Cyberpunk Law Enforcement

I'm thinking of running a near-future cyberpunk-lite game wherein the players are all part of a city police force. What are some fun or interesting situations that could occur in the neon-lit cities? As well as some important things to remember.

Other urls found in this thread:

drivethrurpg.com/product/59022/Protect--Serve
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

Take a look at Judge Dress for ideas. Alien smuggling, sabotage from other city states, gang warfare, block wars, illegal mutants, rogue officers, corporate war, rogue robots. They have it all.

Looking at your image i can only say. Fuck the Police.

Nice name placement.

One direction of cyberpunk is "yeah, future technology shit" a la , but that post also touches on the other half of cyberpunk, which is the oppressive social aspect of it.

Challenging that social order is tough enough in our modern day society. Whistleblowing and internal dissent have never been less tolerated in the government; corporations regularly pay zero dollars in taxes and dip into public funds for pork barrel projects while polluting other neighborhoods (hell, they do it to other countries e.g. Ghana's toxic waste problem); even investigating any aspect of the agricultural system in the US is illegal.

Make your characters pay for trying to be good in a world that is increasingly efficient at punishing those who resist. Threaten their family members, have members of their own departments call them rats and give them compelling reasons to have internal doubts.

Citywide universal surveillance might help your police force, but it might also help the police chief get information on the political enemies of his buddy the mayor and oppress the concept of democracy.

To ramp things up, have them get promoted from precinct streetwalkers to task forces into internal affairs and corruption. Then make things get ugly, and make them wish they were back on foot patrol.

drivethrurpg.com/product/59022/Protect--Serve

Tank police.

>Half the population with permanent AR due to internet implants, half the population refusing and being the "punk" side, living in a world that looks grim and bleak without the enhancements
>EMP bombs being treated like dirty bombs
>BBEG is essentially the Riddler and players have to play classic video games like Pong to disarm traps (a la Ready Player One)

Personal favourite:
>BBEG is mysteriously able to be in several places at once or move instantly from one place to another, escape from dead ends, etc.
>BBEG is a virus but players don't realise until late game that BBEG isn't physically there because of AR manipulation

EMP bombs being the new dirty bomb is a great idea. They're way easier to manufacture, and there's this whole dilemma that players have to face with how much they want to live life "in the system" versus out of it.

It would also be a societal battle of what that "punk" side might be arguing; that living in the grid is what you do when you have awesome hardware and neural growth factor packages that let you keep up to date. Meanwhile the police are spending all their time chasing terrorists who strike at the digital societal system, which the punks may have something to do with, or the punks might be getting blamed for. Meanwhile, the police (and maybe the players) are focusing on the digital crimes, but in real life, things are going more and more to shit, and maybe as the players look up from their latest accomplishment of thwarting an attack on a server for upper-middle class technizens to exchange commerce BS, in real life, the city is burning.

Nice, and some of the more radical punks could be something like pic related, wanting to destroy the system so that the people can be free.

Which raises some interesting political questions about what "Freedom" is.

The best sort of villain is one where you're not sure whether you yourself are the bad guy.

Better to keep the ethics muddy - have police find people wasting away to nothing, maybe even just corpses, because they spend/t all their time in virtual worlds and forgot about the real one.

Is it better to protect the system for the freedom of choice on how to live one's life, or to tear it down to stop the world falling apart?

It also never hurts to mix in ideas from the Deus Ex universe, body mods, nanotech, mega corporations with all the money, etc. etc.

>"Congrats guys, you've done really well lately, so I pulled a few strings, got you transferred to a nice cushy posting in [high-end part of town]. All you'll have to worry about is a few office managers who have had one too many"

Your players get sent to the extremely wealthy end of town for a holiday, but:
>the other cops there don't like these new guys
>everyone they're dealing with is rich as fuck has lawyers, friends in government and private security out the ass
>because it's a "low violence" area they're reduced to mostly or entirely non-lethal weapons and limited equipment

And then, after your players are getting a bit pissed off with their shitty situation, drop a serious event, like armed violence or terrorism, on them.
Which they have to deal with with limited equipment and allies that don't like them, to save a bunch of assholes.

So in addition to what other systems would be good for something like this? I'm guessing Cyberpunk 20XX or GURPS would work on the crunch-heavy side of the scale, to go really balls out there's stuff like Eclipse Phase, and I'm sure there are countless indie systems out there as well. If I can I'd like to get whatever books I can and just sort of pool the information I can pull up from them - probably figure out the system used to actual play after figuring out specifically what direction I'm going to take this in.

How's Interface Zero, actually? Does anyone have any experience with it?

I don't know anything about Shadowrun, but maybe that could be adapted?

not directly cyberpunk, but still near-future, light-weight and VERY cool is Mutant City Blues, a complete underrated little game based on GUMSHOE.

"Hey boss, the resurrection creshes are spinning up again, what's the screen say?"
>Fracking shadowrunners

I had a great shadowrun play with a 'red light district' theme. Have your cops be like the law&order:svu cops but worse. Prostitution, gambling, fightclubs, Nightclubs, love hotels. Futuristic VR opium dens. All in a separated part of the city your guys are tasked with policing.
The other cops look down on you, don't trust you. What happens when a hooker winds up dead or two rival streetgangs fight over a casino. Do you protect the politicians son found getting illegal mods or risk a team of mercs coming to break the kid out of your custody and 'silence' your team before you can get him to central.
Good times.

I've actually been messing around with GUMSHOE, I'll check out Mutant City Blues.

>Futuristic VR opium dens

Yep, the are Lone Star (private cops organization) supplements available.

MCB has definitely good cop info that you don't find in many other supplements. You'll learn in the core how cops tick and why cooperating with the cops is NEVER to your own benefit.

I've read it, meaning to play when I have time. It looks to be pretty good. Refreshing to have some cyberpunk without any fantasy for once.

There's androids (some of which are like replicants), genetical modification (you can be human 2.0 or half-furry hybrids), cyberware, ronin/solos/street-sams, psi powers, cyber-powers (basically adepts, but their power comes from their cybermods), VR/AR and the corresponding supervirus...

If you need inspiration, watch Ghost in the Shell or Appleseed.

Damn, son, where da booty go?

Just run basic Shadowrun, only they're stopping Shadowrunners and gangs rather than ripping off corps.
> Liaise with corp police instead of attacking them
> Get to know the local gangs; you'll never have the budget or manpower to shut them all down
> You can work with them to get them to help you prevent gang warfare and the like though.
> TERRORISTS.
> Or are they just graffiti artists?
> Rules of engagement forbid firing lethal weapons until fired upon with heavy weaponry.
> You have an ammo budget. If you don't fire all the rounds, you get less next month. But don't you dare fire too many, or you'll end up with a cut for going over budget
> Access to the best gear and cyberware
> No budget to use any of it unless you get creative
> Access to the evidence locker, though...

>Police written across the ass

I just love it when my law enforcement dresses like an Atlanta ratchet

Depends mostly on the setting. In my setting cops are either corp security or are members of the local PD. Corporate cops are more or less private investigators working for a corporation. Their jurisdiction is corporate area, but they can work outside too, if the corporation is involved (corporate got killed in Redlight District, corp babies disappeared in the slums...). They do work with the corporate security, who act more as muscle.

The local PDs works for crime syndicates. They patrol the pleasure and distraction districts and the best slums. They have no jurisdiction on corporate grounds and won't venture in the combat zone unless put under massive pressure.

I think that the model is Katya aka. Clover.

>Tubes connecting arms to back
>Tubes only ~2 feet long
What is this design

I shoulda joined the army