© Jerry Harris 2013
(This link will take you to the
Fantasy Core Index.)
OVERVIEW
What do you get when you move a noir pulp fantasy adventure
20 minutes into the future?
I’m not pretending this is an original RPG setting. It’s quite derivative. Those wanting a more complete and
well-thought out fantasy Cyberpunk setting should seek out Shadowrun, a game that I have admittedly not played, only read about. I don’t pretend to be well-versed in this
particular setting, but I did buy the Omni issue featuring William Gibson’s
“Burning Chrome” story new off the rack, Max Headroom was one of my favorite TV
shows of the 80’s, and I revere the film Blade Runner.
Here’s an easily available introduction to this setting, if
you’re not familiar with it.
William Gibson short stories in Omni magazine
Burning Chrome July 82
Johnny Mnemonic (Yes, they made a movie based on this) May
81
New Rose Hotel July 84
Other inspirational material
William Gibson Novel "Neuromancer"
Neal Stephanshon “Snow Crash” The first two chapters of this
book are the most entertaining I’ve read in any book. Unfortunately, the rest of the book couldn’t
possibly keep it up.
Max Headroom (“20 minutes into the future” was the show’s
tagline, as well as this game’s design ethos.)
Rollerball (the one with James Caan and John Houseman from
the 70’s, though the remake has its merits)
My take on Cyberpunk isn’t going to strictly follow any of
these sources. In fact, some of those
takes on the future, as seen from the 80’s, may have been somewhat prophetic,
but are downright quaintly naive compared to what has actually happened. What this game will include is demi-humans,
humanoids, monsters, and magic (not sure why, I guess just to provide more
character classes and creatures to fight), highly skilled characters living
outside of normal society doing questionable things to earn a living, and a
smattering of sci-fi high-tech in a low-morality world.
What this game will not include is an extensive backstory or
a world gazetteer. There isn’t going to
be a master list of all evil corporations.
There will be no attempt at being exhaustive in cataloging future
technology and it’s impact on society (not to say that this game won’t have a
social satire angle to it).
My take is that this game should be more episodic. Characters will come into contact with some
sort of novel technology or unearthed old magic and will have to deal with it
and the people who’ve created it or want to obtain it or destroy it. Exotic computers, dangerous programs, cloning,
replicants, recreated dinosaurs, Total Recall memory manipulation, sentient
AI’s, nano-tech, cyborgs, whatever, throw it all in. Assume that anything really high-tech and
exotic is a prototype or in very limited release for the super-wealthy. Any rule set down here or that is made up in
play for how a certain technology or magic works, is ripe for breaking with a
new technology. Combine the new
technology with a villain, and you’ve got an instant plot hook.
Of course there should be recurring villains in the setting,
but they shouldn’t be the point of it.
Corporate entities are ephemeral at best anyway. The characters are just trying to get by and
survive in a dangerous environment where they have no rights. Most should be hoping to make a big enough
score to retire safely. They’d only want
to seek vengeance on powerful enemies if there was a large profit in it and
destroying them is the only way to ensure a safe retirement.
One last thing this game won’t include is extensive rules
for cyber-combat. I love Tron and
Reboot, the evocative symbolic combat of the Gibson’s Sprawl, and the avatars
and virtual world of Snow Crash.
However, if I’ve learned anything from reading up a bit on Shadowrun,
this is the main problem with the game.
I couldn’t come up with a satisfying solution that wasn’t, on some
level, just plain silly. Hacking is just
going to be a skill roll. If you want
more, I suppose you could have your characters roll up virtual characters to
take into cyberspace. Don’t blame me if
your head explodes from being too ironically meta.
No comments:
Post a Comment