>>59436349
Did it ever left it in the first place?

>>59436396
>left.

not sure if grammatical fail, or subtle troll with political commentary.

>>59436396
It certainly left Shadowrun and barely stuck with Interface Zero. The best we've got are going all the way back to Cyberpunk 2020 or going full storygame with The Veil.

Mohawks

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>>59436349
Stop playing Shadowrun and do what >>59436423 said. Go play Cyberpunk, the original one, 2013 and not 2020 for the full misery-in-the-streets' experience. That's where it's at. Play a cop campaign if you want. Cyberpunk isn't just about throwing molotovs at The Man™ and planning your cybernetics so that you are within 0.05 points of your essence threshold, it's about not giving a shit. The more you dilute it with other things the more it becomes D&D for people who don't want to play D&D. Shadowrun is particularly guilty of this, not even getting into the merits or lack thereof of the rules themselves.

Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse. If you play by this you're probably a good choomba.

>>59436396
>Did it ever left it in the first place?
Shadowrun stopped being punk some time ago.

There's this kind of cynical 'punk is pointless' idea going around that the setting is completely immutable and the only way to exist as a shadowrunner is to immediately sell out to the major players and waste your life doing their bidding instead of having any agency or personal expression in the setting. Like the focus shifted toward executing missions more flawlessly rather than helping the little guy or sticking to the man.

I think punk is something that can return to SR though. It's mainly a change in emphasis that's needed.

>>59436349
By supporting material, authors, and publishers that focus on Orwellian dystopias and the often criminal struggles against them, focusing more on chaotic and anti-authoritarian elements in which the lines of morality are abandoned entirely.

>>59436725
So...kandi kids are cyberpunks now? I guess it kind of makes sense.

>>59436725
That's me that you referred to. CP2020 is neat, and I like it quite a lot, but it's a bit too dated for some of the people I play with, and it's a little too action-movie-ridiculous.

>>59436807
This guy's basically got it.

>>59436349
Depends what you mean by "punk". RTG's Cyberpunk game tied the meaning of "punk" to the punk rock scene. If you read Bruce Bethke's original short story, his "punks" aren't mohawked, leather-clad punk rockers - they're juvenile petty criminals.

There's an essay in that somewhere, but I am not a professor of literature, media, or popular culture.

I am, however, interested in the genre (in print and on screen), and in gaming it. At least, in the variety without elves, dwarves, dragons falling on cities, magic in cyberspace, etc...

>>59436868
>I am, however, interested in the genre (in print and on screen), and in gaming it. At least, in the variety without elves, dwarves, dragons falling on cities, magic in cyberspace, etc...

Same here. I still think all those fantasy elements are just a distraction to make shadowrun easier for skeptical dnd players to swallow. It certainly does that job; dnd-players can transition into SR more smoothly because they still have those familiar setting-pieces to keep them grounded. But once you're past that hurdle and actually playing in a modern dystopian setting, it quickly becomes clear that the fantasy elements don't contribute to the main ideas of the genre.

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>>59436349
fluffy hair

>>59436985
>But once you're past that hurdle and actually playing in a modern dystopian setting, it quickly becomes clear that the fantasy elements don't contribute to the main ideas of the genre.
Funny that you should say that. Even the CP2020 classes strike me as a bit D&D-ish. Tell me the Rockerboy isn't a bard wielding a keytar...

Actually, I've recently been trying to nail down what exactly the genre is, given how much stuff gets lumped in there.

I'd like to see a modern, streamlined system (as rules-lite or crunchy, realistic or cinematic as you like) that has a fresh, modern, technologically/sociologically/politically up-to-date view of the genre rather than being "maximum 80s".

>>59436841
That's why I like the first edition more, anon. If 2020 is Akira, then 2013 is Blade Runner. It's way more lethal, almost every connecting bullet is either fatal or incapacitating, you want to get out of fights ASAP always. I'll also argue you can hasten the crunch much more than you can in 2020, Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads or not. Give a whirl sometime!
>>59436823
Aren't they pretty much the chromers of our time?

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>>59436349
Cyberpunk today just a reality. Why you want play in a slice of life?

>>59436349
We don't. Times have changed.

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>>59436349
Cyberpunk was generational and tied to concepts of time, place, and society as it was before the new millennium. It just can't be what it forecast anymore, we live a reality of it now. It's time for a new look forward to other kinds of sci-fi concepts beyond our 2020 situation.

>>59437079
Man, I should buy some CRT-monitors before they become too rare.

>>59437046
>rockerboy
>panzerboy
>crystaljock
Those names make me want to degauss myself

>>59437177
Well, what's your "new look forward"? And where does punk fit into it?

>>59437177
nice off-topic post

>>59436349
High Tech + Low Life = Cyberpunk

That's it.

>>59437290
>>59437316
I'm not saying cyberpunk is DEAD, I'm saying it needs to adapt to what we have now into a new identity. Games can and should explore that!

>>59437495
yeah so you're saying that you don't know how to answer OP's question and would rather make the thread about your personal aspirations for cyberpunk, thus derailing the thread.

Got it.

>>59436725
>it’s about not giving a shit

Oh, he doesn’t know what punk is.

>>59437495
police state dystopia is still valid topic
faith and fanaticism become relevant again
and of course there's biopunk

>>59437495
we already tried that in the 2000s and early 2010s and it was just cyberpunk without punk

>>59436349
>Leftist politics in my turbo-aesthetic sci-fi setting
Sorry OP, but Im not a degenerate.

The loss of sjw politics in cyberpunk and 'muh rebelliouns teens' was the best thing hapening to the genre.

Youre infinitaly better playing as the good guys the cops, the spesial forces and those working to preserve order.

>>59437675
>it's better to not play cyberpunk

>>59436349
Tye dye Mohawks and leather jackets?

>>59437675
t. fascist

>>59437675
>being a tax-dodging freelance mercenary is leftist
umm, no, sweaty

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>>59437595

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>>59437675
I'll give you the credit that cops are perfectly good protagonists but nothing else. Check the file I posted with this.

>>59436423
How did it leave Shadowrun?

>>59437906
Good setting, bad system.

>>59437533
>when you get mad online but can't articulate why so you just start hurling insults

Not even that anon

>>59437935
>need literal buckets of D6 to freely give out to all the players
>It takes a couple of minutes to resolve an attack, ensuring any random McDonalds firefight takes two sessions to finish
>No risks involved in chroming up, either you're more steel than man or you cast spells
>Needlessly long equipment progression
Where did it go so wrong?

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>>59437039
Does anyone else get a major Sterling Archer vibe from the original manga's Motoko?

>>59438141
Cyberpunk Archer would be pretty dope.
Hell, Archer himself fits a lot of the classic tropes in that he's both at the top of his game, and a deeply flawed human being (with a massive substance problem to boot)

>>59437759
He's saying that punks, real punks, would give a shit about a lot of things - which is a fair observation, no matter how obnoxiously it was articulated

>>59438141
it should be the other way around but sorta, yeah.

>>59438237
>cybereardrums for his crippling tinnitus

>>59438237
Hmm. What they might give shits about is certainly different than what your average sarariman cares about though, right? Maybe I should have reworded and said they don't give a shit about the trappings of society they live in?

>>59438316
>What they might give shits about is certainly different than what your average sarariman cares about though, right?
Oh yeah, definitely. But very often a part of being a punk is being Angry, Angry about [something authoritarian, probably]

>>59438094
When they use the dnd like basis.

>>59436349

It would be possible only if we liked "fuck the system" IRL. Not happening.

>>59437959
quote one (1) insult from the post you responded to

>>59437675
Nazi Cyberpunks Fuck Off

>>59438316
The idea is that punks would visibly and actively oppose corporatized authoritarianism, inauthenticity, opaque power-structures, public surveillance, pollution, corruption, excessive wealth inequality, fraud, injustice, police brutality, things like that.

This is as opposed to the currently-prevailing paradigm in cyberpunk roleplay of selling out to the man regardless of how miserable the status quo is.

>>59438493
>hail jewgle!
>hail faceberg!
No thanks anon.

>>59438487
fascists/antifas want to be the establishment, that's not punk

>>59438512
>hail non jewish rich people who will fuck me just as much as the jews will!
No thanks, wageslave.

>>59438487
>>59438512
>it's another "wanting jackbooted authoritarianism and ethnic cleansing makes me a cool rebel" episode

>>59438558
b-b-but PJW said that conservatism is the new punk rock...

>>59438576
He's right though, just not in the way he intended. Once you get past the Sex Pistols being put together to promote clothing lines, punk has more often than not been about mindless contrarianism. And there's few things more mindless and more contrarian than the """""""""""alt-right""""""""""".

>>59438487
>antifa types act as the foot soldiers of the establishment.
Not even the liberals of the establishment like antifa you fucking Sig-slurping bonehead

>>59438501
Cyberpunk 2020 has a pretty cool page on this. You get $10,000's worth of cyberware for selling out to a corp, but this amounts to selling your fucking soul since they'll implant you with explosives/implant you with the inability to harm corp members Robocop style/hold your family hostage/etc.
Shadowrun sure could use something like this.

>>59437675

>SJWs

>in a genre born in the 70s

Interesting bait but you can do better, chombatta

>>59437675

Basically this. I can't help but think that it would actually be pretty fun to play as a corporate samurai or a Blackwater-esque enforcer, fighting urban terrorists.

Has anyone seen Jin-Roh? Jin-Roh is probably the only movie that gives heavily armored mooks their day in the sun, instead of being cannon fodder to be cut down by anarchist rebels.

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADOPucbzZdc

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>>59438722
The problem with playing heavily-armored grunts vs. rebels in street clothes is that it's punching down, anon, and that's both something that leaves a sour taste in some people's mouth and it's hard to make interesting unless you give the rebels what amounts to RPGs and other anti-armor shit, at which point you guys might as well not be wearing any armor at all. How could we make this viable?
Pic related: my favorite armored guy in fiction.

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>>59438722
you know you can actually do that in Cyberpunk 2020, right?

I mean, you know that cop protags have always been around in cyberpunk, right?

>has anyone seen Jin-Roh
oh you mean the alternate-history non-scifi Oshii movie that everybody has seen that has fuckall to do with cyberpunk and that is heavily critical of fascism and dehumanizes armored mooks even more than other films that deal with this topic because Oshii can't into characters?
Have YOU watched it? or have you just seen a couple of shitty photoshops that featured kerberos troopers?

>>59438558
>cool rebel
Wait, I thought that my constant stream of racialized insults and death-threats was supposed to make me a lighthearted comical gadfly like Socrates

Did Milo lie to me? Or is this one of the things where we politicize fiction by mindlessly identifying ourselves with anything portrayed as good and associating our opposition with anything portrayed as bad? Because if that's the case then I'd like to say that the right is the avengers and the left is thanos.

>>59437235
>panzerboy
Isn't that Hardwired, not CP2020?

>>59437177
>>59438501
That certainly fits with what I've seen. Cyberpunk-as-genre isn't mindless "rage against the corporate machine", and nor are all corporations or governments inherently evil. If you can look past the leather, chrome, neon and mirrorshades, it's a remarkably socialist genre. At least if done properly, and done well. Plus it's a good venue for asking questions about humanity.

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>>59437039
>>59438141
>That Hair
>That level of Cute

>>59439138
That's literally the Ghost in the shell manga, you utter brainlet.

>>59438808
I mean, the whole point would be that you're punching down. But if you want to make it interesting you can take inspiration from real life examples of well-funded and heavily armed troops vs poor rebels

>street clothes are shit protection, but they mean they can slip into the crowd and you'll never know before it's too late. Is that guy in the crowd with the blue hair a rebel? Is he an innocent?
>they know the streets better than you'll ever. they know every alley, every carved-out nook and cranny, every way they can get right behind you
>they'll play every dirty trick in the book. Booby traps, guerrilla warfare, car bombs, even suicide bombing if they get desperate enough

>>59439134
There was a Hardwired supplement for CP2020, for what's that worth.
And it's a good book. Fun, at least, but also suitably dark.

>nor are all corporations or governments inherently evil
I'd say this is less present in early cyberpunk (especially the very early stuff, where the corps are way too impersonal and powerful to be anything, evil or no - though their power and inability to be reasoned with makes them scary as hell), but certainly became a prevalent opinion later on

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>>59439138
Koukaku Kidoutai

>>59439310
>There was a Hardwired supplement for CP2020, for what's that worth.
I did not know that. I've been trying to track down reasonably priced preowned copies of that and When Gravity Fails (the novels, not the supplements) for some time. Rare over here - my last three attempts to order have been rejected by the dealer as "this book was damaged in storage and we're embarrassed to supply it".

>where the corps are way too impersonal and powerful to be anything, evil or no
Except amoral and self-serving, at least in a capitalist sense

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Does anyone try to play in Gunnm setting?

>>59438644
>sell out to the man = immediately get lots of restrictions while giving them massive leverage over you
>bomb in your head
>family hostage
>not allowed to harm affiliates
>not allowed to say anything negative about the man's products, services, or practices

I like this. This is what selling out should look like.

>>59439459
>foreshortening on gun is all wrong

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>>59439441
>the novels
My man, it is some time past 2010 and you're on the internet

If you want the cp2020 supplements (yes, there's one for When Gravity Fails also), check the archives - on the internet, most everything is forever now - hell, they're having to make laws about the "right to be forgotten"

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>>59436349
By setting it in worlds where the 80s never truly ended

Gimme dat Dominon Tank Police, Cyber City Oedo, and AD Police Files shit!

>>59437935

The system has nothing to do with whether or not Shadowrun is "punk."

>>59436868
>Depends what you mean by "punk". RTG's Cyberpunk game tied the meaning of "punk" to the punk rock scene. If you read Bruce Bethke's original short story, his "punks" aren't mohawked, leather-clad punk rockers - they're juvenile petty criminals.
I think that gets at the essence of the thing - even speaking specifically about the music scene, it's not really "about" mohawks or leather jackets. Those are really only one sub-group within a larger more varied community, and they are really just accoutrements. It's more about an attitude of individualism and disdain for authority, and being perceived by said authority as "petty juvenile criminals". Which I think probably gets at what the OP was talking about.

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>>59439659
+1!

>>59439614
Much appreciated. For all the technology, I'm old school and love to relax with a real, honest-to-goodness chunk of dead tree - but I'm going to try and read that. (I did find a lot of CP2020 stuff in the Archive thread, those two titles included.)

>>59439684
>more about an attitude of individualism and disdain for authority
If you ever read Bethke's novel, which starts by revising his original short story and expands it, that's pretty much the attitude the protagonist cultures - even as he tempers it by maturing.

(In fact, following the example above - have a copy!)

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>>59439290
You'd really need to make it challenging even if you're punching down, though, otherwise the entirety of your campaign would be a "your MG3 eliminates 1d12 rebels per round" curbstomp that wouldn't be very satisfying.
>You're invincible in your armor, but also very slow and noisy so they'll always know you're coming
>The biggest threat to your life is being hit with a motolov as that'll clog up the armor's respirators -- better find a safe place to take your helmet off before you choke and hope they don't splatter your coconut to the wall with a .45 meanwhile
>Firing your HMG from the shoulder is still impossible, so forget accurate shots past 50m unless you guide your rounds there, tearing apart anything and anyone that just happens to be on the way
>Collateral civilian casualties will not be tolerated. Rack up too many and you'll be given a kick in the ass and a one-way ticket to the Congo labor camps.
>The people aren't your fans. They'll be willing to hide rebels, lie to you even under torture, try to sneak on you and stab through chinks in the armor, etc. They might even jury-rig large magnets and stow them in hidey places to make your day way shittier.
I'd play it.

>>59439684
>Which I think probably gets at what the OP was talking about.

OP here- yep, that was my aim.

>>59437177
>implying every cyberpunk world needs to be a projected near future and not alternate histories/futures and/or new worlds that developed differently
The problem with punk genres is the 'Why would this exist and not this?' or 'Why didn't they develop this?'.

>>59436807
Correct.

I could go on a long rant about echo chambers, awareness, and the state of the world we live in, but...no one wants that.

One of the things I love about the Android/Netrunner universe is how well they nailed the ambiguity of good ans evil in a cyberpunk world. It's a dystopia in the sense of the highs of society are higher while the lows are reaching new lows. Even some of the more common evils are prepackaged and marketed to you to make your life better. Meanwhile, even if you try to boycott Weyland, you probably work for a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a subsidiary...etc. NBN controls every screen, hologram, pad, or piece of media in general. Not that you would know, because they collected so much data through their various channels that your very world is curated to your tastes. Jinteki offers the world unparalleled advances in medical tech on thr backs of their cloning programs while Haas is creating artificial "life" that will ensure you never have to do another mundane task ever again.

Life seems great. Nevermind that some nut job hacker is screaming on her casts about a power company who has an R&D department focused on hunting down and killing people. They're probably not after you.

>>59440388
>I could go on a long rant about echo chambers, awareness, and the state of the world we live in, but...no one wants that.
Except that it would be a really interesting way into a cyberpunk universe. A campaign where, even if the action wasn't about journalistic investigation, every session or adventure in the campaign unpicks a bit more of the kind of thing you've laid out here.

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>>59439836
>actually punching down the whole campaign
>not having the rebels be backed by a greater power which is a meaningful threat
>not using this relationship to add nuance, escalate challenges, and build dramatic tension

Shooting at glorified street punks with flags might be fun for a few sessions, and it can help your GM find alternative ways to make your lives hard. Then you can use the addition of this patron-entity and its capabilities to take the PCs a bit further out of their comfort zone. It can also add further unconventional challenges where simply killing the patron-state's clever and well-equipped soldiers could complicate regional diplomacy.

>>59438808
>what is investigation
>what is the chase
>what is being outnumbered
>what is the enemy not playing by the "rules"
>what are extreme measures
>what are overbearing superiors
>what is a job vs conviction

You didn't even try.

>>59440666
Whoa satan, you actually have a good idea for once
>>59440670
At this point it's just a regular CP2020 cop campaign, anon!

>>59440463
I agree with you. I meant for the purposes of this thread. I find it interesting that so many of the things that original cyberpunk writers were afraid of have been sold to us as something we should want. Social media would be somewhat anathema to them since privacy was such a major concern.

And as one of those people who loves corporate troubleshooting type characters, thr trope of discovering the truth/impact of one's actions goes back a long way. If you're an OPERATOR OPERATING IN OPERATIONS for credits and a shorter ad when you open ypur fridge, that either comes at the cost of some part of your soul or you're a true believer. Either one of those characters is interesting. But are they a true believer because they were raised in a tailored world that borders on predestination because the media bubble they live in is all-encompassing? Do they question their convictions or reinforce them when exposed to the truth?

>>59440719
>it's just a regular CP2020 cop campaign, anon!
It does kind of write itself. But as a DH/DW GM for so long that kind of became my bread and butter. "Punching down" isn't bad as long as you can give some greater context for why, how, and when your start punching. Sometimes the punching is the reward for putting the puzzle together rather than the challenge.

...which makes me realize that we're probably a bunch of latent fascists...

>>59441005
>...which makes me realize that we're probably a bunch of latent fascists...
See also: Stanford Prison Experiment, Milgram Experiment

Although as with >>59440902 suggestions, this too would be REALLY interesting to explore in-game. Slowly flip the PCs' world on its head.

>>59440902
Just watch out for falling into the predictable garbage hole like Syndicate 2012 did.

>>59441305
'Bad guy mends ways and becomes hero of the resistance" is as old as myth to begin with.

I kind of like the Judge Dredd/Batman arc into "the system is fucked, the world is fucked, I'm fucked, just try to maintain whatever equilibrium you can to prevent all out chaos." That's not appropriate for every armored jackboot you meet, but neither is "I'm a good guy now."

In the case of cyberpunk, you're probably at least looking for a job with a different corp where you can pretend they don't have skeletons in their closet.

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>>59439790
Man, just getting into this (I've read the short story before mind), I forget how much of a cunt Rayno is.
Well, none of them are good, they're teenagers, but he comes off the worst

>>59437046
>Actually, I've recently been trying to nail down what exactly the genre is, given how much stuff gets lumped in there.
Cyberpunk is always a reflection of our current anxieties taken to an extreme level. When creating a cyberpunk setting/campaign, before anything else, you and your party have to talk about the themes you want to explore, because there's a lot you can potentially cover.

>>59436985
man, fuck that, akira was great.

>>59441840
My cyberpunk setting largely deals with god from the machine, casual vehicular homicide, drugs, and journalism.

Mostly because I made it for a game about journalism, and details not related to these are fuzzy at best until the next game I plop into the setting.

>>59441971
>god from the machine, casual vehicular homicide, drugs, and journalism
GTA+Fear and Loathing+Lain?

>>59441840
I have a setting in mind for a future cyberpunk game that's basically
>ass-backwards town in the middle of nowhere somehow still has GOVERNMENT cops
>they're slowly getting pushed out by corporate police with VTOL-mounted miniguns and lawyer teams bigger than the entire police department
>they don't have much time left, just a few leads implicating a corp executive
>this is the last dance
y/n?

>>59442117
Fear and loathing and GTA are both in there, but I've not watched lain so I cannot tell you for true.
Okay, I watched it up until there was a scene of a girl pissing herself in like the second episode, and I lost interest. You don't go from the high of TK exploding dudes heads to pissing yourself. That is the incorrect order to do things, leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Oh, and occultism. Occultism is in there too. It's one of the methods by which the god in the machine occurs.

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>>59441971
>god from the machine, casual vehicular homicide, drugs, and journalism.

>>59442169
The only issue I have is that the "government" cops are already probably on a corp payroll due to corruption in electoral campaign contributions, bill/law writing, and aggrssive corporate lobbies.

Otherwise, I've been trying to play with rural cyberpunk myself and wholeheartedly endorse it.

>>59441884
>equating SRs fantastic elements with Akira's
That's like equating Tolkien and Lovecraft.

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>>59442259
They both have fantastical elements, yes.

How do we put the punk back into punk?

>>59442185
>there was a scene of a girl pissing herself in like the second episode
what
I don't remember that scene
>You don't go from the high of TK exploding dudes heads to pissing yourself.
I don't remember that either

Are you sure you watched "Serial Experiments Lain"?

>>59442243
It's a combination that is quite enjoyable.
Especially when you start throwing bizarre cyber drug deaths in there and remote controlled homeless activity.

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>>59442297
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXt_jAAsSy8
>>59442252
I like the idea that the PCs would be the few 3-4 honest ones still standing. Not even the higher ups are uncompromised, so if they want to get shit done it's gonna be through unofficial means.

>>59442334
I think I did. And the girl I remember looks like the one when I google serial experiments lain.

>>59442336
I have to remember to make my next one NOT based on investigation, though.
I can't fucking talk to people about an investigation plot.

>>59441005
I find I enjoy "punching down" a lot more when it's crystal clear that there isn't a reasonable why or how. That the reasons available are actually idiotic, petty or otherwise morally reprehensible. When I want to play a game about domination I'd rather look the matter blank in the face and acknowledge that what I'm doing is for the joy of it rather than the moral good. I'd rather everything be hilariously fucked, with my character as the ultimate fucker of all.

When I try to pretend that all this face stomping is noble and that I'm just a misunderstood hero in a herd of sheep holding back corruption, the whole thing sort of goes up it's own ass. It feels like a false apology for the true joy the game brings. In a lot of ways it feels like excusing jacking off as some glorious, spiritual act for the betterment of society. Now jacking off is fun and I don't think anyone should need to apologise for doing it but all in all your doing it for your own pleasure.

We probably are bunch of latent fascists, we're probably a lot of latent things. I figure the best thing to do is pull those latent things up, have a good long look at them, maybe a have a laugh or two, then put them to the side for when we need them. But never do we need to excuse or glorify these things because they are really just one part of a larger picture.

I think when we create these justifying contexts for our fantasies of domination we both distance ourselves from responsibility over the desire and increase our hunger for more.

I think early 2000AD, early 40K(none of the recent stuff, good god), a lot of Heavy Metal and underground punk comics had the right idea. Make it brutal, messy and entertaining and in that way honest. It satisfies the hunger, articulates the sentiment and sends one off feeling whole.

tl;dr
>It's okay to jack off without a religious justification.

>>59440666
That's the old "the gang was actually being used as equipment beta testers by a corp" one reskinned, yeah?

>>59442534
I'm with you. There's probably a healthy mix.

One of my better DH memories is a perception check as we were walking down the street that turned sparked a multi-gang gunfight in the streets and a whole lot of collateral damage because our guardsmen saw a minor drug dealer that looked like the cult dealer we were looking for. Of course, we didn't know that until the dust had settled and we were able to get a blood sample.

>>59436349
Find players who are interested in acting out against the system as opposed to being jackboots of The Man.

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>>59444737

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>>59445331

>>59437177
primitive punk

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>>59447056

>>59436349
Maybe the authority isn't the fucking problem. Maybe its the people. People who do nothing but sit on their ass and complain and consume. People who don't build anything, don't contribute anything, they just exist to get their kicks with crime and drugs.

Maybe living in a little plastic bubble isn't so bad when societies crumbled to shit and people have no morals or values.

fascist punk.

>>59447449
Maybe its the LACK of authority and initiative that is causing society to collapse. Maybe its the lack of drive and purpose and constant worshiping of freedom for freedoms sake.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bsHsp680nEk

>>59445314
Always seemed interesting that the majority of Shadowrun is being a private corporations espionage team. Like, sure, you're fighting other megacorps but you're still working for one rather than being a lone team fighting to take down the world.

>>59437675
Are you spesial?

>>59438808
nah blood, people love punching down. That's why it happens so much.

>>59436349
MUH punk muh punk MUH PUNK WAH WAH WAAAH

Bunch of fucking anglos trying to make living in the ghetto romantic and exciting.

The PUNK suffix does not literally refer to PUNKS, who are useless shit nosed street garbage. PUNK is colloquial shorthand for the subversion of expectations. It was a reaction to a previous generations optimistic view of the future, an envisioning of a world where we don't develop our problems away and shit stays just as bad if not worse. A head mix of xenophobia, reactionary-ism, and 'good old day'-itus. No wonder it got so popular with boomers with their heads stuck up their ass

So what happened to the punk? Post modernism. It became reality. Cynicism became the status quo. Everyone takes for granted the future will be shit, as opposed to everyone taking for granted that the future would be great. The problem, you cynical fucks, is you memed it into the ground with relentless and withering deconstructionism. There's nothing fantastical about a world I can turn on the news and see. Or rather, that I can JACK IN and DOWLOAD. Because that's what you do every day. Shit has become reality, not theory.

>>59436349
We don't, "Muh ebil government" is well overused at this point.

>>59436349
Move away from the high flying adventures for a bit? Call me whatever but I think swapping out the hop cockhole punks trying to take down the system for goons is the way to go. BE the man for a change, stomp some hackers

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>>59437046
>I'd like to see a modern, streamlined system (as rules-lite or crunchy, realistic or cinematic as you like) that has a fresh, modern, technologically/sociologically/politically up-to-date view of the genre rather than being "maximum 80s".

See
>>59441840

Homebrew something for 2020. It's what my friends and I are doing. The body is there, it's brutal as fuck. Use Ocelot's alternate character creation, redo the skills, make your own equipment and augs. We live in the Cyberpunk world; take your try at it. Take off the mirror shades and toss out the hair dye, you have a nightmare in metal ready to go.

>>59437181
Too late if youre a europoor kek

>>59436349

Read the frontpage of a science site and tell we arent living in one. Quantum computing, human brain cells injected into mice, teleportation, neural networks, customer genetic devices in stores based on CRISPR, implants becoming common, eugenics in practice etc.

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>>59436349
Get in with the times grandpa, Cyberpunk is dead, the cool kids are all doing Cybernazi instead.

>>59450792

/pol/ memeing aside, unironically this. The counterculture is not vaguely comminist punks but fascists now

>>59450809
It was only like 60% a joke anon. We no longer will live for the pink mohawk and free love but the nazi youth hair cut, a huwhite wife and children and being a productive member of the (huwhite ethno) state.

We live in weird times.

>>59436349
You don't. You don't want leftists inserting their politics in RPGs.

>>59450844

>/pol/ mentioned even as a joke
>blindingly obvious falseflag shitposting begins.

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>>59436349
Mohawks

>>59436349
Heroin, high STD rates, tons of shitty music, and eventually going to that law school like your well-to-do parents want you to.

>>59442297
Remove PC infestation.

>>59450839
>We live in weird times.

It's not weird, you can only tell people to eat shit for so long before they seek another way.

>>59452308
t. Literal nazi

>>59452335
That's how they began too sure enough.
But people still don't understand why you shouldn't back a people into a corner.

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>>59453112
Just it happen anon.

Just accept that instead of fighting THE MAN now you fight (((THE MANN))).

Step 1: Figure out what problems technology has caused/conceivably will cause that people are afraid of and write about that. A lot of cyberpunk stuff isn't about the characters taking a social stance against specific technologies but about finding unorthodox (often criminal) ways of dealing with the social problems advanced technology creates. The mass surveillance boat has sailed, most people are not scared of this at all anymore.

Step 2: Figure out what "punk" even means anymore, in a society that is completely morally apathetic toward just about anything and in which the "punks" of yesteryear have been assimilated by the establishment, pushing the war and surveillance they pretended to hate, worshipped nonetheless by the majority of the population. Punks are rebels, but what does it mean for young people to rebel today? As a young man with even younger siblings, I don't even know. There is no rebel caste in our society that really resonates with me; just assholes having conniptions on Twitter.

Step 3: Find a way to make that vision of a punk aesthetically and romantically appealing to young people. Cyberpunk of yore had a strong aesthetic that's recognizable today. How do rebels present themselves now, and how can that be made cool? How do we give them a role or calling that can be romanticized as "living dangerously" and "fighting the good fight"?

I guess the problem with cyberpunk is that society has accepted and forgotten about the problems caused by cyber, and the "punks" are all miserable neurotic losers.

>>59453847
>most people are not scared of this at all anymore.

Because they don't understand the implications.

>>59453847
>The mass surveillance boat has sailed, most people are not scared of this at all anymore.
Metal Gear Solid 2 is still an extremely socially-relevant work, and it proves that the problem isn't mass surveillance. It's the fact that the social epidemic of junk data has turned modern society into a fictionalized digitized reality where lies are socially accepted as truths. "Truth" is just the survival of the most agreed-upon information. People thrive on narratives, even when they cerebrally know that those narratives don't apply to the real world.

So, the current cyberpunk protagonist would be the kind of the person who strives to take control of the narrative and hack into our virtual reality.

>>59455716
What's really the difference between virtual and physical reality? People like to say that virtual reality is just an imitation of physical reality, but it's becoming increasingly obvious that the relationship reversed somewhere along the way. Our real world is just as guided by information (and the way that the cultural psychosphere processes that information) as any digital world, if not moreso. For a great example of story tackling this very issue, look at Transistor. The Transistor literally directs of the flow of ideas and culture in Cloudbank by interfacing with the Process. Is it any wonder the protagonist wasn't a genius hacker, but a singer whose art could literally drive people insane, that the plot was driven by a group of people who saw their society stagnating under the tyranny of a majority whose consensus reality was blander the Reason of Shijima from Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne and sought a way to literally hack society?

Society hasn't forgotten the problems caused by the cyber, because they still haven't realized what those problems actually are. We're all cyborgs now, which means that our society as a digital world is both more obvious than it's ever been, and more vulnerable. There's enough media out there that people at least have some conception of what a computer virus in action looks like (even if that conception is false and built entirely from media). But the effects of a memetic worm are still outside the realm of the most commonly-accessible fiction.

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>>59453847
This all loops back to >>59441840. Cyberpunk can encompass many topics and can always remain relevant and topical by preying upon what we think about and worry about today. There is no hard or explicit set of themes within cyberpunk that can be called "eternal." The themes you explore in any given game should be unique to your group and game. For example, a lot of games are considering the rammifications of climate change, among other things.

You have to brainstorm this shit before you start building your campaign, like in the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU2H4PjPaKA

>>59447449
>societies crumbled to shit and people have no morals or values.

Oh look, it's the same tired criticism made of every society, at every place, in every point of time in all of human history. People always say this, even in times later seen as ascendant or as golden ages.

>>59453509

>believe to be figthing the system

>when your guy is at the white house

Why are nazis always so inferior?

>>59456323
>People like to say that virtual reality is just an imitation of physical reality, but it's becoming increasingly obvious that the relationship reversed somewhere along the way.
Makes me think of 3D printing, specifically those services where you can order a copy of your WoW or Skylanders character, or STO ship.

I have to say - I'm really enjoying this thread, it's something that has been on my mind for the last 2-3 weeks. So thank you to everyone who's participated civilly, and to OP for starting it :-)

>>59436349

The first problem is that a lot of cyberpunk is too lost in the 80s aesthetics to be interesting or relevant to modern audiences. I think to get the punk back in cyberpunk, one would need to make being a punk a thing a modern person would want and be able to approach and understand.

So the first task is to update cyberpunk into the modern world. Most cyberpunk doesn't engage with modern realities. Even things like cellphones aren't part of a lot of cyberpunk because they weren't part of the original/classic entries that everyone else apes. The BEST cyberpunk is almost prophetic with what technology is relevant. Look 20 years into the future, what do you see as being ubiquitous? How can that be used, or abused, either by punks or antagonists? Do that a dozen times and build a picture of what the future is like.

Then we have to look at what our antagonists are like. I don't think the image of corporate dystopias from the old stuff is really captures the approach that modern corporations would take. Outright oppression isn't profitable after all. Which makes things more difficult when justifying why our protagonists are punks in the first place. Maybe our protagonists are just tired of the permanent and all encompassing surveillance, maybe something else. But I think to be relevant, the antagonists HAVE to be more subtle than they have in the past.

>>59457577
Doesn't FFG's Android setting cover this?

>>59443960
>That's the old "the gang was actually being used as equipment beta testers by a corp" one reskinned, yeah?

Well, not quite.

I was thinking more "the rebels are being supported by one or more regional/global powers". I envisioned more of a rival state entity (or even an alliance of such states) trying to use the rebels' ambitions for a proxy war, although a corporate entity could also serve that role.

It means there are multiple kind of macro-level layers to it. There's the immediate conflict between the PCs and the rebels, which includes both symbolic and direct military objectives. And then there's the rebels' struggle for independence, freedom, economic mobility, or whatever their ambitions are. There's also the rebellion's patron-state and their ambitions running into the PCs' resistance. There could be tensions between the patron-state and the rebellion too (depending on how much influence they want, historical rivalry, resources, military base placement, etc). And you might have the PCs' organization and the manner in which they want (or do not want) to engage with their rival state; it could be a cold war, or they're just looking for an excuse to make war, or they want to maintain appearances of peacefulness in the international community, things like that. And the PCs' organization can easily make things harder for the PCs (i.e. 'yeah you can shoot the rebels, but keep civilians safe and don't hit the RivalNation agents or commandos! We can't risk another international incident!').

As you can imagine, things can go pretty deep and messy if you want them to. And that's just high-level setting stuff, not even getting into individual characters (smugglers, police, commanders, agents, militia, etc) and their stories, history, and the ways they try to deal with or take advantage of the situation.

>>59457577
I don't know man, lots of young people are into 80s nostalgia these days. I was born in 93 and I eat that shit up. It's an easy era to understand because it is pretty similar to our own time but different in interesting ways, with larger than life aesthetics that were captured in great fidelity on TV, movies and music people still enioy today. Stuff like TNG, Back to the Future, Terminator, Blade Runner, Bon Jovi, Michael Jackson... I wouldn't say it's "relevant" but it has basically become pop cultural bedrock even for people born long after.

I guess what I'm saying is I don't really understand the sociopolitical problems of the 80s and I doubt they're really similar to my problems. But I still find the aesthetic killer. I guess it has taken on a life of its own, just like innacurate "medieval" fantasy.

>>59436349
It never left, the majority just dont want it.
Accept that and move on, look for the few who still do want it and die with them alone and entombed.

>>59447484
Freedom for freedom's sake is fine. Where I live it's the people who squeal 'Something MUST be done!" who have the ear of the bullyboys with the guns and the money who like to fuck people over.

Living in the gutters isn't bad as long as you've got a roof over your head, food that tastes fine, booze and smokes and drugs you want. It's people telling you that your shit that isn't harming anyone is evil and must be stamped out, that your existence, quiet(ish when you have the headphones on and using a suppressor) and peaceful(ish when you're not having a fight for the hell of it) that's the problem. That's what makes you mount up on your bike, put on the mirrorshades, plug in the cybergun and ride out to put a little fire under their asses.

>>59456530
Trump is a 90s democrat.

>>59458925

The problem with the aesthetic isn't that it's present, it's that, frequently, that's where the author stops his attempts at making his setting cyberpunk and not just science fiction. It's become a hanging point, instead of a product of the times.

>>59459850

I'll concede that people like you make me reconsider my stance on drugs.

>>59458925

It's a a fad, dude. Every decade is rewamped at least once. Yeah, the 80s are good for some kind of nostalgia, so were the 70s for others, etc.
I don't think nostalgic shows ever put out the shittier part of the decade (which is kinda odd, as nuclear paranoia, rampant drug abuse or urban ghettoes have their narrative potential).

The only thing that PROBABLY is different is music: there is a severe difference in how we listen to shit now, after the digital revolution in the market (and no, netflix didn't do the same for television, at least not on that scale).
It's not necessary better now than then, or viceversa, it's different.

t. actual 80s child

>>59459869

Personally I think people can't still deal with the fact that cyberpunk has been killed by history. The smartphone and its apps on which you're reading me now tell only that we're post-cyberpunk. Your mileage may vary on if we're more or less fucked than we would've have expected.... but technology and globalization marched on, we can't use those same tropes, no more than we could've been puttin out Verne style of novels during the space race.
It's fascinating if you ask me: the world runs faster than the dreams we have about it.

>>59438558
You leftists literally want whites to be the slaves of niggers

>>59438558
You're the establishment and you're locking people up for making tweets in my country. Sorry, but you got ahold of power and you're making shit awful.

>>59460322

>Personally I think people can't still deal with the fact that cyberpunk has been killed by history.

I don't know about that. I think the themes are universal, or at least still relevant. It just hasn't been updated since the 80s. Things like Black Mirror show that people are still nervous about how technology can shape our future negatively. And there is enough outrage over how big corps and government treats us that becoming a "punk" our rebel is attractive.

I think part of the issue, with cyberpunk and also with the all heroic fiction today, is that people don't see themselves as being able to shape the future on a personal level. I think that's why superhero fiction is seeing such a trend right now. People believe they need supernatural powers to be a hero. Contrast that with the era of Westerns where all you needed was a gun. I think that's related to the trend toward darker fiction as well. Your heroes can't fix the whole world, just make it a bit less shitty for a few people for a while. It's seen as even more useless to rebel than it was in the 80s, hence why we see a lot of people running corp games, where they work FOR the people they are supposed to be rebelling against.

>>59460322
Trump literally has the same policy on immigration as Hillary Clinton did in the 90s.His stance on everything hasn't changed. And even some Dems like guns.

>>59460721

But this is (indeed) more anciente that cyberpunk, and so it will be there more. (well, I suspect now we're more like dealing with a reality than farfetched fears regarding the net, but whatever)

Cyberpunk is another beast. It was about the net expanding our world, not just the corps doing what the state did in Lang's Metropolis (hell, many cyberpunk shit wasn't really about punks vs the man): this is dead, as we ARE the net now, we see what it is and we might or not like it but it's like Verne with electricity, now it's our world, not a dream.

So: can you "rewamp" cyberpunk themes? I suspect it's pretty easy actually*, and the Veil is the direction you need to take. But I don't think it will be cyberpunk no more.(and I might even venture to say that I don't think the aesthetics are that integral to cyberpunk. i mean, the big bad hellhole city didn't have flying cars and holographic advertisment before Blade Runner, but Blade Runner LA wasn't that different from the hellholes that were there before it, I think)

Your point on capemovies is actually really interesting, even illuminating (no, really). But as you'll see it's another reason why I don't think putting punk back into the cyberpunk is really doable - one of the strangest thing is that we fear LESS the corps now than it was back then. I've read people saying it's because google can't take your home (yet) but I dunno, globalization fucked many persons.

*=as odd as it might sound I would use LESS of the governement/corps doing shit, more of the net and people being a source of societal dystopia. Maybe its' my political view, but what really frigetens my in this regard is that we can't seem to be ready for this democracy game.

>>59456530
And a key portion of any cyberpunk setting is that the government is toothless compared to mega corps, especially ones with hands in every business from food to media.

>>59461304
>believe to be fighting the system

>when your guy is not only at the white house, but was formerly the head of a mega corp to which he still has ties which he refuses to sever

>>59461688
yeah, megacorps basically won.

>>59459850
I was here in the 90s, they didn't wave swastikas around like that.

>>59436725
Looked at Shadowrun back when it came out. Was very interested but the trolls, elves, bullshit was annoying. So we merely cut all that shit out out and carried on.

>>59461744
They also didn't put out dozens of shitposts a day for all to see.
It's quite possibly the most memorable thing about the presidency.

>>59461744
When did Drumpf start waving around a swastika? I missed that episode of CNN.

>>59459850
No he's not, he doesn't give a shit about the environment, and he's not bringing cubans over by the bucket full.

>>59461824
That's definitely harder to do nowadays.

>>59466755
There's also not much point to it, what with all the other systems that can do cyberpunk. The only reason to put up with SR's system is for Shadowrun's specific brand of cyberpunk plus fantasy.

Tabletop games are the nerd equivalent of poker night or watching the game with the boys. There are punks who play them, but they can't b very punk. That being said, most punks grow up to be their dads, so that might be fitting anyway.

>>59461744
No, but they did attend KKK meetings.

>>59460721
its called post-cyberpunk
but its really meant to be closer to what cyberpunk was meant to be
a closer look at technology and its effects on society

people grasp on to surface elements like megacorp dystopias and mistake it for the core of cyberpunk
many elements are indeed outdated relics from the 80s
the internet came, but instead of turning is into anti-social losers it let us share interests with people you other never would have met
datat pads came and they are mostly used like laptops, and made life better
the rich fat cats are living at the expense of others, but average life expectency of even the cogs is higher as well
giant monolithic corporations rule everything, but they are no more coordinated or effective at oppressing us than the government
our entertainment is now controlled by a single company, but movies are actually really good now, the low point was actually the 90s and 00s

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>>59449526
So what you're saying is in order to be real punk today you have to go FULL PULP?

I can dig it. To this day The Gernsback Continuum is the one thing I've read by William Gibson that I absolutely cannot relate to.

>>59439684
In the short story the protagonists are outright a bunch of middle-class shitheads who get their jollies by fucking with people. Which is something I'd love to see more in cyberpunk, where the punks are just a bunch of violent, hedonist dilettantes demanding the world cater to them while expecting things to be handed to them.

>>59439836
You could do what the actual Kerberos Saga did and have The Man be comprised of multiple groups with their own sets of standards, an actual concern for how the public reacts to their actions, and perfectly willing to punch sideways if they think someone is getting out of line.

>>59438094
>>need literal buckets of D6 to freely give out to all the players
Okay, I'll admit it, I actually like this part.

>>59461304
>>59461688
>>59461716
Toothless government is only really a thing in American cyberpunk, Japanese cyberpunk often has a powerful government alongside powerful corps, and Euro cyberpunk often only has powerful governments.

>>59469983
It's not just contrarianism but also individualism and rebelliousness in general.

>>59469988
>The Man be comprised of multiple groups with their own sets of standards, an actual concern for how the public reacts to their actions, and perfectly willing to punch sideways if they think someone is getting out of line.
I like to use harshly rigid regulations and rules for this. Even for the soulless corporations, the executives making abhorrent calls are only doing it because they're directly obligated to maximize profits and if they pull any punches, the independent legal trust attached to the company will have a field day with their asses on behalf of the shareholders. And the shareholders aren't even some shady cabal, they've just got a lot of legislation that automatically and vigorously defends them from corporate share fraud.

>>59436349
bumping to stick it to the man

>>59438642
Bullshit, a lot of them get funding from people like Soros. They get *paid* to protest.

Actually, shit, this is a good idea. Two "rebel" groups, though one (or dare i say even both) are shills to bigger government. So you have to rebel against rebels in order to properly rebel against the Dude.

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>>59476705
>Bullshit, a lot of them get funding from people like Soros. They get *paid* to protest.

>>59469624
>the internet came, but instead of turning is into anti-social losers it let us share interests with people you other never would have met
Respectfully disagree. Yes, we are now more broadly connected than ever via social media, but at a cost. Ever been around friends who are ignoring each other and instead staring at their phones?

Not that social media is bad; I just think we overuse it, plus it has led to "the Cult of Me" - people who post constantly to show us what they're doing, what they're eating, what they're watching, who they're with, what they just bought, what causes they support. It's real showing-off behaviour, and it strikes me as almost "look at what a good person I am, look at what a great life I'm having!".

That said, I think that's also a really interesting thing for the genre to explore. Can you trust your connections when your network is broad but shallow, rather than the deep roots and trust of traditional friendships?

(Note that I'm blaming user behaviour on the users, not the platform. I'm aware not everybody is a vacuous narcissist; equally, I'm aware that in refusing to use social media, I'm excluding myself from opportunities and hearing less from my own friends.)

>>59471287
>Even for the soulless corporations, the executives making abhorrent calls are only doing it because they're directly obligated to maximize profits
Yep - I was thinking about this on my commute, in relation to corporations as amoral rather than evil. Outside of BBEGs running corporate empires, the really morally questionable stuff probably happens when you get a rogue operator at exec level. For instance, in the Alien franchise: Special Order 937, "Bring back life form. Priority One. All other priorities rescinded." - or in the sequel, "Dated 0-6-1-2-7-9, signed Burke, Carter J. You sent them out there and you didn't even warn them."

(I know, Alien ain't strictly cyberpunk, but it is kind of in that grimdark-y sf arena...)

One of the things that blew my mind about Digimon Story: Cybersleuth (which ended up being one of the coolest cyberpunk settings I've seen in years) was that it had a revival of the vague techno-mystical interpretations of the digital world from Digimon Tamers. The setup was that the ubiquitous digital communications network spread over the world had, at some point, gained a sufficient level of information density to be a separate plane of existence, complete with its own native occupants. Our own plane of existence and this digital world were more or less incapable of interacting directly, but our own increasing dependence on digital communications meant that the digital world was as important to our own world as our world was to the digital world. Things came to a head when the creation of a fully-immersive virtual reality environment resulted in a kind of border marches where our two worlds could intersect. Digital natives have a much higher affinity for moving through and manipulating digital environments, so humans found ways to summon and strike up deals with them to use them as hacking programs and cybersecurity utilities.

All of this on its face is more or less fine, but the problem comes when the digital and physical worlds begin flowing into each other, beginning with your own player character's digital body existing in the physical world even as a their own physical body lies comatose in a hospital somewhere, and eventually escalating to entire districts and wards of Tokyo being submersed in digital phenomena.

The story ties together a lot of cool interpretations of digital phenomena with interpretations of supernatural and spiritual phenomena, most notably an observation by a detective that the digital and electrical infrastructure of the city, by making use of already-existent infrastructure, just so happens to be arranged in the same way geomancers plotted out the flow of energy through the land when the city was first being built.

>>59476846
>Our own plane of existence and this digital world were more or less incapable of interacting directly, but our own increasing dependence on digital communications meant that the digital world was as important to our own world as our world was to the digital world. Things came to a head when the creation of a fully-immersive virtual reality environment resulted in a kind of border marches where our two worlds could intersect.
There's an ad in the UK for a credit reference agency where a guy is living with the physical manifestation of his data self.

We generate and use (and value) data significantly more than we did 30 years ago, and yet I've seen very little of "big data" (as opposed to specific data files) in cyberpunk. I wonder how a modern take on the genre, and the current preoccupations with e.g. Facebook/Cambridge Analytica or government surveillance a la Orwell, would play out.

(I'm not familiar with Digimon, if I'm honest. Had to Google it. What you're describing sounds fascinating as the basis for a cyberpuk fantasy, but I'll take mine without the evolving, collectable monsters. Thanks for bringing it up, though; it's a genuinely interesting point, and I do forget that younger people, millennals and "digital natives" have different views to me!)

do a Ninja Slayer campaign
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fDV8JeR1uo

>>59436807
>player choice of selling out in SR is taken because its easy
>somehow, despite the obviousness of selling out being easier than acting independent has always been, this is surprising

How about you stop criticizing the choice to join corporate, have a johnson, etc and push your players to be more like the independent punks you fantasize about.

>>59478220
I'm not the GM. I have floated the idea of an all-punk SR game with my group though.

I do think selling out could use some more explicit tradeoffs or downsides like >>59438644.

I'm not really criticizing players' choices because SR simply has not sold the punk aspect to our generation of players, who come into a game that has failed to explain its own setting in detail, barely touching 'punk' ideology as an afterthought if at all. How can we blame people for choosing to side with the handful of factions that get any ink? A big part of the fix will be in making game-books devote more attention and space the punk side of the setting, as opposed to spending every bit of lore-text promoting fan-fiction and corporate invincibility.

>>59477384
>I've seen very little of "big data" (as opposed to specific data files) in cyberpunk.
I've seen it be in places outside of cyberpunk since before cyberpunk was even a thing. I read a Ralph Ellison story from the 1920s whose entire conflict was predicated on the protagonist being unable to get a job because he didn't have a legal birth certificate. As far as society was concerned, he didn't exist. In the real world, we're people, but as far as the mechanics and bureaucracies that make society function, our data clusters are more meaningful than we are. Insufficient, damaged or just missing data can automatically make people ineligible to participate in society. It's like getting a notice that you've been pre-rejected for a credit card. This has been an ongoing concern for displaced minorities in America for almost a hundred years, but the greater community of fiction writers has only taken notice of it within the last decade.

One thing I think could be explored more is how every sociopolitical cause has fractured. On the internet, everyone has put so much of themselves out there that people are attacking each other for not being similar enough even when they share opinions on a broad scope.

>>59479115
And, conversely, the implications of the social media echo chamber.

Since we're on the subject, does anyone have a good GM screen pdf or something with the tables and FNFF shit on it? I need a screen and I also don't want to print out all the fucking pages to refer to.

>>59479527
I'm sure one exists in the Cyberpunk 2020 troves, but this thread is about the genre rather than the game. Try the current PDF sharing thread:

>>59463745

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One thing I don't see much nowadays is the small guy fighting a fight he cannot win, but doing it anyway because it's the right thing to do. And dying at the end, having achieved nothing.

>>59478731
>A big part of the fix will be in making game-books devote more attention and space the punk side of the setting, as opposed to spending every bit of lore-text promoting fan-fiction and corporate invincibility.

Seriously. People can bitch about SR4 all they like, at least SR4 had an open Matrix and sometimes showed the parts of the world that weren't dominated by the corps and were worth protecting because of it. Helping a small urban farming community or a family-run security and enforcement company push back against the Megas trying to stomp on their shit doesn't pay as well, but free eggs and fresh produce for life or having a little part of town where the cops are actually on your side can be a nice reward. That game actually had in-game ways to subvert the systems of control meant to keep the people in chains. SR5's world is so thoroughly locked-down that any attempt to resist is meaningless to the point of not even giving you the moral victory. There is literally no way to carve out your own little spot of the world that's as comfortable as you can reasonably expect to make it.

>>59436396
People confuse postcyberpunk with cyberpunk.

>>59481562
>People confuse postcyberpunk with cyberpunk.
can you define those terms for me?

>>59456530
Temporary political victory does not equal a longterm societal or cultural victory.

>>59481736
From what I understand cyberpunk is usually from the perspective of the dregs of society and is generally cynical in tone, Postcyberpunk can have an identical aesthetic and world as cyberpunk but be from the perspective of law abiding citizens and has a more positive optimistic tone.

>>59479646
Thanks anon. Much appreciated.

I wanna run retro futuristic muh 80s cyberpunk. are the best ways to go about that with Cyberpunk 2020, The Sprawl? Anybody tried Cyberspace?

>>59483003
CP2020 is pretty 80s. Only try Cyberspace if you like Rolemaster, only try The Sprawl if you like PbtA.

>>59437935
That has nothing to do with the "punk" in cyberpunk.

Shadowrun always had a pretty solid "punk" aspect to it, but as always it is largey up to the GM and tone of game. I note many people just into the "operators operating opereratively" thanks to all the gear and mods. This isn't the games fault though.

>>59460441
Who got locked up?

>>59484085
count cuckula

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>>59439138
>he cant recognize GITS
delete yourself you fucking mong

>>59482268
It's a pretty arbitrary distinction when you consider that writers like Gibson also wrote stories where the protagonists are solidly middle-class or blue-collar. People tend to forget that a large part of the "punk" element was lifted from 60s counterculture/radicalism rather than street life.

>>59466755
In what way is it harder? Build from the original material and shitcan meta nonsense from updated versions.

>>59436349

You know, there might be a good game in infiltrating rebel cells, then busting out your corp-given cybernetic implants to kill them all.

>>59488197
Corporation? SLA Industries?

>>59438856

You're rather missing the point. The point is that an armed and armored military force wouldn't be helpless against the ragtag rebels: Instead of being useless mooks, even a single one would be a nightmare to deal with.

I don't even mean physically. Notice how Fuse is lying to everyone, including the viewer, through the entire movie? He's lying from the bombing onwards. We only see the real man once he straps on the armor at the end.

>>59442534

I don't agree. I feel that it's a reality we need to accept. The paradigm has changed, such that WE are the Empire and the Rebels are religious extremists and fanatics. It's important to shake the mindset of "Authority bad, underdogs good."

I mean, ultimately the police protect YOU from Jamal and Ahmed. To my mind, that's worth collateral damage. I rather have a million police shootings a year than to live in fear of rape-gangs and rampaging chimps.

>>59480627

Generally Western audiences find that too downbeat. It shows up a lot more in Eastern stories. We have plenty of wuxia epics where the heroes all get slaughtered by the evil Emperor at the end. (There's one where the heroes give everything for a chance at assassinating him, and eventually the assassin begs the King to conquer the country instead. Better to be strong and united under a cruel dictator, than to be weak and free.)

>>59488561

Jesus, that's awful. What was the point of all that?

>>59488643

It's based on a historical event. The Emperor in that story is Qin Shihuang, First Emperor of China. Canonically, he conquered China, killing millions.

>>59488424
Police don't protect shit from rape gangs and chimpouts. See also, multiple highly organized rape gangs that got away with it in England, and nearly every riot where the police stand outside the area and do literally nothing as people get beaten. Legally, there is no duty to protect. The police can leave you to die as long as they catch the guy in the end.

>>59489221

It's England. English police don't even carry guns.

>>59489553
Only the rape gangs were in England. No duty to protect is just about everywhere, since the alternative is that the police would be liable for all harm everywhere, which is ridiculous, discounting the fact that police are never accountable for anything. They get to be "specially trained" so they can carry full auto rifles, but also are just normal people who can't be blamed after they instigate violence and escelate it to the point where they get to shoot first. I'd literally rather have the military in a real trouble situation, since they've got stricter rules of engagement and can actually get court marshalled if they break them.

>>59488424
>It's important to shake the mindset of "Authority bad, underdogs good."
I agree. What people need to understand is that EVERYONE is shit.
>I rather have a million police shootings a year than to live in fear of rape-gangs and rampaging chimps.
Can we just have fucking neither? Why can't we hold police accountable for their flagrant misbehavior? Why does doing that preclude protection from violent crime? Is the problem that ALL police are disgusting, corrupt, power-mad narcissists? I don't think so, but if that is the case then we deserve way worse than we get.

>>59438644
Just make it something? Why are you relying on the book to do what you want when you can just make it do what you want?

>>59478731
The problem is that these minor factions lack the swinging power to be ephermeralized in books. You have to make them yourselves, and its not difficult.

>>59481384
That's an indication of the game being played, just cause the rules don't tell you to make your own society doesn't mean its not possible. Both of the last games have somewhat corp free areas as their major hubs for fucks sake.

>>59490316
>Both of the last games
Weren't set in the current setting.

>>59490330
Doesn't really stop you from making a shanty town with its own gardens and arms dealers that partners with low level criminals

>>59488424
That's not true at all though. Where I live the inverse is true. Just because one guy won an election doesn't mean the entire power structure of the establishment has shifted.

>>59490314
>Can we just have fucking neither?
No, it's either one or the other.

Choose or be a shitty fence-sitting "centrist".

>>59490473
Okay. If I have to choose anarchy or police state, I choose anarchy. I'll just buy a bunch of guns and live in a compound with some like-minded /k/ommandos. But the reality is, it's not that simple. We can find a balance.

>>59490741
>with some like-minded /k/ommandos.
You'll be dead within a week.

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>>59436349
Listen to the Clash on loop whilst you play

>>59490790

Don't forget raped to death by all the faggots and furries.

>>59488561
>>59488724
One of my favorite movies of all time.

But at the same time, I think heroes mostly win, it just has much more sacrifice than Western audiences like and "winning" may be different them first envisioned. This also requires the audience to understand that there are things bigger than oneself which doesn't seem a very common theme in Western media compared to Eastern.

As in your example, in the end the assassin saw things differently than when he originally set out, seeing that the whole thing was bigger than his initial quest for revenge. Peace would be achieved not by killing the "evil" authoritarian emperor who was conquering all the nations, but to let him live. As if that emperor died, the nations would just fall back into chaos and war, where as once he was done, that would (theoretically) be the end of the strife in the land.

Fuck, what a good movie.

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>>59488354
the armed forces are NEVER helpless against the ragtag rebels you doof.
There's a hell of a lot of difference between "one guy is a nightmare to deal with" and "they're helpless against hobos on drugs" and you're ignoring it for fuck knows what reason.

>We only see the real man once he straps on the armor at the end.
yeah too bad he's still a complete cardboard cutout making it nigh-impossible to tell whether he was lying about anything in the first place or if he just acts randomly, thus making his "character arc" about as impactful as a wet fart on a castle wall.

>>59441005
>...which makes me realize that we're probably a bunch of latent fascists...
Latent? Have you looked at /tg/ lately?

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>>59490871
get that weak shit out of here!

>>59456323
>Transistor
My brother

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>>59490473
>shitty fence-sitting "centrist"
Ask me how I know you don't have a single stance on politics not spoonfed to you by external forces.

And to not be completely off-topic: personally I think that punk is more or less dying off, but the best way to maintain it in cyberpunk would probably be to set things up such that corps are consistently adversarial. At best, they'll hire you for a dirty job, give you half pay, and then leave your body in a ditch.

>>59441005
>latent
Not even close. It's not hidden.

>>59490316
>The problem is that these minor factions lack the swinging power to be ephermeralized in books.
They don't need power, or to be acknowledged individually, the books just need to acknowledge their existence and give enough detail and examples so that gaming groups have a sense of how they work and can make them happen regularly. It's fine if punks are disorganized, weak, or typically get stomped on; there just needs to be material for GMs and players to work with so they can be better incorporated into games.

>you have to make them yourself
I'm not saying it's impossible to do this; just head on out into the lore-wilderness and write your own lore, books be damned. But if we want punk to happen routinely with players who are not themselves some kind of punk-roleplaying revivalists, then game writers and their books need to actually support the punk side of cyberpunk.

>>59436349
Use Shadowrun's private army and extraterritoriality and extend it to giving mega corps and individuals, as the militia they are, a right to spy.

>>59497702
Have the megacorps spread America's rights around the world, so the megacorps have the right to arms, lies and spying.

>>59498094
>Have the megacorps spread America's rights around the world, so the megacorps have the right to arms, lies and spying.
In the real world, this happens with embassies, thanks to the concept of diplomatic immunity. I wonder if a megacorp could grow large and powerful enough to leverage that kind of privilege for its own facilities (especially if they grew to the size of small towns)?

>>59488424
Yeah but the game isn't about beating our political enemies. There is pretty much no way a session in a ttrpg can help that cause. The the game is about asserting dominance and pounding faces.

I believe that if we are going to enjoy fantasies of that kind we might as well be honest and remove the pretence of justification, in the game we kill for the sake of killing. When I layer on all this drek about honour in an imaginary scenario about burning farmers in their houses, I get a warped half hearted practice. It's not about what the collateral damage is worth, we play because the collateral damage is the value.

There is no challenge in smashing the heads of a bunch of untrained, poorly equipped, poorly organised punks. There is meaningful means of spreading political ideals at a table of dude who probably already think like you. We're assuming there is no moral quandary here to navigate as the core concept of the game is being the fist crushing the upstarts.
I figure it's for the kick, the feeling of power. But if my hand is forced that's not real power, in practice it feels like an excuse: "that scrawy little fucker hit first." I'd rather admit to wanting that kick and revel in it and leave my real world beliefs at the way side.

What I do not want is to let that need for a kick bleed over into my everyday life under the false connection that it is some kind of moral imperative. I figure that's about on par with weirdos that let their kinks define there life. That will to dominate is useful but there's a time and place, just as there is a time and a place for anything.

If there is any reality we need to accept is that our natural thirst for brutality is disconnected from our morality. That just as our dick can guide our decisions into disaster so can our fists. If I'm going to spend a night indulging fantasies of brutality I'm going to use the same rule I use with jerking off: leave Jesus and the president out of it.

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>>59499152
>he doesn't jerk off to sadomasochist Jesus crucifixion porn

>>59499152
>I believe that if we are going to enjoy fantasies of that kind we might as well be honest and remove the pretence of justification, in the game we kill for the sake of killing.
This. Very few police officers like to admit it, but less than half really believe that the oath to protect and serve is a sacred oath. They didn't join the force to protect people. They joined for the glory, the authority, and the ability to be flagrantly and openly-armed. Hot-blooded, alpha-type personalities are the people who most commonly become police officers and firefighters. They only people most of them want to protect and serve are their own. It's much more realistic to portray the systems of society's control being made up of people who punch down because they can than people who have any real or perceived grievance. If anything, the punching down is why they decided to side with the system in the first place. Everything else is a convenient propagandist delusion maintained only so the safeguards against abuse can pretend they care.

>>59499687
>I actually have some of that, but with Sailor Moon instead of Jesus. I have mixed feelings about it.