Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalI completely disagree.  The plothammering piece of tech in Neuromancer is an unbranded piece of Chinese military ice.  The focus on brand names is a construction of the RPG hobby so as to replace talk of "+3/+6 Firebrand Bastard swords" with talk of an "Ares predator with a laser sight and military-grade recoil reduction software".

I am sorry, but you're wrong, and if my books weren't in a box somewhere in my living room, I'd be able to refute you from canon

Would someone be willing to do it for me? I'm thinking of two specific passages.  The first is from Neuromancer.  It's near the beginning, when Case is trying to get hold of a gun.  Can someone look up and quote the description of the items he is offered and the weapon he eventually obtains?

The second is from Count Zero, when Turner's team is preparing for their extraction of Mitchell.  Can someone please quote the descriptions of Turner's weapons and the weapons of his team? I'm pretty damn sure that one of them is pretty damn close to "Ares predator with a laser sight and military-grade recoil reduction software", at least in attitude

Common gamers don't give a shit about big ideas of any kind.  They haven't read, and don't want to read, the literature.  They want the stuff they see in their comics or DVDs, and they're in it to kick ass and wield power.  That's why I dismissed any idea of a cyberpunk RPG that's not taking its cues from those two sources.  Lists of gear, strong action emphasis in adventuring, archetypes and all the usual D&D game design elements work here as well as anywhere else to make a commercially-viable game.  Basing a game on the literature, however gratifiying, is a surefire way to lose your shirt.

Quote from: Bradford C. WalkerCommon gamers don't give a shit about big ideas of any kind.  They haven't read, and don't want to read, the literature.  They want the stuff they see in their comics or DVDs, and they're in it to kick ass and wield power.  That's why I dismissed any idea of a cyberpunk RPG that's not taking its cues from those two sources.  Lists of gear, strong action emphasis in adventuring, archetypes and all the usual D&D game design elements work here as well as anywhere else to make a commercially-viable game.  Basing a game on the literature, however gratifiying, is a surefire way to lose your shirt.

I don't think anyone's arguing against that Bradford, it's rather that some of us are discussing what we would more enjoy playing accepting that it is uncommercial.

After all, anything I run for my group need only be fun for my group, it needn't be capable of widespread sales since I have no intention of marketing it.

I'm writing this post as a writer and someone who makes a serious effort to try to design games rules and worlds, and as someone in a writing class right now who gets to watch socially retarded numbskulls fuck up while trying to write their idea of 'cyber-punk' amazingly badly.

I like to think of myself as polite, so when I tell you just how bad their writing is, and how much it makes me cringe, I want you to believe me. (though you're not obligated to) I'm afraid this post might get pretty long, for me, so tell me afterwards if it's just to windy. (I'll keep it in mind)

First of all, as much as I love Gibson and also Snow Crash, and as much as I'd like to try to write something in that tone, I'm incredibly leery of anyone who specifically tries to write 'cyber-punk'. It's a stillborne genre, really, because while the original writers were aiming for a mood, theme, ect., they certainly wern't trying to invent a new genre that shitty writers in the future could rip-off. As novels, it's remarkably easy to lose the point of them. I think, like fantasy, the reason why so many rip-offs are so bad is that the essence of the well-written pieces were set in a cyber-punk world and the themes were related to the setting, but people tend to get caught up in the props.

Now, traditionally, games haven't mimiced books. If Lord of the Rings and other classic fantasy got us Dungeons and Dragons, I'm not surprised that The Sprawl Trilogy landed us Shadowrun. It's not that D&D needs to be about thugging it up in a pastiche swords-and-sorcery world, it's that a lot of gamers either purposely never see past that for the purposes of the game or just can't.

Essentially, urban gangsters trying to get theirs by hording technological gee-gaws and the biggest guns they can scrounge isn't really out of place in a cyber-punk world, but they're not really protagonists, either. For example, the protagonists of Neuromancer could easily have been PCs, but they were running on a totally different level then the thugs I hear of in a lot of, say, Shadowrun games. They had a hacker, and a street samurai with finger claws. They had run-ins with various factions, a super-powered AI, rastifarian space navy, a cloned ninja in space with a bow and arrow, someone who is (for all intents and purposes) practically an illusionist, et al. (The main difference is, the Neuromancer protagonists did something really big. Most old cyberpunk themed games encouraged the GM to keep the PCs easily murdered and under their thumb.)

Of the Sprawl books, Neuromancer was probably the most primitive, but it was also the most conducive to a traditional game. The other books Gibson writes are excellent, but are more detective novels. Ghost in the Shell would make for great gaming, but give the players probably more restriction then they'd like. What I'm saying is, you can make rules create an accurate cyberpunk world, or a thematically cyberpunk world, but it will always be up to the gaming group to pull it off. Your players and GM' interpretation of cyberpunk and their illusions as to what a good game is will be what creates the mood of your game.

If everyone's on board, and understands what's up, it's absolutely possible. If it's just D&D with guns, it's just going to feel like D&D with guns.

Quote from: Bradford C. WalkerCommon gamers don't give a shit about big ideas of any kind.  ...  Basing a game on the literature, however gratifiying, is a surefire way to lose your shirt.

I agree with that. I do think, though, that you can take rules that make that work and simultantiously make them work for literary games. I do it with D&D 3.x, for example. It works for my group, but I have to pick my group really carefully and watch myself as well. It's like, you can have a drama mecha game, but for most people, well... they'll probably spend all their time blowing shit up.

Quote from: Thanatos02Essentially, urban gangsters trying to get theirs by hording technological gee-gaws and the biggest guns they can scrounge isn't really out of place in a cyber-punk world, but they're not really protagonists, either. For example, the protagonists of Neuromancer could easily have been PCs, but they were running on a totally different level then the thugs I hear of in a lot of, say, Shadowrun games. They had a hacker, and a street samurai with finger claws. They had run-ins with various factions, a super-powered AI, rastifarian space navy, a cloned ninja in space with a bow and arrow, someone who is (for all intents and purposes) practically an illusionist, et al. (The main difference is, the Neuromancer protagonists did something really big. Most old cyberpunk themed games encouraged the GM to keep the PCs easily murdered and under their thumb.)

Of the Sprawl books, Neuromancer was probably the most primitive, but it was also the most conducive to a traditional game. The other books Gibson writes are excellent, but are more detective novels. Ghost in the Shell would make for great gaming, but give the players probably more restriction then they'd like. What I'm saying is, you can make rules create an accurate cyberpunk world, or a thematically cyberpunk world, but it will always be up to the gaming group to pull it off. Your players and GM' interpretation of cyberpunk and their illusions as to what a good game is will be what creates the mood of your game.

If everyone's on board, and understands what's up, it's absolutely possible. If it's just D&D with guns, it's just going to feel like D&D with guns.

I completely get what you're saying, and completely agree with you. Almost all of the Shadowrun games I played in consisted of us PCs pretty much being a band of mercenaries just trying to get rich quick. Hardly the literary protagonist types. One game I played in was different, though, and my character was a mildly chromed orc street sam who drove a taxi by day. Oddly enough, the game didn't get deeper and less mercenarial until we lost 2 players and were down to only 3 PCs.

If I were to try to make or run a cyberpunk themed game these days I think I'd prefer if it were closer to trad. sci-fi, kinda like Fifth Element.

Also, I think tech is important to the cyberpunk genre... I guess it'd be the "cyber" part of cyberpunk. It always came across to me as kinda a cautionary tale that technology won't solve our problems, and may even perhaps amplify them. The cyberpunk theme has always felt to me kinda like the quote

"Only when the last tree has died and
The last river has been poisoned and
The last fish has been caught,
Will we realise that
We cannot eat money"

Quote from: Bradford C. WalkerCommon gamers don't give a shit about big ideas of any kind.  They haven't read, and don't want to read, the literature.  They want the stuff they see in their comics or DVDs, and they're in it to kick ass and wield power.

Well shit, I'm not a common gamer then. :keke: (walks away from thread)

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalI think what I'm trying to say is that it's not easy to sit down and write an adventure that's about exploring an idea, whether it's a home truth about the human condition or some aspect of the works of Faulkner.  You couldn't for example, do an RPG version of the Singing Detective.

  What informed my piece of agitprop further up is that fact that RPGs do immersion quite well.  They're all about putting yourself in the place of a certain kind of character and getting to do what they do.  The problem is that there's a lot of writing that isn't really about immersion or identification or anything like that.  I think this partly explains why good SF games are so thin on the ground, RPGs can do "you're the commander of a starship, what do you do?" but it can't do "no matter how advanced the human race becomes, it will never escape its weaknesses".

I agree entirely, but I would suggest that this is just a nuanced re-statement of "bad moviesmake good games". I think some games do have a go at this - Sorceror springs to mind, but it's so bare boned it makes you do all the hard creative work yourself. (There's a cyberpunk setting by Clinton R Nixon, which I've looked at but never played that seemed kind of interesting, btw. I'm sure Balinus has a link to it.)

At some level, however, all RPGs boil down to number crunching of some variety and it's up to the players to provide the subtext for themselves - that's one of the reasons why a lot of Forge games leave some people cold. In a work of fiction (prose or drama) the author/auteur has considerably more control of what you take away from a work. People can take different things away from a session  - for one player the session could be about cybering up and blowing shit apart, while another revels in the irony of people turning themselves into machines to protect their humanity (or whatever). (On reflection there's fiction that does that, too.)

If you're wedded to the former, the latter will never work for you. Perhaps it's up to the GM to ensure that people can take what they want from a session.

ramble rmble ramble

Ned

Quote from: Ned the Lonely Donkey(There's a cyberpunk setting by Clinton R Nixon, which I've looked at but never played that seemed kind of interesting, btw. I'm sure Balbinus has a link to it.)

Here it is:

http://www.chimera.info/daedalus/articles/winter2004/inside.html

Quote from: Ned the Lonely DonkeyI agree entirely, but I would suggest that this is just a nuanced re-statement of "bad moviesmake good games". I think some games do have a go at this - Sorceror springs to mind, but it's so bare boned it makes you do all the hard creative work yourself. (There's a cyberpunk setting by Clinton R Nixon, which I've looked at but never played that seemed kind of interesting, btw. I'm sure Balinus has a link to it.)

  Possibly not the best example to cite as that quite clearly is a fantasy game adapted into a Matrix/cyberpunk pastiche.  Especially as it has mystical undertones about altering reality to suit your desires "build a perfect cage" and so on.

  I don't think I am saying "bad movies make good games" becase I don't agree with that in the least.  Certain kinds of good movie make good games and bad movies always make bad games.

Perosnally Cyberpunk for me will always be defined by the look of Bladerunner, the attitude of Max Headroom and Robocop and the fashion and chart music of 1984 (the year, not the fiction).

Make that into a game and you've got at least one buyer.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalPossibly not the best example to cite as that quite clearly is a fantasy game adapted into a Matrix/cyberpunk pastiche.  Especially as it has mystical undertones about altering reality to suit your desires "build a perfect cage" and so on.

Sure, that's totally part of cyberpunk. Greg Egan's Permutation City springs to mind. I'm not 100% sure that we've pinned down what cyberpunk actually is, as at present the definition seems to shift with whatever point you want to make.

Ned

I don't believe in defining genres so I'm not doing it deliberately, I've mostly been talking about how I'd do cyberpunk or what I find most interesting in cyberpunk.

Actually, Sigmund raises an interesting question about power levels.  The most cyberpunk game I've ever played in was a game where we played a rather shitty cyber rock band called Harsh Language.  I'm not convinced that big power levels are the friend of cyberpunk simply because if you're rich enough to afford huge amounts of cybernetic implants then you're rich enough to not really be bothered by the grime and poverty and decay of the urban environment.  So I think quite a low power level is a good thing.

Dr. Rotwang: Post your full soundtrack mixtape please. I get your vibe, entirely. Also, I understand your frustration - "spacerpunk" is a genre I'm trying to nail down into a game (that hardly exists elsewhere) and all i got is fragments of a soundtrack.

Quote from: Thanatos02First of all, as much as I love Gibson and also Snow Crash, and as much as I'd like to try to write something in that tone, I'm incredibly leery of anyone who specifically tries to write 'cyber-punk'. It's a stillborne genre, really, because while the original writers were aiming for a mood, theme, ect., they certainly wern't trying to invent a new genre that shitty writers in the future could rip-off. As novels, it's remarkably easy to lose the point of them. I think, like fantasy, the reason why so many rip-offs are so bad is that the essence of the well-written pieces were set in a cyber-punk world and the themes were related to the setting, but people tend to get caught up in the props.

To be fair, I think this depends on the author. Bruce Sterling always claimed that cyberpunk was a Movement - with a capital M, no less - implying that he expected it to birth a whole new subgenre. I wrote a short review of the Mirrorshades anthology here where I point out that Sterling's ideas about cyberpunk being a Movement a) don't really hold water and b) don't seem to be shared by his fellow authors in the anthology, who write pretty much what they like regardless of whatever Bruce is saying about the Movement.

Mirrorshades is an odd book because while it's held up as one of the books that define the genre, and while it's meant to be an all-cyberpunk anthology, I count at least one fantasy and one non-SF allegory about Houdini.

Part of the reason we're seeing this raging argument about what "cyberpunk" is is that it wasn't defined very well from the beginning.