Quote from: Omega;882897Except Im not.

Your posts here indicate otherwise.

Quote from: Omega;882897Keep trolling though. The patheticness is at least illuminating.

 Hahahaha. Says the man-child who tries to dish it but sure can't take it.

I hear each Shadowrun product comes with a coupon for these, cause some of you fanboys are so easy to hurt:


I'm sure you could use some right about now. :rotfl:

Was talking with a friend a couple of minutes ago, and I told a lie.  The longest CP2020 game I ever ran lasted about 3 years of two or three sessions per week (ah, high school) and started with the 3 PC's down and out and finding a gunned down courier whose only article of jewelry was a watch.

A watch with a datachip inside it holding plans that could destabilize the world.  What those plans were, I luckily never had to detail.

The first arc was them finding it, discovering that it had some sort of heavily encrypted data on it, and considered selling it.  To which I pulled a 'dick move' by preemptively having a team from Infocomp strike at their home.  Which started a running firefight that lasted about a week of game time.

I was a huge fan of a lot of the then popular Cyberpunk anime, like Cyber City Oedo 808, A.D. Police, Bubblegum Crisis, Appleseed, Neo Tokyo, so I borrowed a lot of that for the game.

Second arc was finding out why the Players were now targeted.  And the reason they survived is that all three were Solos.  Very competent Solos.  They got the names of several prominent organizations.

Third arc was them fighting back, lots explosions, and it escalated as they were going around the world to find out who was behind this.  There were also a lot of corporate break ins and black ops.

Fourth arc was the culprit, Arasaka (who for some reason, I never liked back then.  Still not sure why.  It's not like any of the other megacorps were any nicer) making a move to retrieve their datachip, havign lost all patience and eliminating as discreetly as possible all possible players and obstacles.

Fifth and Final arc, was the players going to Neo Tokyo and ending it.  By assaulting the Arasaka tower itself.  Which actually was a lot like the first Matrix end scene where they save Morpheus.  Right down to the multi-gun shoot out in the lobby, and the riding the elevator to the top floor and blowing up the building.  They even did the cable cutting thing, and use it to get to the top office floor.  Except a little more excessive destruction.

It was, according to my friend, who played the ex-Marine in that campaign, "GLORIOUS!".  And the funny thing was, they realized that all this, no one actually new just how 'dangerous' the data was.  The world simply watched the news, and kept on truckin'.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;882905It was, according to my friend, who played the ex-Marine in that campaign, "GLORIOUS!".

I am in awe of your campaign, and wish I could have played.

Neuromancer doesn't have ftl. I can't now remember in this thread who thought that, but it's a complete misreading. The AIs communicate using good old fashioned radio at light speed in line with the laws of physics we know and if not love at least have learned to live with.

Although if ftl precludes cyberpunk we've also just taken out Blade Runner, and it's all getting a bit no true Scotsman for me.

Also, Arroz, I preferred Cyberpunk 2020 but way to kill the discussion of cyberpunk gaming (in which I would absolutely include Shadowrun). For fuck's sake. You've turned a potemtially interesting thread into Tangency-style bollocks. Well done.

What can I say. I've had plenty of help in creating havoc. Lol

I discuss respectfully and seriously with those who extend me the same courtesy.   if the facts and reasoning I present cause people to lose their shit and lose their ability to counterpoint in a levelheaded way , that's not my problem. You go right ahead and excuse the shitheads who got all huffy over an opinion.

 If someone starts shit with me because they don't like my opinion, you can bet your ass they'll get a bucketload from me because that's what they deserve. if you're gonna dish it, you sure as hell need to be ready and able to take it, lol

It's late where I am. I'll post tomorrow why although I agree the Shadowrun setting is science fantasy I still regard it as a cyberpunk game. It's about praxis basically, it plays as cyberpunk at the table and explores cyberpunk themes in that actual play, so as a game that makes it cyberpunk. Were it a novel I would consider it, well, probably urban fantasy.

Actually, interesting question. Lauren Beukes novel Zoo City is often argued as cyberpunk but contains a blatant paranormal gimme (though it's unexplained so by an Olympic stretch could be made science). Gibson I think viewed it as cyberpunk, and I think possibly so would I if pushed. What do others think?

Quote from: Headless;882898So on the last page before the flame war (actually maybe in the middle of the flame war) I have some points to make and questions to ask about genera.

I was still interested in that discussion. Arguing about litature is fun.

Welcome to the club. I wanted to know more about Cyberpunk 2020. Not listen to page after page of pedantic trolling about how elves = not cyberpunk.

Whatever the game wanted to model. It seemed to toss alot of that out the window with CPv3 (2030?) AKA: The game with the dolls. What did later editions bring back or change after that?

Quote from: Headless;882898So on the last page before the flame war (actually maybe in the middle of the flame war) I have some points to make and questions to ask about genera.

I was still interested in that discussion.  Arguing about litature is fun.

We can still don that, provided that a certain type of fanboy is able to keep their emotions in check in the face of differing opinions...you know, like adults are expected to do.

Quote from: Omega;882937Welcome to the club. I wanted to know more about Cyberpunk 2020. Not listen to page after page of pedantic trolling about how elves = not cyberpunk.

What specifically did you want to know? (Bear in mind, my knowledge is a bit rusty as it's been at least a decade since I had the books.)

Quote from: Omega;882937Whatever the game wanted to model. It seemed to toss alot of that out the window with CPv3 (2030?) AKA: The game with the dolls. What did later editions bring back or change after that?

Not quite sure what they wanted for CPv3, to be honest.  It was a bad mishmash of what sounded like a 10 year old's anime fanfic.

And there are no later editions 'yet'.  They're currently working in tandem with a video game and bringing a tabletop revision called Cyberpunk 2077.

Really? It ended with v3? I thought there was an edition after? Guess not.

Quote from: Omega;882942Really? It ended with v3? I thought there was an edition after? Guess not.

There is going to be.  The real issue is how willing is Mr. Pondsmith's audience willing to get into a new edition, and how honest is he going to be to his stated ideal, after the cock up that CPv3 turned into.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;882884So what did the rest of you guys focus on?

As a GM?

99% of times it's about a band of friends attempting to make some money and fortune in the world ran and controlled by corporations. Fantasy elements tend to be pushed to the far background, dragons, while influential are sleeping beasts, one step from being merely a boogeyman, magic is treated as part blessing, part curse and all people who use it aren't to be trusted, because they are probably controlled by something dark and sinister.

I think I tried to achieve "raw CP" without openly excluding fantasy elements from the setting.

As a player?

There has been too many session to count, and my characters were of wide variety, but I think that overprotective sniper/rigger with trust issues builds were dominant.

For some reason, I've never in my life prepared a female character for SR. I'm not sure why.

Quote from: D-503;882919Actually, interesting question. Lauren Beukes novel Zoo City is often argued as cyberpunk but contains a blatant paranormal gimme (though it's unexplained so by an Olympic stretch could be made science). Gibson I think viewed it as cyberpunk, and I think possibly so would I if pushed. What do others think?

so far all that I can find about it is that people classify it as magical realism (a term that has been diluted, some argue) or urban fantasy, and that Gibson wrote a foreword to it saying it's very very good.

They mention moxa land as outright Gibsonian cyberpunk. I would like to read both of them.

Quote from: Headless;882852I don't know what the other guy is saying. I am saying in a story since both are just made up by the author magic and science are the same thing.  A plot device to get to tell the story he/she wants to tell.

Everything in fiction is made up. I'm not sure how this is helpful in delineating genres, though.

If you mean that authors are imagining devices into the fiction that do not have real world counter parts, sure. But then I'd also say that you're ignoring the assumptions behind what is being made up, which is an important distinction.

 In sci-fi, as I've said repeatedly, the base assumption is real world technology or science which is then extrapolated by assuming advances have been made in its understanding. Some sci-fi is harder than others. Neuromancer is soft science, because Gibson wasn't a techie. Cyberspace in Neuromancer, however, is obviously extrapolated from BBS technology and and graphics technology of the 80's.

It is reasonable up to a point to allow for the possibility, however remote, that technology could develop in that direction. Given that they're already experimenting with letting people control vehicles with the brain (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/12040216/Mind-controlled-cars-unveiled-in-China.html), it's not in the realm of impossibility that they *might* one day be able to send images directly to the parts of the brain that process images.

Fantasy magic with power words, fireballs, and things like that which rely on manipulating "energy" via your naked will? When can one expect something like that to ever become a reality?

Those are big differences that wouldn't make sense to ignore.

QuoteWhen dealing with magic there is a line by Chief Dan George, "sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn't" (little big man) for me that's what makes it magic.  Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.   If it works all the time it's technology.  If you understand how it works, you are a scientist.  

Technology sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. You wouldn't call how a space shuttle works magic because a number of them have blown up or disintegrated.

QuoteIf your protagonist is using and discovering laws of an energy field or probability distorting matrix, and causing desired effects in a predictable way, than he (or she) is a scientist.  No mater how out there or magical the field is.  

Would such laws be based on anything resembling the real world experience available to us, or even the fringes of science? If not, it would not be science. Positing that mana exists, for example, is not based on any real world experience most people have or on any science I know of. Even less so that such force could be manipulated psychically to heal people and cast fireballs.

QuoteIf they are conducting rituals they don't understand, which sometimes produce the desired affect but they don't know how or why than they are a wizard.  The techno guys from 40k are wizards, not scientists.  

The difference between a wizard and a scientist is in the practicer not in the world.  Especially in a work of fiction.  

I turn on my computer and use it without understanding the inner workings. I'm not a wizard, and I doubt many people would call themselves wizards. The same is true with the denizens of a sci-fi world. They don't need to understand the science to know that the tech they use is not something mystical. They don't call themselves wizards. The only time people call themselves wizards in relation to tech is when they're being tongue and cheek. They're not literally thinking of themselves as Gandalf equivalents.

People call themselves ninjas all the time. Are they literally?
 
The difference is absolutely in the world, because both the practitioners and non-practitioners are part of the world. It matters what their assumptions are about how their world works. It matters if they think it's something mystical that they can control with their will alone, or whether it's something based on physical laws that don't care what your thoughts are telling them.  

QuoteI guess I started by saying they were the same and went on to explain the differences.  Hopefully I have done so in a way you can understand.  Even if you don't agree.

I get where you're coming from, but it seems like it's an argument based on arguing semantics, when most reasonable people know there is a difference between believing in magic and the supernatural, and knowing that there are scientific principles behind how things work.

QuoteSecond.  It was suggest to me that genera and sub genera may be an out moded way of categorizing and thinking about things.  We don't have filing cabinets any more.  Putting things in one and only one drawer isn't how we do things.  Now we tag things, and we tag things with a bunch of tags.  I would tag, Fire fly with #western, space western, sci fi, blah blah blah.

I'd say that the sum of the tags itself carries meaning that the tags by themselves don't. That you wouldn't just tag Fire Fly with #western and leave it at that is telling.

I'd also say that the tags are only useful in identifying elements that you can find in a work, but that a genre better captures the gestalt of a work.

QuoteCan I keep the cyber punk tag?  Or does that gave to go because of the elfs?  

No one ever said you couldn't keep it. Just that it's not defined by that tag only. That tag identifies one of the elements in the stew. The sum of the tags would be more meaningful to look at, and genre would probably capture the spirit better.

QuoteWould a house stop being Victorian if it had a modern kitchen and LED lights?

 Victorian is used to describe the architecture, not the circuitry, right?

Anyway, I think we could boil this whole argument to sci-fi settings showing us something that we think could be plausible in some future. In many ways, we already live in a cyberpunk setting, and even the less plausible parts like cybernetics, are looking more plausible each day (the various links I've shared). Other things may never become a reality, but they were probably plausible as a distant future at the time cyberpunk became a thing. That makes it sci-fi.

When you include magic in your setting, you're already starting from an implausible assumption.

Quote from: Omega;882679But really. Tell me whats so great about the RPG rather than telling me how some other RPG sucks because having elves in it magically invalidates it.

I would *never* claim that Shadowrun is invalidated because it's got elves in it. I'm not even making that claim now. It's a perfectly fine game. The only nuance I'm stating is that I don't consider it a better exemplification of the cyberpunk genre than CP2020. That's all.

And yes, I think the fact that magic and fantasy elements are injected into it help justify my perspective. But I fully accept that my opinion of the genre comes from my experiences, and my consumption of the "source material" (and not just books). I think the fantasy-stuff in SR doesn't serve the conceits of the genre at all.

But I think it's perfectly fine as a game. I look at SR as "it's own genre" within a sub-genre. I have no problem calling it "Fantasy-cyberpunk" as a sub-genre of "sci-fantasy". It's like how I look at D&D as it's own brand of fantasy within the larger genre.

Quote from: Omega;882679For example. How does 2020's netrunning compare to Shadowruns? If the CCG was any indicator then it must have been more nuanced than Shadowruns?

I can't speak for SR's decking rules. Never had someone play one in the games I participated in. In CP2020 however, take it with a grain of salt, this was early the 90's understanding of the Net lensed through the Gibson-books, CP2020's rules were pretty fun.

They suffered from one thing - lack of integration into the rest of the game overtly. It was almost it's own sub-game within the system. But it didn't mean other PC's couldn't interact with the Netrunning rules without being a netrunner - not at all. In fact, and I think I've said this, I had my party all take Programming, and that allows any PC to create programs for Netrunning, so we had one Netrunning in the group but he ran with customized software from the rest of the PC's. My favorite was this huge attack program called Godzilla, which in the Net looked like a 600-ft tall Godzilla that they launched at the Night City University datafortress... what they didn't take into account was that the NCPD traced their connections to their own dorm-room and kicked down the doors and everyone was troded in with the netrunner so they "could watch the action"... and got jacked out and were in cuffs with guns at their heads.

But live and learn - the netrunning rules, for their time, were fun. But due to their segregation from the rest of the game, fell to disuse. I hear it was common in a lot of CP2020 games.

Quote from: Omega;882679Or how well does 2020 allow you to adventure outside the "mercenary crook" style of Shadowrun? Seems like it can handle playing a musician, a businessman, etc? Which are things Shadowrun would be harder pressed to handle.

and so on.

I don't think there's anything CP2020 does that SR couldn't do. But the primary differences are conceits of the setting not the conceits of themes of the setting.