No cyberpunk thread? EXTRA-CYBERPUNK THREAD THEN!

I'm worldbuilding a cyberpunk setting to GM a game of cyberpunk police with a sort if ghost in the shell feel to it. Can anybody recommend a system? The only system anywhere near close I have any experience running is d20 modern and I really really don't want to run d20 modern again. Ever.

GitS doesn't have many outlandish elements, and most stories that take place in it could also happen in a contemporary setting. So all you really need is d20 modern but if you insist you can always use the Dominion RPG.

...

Just skimmed this, looks like it has everything I want in it and isn't too embedded in its own fluff. I'll show it to my group and see what they think. Thanks user.

Enjoy.

I mean, it's not beyond the idea that there is a person in that bike if we're talking Ecplise Phase

That said, most cyber punk games just turn into operators operating operations operationally.

How do you make The Wire but with cyberpunk elements?

You'd have to remove all but the most subtle cyberware, for starters. Cyberware and cyborgs turn people into combat monsters faster than you can say Delta.

High-tech cutting edge caseless rifles or beat-to-shit surplus M4s?

Maybe but not everyone is going to be able to afford some kind of special augmentations the likes that governments and high level corps could afford.

That's another problem I think is the problem that when you hear some of the augmentations people get no body bats an eyelash at the idea that you're some kind of cybered up monstrosity.

Then again, for street level stuff you're probably more likely to find some one who'll put a chainsaw on your stump instead of a folding nanoblade

>keeping your guns after a job

This is how I know you're full of shit, chummer.

>Trusting shitty old guns in a firefight
>Not running with a fully modded and kitted Ares Alpha loading stick and shock.
>Not having an RFID burner on you at all times
>Not having your decker run a sweep and clean your fake IDs after every run
Come on it's like you're not even trying.

>getting into firefights

The only thing you're trying to do is get killed.

Try starting with Transhuman Space. Much better developed, more realistic setting. Less cartoonishly over-the-top combat monster characters, because non-combat skills tend to be more valuable. Also no magic or psi.

>Not taking wetwork
>Not letting the troll have a good time
>Not rolling 16 dice on initiative with 3 passes
>Not dropping the room before they have a chance to act
But seriously firefights just tend to happen even if you take all the precautions, because even in the best case scenario the Johnson will betray you at the end, and I'd rather have primo hardware at my disposal when things go tits up than some junker.

Run it in a system that doesn't gribble and crunch over the 20 different kinds of handguns you can buy.

I think the most feasible way to do "flying" cars is to have some sort of maglev rail system that future cars can ride on. Realistically it would probably only be used for fast long distance travel, like an alternate freeway, rather than contributing to a chaotic cityscape.

Indeed, another problem with systems like that, the nano scale modularity of weapons and augmentations. I don't need 10 different ways to enhance my fucking pinky nevermind the fact it rubs my autism the wrong way making such a distinct difference between getting chrome or some kind of biological enhancements when both would be done congruently (at least I believe so but I own up to my own autism.)

What shitty system forces you to chose biowear or cyberwear?

Shadowrun. Obiously there isn't a one to one version of one thing to the other but I personally hate how they are treated as two different things as if you don't need some kind of biological enhancements to deal with getting that much metal put in your body or some kind of synthetic replacement of hormones in your body when you're just a brain in a jar.

Ah, never mind I misunderstood your comment, I thought you were saying that you had to choose one or the other, not that from a fluff and crunch perspective it seems dumb to have two different systems that do the same thing.

Unless you were saying that, because in Shadowrun you can absolutely combine bio and cyberwear. Hell you get discounts for doing so if I remember correctly.

Keep 9mm lethal.
The moment when most futuristic systems go to shit is when they start adding skin-tight body suits that can stop common pistol calibers.

The moment something like that becomes a readily available thing, the nature of crime in a setting changes. Just as a hypothetical to consider, dropping armor like that into you typical 90s urban avenger setting would result in gangs (not the mob/mafia/international drug lords, "professional criminals") forgetting about pistols, and really, the idea of concealing weapons in general. They'd just get all organized and do jobs with hunting rifles and shotguns until they've got the money for intermediate caliber sporting rifles. Things that can penetrate armor. Getting organized implies they'd start worrying about cash flow, and that leads into getting proper accounting.
And then they just become the organized criminal groups who can afford to give everyone 5.7s and $0.50 bullets.

Armor like that forces a divide between criminals. They either get high-tech like I outlined, or low-tech with baseball bats and more thugs, because ballistics armor doesn't help against that.
Which is Cyberpunk as a setting really, as Gibson outlined it. High-tech or low-tech. Rich or poor. The middle ground is dead and gone.

I know you can use both but the first thing you implied is what I was getting at with my rant, more so when you consider how crazy the level of augmentations you can receive and yet somehow you can fix have of this stuff in your garage instead of a multi-billion dollar surgical room with high level doctors

Agreed. This also goes into another meta discussion of melee weapons alongside firearms.

I mean, if you're dealing with street level stuff it's more common that a group of dudes jumping might be armed with shit like baseball bats and crowbars and a few pistols with the occasional shotgun and not military grade weapons.

I think when people talk about this sort of thing they always hyperfocus on how practical it is to not use a weapon in a military sense rather then the fact that you are usually in a regular social scene where shit might pop off in a bar or something and your dealing with random dudes who don't have military training.

It's a good point about setting design. When four points and a bit of starting cash for a 9mm handgun gives you (and any NPC) a sufficient degree of lethality, then there's no need for hyperoptimized combat builds. You put your points into other stuff, and challenges tend to favor situations where the players avoid having to expose themselves to deadly force and using it themselves.

The most hamhanded combat monster oriented games tend to be the ones where you either have gun control of some kind, or easy access to defenses against guns. Is where you need lots of character points or money or both to deliver enough firepower to win the encounter that your builds don't leave enough room for being able to do much else.

Can anyone explain the whole sharp edges on clothes/visors thing? Is it based on some kind of existing/projected tech or is it just the new neon?

Mainly the new neon.

You could say that it's armor or stealth or something. The facets look high tech and somewhat reminiscent of stealth fighters. It looks a little like a computer wireframe model, which again says "tech" to the viewer. It's also a nice departure from the skintight bodysuits that are kind of a cliche (albeit an awesome one).

This is a good point. In a system where combat isn't the primary goal but combat is dangerous there should be otherways of dealing with combat or somehow avoiding it so you actually use the other skills on the list.

Even in real life you don't see people rolling around with heavy weapons and armor at all times ready to fight other combat monsters but shit like Shadow Run normalizes the idea that you can literally walk down the street with a rocket launcher and people don't as much bat an eyelash at it.

It's been a while.
I believe it's a degenerate offshoot of techwear, out of a Japanese label, for people who want to look flashy instead of caring purely about the superiority of their materials.

The visor is typical of cyberpunk, although the design is likely taken more from existing VR than other sources. Which is why it's so front-loaded and heavy-looking.

Another reason to try Transhuman Space. The third wave developing economies, especially in the TSA are pretty cyberpunky. There's combat, but flashy weaponized cybermods are easily detected and close far more doors than they open. Plus simple handheld weapons are usually more than lethal enough.

The fifth wave superpowers like America, China or the EU are a very different story. Very clearly post-cyberpunk. But a game in Africa, South America, Southeast Asia, or the mafia-run dystopian remains of Canada would be very much the classic cyberpunk setting.

It's been a fashion meme for some time now brehs

I figured as much, just wasn't sure if it DID have some practical explanation I missed (the stealth thing for example seems plausible). Actually, if in universe stealth gear DOES look like that, civilian fashion copying the design doesn't seem to far fetched, like military inspired clothing people wear today.

I wasn't talking about her visor though, I can understand the source of that. I mean headgear where what we would have as a smooth piece of glass is similar to the design on her shirt (see pic for what I meant). This one I thought might have something to do with sensors or radar.

No clue, but I love unnecessarily angular paramilitary shit.

...

...

...

>mafia-run dystopian remains of Canada

wait wut

These are stupid looking, impractical and over designed, and I love them.

>['day of the rake' meme intensifies]

me too

...

welp time to download transhuman space then

Reading the wiki page about it I appreciate the fact it doesn't gimmick it's way into the setting the way Shadowrun or EP does. The dystopia is a natural consequence of the setting and the world goes on.

I really love the 'gun with chicken legs' design

You really have to read Transhuman Space for it to make sense. Basically, Quebec secedes, joins the EU. The rest of Canada refuses to join the USA, but also isn't a viable economy on its own, so it collapses. Mexico is healthy if not quite prosperous, but the Canadian border is a never ending source of drugs, smuggled weapons, illegal surgery clinics, proscribed bioroids, and human trafficking... all masterminded by the nefarious Maple Leaf Syndicate.

Pulver does a great job writing it to take a seemingly ridiculous idea and make it plausible. He and Kromm are Canadian themselves.

It's not really a dystopia at all. Some parts are pretty damn utopian by our standards (though they don't see it that way). But the shitty places are pretty straight dystopian cyberpunk. They were going for "realtopian" and while real history didn't work out as planned, it was pretty damn solid future history.

So any interesting "Noir thriller but in the future" novels come out lately? I loved The Water Knife and The Nexus Series, and Science fiction is getting really hard for me to read usually unless it isn't written like sci fi. Plus I love works that capture the current zeitgeist really well, and Nexus and The Water Knife read like things I would read on VICE news in 30 years

The issue I do take is the idea of breeding bioroid slaves that do everything.

While I have no doubts real life rich people are so far removed from daily existence that poor people are not even considered people it falls into the same sort of super exaggeration that doesn't make sense in Elysium where the technology to build a functional space colony and cure cancer in 2.5 seconds is possible but the ultra elites of society seem to actively try to kill off all the plebs if only through neglect

Depends who it is. Pick the appropriate weapon for the person, be they prisec, cop, strike team, gangbangger

>Gimme more grunge and grime and neon streets.
>You buy some third-hand motorcycle boots. They are heavy, armoured, and have good grip. The right one has a concealed knife in the shin guard. There is an odd smell, the insole seems to have a damp patch.
Grimy enough?

No flechettes? for shame

pretty interesting read especially the massive buildup of events.
>chinese hegemony
>Fractured European union
>rise of a neo muslim ottoman state
>United states fighting its way back to the top
>Brazil lead south american superpower
And then theres africa where pretty much no one does anything. I'm completely ignorant to this but is it really that inconceivable that an african state would be able to influence world politics even with such a large scale political shake up

Those models look absolutely miserable. I feel bad for them.

>is it really that inconceivable that an african state would be able to influence world politics even with such a large scale political shake up
Of course it could happen. It just didn't in this setting.

Fashion designers are one step removed from serial killers. They like models that look dead.

Would you include a fashion designer as an enemy (probably a minor one) in a cyberpunk game?

Perhaps you make like and be acquiring them for one corp over another? Perhaps you steal, spoil to the fashion world, or physically ruin their latest design? Maybe you have to promote your (employers) designs over theirs, win a trend war? Maybe they design cybernetics and are doing terrible things to get models that look "just right". Or they could just be an actual serial killer.

Has anyone played this? It sounds like the pure cyberpunk system people have wanted.

I never had one CP2020 game that was about operators operating operationally. The characters were always dirty but competent street punks.

Group 1 - The Regulars:
Ex-hockey player from Sokol Krasnoyarsk
His buff punk sister
Serbian bodybuilder-addict
Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski black poser
A guy who's name we never knew
A master of BDSM
Fashion-concious and eccentric netrunner
Jinxed Techie

Group 2 - The Best Enemies:
Dealer addicted to its own products
Super handsome guy with blond hair
Black dude who tried to be more handsome than the blond guy
Nazi sympathizer
Polish punk nicknamed "The Junkie with the Acid Breath"

Group 3 - The Edgelords:
Psychopathic netrunner
Perverted techie faking being handicapped
Drug-addicted eurosolo

Group 4 - Grindhouse Crew:
Rockabilly, Mexican guy
Arab nomad

>I'm completely ignorant to this but is it really that inconceivable that an african state would be able to influence world politics even with such a large scale political shake up
There's Degenesis. Otherwise, Africa will never be relevant.

Cyberpunk is about contrasts:
- Cops and gangs from the slums are all equipped with old and outdated equipment like vintage Glock's, beat-up surplus M4A1, cannibalized vehicles, unreliable technology, cumbersome armor (plate carriers, kevlar helmets...), primitive cyberware, etc.
- Crime syndicate elite enforcers, and corporate security personnel (contractors) are equipped with state-of-the-art equipment like smartguns, railguns, thermo-optical camouflage, high-tech armor, cutting-edge cyberware and technology, UAVs and aerodyne gunships.

>is it really that inconceivable that an african state would be able to influence world politics even with such a large scale political shake up

Very unlikely. Africa has never in history had much geopolitical importance, economic weight, influence on other continents (cue mention of Musa of Mali, probably the lone event), with the possible exception of South Africa when it was run by whites. Africa's population was pretty tiny too until the 20th c. when it ballooned because of better nutrition and western health care.

If you want a more fantastical take on an African future you can read Trinity or Interface Zero, who both posit a powerful Africa.

Africa can only be relevant in post-apocalyptic settings.

Apart of the old and boring USA, Japan and Europe cyberpunk settings are there any alternate settings (China, Russia, India, Israel, Mars colonies...)?

Why are katanas and the like so prevalent in cyberpunk?

Because during the 80s and 90s when cyberpunk was on the rise, Japan was a big deal culturally and was on track to take over the world in technology. That's why so much cyberpunk imagery features kana or kanji.

This thread lacks images

...

...

I remember watching a Russian cyberpunk LARP. There was lots of running around bombed-out concrete buildings and getting in and out of office buildings to hack stuff. Everyone was wearing black in different styles, with plenty of goggles and fake AKs and fake UMPs.

Russia is a pretty cyberpunk place.

Decided to build two characters, one using the point-buy system and one using the dice generation system. Got some pretty interesting results. The random character was slightly weaker; 52 points compared to the built character's 60.

Also, building them, it looks like most of the better armor types don't cover the legs, though there's only a 5/36 chance of randomly hitting them, and called shots are pretty difficult unless you're a highly-skilled character shooting at short range.

Also, I think the range table might be a bit fucked. A modern US Army soldier needs to be able to hit a target 300 yards (900 Feet) away 50% of the time to pass their marksmanship course; that's at Long Range (and thus needing a 25 to hit); with Advantage from aiming and a gun with +1 Accuracy (like the obvious M16 knockoff), that's still needing a Skill+Attribute score of 16-17 - that's roughly peak unaugmented human (Reflexes 6-7 + Skill 10).

Derp, forgot pastebin with character sheets.

pastebin.com/sG8bEiL7

>thermo-optical camouflage
It's 'thermoptic'

It is wrong to take distance as basis for ranged combat. What is more important is how you're shooting. Aimed shooting is much simpler than instinctive shooting. This should be the basis. Range should be a modifier.

Maybe in English.

>are there any alternate settings (China, Russia, India, Israel, Mars colonies...)?

Plenty, in novels. The Chung-Kuo novels have China dominating the world, The Diamond Age is post-cyberpunk China, When Gravity Fails is cyberpunk North Africa, Ian McDonald's River of Gods and Hyderabad Days show a cyberpunk India and his Brasyl novel is a great take on a cyberized Brazil.

...

...

One difficulty with more exotic places is to find names. I'd love to make a campaign in India, but I have trouble finding cool sounding names.

...

>The random character was slightly weaker; 52 points compared to the built character's 60.

You'd have to roll a dozen or more randoms and average the results for a truer comparison.

Armor might need some tweaking, yes.

>A modern US Army soldier needs to be able to hit a target 300 yards (900 Feet) away 50% of the time to pass their marksmanship course;

True, but the system's designed for close-range urban firefights by individuals, not group-formation combat between large armies at long ranges, which is what US Army training is for. "Range" conflates both range and positioning, assuming people are already moving, aiming, positioning, re-aiming, etc. It's an abstraction, not a realistic combat simulator. It also roughly follows the original CP2020 rules, maintaining compatibility.

In practice, the system is quite deadly already as is and reducing the range figures would mean half your PCs will be dying in every combat. None of my players have ever had problems hitting things with firearms and combat monster builds are not hard to create. We really don't want to replicate real-world casualty figures from real wars in an action game.

...

>>I'd love to make a campaign in India, but I have trouble finding cool sounding names.
>He's never been to Cumbum Lake!

I've never been to India. Only flew above it.

Also, the Augmentation upgrade table's not totally clear. If you want to get an Aug that's got two arrows pointing into it from different nodes, do you need both of them or just one?

Not the guy you were talking too. I agree with you and it's your game.

In my opinion, nevertheless, the main factor in shooting is how you shoot - aimed or instinctive. And it's very easy to implement. Mike Pondsmith took as basis for his combat system anti-aircraft artillery (it's not a joke). My basis is actual combat and target shooting.

A sniper aiming at an unsuspecting target would have a basic TN of 12 or 15 for his shot - no matter if the target is at 100, 200 or 300m (anyway you have to aim at this distance). A SWAT guy entering a room after breaching should have a base TN between 20 and 25. Stuff like range, optics, smart gun interfaces, extra long aiming period, called shot... can be added later.

Both. Thanks for the bug submission. That chart needs updating too. It's a work-in-progress.

Pretty trash tier
>China being the superpower
>WWIII happening without nuclear exchange

It's pretty clear that the author has a highschooler's understanding of geopolitics if he thinks that China will be the dominant power of the 21st century.

Their population has already peaked, which is what killed Japan's economy in the early 2000's. On top of that they've been running their economy way too hot in a rush to become dominant. Their economy stock market has been a rollercoaster over the past few years, with the government having to freeze it periodically.

On top on top of that they've got a housing bubble so big it'll make 2008 look like a kid's game. They've been subsidizing construction companies to keep everyone employed to the point that they're building ghost cities for millions of people in the middle of nowhere. And there's no real sign that they'll stop. Government says the want housing for 3.4bn people.

Manufacturing has also pretty much run it's course in China too. With the middle class expanding, and workers slowly getting more rights, a lot of factories have already started moving to other countries in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia.

Unlike the United States, China isn't a nexus for innovation. It's a very undesirable place to live (because the air is poison, which is a whole different issue), and there's very lax IP laws, so entrepreneurship is pretty stagnant. It's not like here in the West, where startups can breathe new life into the economy.

The PRC is basically a dead man walking.

I think the setting would be more interesting if China did implode in the 20's/30's, and now a there's lawlessness, venture capitalists trying to make something from all the freed up capital, huge slums hyper-pollulted slums, gang wars in the ghost cities, and a bunch of old fucks that are nostalgic for the PRC. What could be more cyberpunk?

When gravity fails has my favorite protagonist from any book ever except for maybe Roy Cadey from Galveston by Nick Pizzalotto

Setting aside the petty insults, I'm aware of your points, some of which are correct and some of which are not.

>Their population has already peaked,
That's why they're pursuing capital productivity improvements. Yes, their economy has been hot, with very high (perhaps too high) capital investments, but that's b/c China's capital stock per capita is still very low. HSBC reports show they still have ample room for both absolute growth, housing growth and per capita productivity improvements.

>which is what killed Japan's economy in the early 2000's.
That wasn't what "killed" Japan's economy, which entered a stagnant period in the 1990s, but that's another discussion.

>On top on top of that they've got a housing bubble so big it'll make 2008 look like a kid's game.
Probably true, but still debatable. Housing demand is still steady in major cities and there are still many tens of millions of people who need better housing. The sectoral placement of the housing may be the problem, not aggregate construction and demand.

>Manufacturing has also pretty much run it's course in China too. With the middle class expanding, and workers slowly getting more rights, a lot of factories have already started moving to other countries in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia.
True, but that just means China is moving up the value-added chain, which makes their economy _more_ powerful, not less.

>China isn't a nexus for innovation.
It wasn't 10 or 15 years ago, but China is moving very rapidly up the innovation indices. But that's beside the point really. China is stealing so much innovation paid-for by other countries, through hacking, tech transfer, forced partnerships and other means, that it's basically getting over $1 trillion worth of R&D for free. That's an incredible subsidy, one which has allowed them to leapfrog other countries and devote more resources to actual infrastructure. We'll see how that works for them under a Trump administration. con'td

con'td.

What's being ignored by many pundits is that China has some great strengths that could be deciding factors in a confrontation with the USA.

>Largest manufacturing base in the world, 15% larger than US's now. By comparison, in WW2 the USA had a manufacturing base that was 11x larger.
>Largest shipbuilder in the world
>Historically very low military spending, plus a PPP advantage. China spends an estimated 1.5% of GDP on its military, versus 4.5% in the US, with at least a 2.5:1 PPP advantage on military spending (with some exceptions such as jet engines). By matching GDP% spending they could have a larger military budget than the US
>Military technology on par and in some cases perhaps even exceeding American tech in most sectors, such as ship hulls, missiles, anti-satellite lasers, hypersonics, cyberwarfare, quantum comms. See recent RAND report. Weaknesses in: long-range logistics, aerial refuelling, ASW, jet engines, CVNs.
>Closeness of geography, concentration of force in the western Pacific, versus dispersion of US military across the world.

>I think the setting would be more interesting if China did implode in the 20's/30's, and now a there's lawlessness, venture capitalists trying to make something from all the freed up capital, huge slums hyper-pollulted slums, gang wars in the ghost cities, and a bunch of old fucks that are nostalgic for the PRC. What could be more cyberpunk?

I already made a setting like that, called Neon Twilight. Hunter-Seeker was a different take on the future, a more pessimistic one for the USA and the west in general. The USA "losing" a war (actually a stalemate) in the same way Russia lost to Japan in 1905 was one of the premises, partly in order to create a more fractured USA.

But I'd be interested in hearing more of your thoughts about how to make the setting interesting, so go ahead.

Oh, hey. My dad lived not too far from there for a while in the '60s.

Adrian Dadich = #1 cyberpunk artist