I have a really good idea for a setting for a campaign in a RPG...

What are you asking then?

It can clearly be done - a lot of the themes match up, and there's lots of parallels, so what do you need to make it work?

Are you looking for inspiration for characters, NPCs?
For corps?
On how to do cyberspace?
What to have prohibited, or causing a lot of violence?

I need help mostly fleshing it out and to create the setting. I mainly do soft/medium sci-fi. This'll be my first hard one.

>a cyberpunk world taking heavy inspiration from the roaring 20's

Meat-easies.

With the invention and uptake in synthetic meat, the enviro-hippies, PETA, and McDonalds got together to outlaw meat.

The number of cows, pigs, and chickens was drastically reduced, although milk and egg farms still typically have a side business.

But of course people still like to skirt the law, flaunt their wealth, so unlicensed restaurants are a common thing.

For the love of god have a serious discussion with a programmer/SW engineer/computer security expert before you do something absolutely retarded.

Let me read through the thread and I'll try to answer any questions you've got.

>Rich hedonism
VR

>marred by memories of a traumatic conflict
Iraq

>and the oncoming collapse of society.
Trump

So any sort of cyberpunk implies hacking.

Well we're there. Hacking and leaks and data breaches are a common thing these days. But realize that it's fully possible to be secure. It's only those that are lazy/cheap/incompetent that are vulnerable. There's the occasional fuckup like the podesta email where the IT sysadmin had the simple typo of omitting "not" from "That's a legitimate email" coupled with the dumbasses that use unsecured systems.

The takeaway is that knowledgeable professionals and those that employ them and give them a real budget are typically not hackable. Hackers aren't' gods.

But a magical zero-day exploit that allows for remote root access on a linux system is the perfect sort of thing for a novel or story-line. likewise with the mass-market shit like the Heart-Bleed exploit.

>For the love of god have a serious discussion with a programmer/SW engineer/computer security expert before you do something absolutely retarded.
Don't listen to this idiot, there's a reason nobody wants to play RPGs with him.

Technical compotence is somewhat common, but human stupidity is universal. The easiest, simplest, and most effective hacks to pull are essentially con jobs: convince them you're someone who should be given the information/access you want, and you won't have to bother with their security, because you'll be handed the keys straight from the horse's mouth (to mix metaphors).

>For the love of god have a serious discussion with a programmer/SW engineer/computer security expert
Don't do this - concentrate on making hacking fun, interesting and integrated into the game, rather than realistic.
Maybe make sure you're not using words blatantly wrongly, but otherwise, don't sweat it.

Also this - a lot of the time, non-technical ways of intrusion will work better than any code.
Tricking, buying, or beating the information out of people is a lot easier than trying to break in through systems specifically designed to stop you breaking in

Cyberware, especially sensies/skillsofts - where you plug in experiences or skills - might be a good thing to have moral panic over.

Organised crime really took off in the 20's, maybe you want a new drug or two to be prohibited

Okei. I am guessing it is a long used drug like LSD or something similar banned.

It's your setting mang, you do it how you want - but I'd probably make something up, makes it easier all around.

One thing that's notable about prohibition, other than all the crime it sparked, was that it was also a move against the political organisations that worked from clubs. Whether that'd be worth keeping is entirely up in the air, of course.

The 20s was also the decade that "pop culture" as a mainstream thing took off - a futurised 20s could have a big pop cultural/informational shift - and that could be your cyberspace, if you want.
Or maybe that doesn't fit, y'know, with the internet existing.

Oh, did I mention I liked the car in your OP pic? I do, it's rad AF, and feels a nice fit for low key very near future cyberpunk.

Actually, that's a good question, how near-future do you want to be?

That'd help for fleshing it out a lot, how tied do you want the setting to be to where we are now?

In cryptography, rubber-hose cryptanalysis is a euphemism for the extraction of cryptographic secrets (e.g. the password to an encrypted file) from a person by coercion or torture—such as beating that person with a rubber hose, hence the name—in contrast to a mathematical or technical cryptanalytic attack.

I am expecting it to be about 50-100 years in the future. It is hard sci-fi, no FTL or xenos.

I am really expecting it to be a more modern version of bioshock 1912.

I had actually heard that.
I'd also heard "lead pipe", and I was reasonably sure it was a joke about the choice of weapon.

I wonder if bribing secrets out of people has a "cryptanalysis" name

Brings to mind a line from the opening paragraph of Johnny Mnemonic
>If they think you're crude, go technical; if they
think you're technical, go crude. I'm a very technical boy. So I decided to get as crude as
possible.

Just remember, in a technical world, it's sometimes very difficult or... technical to go crude.

>milling your own shotgun shells out of brass stock

You've also got to remember that Johnny was countered by some very... technical moves

Oh sure, on both counts.

Go crude: deliver a bootlegged (literally) shipment by racing it across the city in a souped up car

But you've got to be technical: getting your hands on a car that's not self driving is pretty hard these days. Getting your hands on one that's not got GPS is nigh impossible.
Souping on up an hacking the systems so it thinks it's doing 34 in a nice residential burbclave when really it's doing 110 through an industrial estate is more than a little technical

...

I agree that this is a great concept, especially if cybernetics and biomods are banned but widely used anyway as a callback to Prohibition.

However, I would also like to masturbate to a picture of a flapper girl with a cybernetic arm. So can we please just embrace the healing power of "and" here?

Going low tech is easier than you would think. There's all sorts of improvised firearms out there. Gunsmithing is a hobby like any other, and one that becomes very valuable in the criminal underworld.

As far as transportation, it's hard to hide a classic car in plain sight, but a bike is a bike to most people.

Hardwired is pretty inspired by the 1920's. You have panzerboys that are basically cyberpunk bottleleggers transporting liquid-crystal hearts and guns instead of alcohol. The earth is in a economic and social depression. There was a short but terrible conflict the earth dramatically lost, and that has marked a whole generation. The orbital blocks are powerful organizations that are a mix between classic megacorporation and organized crime. Politicians and police are completely corrupt.

Man, I love Hardwired's setting, and yeah, panzerboys and the deltajocks before them are definitely some sort of spiritual descendant of prohibition-era bootleggers - though most often what they're shipping is just drugs in the medicinal sense.

I think cybernetics are more likely to be limited than banned - if you want good control they're not easy to make, but limbs unlocked and powered up far beyond what's legal, or even safe.

Biomods, and black market organs in general, on the other hand, are definitely something that makes sense to ban and have an illegal trade in.
Actually, seeing how organ transport is one of the legitimate reasons for emergency vehicles that are two- or even single-seater and very, very fast, it's not exactly a stretch for organleggers to have hypercars and the requisite chases.

>Gunsmithing is a hobby like any other
Well it's a hobby like chemistry, or growing plants - the law may have issues with you if you do it in certain ways or for other people.

But yes, highly valuable as a skill, especially in the criminal underworld

>flapper girl with a cybernetic arm
Anyone got this?