You know...

I love Cyberpunk.  I love the Gibson books, I loved Mirrorshades, I've read many, if not all, the canon authors and books with only one major exception that somehow has never crossed my path until I got into the forum discussions of cyberpunk.

I feel a fast swelling urge to participate in the discussion of a Cyberpunk game, wether a classic 2020 thread, a 'what if' discussion of how it should go/should have gone...

But with very very few exceptions, I feel nothing but apathy and disgust over most of the posts I read in this thread.  Gibson, certainly, was about the technoporn. Without loving attention to the toys in his books, they lose a lot. Yes to chinese military icebreakers, to prototype virtual light goggles and chunky rubber stun-guns, to vat grown ninjas and monowire thumbs, to mercenaries running a hot extraction of a VIP with self destruct implants, to dogs that can smell you from five miles away in a crowded mall, that feel no pain and never get tired.  

To do that, you need toys. Not abstract toys, but actual toys. Deckard had his big honking pistol.  Case bought a viper (extendable baton, from teh description) to whup ass.  Toys must exist, and often are external to the character... they can be taken away. In fact, when ever possible they probably SHOULD be taken away, violently.  Think of all the stuff Snake Pliskin started with in escape from New York, and how much he left with.  

But::: This is not literature. This is not fucking 'high art concept' this is not even 'genre emulation' which is a singularly shit-tastic way to go about creating anything of value anyway.

Its a motherfucking game.  It's FUN.  It's for players with a wide variety of interests and tastes. Its for people who love the idea of a power-armored goon crashing through a wall to blow shit up, the full body borg that tries to stop him. It's about the soft squishy meat dude that is better than both of them who can only cower in the corner as they fight it out. Its about a guy jacking up his body so he burns out and dies within five years, just so he can be good RIGHT FUCKING NOW.  It's about a ballet of bullets and faceless badguys by the dozens. Its about powers that be having all the soul of the reaper.

As much as I hate giant robots, as much as I love the Doc's description of walking under the neon, I'd rather see what Bradford puts out as Cyberpunk (maybe with the Doc whispering cool in his ear with every page...) then 99% of the crap I've heard from you guys.  

If you want just the eighties. Or just Snowcrash, or Just 'what the fuck ever'... fucking make THAT game.  Emulate THAT book.  Just don't presume that automatically makes it so much better than any other view of cyberpunk.

And as someone else put it: The Future ain't dark, its COMPLEX.  Take your narrow minded high and mighty asses somewhere else.

You wouldnt be the same Spike who has his mugshot on the cover of one of the Solo of Fortune books would you?

Quote from: O'BorgYou wouldnt be the same Spike who has his mugshot on the cover of one of the Solo of Fortune books would you?

Dunno 'bout that, but I'm pretty damn sure he's the one who announced he was taking a 'serious break' about eleven days ago. Way to go with the 'serious', Spikey.

He's also definitely the one who has my chunky rubberized Chiba-bought Attitude-Detector 32-hundred XM squawking like a failed vat-grown sushi chef and who could do with calming down and allowing other peeps to have something resembling an opinion!

Apathy AND disgust? Whoa!

- Q

Quote from: QuireDunno 'bout that, but I'm pretty damn sure he's the one who announced he was taking a 'serious break' about eleven days ago. Way to go with the 'serious', Spikey.

He's also definitely the one who has my chunky rubberized Chiba-bought Attitude-Detector 32-hundred XM squawking like a failed vat-grown sushi chef and who could do with calming down and allowing other peeps to have something resembling an opinion!

Apathy AND disgust? Whoa!

- Q

yes, I can smell the snark from 100 paces. Of course, at least I attempted to contribute to the actual conversation, attitude and all.


O'borg: I belive that there was an actual freelance contributer to later cyberpunk suplements that used the same name. Not I, quoth the small yellow rodent, I merely played the game.

Quote from: Spike...then 99% of the crap I've heard from you guys.  

If you want just the eighties. Or just Snowcrash, or Just 'what the fuck ever'... fucking make THAT game.  Emulate THAT book.  Just don't presume that automatically makes it so much better than any other view of cyberpunk.

And as someone else put it: The Future ain't dark, its COMPLEX.  Take your narrow minded high and mighty asses somewhere else.

Besides telling us we've got it all wrong, and you're disgusted, do you have any fucking suggestions, boss? Maybe you've gone ahead and misinterpreted my percent (because I'm not egotistical enough to assume that I've possessing the 1 non-wretchworthy %), but what I'm saying is that a brand-new system is not what a cyberpunk game needs.

Specifically, I'm saying that the key to a cyberpunk game lies with your group. I'd probably be happy to run something with d20 Modern and d20 Future, because my Ghost in the Shell game I played worked fine with it.

Nah, I didn't have a problem with what you posted, Thanatos.  It was the 50 or so posts before yours (or the one that stood out for me) that earned my ire.

Quote from: SpikeNah, I didn't have a problem with what you posted, Thanatos.  It was the 50 or so posts before yours (or the one that stood out for me) that earned my ire.

  As ill conceived and articulated as it was.

  Here's a summary of the thread :

1 - Cyberpunk's cool, what do people think?
2 - 80's!
3 - Yes, I think it's more low-fi futurism... set it now.
4 - How can you make cyberpunk that isn't about guns and the Matrix?
5 - Reasoned debate
6 - Spike : DUUUUUUH!
7 - People stop having reasoned debate

Thanks for the input.

Quote from: SpikeIts a motherfucking game.  It's FUN.  It's for players with a wide variety of interests and tastes. Its for people who love the idea of a power-armored goon crashing through a wall to blow shit up, the full body borg that tries to stop him. It's about the soft squishy meat dude that is better than both of them who can only cower in the corner as they fight it out. Its about a guy jacking up his body so he burns out and dies within five years, just so he can be good RIGHT FUCKING NOW.  It's about a ballet of bullets and faceless badguys by the dozens. Its about powers that be having all the soul of the reaper.
.....
And as someone else put it: The Future ain't dark, its COMPLEX.  Take your narrow minded high and mighty asses somewhere else.

I think the point a few people were making, myself for one, is that Cyberpunk can be a fun game without the gun bunnies. (Sorry, motherfucking gun bunnies. :rolleyes: ) And in the considered opinion of this high and mighty ass, the OTT anime stuff is fun in limited doses but gets FUCKING OLD after a few games.
Gibson gives his characters cool toys, he doesnt give his cool toys characters to be held by. His works are about Molly, Case, Count Zero etc. They arent about Molly's shades, Case's bloodwork or Zero's cyberdeck.

You'd probably be very, very happy with a Jerry Ahern novel

Quote from: DevPDr. Rotwang: Post your full soundtrack mixtape please. I get your vibe, entirely.

Wll do, when time permits.

Quote from: O'BorgI think the point a few people were making, myself for one, is that Cyberpunk can be a fun game without the gun bunnies. (Sorry, motherfucking gun bunnies. :rolleyes: ) And in the considered opinion of this high and mighty ass, the OTT anime stuff is fun in limited doses but gets FUCKING OLD after a few games.
Gibson gives his characters cool toys, he doesnt give his cool toys characters to be held by. His works are about Molly, Case, Count Zero etc. They arent about Molly's shades, Case's bloodwork or Zero's cyberdeck.

You'd probably be very, very happy with a Jerry Ahern novel

I can agree with you completely, other than having no idea who Jerry Ahern is.  Somewhere in there I actually pointed out that cool toys can, and should, be taken away (snake Plisskin style), which would suggest that I certainly don't think toys replace character. In fact, that is my major beef with Shadowrun (other than magic and elves not being... you know... C-punk) is that what 'toys' you have can very much overwhelm who the character should be. Not the place for the analysis of that, certainly.

By endorsing Bradford's post I wasn't trying to suggest that everything be 'over the top anime all day', I was saying his ideas were closer to where Cyberpunk has gone than constantly waxing nostalgic fanboy wanker over the literary giants of the '80s.  If anything, that's going ass backwards, Cyberpunk was forward looking.  If anything, the giants of the genre made sure of that by having their own settings evolve radically over the course of their books.  Case may be a nobody, but his actions with Wintermute change the world. The Idoru steps out of a million qwikie-marts and changes the world...

And that was just Gibson.  I could go in with Street Lethal and a dozen other examples (limited by my crappy memory for proper nouns...).  

But it's not just nostalgia... or rather turning Cyberpunk into a monument of the 80's that pissed me off, it was the over-dominance of attempting to keep cyberpunk some sort of light weight literary game. Of all the literary genre's out there (and I do hate Genreitis), Cyberpunk spawned a host of spin-offs that all claimed the same root. It was a cultural movement... sure it was short lived and silly, it was a musical style, it's spawned games and movies... all of which most fans could enjoy right alongside their Mirrorshades anthology (which, personally, I rank lower than even the later C-punk stuff in 'defining' cyberpunk...).

I'd rather see a living, breathing cyberpunk game that reflects where it is going than where it was.  Like it or not, Anime is a part of that, ultraviolence is a part of that.  Hell, A Clockwork Orange has not one bit of cyberware in it, yet most people I've talked to agree that it is certainly 'in genre', and I'm sure I've seen it listed as an influence in game books.

Quote from: SpikeNah, I didn't have a problem with what you posted, Thanatos.  It was the 50 or so posts before yours (or the one that stood out for me) that earned my ire.

Oh, I'll be damned. Well, never mind then. ^_^;