Reading this thread, it just occured to me that you could make a functional cyperpunk setting based on a player group of Iraqi antiheroes in 2005.  The rubble next to new mansions, the high tech corporations such as Blackwater, the existence of a small number of highly educated Iraqis in a basically dysfunctional war zone, the factions... it's a pointed ear away from Shadowrun.

Quote from: estar;416080The look on the Solo player's face was priceless and the rest of the room burst out laughing. Shortly after he gather his things and left muttering to himself.

I have just one thing to say: Bravo.

Quote from: Halfjack;416087what would we really do with virtual reality?

Porn and fancy MMOs

Quote from: Sigmund;416103Porn and fancy MMOs

Jesus. Just imagining the billions of dollars the porn industry could make with virtual reality, that's kind of mindboggling, when I think about it.

When people always say "What happened to Cyberpunk?" I always answer, um.. you're living in it, dude.  People look around and say we're not in Cyberpunk yet, no, we're still in the history section, the era marking the rise of the Megacorp and the carving up of the world.

Yeah as SciFi, ie. predicting the future of technology, Cyberpunk was off the mark, but how about we wait until someone actually develops a neural interface for a computer before we declare the "Cyber" dead.  Now the "Punk" aspect, well, to be honest, I doubt most of us would know anything about whether there was any "Punk" out there.  We sound mostly like SINNERS, not the SINless to put it in Shadowrun parlance.

As far as corporate control goes, how many different corporations own the news you see from all sources?  You could count it on one hand, I'm guessing.

Give it 10 years or so, then revisit.

CP is pretty close I think. Information has become far far more available than Gibson thought it would. We have virtual reality in MMOs and Second Life, I mean WoW has an annual GDP that would place it above Albania.

It's no suprise that people don't voluntarily chop of limbs and have complex surgery and flying cars were alway 'pie-in-the-sky'.

If you look at Asian booms the decline of American global hegemony, the disenfranchisement of youth culture, the development of totally new methods of cultural interaction and the rapid changes of that culture we are living in a CP world.

I mean a 12 year old today doesn't know that music came of records or tapes and if you give them a CD for xmas they rip it and then sell the disc on ebay. Kids get arrested and fined millions of dollars, for copying information,  by oppressive governments working at the behest of mega-corporations.

The phone in your pocket had more power than a 1980s mainframe, and every teenager knows how to jail-break it so it can run pirated software that comes preinfected with trojans, viruses and wurms.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;416069All futurism quickly becomes retro, because predicting the future, especially through fictional media, is a sucker's game. The fiction changes to reflect the values and fears of the time.

Absolutely true...except the futurists are usually somewhat right.  

The fears that automation would destroy jobs was correct.   "High paying blue collar labor" is a punchline in 2010, not a job description.  

Corporate gene-coded foods, Mad Cow, nationwide poisoning recalls are all happening.  24/7 surveillance, government wiretapping of all citizens,  massive databanks that encode all facts about your life...are all sooo boring to talk about now because we traded real freedom for false security years ago.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;416069I don't find it goofy or unwatchable or unreadable, necessarily, any more than I find old sci-fi classics from the Fifties to be goofy or unwatchable. The good stuff always has themes that endure.

Very true.   Themes hold their value.

There is a remastered version of Metropolis.   If anyone has not seen that movie, the new remaster is absolutely worth seeing.

Quote from: jgants;416079The biggest problem with cyberpunk is that EVERYONE actually sold out in the 80s and now no one really cares about anything anymore.

Too true.

In the RPG of Metabarons (D6), there is the "Necrodream" which is basically the hypnotizing culture of the techno-religious-corporate galaxy and 99% of everyone just bobs along half-awake.   The PCs are those who try desperately not to succumb to the dream.  

Quote from: CRKrueger;416107Now the "Punk" aspect, well, to be honest, I doubt most of us would know anything about whether there was any "Punk" out there.  We sound mostly like SINNERS, not the SINless to put it in Shadowrun parlance.

The SIN/SINless aspect of Shadowrun is the hardest part of the game for me as the GM.  I have a hard time trying to make sense of a shadowrunners in a 24/7 surveillance world.

In Traveller, you hit the planet, commit a crime, escape the planet and hopefully dodge bounty hunters as you head out of the sub-sector.   In Shadowrun, you generally live within 20 miles of wherever you commit your crimes.

Quote from: Spinachcat;416113The SIN/SINless aspect of Shadowrun is the hardest part of the game for me as the GM.  I have a hard time trying to make sense of a shadowrunners in a 24/7 surveillance world.

In Traveller, you hit the planet, commit a crime, escape the planet and hopefully dodge bounty hunters as you head out of the sub-sector.   In Shadowrun, you generally live within 20 miles of wherever you commit your crimes.

I always saw this as being about the bottom line. When society is so capitalist that even the police are a for-profit outfit, chasing criminals has to make sense fiscally. The pay-off has to exceed the overhead. Plus, even for corps that get hit by a pro runner team, it might make more sense to seek retribution from the other corps involved rather than the runners, because those assets might come in handy down the road. Kinda weak, but it worked for us back then.

I'm sorry; I'm still not seeing it as any different than it ever was.  It just happens faster is all, and people tend to hear about it more now than they did before (internet/everybody's a reporter).  I look at old CP2020 supplements then look out the window and...I don't see it, sorry.

I mean, how is the US getting involved in brushfire wars with troop deployments all over the place now any different than the US sending Marines to Haiti in the 20's, Guatemala in the 30's, Hearst basically inventing the Spanish/American war?  How are "megacorps running everything" now any different than US Steel or Standard Oil or innumerable horrid "company towns" that dotted the Appalachians from the mid 1800's onward?  Or carpetbaggers moving on the South during reconstruction?

The chief difference to me seems to be that everyone thought by now you'd be toting a plastic assault pistol USB wired into your forehead, your liver would be made by Toyta-Sony-Siemens-AG Inc., and everyone would be wrapped up like a Versace leather colostomy bag with spikes and a gas mask.

Quote from: Sigmund;416127I always saw this as being about the bottom line. When society is so capitalist that even the police are a for-profit outfit, chasing criminals has to make sense fiscally. The pay-off has to exceed the overhead. Plus, even for corps that get hit by a pro runner team, it might make more sense to seek retribution from the other corps involved rather than the runners, because those assets might come in handy down the road. Kinda weak, but it worked for us back then.

Well, it does make sense in a way.  As far as the corps are concerned, stopping the runners while they are on a run is essential, but killing them after the run is useless.  Yeah, you can go the old Soviet route and kill every shadowrunner that messes with you, but then you'd better hope you never need one yourself.

As far as the cops are concerned, it's a lose/lose.  If runners do what they're supposed to, they don't really cause much disruption with civilians.  Trying to track and bring in all runners who aren't actively committing a crime is going to end up causing more damage then it's worth, so the cops end up catching them when they do something stupid or obvious.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416137I'm sorry; I'm still not seeing it as any different than it ever was.  It just happens faster is all, and people tend to hear about it more now than they did before (internet/everybody's a reporter).  I look at old CP2020 supplements then look out the window and...I don't see it, sorry.

I mean, how is the US getting involved in brushfire wars with troop deployments all over the place now any different than the US sending Marines to Haiti in the 20's, Guatemala in the 30's, Hearst basically inventing the Spanish/American war?  How are "megacorps running everything" now any different than US Steel or Standard Oil or innumerable horrid "company towns" that dotted the Appalachians from the mid 1800's onward?  Or carpetbaggers moving on the South during reconstruction?

The chief difference to me seems to be that everyone thought by now you'd be toting a plastic assault pistol USB wired into your forehead, your liver would be made by Toyta-Sony-Siemens-AG Inc., and everyone would be wrapped up like a Versace leather colostomy bag with spikes and a gas mask.

I see what you're saying and you're right, but the thing is I never saw CP as being any kind of accurate prophecy about the real future. It was a speculative caricature. It took what might be (and turns out many were correct) and then sent them over the top. It was meant to be entertainment first and foremost after all. Much like European medieval fantasy doesn't really resemble actual medieval Europe, CP America doesn't really resemble actual 21st century America. There are recognisable details, but the genre was ramped up for entertainment purposes. That's how I see it anyway.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416137I look at old CP2020 supplements then look out the window and...I don't see it, sorry.

Don't look out your window, look at your television.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416137I mean, how is the US getting involved in brushfire wars with troop deployments all over the place now any different than the US sending Marines to Haiti in the 20's, Guatemala in the 30's, Hearst basically inventing the Spanish/American war?

How many years combined were those compared to the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts?  How much money has been funneled out of the US straight into the coffers of contracting corporations?  Fuck the Lufthansa heist, these guys have been doing a Lufthansa heist every hour for 8 years.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416137How are "megacorps running everything" now any different than US Steel or Standard Oil or innumerable horrid "company towns" that dotted the Appalachians from the mid 1800's onward?  Or carpetbaggers moving on the South during reconstruction?

Because now it's not a company town, it's a company country, with a handful of corps controlling what the majority of people see and hear.  We're about 50 years past simple yellow journalism and purple prose now, you can hook someone up to a PET scanner to see how their brain reacts to a commercial.  The level of manipulation that is possible is entire geometric orders of magnitude greater, and the fact that that's really not commonly known or just accepted just reinforces the point that The Corporate Takeover Has Been Televised and no one caught it, they were too busy surfing for the Paris Hilton cocksucking video.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416137The chief difference to me seems to be that everyone thought by now you'd be toting a plastic assault pistol USB wired into your forehead, your liver would be made by Toyta-Sony-Siemens-AG Inc., and everyone would be wrapped up like a Versace leather colostomy bag with spikes and a gas mask.

The thing about Cyberpunk is that the technology really is only a small part of it.  Granted, that's the part everyone focuses on because it's visual, but we're really much closer then you think to a SR4 tech paradigm, with everything wirelessly connected with no VR, but AR.  As far as the collapse goes, well we haven't had it yet, and we may never, but we did come fairly close on the economic front.  As far as the corporatization of the world, it's in full swing.

Cyberpunk imagined the SINless; we got 4chan.
Cyberpunk imagined screamsheets; we got Google Reader.
Cyberpunk imagined romanticized anti-corporate revolution; we got the Creative Commons.
Cyberpunk imagined ubiquitous, subliminal advertising; that came true.
Cyberpunk imagined people fragmenting into violent, squabbling tribes; we got X-Box Live.

To think that we would actually all have big clunky chrome limbs and spiky hair; of course that's absurd, because it was reflective of the culture and technology of the time, not the actual future.

So yes, it's dated. Shadowrun 4E will be just as dated in 20 years, and we'll look back and say "haw haw, they thought we were going to have stupid augmented reality and be flying around a bunch of remote control drones, what a joke!"

Quote from: CRKrueger;416147How many years combined were those compared to the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts?  How much money has been funneled out of the US straight into the coffers of contracting corporations.  Fuck the Lufthansa heist, these guys have been doing a Lufthansa heist every hour for 8 years.

Again...it's been going on for decades if not centuries.  The US did Guatemala on behalf of United Fruit.  Go further back - the East India Trading Company, a private contractor that had a writ to pretty much run it's own private navy and conduct business in whatever fashion it saw fit in the name of profit.  

QuoteBecause now it's not a company town, it's a company country, with a handful of corps controlling what the majority of people see and hear.  We're about 50 years past simple yellow journalism and purple prose now, you can hook someone up to a PET scanner to see how their brain reacts to a commercial.  

Do you know how the "studio system" worked from the 20's onward?  How the Howard Hughes and Jack Warners of the world (and the WR Hearsts) decided what people would see and hear?  And eat and drink?  Shit, how many places in the US could you buy cocaine and heroin over the counter?

QuoteThe level of manipulation that is possible is entire geometric orders of magnitude greater, and the fact that that's really not commonly known or just accepted just reinforces the point that The Corporate Takeover Has Been Televised and no one caught it, they were too busy surfing for the Paris Hilton cocksucking video.

All "they" have done is refine the science a bit (really, statistical methodology holds up whether your trying to find out whether or not people really like that Elvis character's song "Hound Dog" or if you think Dell makes a better subnotebook that Acer): again, Standard Oil, US Steel and the Railroad Trusts ran the country for decade upon decade.  Do you think Ike warning us about the Military Industrial Complex was for shits & giggles?

QuoteThe thing about Cyberpunk is that the technology really is only a small part of it.  Granted, that's the part everyone focuses on because it's visual, but we're really much closer then you think to a SR4 tech paradigm, with everything wirelessly connected with no VR, but AR.

And I say that once you strip the trappings away - the leather jackets, the forearm-replaced-with-a-gatling-railgun nonsense, the NeuroUltraNet Braincore jacks - cyberpunk's got nothing.

Now, nostalgically, I like Gibson's works (and Stephenson; never cared for Bruce Sterling)...but like the KMFDM comment I made, I can't believe I was just GAGA over the whole thing.

(I hated SR's D&D meets Cyberpunk mashup.  Hated.  But that's neither here nor there.)

Quote from: thedungeondelver;416153And I say that once you strip the trappings away - the leather jackets, the forearm-replaced-with-a-gatling-railgun nonsense, the NeuroUltraNet Braincore jacks - cyberpunk's got nothing

Since a large part of cyberpunk was style-over-substance, this shouldn't be surprising.

In Storming the Reality Studio, the author posits that the very first work of "cyberpunk" fiction was Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.