Sup fa/tg/uys, I just played Hotline Miami, watched Scarface, then Driver...

>not listing The Miami Connection.

You're a piece of shit.

Huh I never made that connection. Probably because from the 60's up until the 90's the only thing you hear in pop culture about the period is communism and it's spread to the third world. Any insight your FBI acquaintance can give? Did the Russians just run coke or guns? Dide they fight with Cuban gangs or were they allies? How brutal were they?

Gonna bump this thread with all my favorite 80's shit until we get some bad dudes who want to talk about exploding helicopters and boat chases
youtube.com/watch?v=MV_3Dpw-BRY

youtube.com/watch?v=2o9SUPgyZRY

Watch Escape from New York my friend. youtube.com/watch?v=f1JYDmo19to

The documentary called 'Cocaine Cowboys' is required viewing my lad.

They were foolish for thinking they could stop Kurt Russel with an eyepatch
What are your guys' essential 80's weapons? Sub machine guns and katanas right? That was all that existed at the time?

You're forgetting the gatling guns commandos used in Latin America to fight Predators. I saw a documentary on it

I need to brainstorm various mooks and bad guys (an unironic term during the time in question) besides Yakuza, Ruskie mob, racially diverse street gangs and B film horror monsters

Does ANYBODY know what the name of the comic series set in 80's-90's Moscow is called? It involves two rival mobs fighting over territory via Coke and Pepsi, which was a fascinating and bloody rivalry in Russia? Lotta people died

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If your eyes don't hurt you're not staring hard enough

there were a lot of those rivalries during that time, but I don't know anything about Russia. In the US though, burger chains, soda brands and pretty much any other consumer product you can think of was pumping mad money into advertising which is why
this user's pic is fucking funny, because that would absolutely happen during the 80's
Also, I've always been a fan of paranormal sci fi shit, which is weirdly underrepresented whenever settings do the 80's thing. I mean, besides asian supernatural stuff like Big Trouble and various Ninja movies. That shit was over saturated in the best way

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To me, the 80's is defined by its music. You need to decide if you're playing early 80s or late 80s.

Early 80s means New Wave. Pop had gotten stagnant to the point of being calcified. With New Wave, you saw a huge wave of all kinds of weird shit being tried, openly defying the formula. Fashion was intentionally wild and weird, as was hair, attitude, etc. People were yearning to be DIFFERENT. (Early NW also intentionally picked over-produced fashion to parody materialism... before quickly being coopted by materialism itself.) The distinction between Punk and New Wave was very blurry at first and really only is clear in retrospect. Many acts saw the whole thing as one big movement-- different styles of rebellion from convention. Figure about 1979 to 1984, with two extra years in either direction if you want to stretch. To me, New Wave's day the music died was when Simon Lebon's voice cracked at Live Aid.

This period's king was David Bowie, and its queen was Debbie Harry.

Late 80s means hair metal, rap, and dance pop. New Wave had gotten exhausted. To some extent it ran out of ideas, to some extent people were tired of newness for newness's sake, and plus you had new acts jumping on the bandwagon trying to imitate successful acts before them. People were less self-consciously outrageous, they were starting to fall back into cliques.

King: Michael Jackson, Queen: Madonna

TV shows to check out: Knight Rider, A-Team, Manimal, Automan, Misfits of Science, Airwolf, Miami Vice, V: The Miniseries, Battlestar Galactica (the original!), 21 Jumpstreet, MacGyver, Moonlighting (early seasons only), Streethawk, Head of the Class

Oh, stfu and get the fuck back to /pol/ you idiot. Some of us saw the 80s first-hand.

Is that a bolter bottom right?

You're absolutely right, music sets the tone. I think New Wave is what I'm after? Would that be the synth heavy music featured in any neon vice fueled homage? I really do like the rebellion, experimental punky vibe for a setting. But fuck, how can I not include MJ?
By the way, I'm pretty sure this music video was shot in the same train station as MJ's Bad
youtube.com/watch?v=eu0KsZ_MVBc

I believe that's what happens when you put shotgun shells in an uzi

Search for NewRetroWave on Youtube

Is that... Milo Yiannopoulos?

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Saturday morning cartoons were a good source of the zeitgeist of the era. Federal regulations basically killed saturday morning cartoons, but at one time they were very, very big for kids.

Plus toy-derived after school cartoons like GI Joe, Transformers (and Go-Bots), MASK, He-Man, Thundercats, etc. The awesome Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. And the live action Land of the Lost. Mr T. Voltron (the lions). Muppet Babies. Pac Man. Superfriends. Fat Albert.

Oh, and in prime time? Amazing Stories. If you haven't seen that one, drop everything and binge watch it.

There were two big waves of cartoons in the 80s. Early on, bleeding in from the 70s, you had more primitive cartoons. Many were imports from Japan like Star Blazers and Macross. In those days, you could say anything you wanted on TV, and many of these shows had VERY adult themes and concepts that these days we're squeamish about showing kids.

Then came Tipper Gore (then-Senator Al Gore's then-wife). She lobbied heavily for federal restrictions on what you could show kids on TV and in music. Through laws, FCC regulations, and industry agreements meant to avoid regulations, basically a new era of cartoons appeared. That's when you couldn't show people dying, for example. GI Joe is a great example: when a tank blows up, you see people crawling out of it to safety. When a plane is shot down, there's the parachute. And everyone shoots lasers, not bullets.

So normally when we think 80s we think movies, but hopefully this gives you a broader canon to draw from. The 70s frankly sucked in terms of how the economy and politics and people's confidence in the future was. Then Reagan was elected, and he was seen as a crazy dangerous radical who was stupid and going to blow up the world... but also things started to get much, much, much better and so there was this whipsaw between fear of nuclear war and concern about all these problems in theory... but also prosperity and renewed confidence and optimism.

What you're look for is Swedish Simon
>Simon Stålenhag is a Swedish artist who has done concept art for film, commercials and video games. He's also half of the development team behind 16-bit platformer Ripple Dot Zero. You'll notice a theme running throughout his work. Like Super 8, if Super 8 had been any good.
It's all about ayyyliums my dude

>Then Reagan was elected, and he was seen as a crazy dangerous radical who was stupid and going to blow up the world... but also things started to get much, much, much better and so there was this whipsaw between fear of nuclear war and concern about all these problems in theory... but also prosperity and renewed confidence and optimism.
Lessons to be learned for the present, anons.

I was assuming you'd already seen Kung Fury, but you haven't, then you should.

Try at least seeing some Miami Vice episodes. But then try the soundtrack to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. They have a good collection already sorted by genre. Stick with early Michael Jackson if you must-- up to and including Thriller. Remember that pop was there all through that period: acts like Menudo, New Edition, and later New Kids on the Block. But early on it was a bunch of one-hit wonder New Wave acts that were in the driver's seat. There's a whole long list of nearly forgotten groups where the band name, the album, and their one hit that made the charts were all the same.

If you're aiming for Miami Vice as your feel, then you're right on the cusp where the early 80s turns into the late 80s. So less New Wave by that point, and more like the return of the more conventional acts. Even new wave groups were toning everything down.

By this point, synths were going towards those pop dance numbers that became overnight cliches (Rick Astley being the obvious example). In the 70s, electronica was Very Serious Experiments. In the early 80s, it was fun and crazy. By the late 80s, it was cliche, before spending the next 15+ years as VERY serious business in the 90s and early 2000s.

What you're aiming for is when it was cliche, but before it got good again. Or just stick with what sounds good to you. Nobody's going to call the Music Police on you. Listen to a lot of music and figure out what you like.

BTW a good example of this transition is the difference between early Police and then Sting's solo career. If you want I'll post some suggestions for good 80s music.

Oh fuck now you're taking me back. Man, fuck Tipper Gore. Fuck her so hard. Macross? GI Joe? You know how many cobra commandos I had in my goddammed toybox? (the red elite dudes, loved them)

Maybe but yeah let's just ignore politics and concentrate on Veeky Forums stuff.

I miss track suits. It was the singular perfect way to let people know you meant business. Not slavic business, but like, capitalist hit-you-in-the-knees-with-a-fireaxe business

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I had such a huge boner for Phobe Cates, 80's girls, while widely ripped on in retrospect, were hot as hell during the time

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I like this setting, but I want to put a twist on the quintessential action hero trope. Like yes, have the macho white dude duel wielding M16's and swinging through skylights on a rope, but I'd also like to see a multi-faceted asian chick and maybe an african mercenary with a compelling back story

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Blade Runner son

Don't forget to add xmen powers to your setting. It's not a revenge rampage until three guys unloading with koch's are blown through a wall by lazer vision

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>Pulp Fiction
>Released in 1994

It's got Bruce Willis but a late 70's vibe

Is it The Winter Men, komrade?

I want a pro wrestler protagonist who will fight Keith David.

Action movie is an entirely different genre. This is glam-crime, like you see in stylistic gangster cinema... or Miami Vice. Lots of high fashion, insanely expensive sports cars, speedboats, high test women: ill-gotten gains, and camouflage for undercover cops to adopt to fit in.

Here's the thing: by the time Miami Vice was on TV, this era was over. So your 1986-1988 aesthetic, with the tracksuits, rap, hair metal, and high concept everything, was anachronistic. You can absolutely do that. Nobody will complain. If so, go light on New Wave. By that point it was winding down and was gone from the club scene, especially for criminals.

If you're going more authentically for the cocaine trade, then aim for late 70s. That's when new wave and punk (and rap!) was born. It was all over the club scene and was mostly banned from radio. Mix in Miami Cuban music; this was an era when mostly Republican Cuban exiles were all first generation and fucking furious with Castro and communism. But the music scene was hot and distinctive. The rise of Miami Sound Machine marked the beginning of the end of that era. Mix in a larger Latino community.

Very late 70s marked the first hotdog smugglers using speedboats and private planes. The "drug war" had been on for years but it wasn't until the early 80s that law enforcement got the resources to take on the cocaine smugglers. A guy starting out fresh could end up buried in the cartels very easily. This lets you ramp up the challenge level as the campaign continues, regardless of whether the PCs are smugglers or cops, as each side gets more resources and sophistication.

This approach also lets you do the tonal shift from 70s to the early 80s to the late 80s. It would mirror the arc of the players.

You know how Apocalypse World has those "Principles" or "Agendas?" I think that would be a useful tool for making any game feel like it is inspired by the 80s.

As someone who grew up mostly in the 00s I thank this thread for teaching me that there is a distinctive difference between the early and late 80s.

Oh hell yeah there is. It's the same with the 90s.

I like Tron, that's always been my go-to for 80's nostalgia. The sequel was pretty decent, Daft Punk was in it and I hear they're going to tour for the first time since the stone age

words can not express the depths of my gratitude Hac вceх шoкиpoвaлa внeзaпнaя кoнчинa user пpими нaши coбoлeзнoвaния

Paint the Kremlin Red for me

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OP read prince of cats, it's like Romeo and Juliet but with samurai swords in 80's brooklyn

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>MP5
>M16 (not M4)
>sawed off shotgun
>AUG
>FAMAS
>chainsaw
>beretta M9 double wielded
>Uzi
>M60
>fire axe
>lead pipe
>remington 870
>jatimatic
>.44 magnum (no name, only calibre)
>minigun

bump for interest

>Blue Monday (razormaid remix)
youtube.com/watch?v=UCe_WRtUzGQ

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I'm gonna post things that AREN'T just blue and purple neons.

TAKE NOTES EVERYONE

Her is 60s as fuck though

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Things did not get better under Reagan.

Source: Lived through Reagan.

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so there you have it

actors
models
musicians

that's always the first place to look for character portraits

not approximative fanart of 2010s pastiches of ill-remembered 80s material.

Forgot Detroit, creep.

Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction are absolutely not from the 80s or linked with the 80s in any way.

What you need is (in no particular order): Miami Vice (all seasons), Scarface, Top Gun, Cobra, Rocky 3 & 4, Colors, Rambo (all of them), Invasion US, Lone Wolf McQuade, The Delta Force, Missing in Action, Bloodsport, Raw Deal, Commando, The Terminator, Predator, Wall Street, Black Rain, Red Dawn, Flashdance.

and the lost boys

>early 90s still pretty 80s
>mid 90s muh grunge
>late 90s y2k panic & X-Files

>not including the king of 80s action cinema

I want to pull that sweater the rest of the way off.

>no aliens, no they live, no the thing, no mad max 2, no beverly hills cop, no robocop

Feng Shui's shot clock system for initiative can be difficult to learn without some practice. Feng Shui 2 is overall fine, but:

-Removing the cyberpunk/sci-fi setting and replacing it with a post-apocalyptic setting seems to run counter to everything else the game is trying to do. If you plan to ignore the RAW setting and use it as an action-movie ruleset, this won't be a problem for you.

-Maybe I don't remember the original edition correctly, but while you would choose character archetypes, you still had some leeway in customizing them at creation. That's gone from Feng Shui 2 - you pick the archetype and its starting stats and everything is fixed, with customization only coming through experience. Not sure how much I like the removal of that, and I can see other players disliking having no input on their starting concept beyond what template they pick.

Same guy, one last point. Some of the terms they use make me cringe. In particular, you don't get experience, you "awesome up," and it's stupid.

That has no bearing on the mechanics, though.

OK for a Rambo-style action movie game, sure. This guy is aiming for Miami Vice and glam-crime. So the weapons should be expensive, sexy, and loud. Google Griselda Blanco and others who were in the miami drug trade to get some source material.

When you're doing a scene in colombia, then the mooks should all be toting Kalashnikovs of various kinds, mostly AK-47s and maybe some AK-74s. They should look like recently cleaned up guerillas, because that's what many of them are.

In America, the typical street criminal loser had a switchblade, butterfly knife, or "saturday night special" (a cheap revolver, sometimes the term is used for a very cheap automatic, too). A gangster in the United States by the height of the drug wars was using high ROF, low accuracy memeguns: Uzis and MAC-10s. Lots of rocking and rolling, little in the way of effective fire. Most gangsters were kids with no real military experience; a genuine vietnam vet with a military weapon really might take on a whole drug gang and win due to sensible tactics and their own untrained stupidity. This is an era with way more money than sense, and the drug gangs are too newly come to violence for darwinian selection to have kicked in yet; plus many USE coke; the effects of that on their common sense are predictable.

I'll never get over how hot that look is. I think it dates to Flashdance? If you watch these movies carefully, you'll see that these styles very clearly separate into early and late 80s looks. Microminiskirts come back in 1988-1990, and... just whoa. By then girls were trying to look more put together, less wild for the sake of being wild, and were toning things down and making them simpler, but no less sexy.

IMO if you're going to Glam Crime, then go for stuff like Less Than Zero, The Hunger, Bladerunner. High style, not gritty.

A lot of Rambo and Commando inspired movies were post-Vietnam "no, no, we really are tough!" fantasies. For a lot of America, even the ones who were protesting and wanted it, the idea that we could lose the war was unthinkable and left a lot more scars than they realized. So a lot of movies celebrated traditional macho values and one-man-armies that could win if only the hippies and politicians stayed out of the way. Lots of cop movies used those tropes, too.

Glam-crime was something else. Its spiritual father were the film noir and gangster movies of the 40s. But its immediate inspiration was the Godfather. Gangsters there were fashionable, philosophical, high concept. Scarface doesn't seem to follow that pattern, but it was very much in the mold of "criminal as fashion icon".

Of course, this really caught fire among african Americans. Celebration of the gangster artist fashionista caught fire late among them, but when it hit, it changed everything. Hence the difference between old school, mostly clean and aspirational rap, and the rise of gangstas. That coincided with the late 80s LA gang wars.

Or kiss her neck and shoulder gently. Many of those sweaters left bare midriffs, too, user.

Add a 'Freak Out' stat to characters that works kind of like sanity in CoC.

Doing lines of Coke, getting in bar fights and other such adrenaline fuelled feats all get you closer to a freak out, making you more effective in combat but mad and out of control.
Lower the freak out meter with calming activities such as skeeball, movies and Bowie.

>Talks about Simon Stålenhag on Veeky Forums
>Doesn't mention Tales from the Loop
Dude... maybe you didn't know? Well, I guess you'll enjoy this, then!

Something thats being neglected when mentioning the 80's is America's ninja boner. Their awesomely shitty, but the sho kosugi films, american ninja, etc... were fucking huge in the eighties.

I almost say the bad movies are slightly better indicators of the eras fashion, than the good movies.

Also as far as gangsters are concerned the scary Cubans and Jamaicans were some of the choice villains.

Although a lot of the movies have been mentioned I'm going to list my favorite 80's antagonists: Ivan Drago, the Terminator, Hans Gruber, Clarence Boddicker (Holy shit the extended scene where Murphy is gunned down is brutal.), Lo Pan, and the Axe gang. Generic mooks are going to be Russians, Vietnamese, and Columbians.

>Something thats being neglected when mentioning the 80's is America's ninja boner. Their awesomely shitty, but the sho kosugi films, american ninja, etc... were fucking huge in the eighties.
>I almost say the bad movies are slightly better indicators of the eras fashion, than the good movies.

Yes!

I think that's a legacy of Vietnam, too. Plus Japan looking like they were going to steal all our jobs and take over the world. China was still closed up, and India had been the meme country of the hippies, so now it was Japan's turn.

The Shogun miniseries came out around this time. Look up the failed one season TV show "the master".

Also this was an era when (again pre-tipper gore) you could see kung fu and ninja movies on Sunday afternoon TV. So martial arts was finally going mainstream and "secret superstyles" was still something people half believed in.

Veeky Forums spergs about the katana, but the ninja shruiken is probably the most egregiously overpowered weapon in ninja movies. It was like the 2nd ed Dnd darts meme come to life.

Maybe it was just where we lived but their was a store that sold ninja weapons, and parents didnt really seem to give two fucks about giving kids ninja stars and nunchucks.

The vietnam thing is due to the boat people, I believe. I know back in France we had a big wave of cambodians, laotians and vietnamese, in the 80's.

Also I definitely recall seing a lot of really awesome martial arts movies, even a few TV shows in the spirit of the whole Karate Kid. Kids who could do martial arts, trained by some old immigrant.
I suppose Kickboxing might have been really late 80's.

Also for those of you who want some music, may I recommend Blood Bros, a compilation of action movie music. It'll be you wanna wear Zubaz pants...