terms, and what's more human than obsessing over something?

Gaaah.  Forget it.  No matter how hard I try I can't verbalize what the genre means in my head.

Cyberpunk games aren't commercially succesful anyway.

If you wanted a commercially succesful cyberpunk game you'd do something like Shadowrun but that requires minis and where you can buy collectible cards to make your character more powerful.

If you want to play a game that's all about the fetishistic acquisition of weapons and stuff then go and play a fantasy game... they're all about living the thug life and festooning oneself with magical bling.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalCyberpunk games aren't commercially succesful anyway.

If you wanted a commercially succesful cyberpunk game you'd do something like Shadowrun but that requires minis and where you can buy collectible cards to make your character more powerful.

If you want to play a game that's all about the fetishistic acquisition of weapons and stuff then go and play a fantasy game... they're all about living the thug life and festooning oneself with magical bling.

How would you do cyberpunk?  Not necessarily mechanically, though that too if you have thoughts on it, but if you were looking to run or play in one what would you see as the key elements?

I'm thinking here in terms of do in the sense of actually playing a cyberpunk game, not necessarily with a view to selling it at all.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!For the record, I do think that "technoporn" has its place in cyberpunk, too, and that it's very integral as well.  To me, cyberpunk is about the intersection of human and machine in immediate, if often stylish, terms, and what's more human than obsessing over something?

Gaaah.  Forget it.  No matter how hard I try I can't verbalize what the genre means in my head.

It's okay, doc.

:hug:

I see it too.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!For the record, I do think that "technoporn" has its place in cyberpunk, too, and that it's very integral as well.  To me, cyberpunk is about the intersection of human and machine in immediate, if often stylish, terms, and what's more human than obsessing over something?

Gaaah.  Forget it.  No matter how hard I try I can't verbalize what the genre means in my head.

Shit, I just wrote a long post that basically said that and has now been eaten. I think that the genre itself is too bloated for anyone to claim one neat definition. the best you could get was a (long) list of ideas and themes and allow people to pick from them, which is what Ex Machina did very well.

My personal list would include

• Long hot summers and the stench of rotting rubbish
• Concrete cooling at night
• Isolation and the fragility of trust
• Promise of love
• The individual against the machine
• The machine can be anything - technology, bureaucracy, the mob, the gangs.
• John Woo pistol fights
• Fists beat knives, knives beat pistols, pistols beat SMG's, no rifles
• Flechette weapons are always ok
• Technology as fetish
• A sense of the end - personal or global
• Change or growth (although this is probably works consistently better in a story than in a game)

In terms of updating whats in 2020 I would ditch the corporate war. Aside from the way it was done, leaving the players as a chorus to their pet NPC's such as Blackhand, I think companies should be unknowably large and complex and that their hostility should form the backdrop of the world, not the centre of the character's actions.

I would also lose the setting as all-things-to-all-people. It has a post-apocalyptic world with a lower population in the US than the current one combined with an overseas war, empty cities and overcrowding, poverty and nomads alongside a consumer base large enough and sufficiently wealthy to support all the companies. This was another thing that crushed the setting, its own inconsistencies didn't make it a fun place to game but a confusing place. By the same token the rest of the world was dull, dull, dull. PacRim was 1986 thanks to a handy civil war in China, EU was an interesting read but too brief in some areas and too detailed in others. Sure you could make a fun game out it (I know I did) but that was more in spite of the setting books than because of them. Space was the best bit of the setting with some genuinely challenging ideas.

Quote from: BalbinusBut the technology simply is not what makes cyberpunk, that's just wrong, Islands in the Net is not about the tech, nor is the Shockwave Rider, nor Pattern Recognition, nor Zeitgeist and arguably nor is say Distraction though that gets closer.

The impact of technology is, for me, what distinguishes cyberpunk from Noir

We seem to be talking past each other here because the impact of technology both on society and the individual are big themes of both "Islands in the Net" and "Shockware Rider" (assuming that we are considering both these novels as cyberpunk for the purposes of this discussion - I'd normally consider one too early)

One of the themes of "Pattern Recognition" is ideas (particularly logos and marketing "memes") as forms of technology.  And I'm not quite sure I'd call it cyberpunk - it feels like more of a techno-thriller to me...

I'm going to try to short-circuit some of the discussion here.  I think we both hate the huge equipment lists that characterise cyberpunk RPGs and the endless min-maxing that is necessary to create a viable character

However, some people like it and what I'd like to discuss is a way of producing a cyberpunk game that satisfies these groups need for cool toys while still being a game that I'd like to run and play

Quote from: Hastur T. FannonI'm going to try to short-circuit some of the discussion here.  I think we both hate the huge equipment lists that characterise cyberpunk RPGs and the endless min-maxing that is necessary to create a viable character

However, some people like it and what I'd like to discuss is a way of producing a cyberpunk game that satisfies these groups need for cool toys while still being a game that I'd like to run and play

Cool.

I think the answer lies in the impact of technology on the individual and society, as you put it.  That requires that there be technology, which is where the cool toys come from.

Frankly, something as simple as having in the cyberwear/tech section of a game book a brief two liner on the societal impact of each piece would make a difference.  Also, some serious thought on how these people are viewed by the various groups in society.

Cyberpunk 2020 tended to gloss over that stuff, but it's where the intersection of cool toys and meaningful play occurs.

Quote from: Hastur T. FannonHowever, some people like it and what I'd like to discuss is a way of producing a cyberpunk game that satisfies these groups need for cool toys while still being a game that I'd like to run and play

The Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads had some interesting ideas on this using musical genres as a tag for different types of play. So Jazz was the kind of noir filled cyberpunk with metal being the full-body conversion and full-auto type games.

With the given that serious muso enthusiasts will always dispute any generalisation about their preferred genre I think you could do something interesting with that - defining a set of characteristics for a style and then looking at how that would impact on aspects of the game. For instance availability and access to tech. In a noir type game the more obvious and overloaded tech would be extortionately expensive with high difficulties for implanting and realistic hospital costs while for a metal game every street corner kid would have skinweave.

The setting itself wouldn't try and define the 'what's', just the feel. So some areas are poor and dangerous some rich and oppressive - how they are poor/rich dangerous/oppressive would be decided by the type of game

I always feel a little confused in these discussions. 'cause the Cyberpunk game everybody talks about as the one they want is the one I read in the 2020 rule book - never bought an expansion book until I got them all in a $30 bundle - and I wonder if I might be stupid. 'cause I saw some hints about this crazy-ass flame-thrower and full conversion killstorm playstyle in the book, but I just skipped right by it. The cyber-arm and goggle implants guy smashing some dude's face into the wall? Dude pumping his arm full of synthetic drugs? The guy smoking a cigarette and repairing his arm under a desk light? Those were the pictures of cyberpunk that got into my head. Everybody's out there under the neon and the acid rain, knives and throw-away pistols strapped hard under armored jackets, chasing something bigger and better than they got now, because most of the people you meet don't got shit.