Any ideas for spicing up a cyberpunk adventure/setting for some jaded mofos who've done it all?

Any ideas for spicing up a cyberpunk adventure/setting for some jaded mofos who've done it all?

Any side quests, weird NPCs or interesting locales would be helpful.

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Vampires.

well, there's always the run-that-goes-through-a-weird-sex-party.
Midgets riding motorcycle women and whatnot.

Give us some details about your Cyberpunk setting.

What type of people are in charge?
What are the cities like?
How is the world?

It ain't cyberpunk until they shoot up a bunraku parlor.

Good for about 4 minutes of larfs, tops.

Non-magical cyberpunk, fragmented USA, more government control, kind of like GITS.

Nothing supernatural. World is more realistic than stock CP2020 or SR.

>Nothing supernatural.
The rulebook also contains for cybernetics that mimic vampirism. You could actually do a switcheroo: have the players think that it's supernatural but it turns out it's really some freaky megacorp/underworld/black ops project gone awry

Nothing would stop you from starting introducing horror stuff (like in FEAR) or psy powers (like in Akira).

You could also have weird adventures in some bizarre virtual reality.

Dark Metropolis and Grimm's Cybertales could give you some inspiration.

Read Fairyland, rip off wholesale.

Not a bad idea for a switcheroo. Only problem is that the players are familiar with vamps et al. via World of Darkness games. Not sure if this would fit their preconceptions to their liking.

The McAuley novel? Yeah, that had good ideas...if only I could remember them now.

Give them reasons to go outside the stereotypical cyberpunk city. Maybe the best place to hide illegal stuff is not in a safe or on a computer server but in physical caches in the wide-open spaces between the cities. Maybe there's a city built around an important mining operation in a completely inhospitable environment, like underwater or on an asteroid, where nobody lives all the "inhabitants" operate drones remotely from somewhere else. Maybe have the PCs try to do a run on an arctic seed vault to recover samples of an almost-extinct plant that can be used to make some kind of amazing drugs, and the vault is full of heavy military equipment to establish order after a global disaster.

Don't put vampires - everyone knows vampires, werewolves and zombies. Put hungry ghosts, restless spirits, nexus of negative energy, demons from other dimensions who entered our reality through the matrix, or genetically engineered super-soldiers. Lights start to flicker, cyberoptics start to have glitches, communications are scrambled, all sounds suddenly disappear, smartguns shutdown...

>Yeah, that had good ideas...if only I could remember them now.
Genetically engineered not-humans, pheromones, main character designs designer drugs

Cybervampires who feed on the powercells of augmented individuals

laaaaaaame.

The problem with ghosts, demons, and other intangible supernatural dudes is that there's no rules. The shapeless, invincible force of evil can do whatever it wants to you and you just have to wait and see if it spares you, because there's fuck all you can do to fight back. One of my players calls it "Twilight Zone bullshit." When the enemy is limited by the same laws of physics as you are, no matter how powerful it is there's at least a slight chance that you can overcome it somehow.

And anyway, cyberpunk shouldn't be about the supernatural or the impossible; it should be about the horrific consequences of what is possible and likely to happen. Things like being rendered obsolete, being disenfranchised or even enslaved, the things you value dying because they can't stand up to competition, losing your sense of identity, and having nobody you can count on to consider your needs except yourself.

sell it to the players as a post-apoc survival game, have tehm make characters for this kind of game and then run a post-apoc game wwith pockets of civilization, gangs, mutants, ruins and the whole shebang. Then couple of sessions in you atart hinting at some lights in the sky and such in a certain direction, they listen to other scavengers tales about this place, but make it far away from where they start, but not as far as they wouldn't be able to go on foot. as they get closer to the lights they begin to see less and less gangs, the ruins have less loot, and the people they find are better equiped (not in the sense that they have better pre-fall gear and such, but their clothes seem to be in pristine condition, they seem to shower more regularly and stuff). Then you give them the plot-twist, they arrive at a mega-city-esque place, full blown cybepunk. maybe this constrat will spark something on your players, since their charaters won't be a part of that world, give them reasons to go back to the outside after they begin to get confortable with the city and such.

>Tl;DR: just ripoff Neo-Scavenger

At times I daydreamed about this exactly, desu.

Generally I like to use gimmick Squads to spice things up in the Cyberpunk bedroom. Guys that use latex paint and chaff to mess with the PCs visibility. White phosphorus smoke grenades to fuck with thermals etc.

Guys that have tons of armor but are near immobile, then give them rollerblades and guns they don't have to aim to compensate. Dudes with rollers attached all over their armor with a third cyberarm /w built in grappling hook.

Basically. Just Smoking Aces a Run/Job and think of a shtick or gimmick each team of the mercs would have.

DO IT. Whenever this antasy campaign I'm running ends I'll probbaly pitch it to my group (omiting the cyperpunk parts)

If there's something like a new Cold War, there could be something like a MKULTRA 2.0 project.

No one said you cannot fight back. Maybe the supernatural isn't the enemy. It's simply there for some reason and it might go away. But I agree with you that supernatural stuff shouldn't be the main focus - though weird experiments (Cybercity O-EDO, Neo Tokyo - Running Man, Akira...) can absolutely. They're a staple of 1990s Japanese cyberpunk.

Run Cthuluh punk, don't tell them that's what you're running

I've done Bank Heists in small town Florida during a flood. New Orleans assassination job in a hotel. An prologue section where the PCs fought guerrilas in Brazil and Argentina. Planted a Nuke in Buenos Aires. Breaking into an Alabama Prison. A lone shed in the middle of a corn field guarded by a Dragoon(Big military cyborg). Breaking into a Biodome in Australia. Fighting Nazi Punks(Nazi Poser Gang) in a WW2 movie set. Assaulting an abandoned hospital that serves as a base for a gang of red mohawk guys. Stealing the Duesenberg from Jay Leno's garage.


My favorite Contacts are probably Raven, Grapevine, Queen and/or Farmboy, and probably Minigun Joe.

Raven is bodysculpted to look like a raven and talks in a screeching voice, makes Poe references. Runs a club usually.

Grapevine is an information broker. Never really talks face to face. Spent 30 years in a Russian prison where he perfected the art of toilet wine. May or may not be bodysculpted to look like a grapevine.

Queen/Farmboy are both hackers/netrunners/what have you. Usually there when the PCs start to need one but no one is currently playing one. Queen works with En passant, a group of high class mercs that can also be employed by the group to shore up an specialist weaknesses. King is Demo Man. Knight is sniper. Pawn is a CQC specialist. Bishop is a fixer/contact. Rook is just a rifleman. They also make decent bad guys for a job.

Minigun Joe is basically just Duke Nukem but often works as a Fixer/contact higher profile jobs.

I typically like to run my games in the deep south of the US. It kinda has a unique feel to it. Especially Louisiana.

That might be good. Cyberpunk in the countryside. Cyber-pharmers?

Adding horror or psionics or magic is kind of genre-mixing, and I wanted pure cyberpunk. It's true that Weird Experiments are a part of classic cyberpunk though.

Those are neat. Adds color to the NPCs.

When you say "done it all", can you give some examples?

And is that players or characters?
If it's characters, are they "muh operator" types?

has a good point, maybe take them out of the usual cites, maybe going full Hardwired with smuggling and stuff seeing as you've got a balkanised US?

>Take setting
>transpose it onto another culture
>adjust campaign to fit

Anyone have any aquatic cyberpunk art?

Kinda, but not really

Name: Mother Noose
-Milk run, One of those constant jobs
-Dumps, edge of barrens
PITCH: If you're hard up for work, there's this system where you register the street rats with an orphanage. The pay is next to nothing, but it's a gig.
NEED: Make a corporate bullshit pamphlet to give to the players. Also need a shmorgash board of alleyway maps.
"meet": Is a teller in front of a Aztlan's Mother Goose Orphanage LLC. "Did you read the pamphlet? Yeah, you go hunting for street urchins. Anyone under the age of 16 without a SIN." This orphanage gives them a "preliminary SIN" and an ankle bracelet. It's more of a orphan initiative rather then an orphanage. They send case workers around to check up with them now and then and uh, administer correctional therapies as needed. Each kid gets you 30Y. Yeah, that's right, just 30Y. The lady that hands you the biometric scanning gear and ankle-bracelets (which costs 300Y, and 10Y a piece, respectively) warns you not to just grab any kid.
"If they have family or caretakers of some sort, then we're technically not allowed to take them in, but we're still legally required to register them. Point is, we ain't paying for it. Not that we can tell, though. So if any parents come and complain, there's a fee taken out of your account."
-The actual session consists of searching around for kids, chasing them/tricking them/stunning them, and processing them.
-If the players just go around shooting gel rounds at kids, then there's eventually a cry of public outrage, the [CorpSubDiv] closes, and the players gain notoriety.

>Non-magical cyberpunk,
>Nothing supernatural.

Fuck yeah.

Only other "aquatic" things would be a couple of pics with a fishtank/undersea room

My group split.

...

eh?

Name: Scenic
-Common Italy, Affluent airports or however you get him to this island which is AAA or the barrens depending on how you look at it.
-Abduction
NEED: flesh out the Caderzone area. What and where Winston is.
PITCH: Johnson has a package he wants delivered over some borders. Matrix meetup.
MEET: We have 5 minutes on this line. Winston Truman McKenzie is hiding in N. Italy around Caderzone. Bring him to Kyto. I and my men will be waiting there to receive him and to make payment. 200,000 plus travel expenses.
PREMISE:
[Person] in [place], Get him/her to [place]
-Winston Truman McKenzie
British Politician, ex-boxer, ran a pub, switches political parties
-Caderzone is a comune (municipality) in the province of Trento in the Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, located about 30 km west of Trento. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 623 and an area of 18.6 km2.[1]
North Italy village
-Kytö is an island in Espoo, Finland. It's used by the Finish defense force for training and access is prohibited.
CATCH: HA, but in an odd twist, the Johnson meant to type Kyoto, Japan and didn't notice when he confirmed it was in Finland. The Johnson is incommunicado until he plans on meeting you in the Kyoto airport.
-So you have to abduct this wayward politician who betrayed a UK political party. He thinks he's scott free and is living the good life in scenic N. Italy. He puts up a fight. You're instructed to get him to this military training island in Finland, but there's nothing there. The Helsinki hellraisiers will burn your ass all the same for trespassing. At some point, the johnson calls you up and asks why you aren't in Kyoto. Get on a plane to there and all your troubles melt away as the Corp smooths things over. They will be angry at first about the delay, but eventually the Johnson apologizes, but won't pay any extra and won't pay all your travel fees. "the delay is forgiven".

That's pretty good.

SURPRISE GENRE-CHANGE. Or is it? If they're the discarded surplus populace that the elites simply can't be bothered to deal with, do they really have any hope of entering that world?

But now it's just boring cyberpunk

>Hates cyberpunk
>Posts in cyberpunk thread

>needing elves and magic to make cyberpunk interesting

Sweet. Thanks.

For weird NPCs I like to look up weird artistic music videos and imagine a character based on what I see

Because then it's no longer a backdrop for adventure and you have to focus on how fucking depressing it is with all this "corporations own you" narrative drivle, I just wanted cybernetics

You could just not focus on the depressing elements, you don't need fantasy for that. I don't recall any focus on corporations in Neuromancer besides Case's backstory, for example

That's pretty boss. Got any more details?

How about Lost Utility Tunnels of New Chicago? Go all underground 'n shit. Genegineered caterpillars and banned Republican cults. No wifi signald, all hardwired hacking.

>"corporations own you"
>no backdrop for adventure

Sir, I hate to be the one to break it to you... But you might just not be a punk.

Name: Social restructuring
-1-4 sessions/encounters
-Pure combat
-Highly visible, media attention
-Exiting may be difficult
NEED: City map for 4 locations. Fleshed out with buildings and people
MAP:
PITCH: This one sounds like a random assault strike. But it's on the edge of the barrens. A series of jobs with performance based pay. He's eschrowed an amount ahead of time, so the money is good. No meet, simple instructions are mailed straight to you."
MEET: You receive a message: "During week X you will receive gps coordinates on this comm. Go there and kill as many people as possible. The expected targets are your typical barrens scum; Bums, whores, and gangsters. Clear them out. Payment is 100Y a head. Do not engage police forces. You will have 16 hours before the next sortie"
PREMISE: A corporate boss gets some crazy ideas like cleaning up society. He wants to clear out the barrens. Now. This is seen as an atypical stance by the majority of the corporations. They really don't care too much about the low-lifes. They're a drain on society sure, but they're apart from our enclave and it's so cheap to pay a little bit of tax to keep the riff-raff more or less in line. Really if you destroy the barrens they'll just come into our neighborhood. So anyway, this guy has a shelf-life to him after he starts mucking about too much. In the meantime there is some serious dough to be made. He needs some jack-boot thugs to go on a killing spree.
CATCH: The media gets involved, the cops start defending the barrens, and then so do corporations in the form of runners hired to stop you.

Contrive a reason to be innawoods for a job for a few days/weeks, give them a chance to see what exists in those places outside of the cities and outside their world.
Start introducing some "I ain't gotta explain shit" level biotech bit by bit till they have a Gunther Hermann moment and see how it plays out.
A couple party members (or maybe the whole party, up to you) gets contacted with a chance to go corporate. Most likely in security given the nature of cyberpunk parties but could be anything. Could really offer a change of pace and tone, and allow for a different kind of environment to operate in while keeping the familiar elements of the setting and still going back to them regularly.
Blackout, riots, etc.

>side quests
A new CEO or VP has come into power and one of his colleagues fears a purge - they want to get out of their company, and they want you to extract them.
"Their" security isn't in on this, they're more loyal to the new CEO.
The fleeing exec thinks they can find a position at another company, buying their way in (and protection) with their former company's secrets.
Said secrets are incredibly valuable, potentially - enough to really shake up the markets.
There's also the possibility that the secrets he's got are known about by others in his corp or have been/might be altered - you need to be on the lookout for moles
The two companies are long-term rivals and there's near enough tension for a corporate war.

A seed AI escapes from a mega-corp's labs onto the internet. It knows basically nothing, but has super advanced learning algorithms. It's shaped by what it sees and becomes a living meme. In time, it begins to make its presence known; through patterns of repeating digits, through fake news articles, etc.

People begin to believe it is a god, and the PCs are sent to investigate a cult worshiping the living meme.

I actually really like doing this even in fantasy settings sometimes. Other adventuring groups can be fun, and you can make them gimmicky and funny or srs bsns as the game requires. It would work even better in a cyberpunk setting because you could have a few merc crews and semi-corp bastards that show up from time to time and can range from serious rivalry/grudge stuff to "its just business man".

It's funny how Shadowrun has had such an effect on cyberpunk RPGs that now people default to 'cyberpunk adventure = corporate dirty work'.

Task them with getting programme material for/defending a pirate radio station.

Truth. But it's just too easy to have the players doing things to get PAID.

And who has the money? The powerful.

I should have more campaigns where the players are anarchists punks.....

But I just know two of the players would throw a bitch-fest about forcing politics down their throats and they'd shoot up the radio dj's or something.

Kind of is, though for I'd totally give the players options and encouragement for a non-violent method, as one of the inspiration sources (New Rose Hotel pastebin.com/EXB6nxP2) doesn't get violent on the PC's side

. . . The hell? One of the characters betrays the party and betrays them by killing off the entire research team.

If your setting it in a future version of where you live, inverting rich/poor areas can be a lot of fun. For instance, my group is based in the Seattle area, and I started the campaign in a Mercer Island/Bellevue (for those that dont know, Mercer Island and Bellevue are two of the richest areas in the region) thats turned into a gigantic refugee camp in the wake of the Yellowstone eruption (the games start date was August 5 2098).

People (possibly including one or more PCs) have been discovering tracking chips implanted under their skin. It turns out that they were put there by a megacorp's marketing division in order to get accurate data on consumer spending habits.

Can't go wrong with electronic old men.
youtube.com/watch?v=31gXeXHFleU

Try the fourth stimpire brah, it's some good shit.

In the last 500 years, the Fourth Stimpire has dominated four systems, which it has united into one starzone, Stimsis. The Fourth Stimpire has origins from the Ten Empire War in which 10 of the United Stimpires revolted against each rules. All empires except for the fourth swore freedom upon their citizens. There is no free speech in the Fourth Stimpire, and all self-controlled transportation has been made illegal without undergoing painful medical verification methods, in which arteries are severed without pain resistant, operated entirely by machines. The way they work claim to be the most hygenic and healthy way possible, but these machines often rub against pain points, causing great deals of pain to patients. The heart is then extracted from the body and placed into a glass grinding machine. Various energy centers are also dissected and replaced with dangerous transplants. After the painful, 52 hour surgical procedure, patients will then have to use a fused guidance tool, which pumps painful resistors into the body every 2 hours. The pain they have caused is so bad, the victim would freeze in a tense position. They would then collapse afterwards.

Sexual stimulation in any way within the grounds of the Fourth Stimpire is strictly prohibited, and anyone detected even touching their sexual organs will be subjected to a penectomy or if the offender was a female, they would then have a razor inserted into their ovaries. They would pump a blue solution into the womb until the stitchings burst. Offenders would also be forced to show their operated areas in public, and they would always harass and punch them to a pulp, against their will.

cont.

Otherwise, offenders would be tazed with the worst type of electricity in the systematic district, causing so much pain, the victim would scream and flail in madness. The pain would also triple every second, but no death would be incurred. This is also used in combat against enemy units, which is why all UEE forces must wear the upgraded suit to block this effect.

However, enertainment is also questionable in UEE grounds. Sporting events end with the losing team being rounded into a grinder and shredded on live television, boxing matches end with the loser having their hands removed without anasthesia, flight races would end with the losers having their arms and legs removed, then being injected with insanity, for entertainment. People are also forced into these events, by undergoing a painful 127 hour procedure which involves tweaking the muscles so they will not listen to brain commands, and then having a painful drug injected which also causes madness if the player is not sporting. This is all for entertainment, and anyone not watching any of it during sporting times and cheering for the winning team, they will be imprisoned into galactic camps.

Snuff films are also broadcast, and actors are actually murdered just for entertainment. Stealth droids also guide these forced actors into behaving exactly as the director dreams, otherwise they will be punished by being placed into a macerator and having their execution written into the film. Any film that does not feature someone being murdered will be burned and the entire crew behind it will be executed in the most grotesque way possible - vivisection.

All executions are broadcast, and anyone who misses even a millisecond, even by blinking, will be executed. All citizens must boo to the person being executed, and the family is gathered to be injected with eternators, which cause pain forever, making them immoral but feeling the pain tenfold every millisecond. They cannot pass out, but they will feel like it forever.

Conquests by this Stimpire end in the planet being razed, and all the citizens being executed in the same way as their citizens are. The planet is then destroyed and all remnants of it are removed, and any memories of it will be erased instantly from civil minds. People who are also killed are also erased from memories, and all memories of them, including toys and pictures, are destroyed.

Prisoners undergo 40,000 years of relentless and endless labor, and anyone not complying is sentenced to the eternator injection. All prisoners injected with eternators are placed into capsules and launched into far space, then the room is closed tight to ensure maximum insanity. Some prisoners are also subjected to the removal of blood, the lungs, the liver, the genitals, the skeleton, the muscles, the eyes, and even the injection of pressure. Prisoners sentenced to pressure chambers are locked in until they are inflated to a high level. The decompression is then stopped to make sure they are inflated and uncomfortable.

Children born on the 14th of July are subjected to the removal of their skeleton and an implant of a silver liquid to replace it. The nervous sysem is also injected in various parts to ensure it is five times more sensitive than the average.

Restaurants also are ordered to serve civil meat, and anyone attending must give themself up to be cooked into a grotesque meal. They are cooked alive, undergoing extreme pain, and are then subjected to industrial grinders and blenders. The Stimpire orders at least 1 million citizens to be dispatched every day, as they are afraid the population may overthrow them. But only one planet is cared for, and the rest are banned from eating, drinking, talking, using technology, touching anyone, wearing unauthorized clothes, touching buildings, or walking a centimeter out of designated routes. Civil enforcers are on every planet, and they are engineered so that they are 40 times larger than the 300 quadrillion population. At least 7 billion die every 12 hours under this rule.

Thoughts are also surveyed, and anyone who does not think anything to loving the Stimpire with more than their capabilities will be sentenced to a prison. Prisoners who are punished for this violation will meet their greatest fear, only to have it amplified so they will turn insane as they imagine it exactly as they fear it. They then undergo a painful extraction of all fluids, to be replaced by a toxin which causes permanent irritation. The unknown substance keeps the subject aging normally, except they will never die. Prisoners punished in this way are unable to be reverted, despite many efforts, and they will never be able to be disposed.

The sickening truths have been revealed only today, and invigilation teams are still investigating the truths without setting foot in the galactic space of this sickening empire.

That's the last of it, some random nutjob thing some dude on the star citizen forums made up.

1. Thats fucked up
2. How have they not exterminated themselves?

Trap the PCs in an Amish village that has super high tech advanced jamming/emp devices hidden all over the place so that nothing technological/electrical works there. No smartphones, no computers, no cyborg enhancements. Nothing. Then wrap it up in super impenetrable plot armor so they can't escape without completing whatever quest you have on hand.

I have no fucking idea, artificial wombs maybe?

So basically the mutants of Futurama, only instead of being genetic abominations, they are cybernetic abominations?

They get hired to extract a research subject from a corporate lab. The hirer reveals the target is 6 years old.

Target turns out to be genetically modified cow designed for increase yield.

Go home Peter Watts. Don't you have a novel to finish?

Interesting

Yeah, but the party wasn't violent at all

>that subtle Goku Midnight Eye reference
I like you user

So, like the alternate take on Mad Max?
It's not the post-apocalypse, it's just wednesday in 'straya.

>>weird NPCs
> Ambient black/doom/drone metal frontman.
Heavy cosmetic cyberware, instrument/amp built into it. Talks in a low, distorted voice constantly, with reverb enough to make the floor vibrate. Knows where to get the best new cyberware, drugs, and who's who in the underworld.

> Anime foxgirl
Works a handful of part-time jobs between being an operator. Ditzy, annoying vocal tic, rollerskates built into her cyberlegs, but knows everything about her regulars (anyone who's been to her workplaces more than a few times), guns, cosmetic cyberware, and where to get the best new booze hitting the market.
Never seen wearing the same outfit or hairstyle twice.

> Subculture market stall holder
Knows everything about the subculture; music, fashion, customers, suppliers, everything. Holds court in the middle of his store while the employees run around doing his bidding and serving customers. Nothing has price tags on, but he knows everything; he knows the price he bought it for, his margin, his overheads, and calculates it all in the space of a 10 second consideration and counteroffer.
He'll get you what you need, and what you want. And what you didn't know you wanted until he showed it to you. If you're not careful, you'll blow your credstick and still walk out without what you came for.

> Murderhobo
He used to be successful; wageslave office job, family that checked up on him and tried to set him up on dates, played DnD on the weekends. Then he got into BTLs, and steadily lost everything. Now he lives in an alleyway and fights monsters and hoards treasure.
The monsters are rent-a-cops, couriers, garbage bots, and other hobos.
The treasure is takeaway meals, people's amazon deliveries, and bags of garbage.
He wields a +5 vorpal flaming greatsword and wears full plate armour. He doesn't even know what bathing is at this point. He speaks like a Shakespearian actor unless confronted with a g-g-guh-girl.

Gurps transhuman space has all the technological elements of cyberpunk, but is upbeat and neither utopia nor dystopia. Just get the core book and run that setting with whatever system you're used to. Or gurps 4e, which is pretty damn good.

Cyberpunk as a setting is more about political allegory than future history. There's no issue with changing the tone and society but keeping the tech.

The player characters are AIs, designed as NPCs in a MMORPG virtual reality game. The game is getting old and with the subscriber base in decline, the developers are getting sloppy.

So it starts as a d&d style fantasy. Then the game starts glitching. Then they discover how to break out into the real cyberpunk future internet.

Eventually give them computer controlled bodies (robots or replicants) and let them discover the real world.

As antagonists, eventually have runners or corporate security realize what happened and try to clandestinely hunt down these uncontrolled emergent AIs.

So you're showing them cyberpunk through the perspective of someone who only understands medieval swords and sorcery. Try explaining to Boromir what a datajack is, or why software piracy is a capital offense.

A good example of this is the Mad Pierrot episode of Cowboy Bebop. It's a fairly grounded series that suddenly has this pseudo-supernatural dickhead wandering around for an episode being fucking terrifying.

I kinda posted that as a really long aristocrats joke, frankly. But at the same time there are probably elements of it you could use, or even the general theme could be adopted while not going to the ridiculous extremes that guy did.

Slightly off-topic but what are the best systems for a cyberpunk setting?
I skimmed the newest edition of shadowrun and it seems like a lot to swallow

Go Dr.Adder/Tetsuo route.

You can still use minor demons that are just as vulnerable as vampires.

It's just that their vulnerabilities won't be immediately known to the players or carry centuries of reverse double irony baggage.

Shadowrun is kind of a crap game system. It's mainly useful because the setting is so popular. It's cartoonish but compelling. And no I don't know why it works.

GURPS is a good place to go. You've got the operators operating tactical combat options if the game goes in that direction. If you stick to GURPS Lite you won't get drowned under all the options in the Basic Set. Designing custom cybernetics is pretty easy-- it's just a modifier on existing advantages.

Really most modern or sci fi rulesets are fine. Plus generic systems like FATE. Cyberpunk isn't really all that demanding from a game mechanics side.

Vampires are a great idea-- especially V:tM type vampires who manage to be more or less true to the mythology, powerful but still with important limitations and vulnerabilities, and instantly recognizable to the players.

Here's an easy idea: being undead, vampires can't accept cyberwear. Their "biology" just isn't compatible. Even basic shit like implants get rejected and healed away by the vampire's natural regeneration. So a chromed up player can compete with a vampire and so is different rather than better or worse. When the players don't realize what they're dealing with, that can be unsettling.

Ghosts are IMO a VERY cool idea. Take "ghost in the machine" literally. Again this has to be carefully planned in advance to be interesting and balanced.

Or you can head-fake by making the ghost turn out to be an emergent AI or uploaded personality. So the "poltergeist" is a mind emulation of a former owner of a house, secretly running on the home automation computer, and blindly acting out some final trauma like seeing it's meatspace original murdered or something. YOu can make the ghost thing entirely tacit and just use the dramatic forms of a ghost story.

>The problem with ghosts, demons, and other intangible supernatural dudes is that there's no rules.

That's only if you're in a game system that doesn't have rules for those things. Of course they have rules, even if the GM has to come up with them. Those rules might mean you have to change your tactics considerably, but they might also have limitations that a clever player can figure out and take advantage of.

For these and vampires, of course, the GM has to be careful to allow players to learn these limitations. It's very easy to play up the mystery but instead get a curbstomp campaign.

>And anyway, cyberpunk shouldn't be about the supernatural or the impossible; it should be about the horrific consequences of what is possible and likely to happen. Things like being rendered obsolete, being disenfranchised or even enslaved, the things you value dying because they can't stand up to competition, losing your sense of identity, and having nobody you can count on to consider your needs except yourself.

That depends on whether you're talking about creating a piece of "authentic" cyberpunk fiction, or just running a game in a cyberpunk setting. You're right that this is the classic cyberpunk message, but that doesn't mean that the GM has to play it that way. Especially if he doesn't share gibson/sterling/etc's assumptions about economics, ideology, and technology. Hell, even some of those guys moved on to post-cyberpunk in part because they wanted to repudiate some of the Luddism inherent in the genre.

Change messages? Sure, why not? Mix in another genre like horror? Sure, why not? A fun twist can be a fun twist. I get the value of purist cyberpunk, but that doesn't mean every game has to uphold that purity standard.

BTW, re: another reason to use a generic ruleset: the rules are already written for you and available for cross-genre mechanics like ghosts and vampires, whether you use them or not. So less work for you and the players aren't tipped off that you're going to include those rules until you actually haul them out.

>fake news articles
..mmhf something russian hackers mmhfg

HAHA, I like it.

Start it off with the players being some shop-keepers or people working at an adventurer's guild. Something that WANTS these obvious MMO-game-playing heroes' business.

But there's less and less heroes.

Some crazy bum gives them insight into how to enter the "MAGICAL ETHER" where they can go recruit new heroic souls. A new type of magic that involves a lot of puzzles. But they're good at puzzles.

But it turns out there are some demons in the ether that don't like when they break through the puzzles that were erected to keep them out.

>Star Citizen forums
Ah it all makes sense. That living hell isn't so bad compared to our reality and the fact the game's never coming out.
t. whale

Shadowrun is SHIIIIIT. But it's all everyone knows.

Cyberpunk2020 is even shittier.

I've heard eclipse phase is nice, but far FAR future crazy shit.

I've heard Interface Zero 2.0 is better, but I haven't found anyone willing to try it.

But VIOLENCE THE RPG is definitely the best system.

If PbtA stuff doesn't trigger your allergies, The Sprawl is pretty nice for Shadowrun style "operatives do missions for and against megacorporations for money and kicks".

Already cribbed Dr Adder. After all the grotesquerie the players wanted out FAST.

>t. whale
How...how much did you spend user?

You mean alternative facts?

Violence doesn't really fit a cyberpunk setting, unless you only want to play edgy and violent murderhobos.