What if we did cyber without the punk? What would that be like? would it be fun?

Post-cyberpunk is basically cyberpunk with the punk part kept to a minimum, though many people here hate this genre subdivision.

What exactly is punk about Kusanagi, Batou and Togusa? They dress pretty normal, have steady jobs, are part of a system punks should hate (even if punks are happy to benefit from social welfare), are completely integrated in a hierarchic structure, have responsibilities, take their duty seriously, etc.

Yeah because they're complete cunts. The genre subdivision has been around for well before this fucking shitheap of a site was.

I lean towards cyber-metal myself, rather than cyber-punk.

Discard the punk aesthetic, and replace it with a metal/industrial one.
Don't just oppose the man, actively fight him.
You are the resistance, burn away conformity. Often literally, with thermite.
The world sucks, but you're carving out your own part of it.

Otherwise, there's pink mowhawk styled cyberpunk.The troll is an otaku, the street samurai has been made into a foxgirl through bioware mods, and the mage styles herself after a magical girl.

It's been done.

Actually if you look at it, Motoko is always pushing what she's allowed to do. She handpicks her goons and doesn't accept oversight from anyone except one specific guy who, while he works for the government, prefers the common good over the bureaucratic agendas.

They're chaotic good while regular punk is usually neutral, but it's all only tone. They still occupy the same niche as cyberpunk does in general - identity politics in an increasingly whitewashed future.

>be a goon for the corporate elite, carving out a nice, safe, above average existence for yourself by busting the heads of commie punks

Would definitely enjoy playing it. Cyberpunk is so up its own ass in terms of themes and political ideology that it needs a good deconstruction. In the end the punks are just... punks, stepping on others while mea culpa-ing themselves for doing it "for the greater good". But if you look at them, they are more Cheka than mythical revolutionary heroes.

Fuck the punks. Cybergoon is where it's at.

>What would that be like

A whole hell of a lot more mature.

...

I'd play the shit out of that.

The best "cyberpunk" game I ever ran was a "cybercop" campaign. It was exactly as it sounded: The PCs were police detectives. I ran it as a combination of police procedural (like Law and Order [NOT THE SHITTY SPIN OFFs]) and the Ghost in the Shell TV series.

I'd suggest that one of us should start something, but I have a strong suspicion that we all know each other already.

>original cyberpunk rules let you be anything from a cop to a corporate goon or even hotshot exec
>Anons spout you gotta be a street punk for it to be cyberpunk

Go swallow razorblades you wastes of life, clearly imagination fun time is not for you.

I swear to god if you're the same user who keeps running around these threads hollering
>NO YOU GUYS DON'T UNDERSTAND ANARCHY AND PUNK AESTHETIC AND EDGELORD ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT SHIT ARE BAKED INTO THE GENRE

>Kusanagi
>dress normal

Nigga, is you serious?

Every genre-related thread has at least one of those guys user, these days they call it "gatekeeping"

Not the guy you're talking to but re-read what he said. You are agreeing with him.

That's more along the lives of Metal Gear isn't it?

He said the opposite. He's agreeing with you.

Cyberpunk is the deconstruction. What it really needs is a good reconstruction.

But of what is cyberpunk a deconstruction, then? I was under the impression that it was a dystopian genre of science fiction, spawned in the 80's, that examines the effect of technology on life in the typical 80's larger than life fashion. As such, it paints a world that's stunningly individualistic in all the worst ways. One of rampant capitalism, stepped-on dregs of lower classes, a new lower class of gangland squatters and criminals who don't even seem part of regular society, a godlike upper class, and a tiny middle class fully in the pocket of that upper class holding it all together. But through the miracle of rampant consumerism, nobody knows exactly how oppressed they are.

As it's grown set in its ways, it's become easy to deconstruct: It adheres to a certain number of tropes almost as a rule, chiefly among them the status of the titular "punks" who seem to be exactly like the setting's middle class, but not in the pockets of the corps, and therefor automatically righteous. You can see how that can leave a bit of a bitter aftertaste.

What if you took the "cyber" out of cyberpunk?

What is a punk?

Someone with bad hygiene, worse politics, but good taste in music.

>Good taste in music.

youtube.com/watch?v=ZLlLtSG7xe4

Not him, but it is (or was, given how the landscape of sci-fi has changed) a deconstruction of the idea that technology will change humanity to enable a bright and shining future.

That's not all it is, of course, but for the most part it's what it deconstructs

Anti-punk is something I have considered for a very long time. Essentially, the world would at a surface level look very similar to any ordinary cyberpunk setting. But when examining it closer you'd find that it's almost utopian. People, even the poorest, are healthier, richer, and more secure than they are today.

The punks would be groups of radical teenagers opposing a government that's only fascistic and oppressing in their imagination by arranging illegal street races, assaulting presumed conformists and capitalists, and bombing both private and government property. The players, on the other hand, would likely play as some sort of special ops team with the goal of stopping these radicals and terrorists.

...What the fuck user!? Deus Ex is Cyberpunk, only instead of being a neon drug street ganger, you're actually placed in a position to relate to the dynamic of corporate/organization vs individuals

>Gatekeeping
Feminist bullshit propoganda. get out, SJW.

There are actually people out there who refuse to acknowledge something as "cyberpunk" if the main protagonist works for "the man." Adam Jensen works as a (GASP) security officer for a (GASP) big corporation. In other words: He's SOLD OUT. And therefor, not PUNK. And therefor, not CYBERPUNK!!!

>Every genre-related thread has at least one of those guys user, these days they call it "gatekeeping"

I prefer to call it 'stopping normies from polluting (genre) with their normie shit'.

Would you go to a metal gig and go on about how shit the bands are and how much you'd like it if they sat down and did a nice acoustic set? No, you'd be punched in the face. Why do it here?

Yeah, but I don't think that's how a deconstruction works. You can't really deconstruct a general idea. Certainly not one that is so general and has been done before in other genres. "Science fucks up" was a common trope in 30's horror, and a big thorn in the side of the "serious" SF crowd, who were very much of the "technology will make everything better" crowd.

Deconstruction seems almost entirely based on subverting tropes. Like when someone does a Star Trek parody, and the redshirt is aware that there's a 90% chance he's going to bite the dust on the away mission. Or when Phillip K. Dick wrote a short story where the mutant was a detriment to himself and society, he subverted the idea of that pro-technology SF crowd I mentioned that mutants will always be superior (and even more enlightened) than baseline humanity.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't point out specific tropes that exist in the rest of science fiction that cyberpunk is taking for a ride. It seems, to me, more a general commentary on the nature of technology and society from a "punk" perspective.

Gatekeeping is part of terminology that describes groupthink, user.

> wah wah people are having fun in a way I disapprove of
> stop having fun guys you're doing it wrong
> your fun is badwrong fun, it's not the right kind of fun

Except that's not how a deconstruction works. Deconstruction is about taking a premise down to its foundations, and showing those foundations are inherently flawed. What you're talking about is something completely different. The first one is a parody, the second is just a subversion. For the second to be a deconstruction, it'd need to deal with the randomness of mutation.

Anyway, cyberpunk heavily deconstructs the idea of Transhumanism, rather than science fiction in general. Transhumanists believe technology will allow us to surpass our current limitations; Cyberpunk shows that those limitations are inherent within us. Human selfishness will always exist, and will take and twist any Transhumanist development and turn it to private gain. In the end, technology is just a tool; humanity needs to change itself rather than hoping for technology to save us.

People having fun wrong is a problem when they impair my ability to have fun right. People who want to enjoy the same shit as me? I welcome them into my hobby. People who want to take over my hobby, then demand it cater to them because they've crowded out the folks already a part of it? Then we've got a problem.

That would be either Metal Gear Rising or the Deus Ex series

>Deconstruction is about taking a premise down to its foundations, and showing those foundations are inherently flawed.

No, that's not what a deconstruction is. It's never been the intended purpose of deconstructing something to show how its foundations are "inherently flawed", as you put it. That's a useless bit of partisanism that's maybe inherent to some deconstructions, but has no bearing on the mechanic in particular. Ultimately a deconstruction is identifying the key parts of something, examining them on their own, and reasoning how those parts should interact according to some logic. It is not mutually exclusive with being a parody or subversion.

To take the Star Trek example, that's perfectly valid as a deconstrunction of the redshirt trope: It was a television decision intended to show that the characters are in danger. In that context, it makes sense. But in the context of continuity, it's notable that many redshirts die on away missions, which begs the question of how those redshirts themselves consider away missions. Hell, John Scalzi wrote an entire book about it.

The idea of examining the individual building blocks is key, hence the reliance on tropes. What you're stating as a deconstruction would have to get down to transhumanist tropes, and apply logic to them in order to show how things could or would not have to work out as transhumanists imagine they would. But I think this is a red herring, as Cyberpunk as a genre rose concurrent with transhumanist themes in science fiction, entering the mainstream much earlier than transhumanism. And transhumanism is much more specific than "technological progress is good". Looking at the origins of cyberpunk, I can see nothing that indicates the genre was an intentional deconstruction of transhumanism.

I like cyber-punk games where the punks are active criminals, with only a vague sentiment about caring about the greater good. Really, I just like being a criminal, in a world with cyber-punk ascetic.

Being in a street gang with neon colored armor, fucking up other gangs and cops is just super fun.

Speaking of, anyone play Smash+Grab? It's vidya, but I think it could make for a fun, silly setting.

"Gatekeeping" is a word made up by filthy misandrists who need to be drug into the street and reminded why they're lucky to live in America. Shut your worthless mouth.

Deus Ex is Cyberpunk you mouthbreathing normie

you seem triggered, son.

>People having fun wrong is a problem when they impair my ability to have fun right. People who want to enjoy the same shit as me? I welcome them into my hobby. People who want to take over my hobby, then demand it cater to them because they've crowded out the folks already a part of it? Then we've got a problem.

Holy shit, grab another juice box and calm the fuck down. Literally no one in this thread is talking about how to change the way *you* play cyberpunk games; the discussion instead is on how to create a game that is like cyberpunk without certain elements. There is no requirement that you play it, nor that it supplant an already extant genre.

See, user, I understand your apprehension. I understand because I've watched cancerous social justice filth infiltrate *my* hobby - video games - and watched in horror as they've tried to twist and distort it to resemble what *they* want instead of trying to create their own thing. The regressives cry, "your thing is problematic, we demand it changed to conform to our preferences"! What this thread cries is, "we dislike certain elements of this genre, how can we make a different one that emphasises the themes we *do* like?"

It would become a more mature and realistic story?

I noticed it. It looks awesome! I think the same people did Sleeping Dogs which I absolutely loved. Unfortunately it's still in beta and I have a strict "no beta" game purchasing policy.

>Dredd
>not punk
u wot m8
Dredd is more punk than cyber. The comics and the movie, not the character, obviously.