Help/cyberpunk

hey Veeky Forums
what are some general references and webites you guys use to when it comes to making homebrew content? i am in the process of creating a cyberpunk/sci-fi campaign and im having some trouble thinking of good quests, items, and stuff like that
im using the pathfinder system and trust me,
>I KNOW IT'S SHIT FOR CYBERPUNK
my players are familiar with the system and don't want to change so i am trying to do some conversions to make it cyberpunk friendly. if you guys have any LEGITIMATE tips for me aside from
>use a better system
i would greatly appreciate it

i will post the general setting/premise of the universe if enough people care, i don't feel like writing it out if the thread will just die in an hour.

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youtube.com/watch?v=8FhjOx92W_Y
twitter.com/AnonBabble

I got no help to give ya user.
Sounds like you got your work cut out for you. Good luck.

Never rely on "caring" to motivate your posting. If you put your stuff here and have enough of a hook help will find you.

Quests, items, consumables, weapons, 'tek' and other stuff is not really that much of problem... You just need to sort out the basics of your campaign, is it goodwill fagotry of startrek? Is it epic stagnant power fantasy with lazerz and waprz like Star Wars? Industrial hell of Alien franchise?

alright fair enough...there is the general setting and the current story ark so i will just explain both

the setting takes place in a large city that was built after a large war that decimated most of the world. (Note: this is not earth) the city was established with a "big brother is always watching" ideology in mind, though most of the people who live in the city don't mind because it is literally the only form of civilization so they kind of have to deal with it. the city is a large circle with huge walls made to protect the people inside from the Wasteland. the Wasteland is the area around the city most greatly effected by the large war that took place.
the cities are large shanty city clusters like the pic i will post with this reply.
the people who made the city call themselves "the organization" btw.
this is where things get a little different.
burring the war there was some hardcore experimentation done on soldiers, one of these experiments created a mutated series of genes and created individuals called "gifted" these gifted individuals have enhanced physical abilities and can learn incredibly fast. once the organization was established and the cities created, as a form of control the organization forced alot of these gifted individuals into becoming peacekeepers for the city, doing quests to keep the civilians safe. the party are a group of peacekeepers within the city in charge of keeping it safe.

the main opposing force is the syndicate...a group of ex-organization members that started off as a rebellion but quickly corrupted into a cynical group of ass hats who want nothing more than to tear down everything the organization has created.

are there any key problems you can see with this or any large holes that i could patch up to make it better?

it is more or less a traditional cyberpunk but with a bit more fancy tech and less industrial...good examples of this would probably be Ghost in the Shell, Deus:Ex, a more "up to date" 1984 (the book) and stuff of that sort but a bit more grimy

Well, if it is not on Earth, it is some extra-solar colony, that humanity established and after war abandoned, or are we speaking about some completely different universe?

And there are not holes in story... there are missing blocks, you have this huge city... why? Is the rest of world irradiated? Contaminated? Dead? How they can support such population? Are there water and food shortages? Are they just spying on people with their Big Brother approach, or they use some sort of Information/political police to suppress anything, that they don't like? Mutated peacekeepers... from what they are keeping city safe? Crime? Unholy abomination that crawled from broken underground vault crack opened with fusion warhead? Terrorists? Lead poisoning?

it is an entirely different universe. i am not an expert on politics or modern military or anything like that. so i figured i might as well make it an entirely different universe to avoid having my friends who no more about that stuff not poke holes in the politics of it all

as for the huge city, that requires a bit more information on the universe pre-organization.

countries began to develop more and more powerful weapons as science and technology advanced, as they so often do in the real world, this led to what would be, more or less a cold war/mexican stand off with all these countries with really scary weapons. most of which where bio/chemical in nature. one country just so happen to have the balls to actually fire their weapons and as such, created a world war.

the organization before they became the organization saw this coming from a mile away and just so happen to have the money and resource required to accomplish what it is they wanted to do. so in a fallout sort of way. they offerd protection to anyone who wanted it, free of charge, as long as you where willing and able to help with the creation of the city they had planned to build after the war.

so the war ended...the aftermath causing most of the earth to become an irradiated wasteland of chemicals... the organization then began to build. the area in which they decided to build was one that happened to not be AS effected by the war.

they build large walls to keep everyone inside safe from the mutated monsters that now roamed the wasteland...as well as provide protection from the elements.

the organization, prior to the war spent alot of their money on research involving was to provide energy and clean water to the population, as well as food and other such necessities.

they spy on the population to prevent the fall of the city. the organization understands that with all these people in one spot crime is bound to sprout up. thats where the peacekeepers come in...

youtube.com/watch?v=8FhjOx92W_Y

>con
peacekeepers act as the police force...they use the cameras everywhere to find crime as it is happening and put a stop to it, generally by killing the ones doing it unless the organization specifies otherwise. it is their job to prevent gang, illegal manufacturing, drugs, and all that fun stuff, but mostly they need to stop the syndicate...
it is also their job to prevent any of the wasteland creatures from breaking through the city walls....while the walls are guarded by regular guys with guns and armor, some of these creatures are just to big for them, so they send the peacekeepers more as an army to deal with those...

the peacekeepers themselfs more or less act independently...they they receive very limited freedoms. the organization will post jobs that peacekeepers can complete to earn ranks..the more ranks a peacekeeper has, the more freedom the receive.

Well you pushed yourself into corner OP, the Organization is basically good, because it take freedom from people just to protect them from their own destructive nature. It could be as well controlled by benevolent AI... On the other side, you have freedom fighters, that used to fight against organization... and turned themselves into crime syndicate.

If you really want the gritty dark feeling of Deus Ex games, Bladerunner movie or GitS series, you need to give your world more segmentation. You need more players, not only one syndicate, but some cartel, with little groups following their own goals... some are idealists, other are all about profit. The organization needs to be more gigantic, so it is more like collection of Bureaus, ministries and other three/four letter cliques.

This will give your minimalistic world needed tension. Is there space for privately owned corporations? Are they trying only to compete with others, or they are grouping together, trying to overthrown Organization? What is economic model of your city? Capitalism? Socialism? Financial Oligarchy?

there are a few smaller groups that have their own agenda yes. the peacekeepers can't keep all of them down

as for the economic model...i am not too well versed in such things, so i will try my best to explain it and if you could tell me the right word for it i would greatly appreciate it

the organization has its roots in everything...just about. there are privatly owned buisness but the organization doesn't let them get too big. the goal of the organization itself is to keep the people alive. they organization lets people make their own businesses, some larger than others of course. though they are all required to operate within the organizations limitations. for example...someone who makes robots for a living can open up shop and sell them at what ever price they see fit, but the organization will prevent this man from making too many, or making them too strong/smart.

the organization is not all good and the syndicate is not all bad per say. when it comes to story telling i love conflicting ideologies and moral delemas. the organization is primarily seen as good because the organization tells the people it is good, and uses the fact that they saved people as a way to back that up. but the organization has its flaws... they are trying to protect people from themselves, and in doing so have removed alot of their freedoms and sometimes take drastic measures to make sure the general population stays safe. they view everything with a cost/benifit analysis mindset and in turn innocent people will always die.

the syndicate was not always bad...it started off with very good intentions to give people their freedom back, the syndicate believed that people can rules themselves and that nature will take its course by weeding out the incompetent and the failures, but slowly become more radical i this ideology and earned themselves a bad name..

>con
this in turn attracted alot of those evil and bad people to the syndicate...grouping them together under one name allowed the organization to then justify attacks on the syndicate.

i am not a psychologist so im not entirely sure how realistic this scenario would be givin the circumstances but that is what i am going with. if there are any crucial flaws or things im missing please let me know

Alright, sorry for long pause, I was just furiously stalking girl from flathouse on opposite side of road...

What I read so far, you need to work out details like this, you seems like you have real interest into purify your settings and do all the details just right. But you said, that you don't have enough knowledge about politics, economics and other social sciences.

For example, Deus Ex was all about the control for future of mankind. Simplified, there were three major parties, Corporates, that wanted accelerated human evolution beyond the point of transhumanism, Illuminati, that looks for total control, for benefits of mankind, but still, they wanted masses at their disposal, for their own agenda. And last, Purists, that wanted world free from firm grasp of corporations, or schemes of new world order. To give humanity possibility to grow, as true individuals, free and making their own choices. Not controlled by fear, anger or hatred towards augumented, etc.

Then you have GitS, which was philosophical and political thriller, it used premise of third world war and rise of new world, with prosthetics and technology clashing with old world doctrines.Arrogant and selfish choices that let many people in despair, because daily shot of insulin is far more profitable, than one time implant in your pancreas (only example, stories from GitS were little bit more complicated).

So... for economic model, you should try centralized approach. Organization holds the main production capabilities, others can create small manufactures, but only within certain limitations and using goods from Organization. By this, you could say, that best hardware is reserved for Peacekeepers, etc.

This also provide, that organization is main employer in city, that gives them economical control over every living being. Of course money does not have real value, they value is dictated by Organization itself.

so, apart from reading up on my social sciences, is there any major flaws you could see being exploited within this world that i am building? im a stickler for balancing and i want to make sure there are no holes in the story or universe. i feel like i haven't left anything out but i also feel like i could add more and im not sure where to go from here

Well... there is no much of plot, just world you started bulding. Idea, that players are some sort of peacekeeper bounty hunters/mercs, that choose their missions is good mechanics, if you want more sandboxy playthrough.
The world itself does not sound boring, or uninteresting, but you asking to fill plotholes, but still didn't provide plot.

If you want group of peacekeepers, that will do queests, like killing gang members, raiding illegal drug labs, protecting City from horrible mutants, etc etc... sure, why not, you can create funky modifiable weapons with tacticool attachments, powered armours with integrated medical units, implants, prosthetics and tons of other things, something like Hellgate London for example?

But it is still more like simple premise, classic bad, but not so bad versus good, but somewhat bad. Which is NOT A BAD thing, but if you want multilayered complex criminal story, you need to think it out first... If you just want cyberpunk'n'shooty aspect of DE:HR and GitS, you are good to go.

i want to make the plot revolve around the character more or less. im giving them options with their missions and side stories in a sandbox like way but i also want their personal backstories to come into play... this is what i have so far

character 1: rogue assassin robot made by a crazy Dr.

character 2: Venom like symbiote who came from a lab a while ago.

the crazy Dr. who designed the assassin is currently working for the syndicate making things for them when he comes across the symbiote. seeing how the symbiote bonds with people the Dr. gets an idea and begins to design powerful suites of armor that utilize a synthetic symbiote based off the symbiote player...the syndicate follow the symbiote around... the Dr. uses the symbiote as a basis for his "apocalypse armor" that bond with the user to enhance their abilities.
i wanna give it an escalating boss fight feel..the apocalypse armor comes in 4 forms. famine, pestalance, war, and death. all have different fighting styles and weakness that the party needs to find and exploit in order to win. or, this gives them the option to find the syndicate and kill the Dr before he can release the armors unto the city.

what is your opinion on this?

bump

Sup, sorry, was doing some work...

You idea is good, interesting, building world lore, also, everybody fucking love biopunk. But from what i read, you should forgot about the thriller aspect of story and go for something more like CyberDungeon. Implement tropes of fantasy with cyberpunk makeup. Your group of players can use classic roles with some cyberpunk components. Deus Ex: Human Revolution bosses are good example of this. When you build your team, create some wide pool of interesting skills (Killshot, SystemFray, Overcharge, etc...) and complementary items and stuff.

Go for scifi power fantasy, check out Blame, it is way more pseudo-sureal post apo... and definitely (hope i use the correct word) you must check BIOMEGA manga, fuck story, check out the ideas about augmented super fighters and overpowered weapons.

And with this as base, I think you should be good for some fun short campaign, just to check out things, rehash some work. Details may be subject of change. Also...

Rogue assassin robot and symbiont creature are good for medium sized campaign, apocalypse raiders for epic level. Try start with smaller simpler stuff, you playgroup needs to get more connected to your world, before you let them fight legendary bosses.

Also, if you have more question, I have attention span of drugged ferret, type them in single column so I could cover up them best as i can.

Honest commentary here:
>im using the pathfinder system and trust me,
>I KNOW IT'S SHIT FOR CYBERPUNK
Well, at least you know it's shit. Keep in mind, it won't take anywhere near as long to learn and teach your group the rules for pretty much any other game.

But if you're happy trying to sew a silk purse from a sow's ear, then so be it. However, even if you aren't going to use them to run the game, it would be worth looking into at least a couple of other Cyberpunk genre rpgs to get some ideas:

Cyberpunk 2020 is a classic, and the layout of the books tends to segregate the story/world/fluff from the crunch pretty well, so it's not particularly hard to skip of rules you're not going to use. It's very much based on 'classic' cyberpunk - Gibson and Sterling. The only issue is that it's a bit dated - there's lots of stuff, like fax machines for example, that have fallen by the wayside.

Technoir is brilliant. It's a more modern, 'narrative', game, and the mechanics are superb - not particularly crunchy, built around story impacts. You build the plot around the players by bringing in plot elements - NPCs, factions, bits of tech, events, and locations - and placing them into a 'web'. Even if you don't want to play the game, the ideas contained in the plot webs and matrices are great. Really nails the 'noir' vibe that's a core piece of the CP genre.

Remember Tomorrow - another pretty simple story game, made by Vincent Baker. It builds plots by scene, and each scene has different bits brought into it via rolls on tables a bit like Technoir does. The whole book is 53 pages, and you could probably just play it on your own to work out meta-plot and what's going on outside the purview of your player's characters.

Aside from that read some Cyberpunk fiction, and watch some movies. Atm, it really doesn't seem like you actually get the genre - more like you're just operating on rough ideas from second-hand sources. And Gibson's books are great reads.

*correction: Remember Tomorrow is by Greggor Hutton, not Vincent Baker. My Bad.