Cyberpunk General

Cyberpunk General.

Have you played or read anything about these RPGs:

>Vurt
>Tales from the Sprawl
>The Sprawl
>The Veil

What are some current trends in society or technology that would make cyberpunk cutting-edge again, rather than just a 1980s nostalgia-fest?

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I guess the cyberpunks haven't woken up yet IRL.

Cyberpunk is going to have a big revival when Cyberpunk 2077 comes out. With the success of The Witcher 3, CD Projekt Red is mainstream, and well liked, enough that it's going to hit massive audiences that wouldn't have been exposed to the genre otherwise. Except maybe through Dues Ex, which was also a huge success.
Otherwise just take current technology, make it a little less streamline, and make it a distopia and we're already there.

Drones, social media trails, homogenized internet use, ar games about pocket monsters, concentration drugs, disposable computers with yearly releases, 3d printing, decentralization of globalized socioeconomic powers.

What's unique about them? I know emulating the 80's feel and apperance is a big part of cyberpunk but what sets these apart from the others? Are you ultimately just playing an operating operating operations operationally with the latest big bad gun and modifications that would make you look like a walking tank that no sane person would allow out in general public?

I don't know much about them but The Veil has the premise that the entire world is enveloped in a virtual reality coccoon that makes reality very malleable. That's kind of neat twist.

The Sprawl is basically Gibson's Sprawl trilogy novels in Powered by the Apocalypse RPG form, so if you want to recreate those stories its perfect.

Vurt is based on the Jeff Noon novel, cyberpunk with a British, hallucinogenic Manchester twist.

None of these are overly focused on guns.

Deus Ex isn't cyberpunk. Cyber, maybe, but not punk. You literally play as the cops.

I could understand that, but it still has all the trappings of Cyberpunk, since you get in over your head in squabbles between powerful corporations. Having to be part of the Man in all the Deus Ex games fits as a framing device, since you can't hand off the job with a tip and you need to go to places where the games want you to go.

Close enough to get people interested in the genre.

That habitat design sucks.
>Have to go through the bathroom to reach the bedroom.
>Can't walk from kitchen to dining area because there's a random chair bolted to the floor
>Stairs don't connect.

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They are on Lainchan.

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Yeah, was going to ask that about Vurt, I read the book a while back, was alright, and I'd heard it got a game

Very low on the "cyber", replacing it with weird shit and hallucinogenics, but a fair read.

When I started reading it I happened to be living down fallowfield way in manchester, so there was a little extra level of cool/weirdness there for me - especially the car chase and the scene following it at the beginning, seeing as I semi-knew most of the roads mentioned, and the supposed location of their flat was round the corner from where my house at the time was.

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The Veil sounds pretty interesting; does anyone happen to have a pdf?

Is Otherland considered cyberpunk or just science-fiction with virtual reality?

Oh wow, I really loved Vurt! I had absolutely no idea it had an RPG, thank you so much for bringing it to my attention user. I've always wanted to run a derivative campaign with the feathers.

As for current trends to put cyberpunk back on the map, have you tried watching the Black Mirror series? It uses a lot of older tropes but have rebranded them to make them feel more close to home. The episodes with social media driven dystopias, although written hit-or-miss, have an interesting dynamic that you don't quite get from older staples of the genre even though it's built from the same premises.
A recent book called The Circle also touched on this and could be used for inspiration though I'd be hesitant to call it -punk of any kind, or even good writing, it just had an interesting piece of worldbuilding that would really work if it was repurposed.

It was a pretty good novel and made an impression on a lot of people in the 90s.

until you realize that they are the government isn't what it seems as you unravel conspiracies. I don't think the original is Cyberpunk in the same way GitS isn't cyberpunk but the prequals defiantly were

All four look like absolute dogshit especially The Sprawl.

>mfw Cyberpunk 2077 will change the face of the genre and be amazing but will probably kill the Cyberpunk 2020 roleplaying scene

>will probably kill the Cyberpunk 2020 roleplaying scene
The scene is just as good as dead. You only have grognards or hipsters still playing it.

Flickering neons, CRT monitors and interface cables are just as dead.

The future has never been that dark.

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Why even live when there are no androids that blow mutagene powder in your face?

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What the fuck is all this garbage that's being posted?

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>interface cables
Those still have a bit of a future - for large volumes of data and more secure transfer

You tell me

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It looks like it makes Invasion of the Neptune Men look good.

You have not seen everything, yet

Why are you subjecting us to this Z-grade Japanese shit?

The question is: what are you doing in a cyberpunk thread if you don't even know the classics of cyberpunk cinema?

Because I watched everything last weekend and I feel sadistic today.

>the classics of cyberpunk cinema?
If that shit is what qualifies as classic cyberpunk cinema, no wonder the genre's dead.

You just don't get it because you're too young.

That was about my face when I finished Burst City and Death Powder.

No user, I don't get it because I possess functioning quality detectors.

A man wakes up one morning to find himself slowly transforming into a living hybrid of meat and scrap metal; he dreams of being sodomised by a woman with a snakelike, strap-on phallus. Clandestine experiments of sensory depravation and mental torture unleash psychic powers in test subjects, prompting them to explode into showers of black pus or tear the flesh off each other's bodies in a sexual frenzy. Meanwhile, a hysterical cyborg sex-slave runs amok through busy streets whilst electrically charged demi-gods battle for supremacy on the rooftops above. This is cyberpunk, Japanese style.

In the Western world, cyberpunk was born out of the new wave science fiction literature of the sixties and seventies; authors such Harlan Ellison, J.G. Ballard and Philip K. Dick - whose novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) was the basis for Blade Runner - were key proponents in its inception, creating worlds that featured artificial life, social decay and technological dependency. The hard-boiled detective novels of Dashiell Hammett also proved influential with regards to the sub-genre's overall pessimistic stance. What came to be known as cyberpunk by the mid 1980s was thematically characterised by its exploration of the impact of high-technology on low-lives - people living in squalor; stacked on top of one another within an oppressive metropolis dominated by advanced technologies.

Live-action, Japanese cyberpunk on the other hand, is raw and primal by nature, and characterised by attitude rather than high-concept. A collision between flesh and metal, the sub-genre is an explosion of sex, violence, concrete and machinery; a small collection of pocket-sized universes that revel in post-human nightmares and teratological fetishes, powered by a boundaryless sense of invasiveness and violation. Imagery is abject, perverse and unpredictable and, like Cronenberg's work, bodily mutation through technological intervention is a major theme, as are dehumanisation, repression and sexuality.

>Live-action, Japanese cyberpunk on the other hand, is raw and primal by nature, and characterised by attitude rather than high-concept. A collision between flesh and metal, the sub-genre is an explosion of sex, violence, concrete and machinery; a small collection of pocket-sized universes that revel in post-human nightmares and teratological fetishes, powered by a boundaryless sense of invasiveness and violation. Imagery is abject, perverse and unpredictable and, like Cronenberg's work, bodily mutation through technological intervention is a major theme, as are dehumanisation, repression and sexuality.
Sounds like shitty b-movies to me.

Eh, Japanese cyberpunk is largely it's own thing iirc, with a heavy emphasis on gore and metal in the whole 'losing your humanity' thing

You're too negative. Get the movie, try to find subtitles, install yourself comfortably in a dark room with a notepad at hand, get your favorite poison and some snacks, and start watching the movie. Take notes if you want or just draw stuff if bored.

964 Pinocchio
Burst City
Death Powder
Guinea Pig 4: The Android of Notre-Dame
Gunhed
Rubber's Lover
Testsuo: The Iron Man
Testsuo 2: Body Hammer

>964 Pinocchio
>Burst City
>Death Powder
>Guinea Pig 4: The Android of Notre-Dame
>Gunhed
>Rubber's Lover
Supposing I were to replace those with Meatball Machine and TGP.

I only chose movies made before year 2000.

Meatball Machine (2005) is a remake of Meatball Machine (1999).

>Meatball Machine (1999)
Thank you based user! I will die less stupid thanks you.

I mean, I can't say goddamn weebs, because Japan is pretty damn important for cyberpunk, both as it's own genre and in general, but goddamn, bloody weebs (pun fully intended) and their damn Japan obsession

>Sounds like shitty b-movies to me.

Mostly they are, yes. Japanese cyberpunk anime are far better than the live action shit.

Reposted from a thread cause I didn't see this general up.

I've been feeling a cyberpunk mood coming on, so I wanted to run a game about it. I was reading up on Shadowrun, and I really liked the system, but then I started reading up on how the owners embezzle money for crack and refurbishing their bathrooms, so now I'm feeling iffy about being associated with that in the slightest.

Are there other cyberpunk games out there that are good and/or fun? Perhaps even free? Don't necessarily mind crunch as long as its somewhat balanced.

Or should I just go ahead and contribute to some drugged-up thieves and buy shadowrun anyways?

Which system has the best hacking and net diving rules?

Something that is quick (no involved mini games while everyone watches the decker) but still features a bit of depth (building a rig and getting around ICE)

I'mean developing an add on for the Star Wars ffg system, but I want to see what's already out there.

But would you really want a port in your body that can get dirty by having sweat and dead skin and oil get into it and possibly get infected?

Just look up Shadowrun General. You can get everything from them.

>Are there other cyberpunk games out there that are good and/or fun? Perhaps even free?

Brother, there are so many...and you can pirate whatever.

But what is good, and why? Any good/recommended pieces? Or even good places to read reviews?

Is asking for ay acceptable here?

I'm looking for cyberpunk prisons, prisoners, asylums, patients,etc. If it ain't acceptable just ignore this.

What is good depends on what you like. If you're into narrative stuff, try TechNoir, Remember Tomorrow or Sprawl. If you like medium crunch, there's Cyberpunk 2020, GURPS Cyberpunk/Cyberworld/Cthulhupunk, Ex Machina or Interface Zero. If you want goofy background try SLA Industries, Underground or Cybergeneration. Finally, if you want elves and magic, there's Shadowrun. The higher the edition, the more crunchy it gets.

Can someone fill me in on what the difference between GURPS Cyberpunk and GURPS Cyberworld is? WOuld I actually need either of them to run a Cyberpunk campaign in GURPS?

Cyberpunk is the rule supplement, Cyberworld is the background

Hellraiser?

And they're both 3e supplements, so you'd need to adjust things a bit if you want to use it with 4e.

Got my Kickstarter book from The Veil the other day. I'm filled with buyers remorse because I just can't get into Dungeon World based systems. Its a shame because the archetypes sound super interesting and the art is quite nice.

>I just can't get into Dungeon World based systems
Me neither. The Sprawl had some cool ideas but I still hated the PbtA mechanics.

Any chance you'd be willing to post a few of those?

I've got all of those apart from Cybernet, Remember Tomorrow, Wyred, Zaibatsu, and Nova Prxis. What ones do you want?

You demonstrably don't. I mean, it's one thing to shit on the Guinea Pig exploitation movies, but Tetsuo of all things?

>What are some current trends in society or technology that would make cyberpunk cutting-edge again, rather than just a 1980s nostalgia-fest?
>Cyberpunk
>Past the 80s
Why would you fucking ever

Japan has a ridiculous number of sexual hangoups, doesn't it?

If you get Shadowrun, go to /srg/ and download the pirated books for free.
Don't pay money.

Just use covers for the ports.

>implying that America doesn't

Because cyberpunk is still relevant. Some aspects have became outdated, but in others we are ever closer to the cyberpunkian future.

>but in others we are ever closer to the cyberpunkian future.
What a big meme

If I were sedentary and my work revolved around being plugged in sure but for a more adventerous type I would think having such holes in your body to be more of a liability.

>having to work with your arms constantly raised up
What kind of blithering idiot designed these?

Lainchan got pretty shit.

It's not. Cyberpunk is about the European refugee crisis, erosion of society, and persistent mass unemployment. Its protagonists are gutter punks and illegal immigrants, not pretty and good smelling people. Cyberpunk is Jihadis not Japanese hacker girls.

Nice meems m8

>cyberpunk is terrorists, not criminals
Pretty retarded amount of hair splitting.

I think they wouldn't be amazingly common, but anyone using them legitimately would be doing high-end work

Keeping it clean would be an issue, could definitely see people who had them and had poor hygiene being especially looked down upon - a sure sign of someone with either poor sense, or someone who'd been good once but fell from grace. 'crusty' would be a good derogatory term for someone with a jack that could be similar in effect to calling someone a 'hobo'

There was a cool idea in vurt that was similar 'droidlocks'

More than that, my autism tips on the fact that what I suppose would be otherwise expensive and extenisve neural surgery is treated so non-chalatanly with cables sticking out of your head to connect to your gun or glasses and then you run into something and get them yanked out.

I'm all for crazy body modifications but if you're barely passing for human at a point then you're probably not lazing away in a comfy chair scarfing some coporate burger before your next mission.

Same guy who designs bed space right above the kitchen/stove and (presumably) toilet.

Surgery is generally much easier in the cyber-future, but it's still invasive so you have a good point - though I'd imagine most cable going into your head would have something to prevent yanking, even if it's just making cables snap really easily

I'd wonder what development would make surgery so much easier

Robot/AI assistance in surgery for really delicate tasks and sensative parts of the body. If nano machines are a thing maybe they do a lot of the grunt work putting in electronics inside of the body that doesn't require you to cut your way through. Figuring out ways to connect electronic components to the body and keep their powered without an external source. And, more importantly, a way to prevent rejection.

I mean, in in Shadowrun they make it sound like getting implants for your eyes is a sunday afternoon affair you do after you did your shopping.