Well I had a great run with my CP2020 campaign, so much so that my players want me to run something else in that genre. Well almost in that genre.

I was flipping through TSR's biopunk supplement Kromosome and think maybe biopunk is the way to go. Problem is, I'm not to hip to this particular subgenre.

I want something lowkey techwise - nothing too flashy, think along the lines of the movie Strange Days and I want the players to have a limited "lifespan"....think of the comic book Strike Force Morituri....if that's what it was called.

I have no idea what system to use. No real ideas about the setting, besides what I've mentioned. No inspirational reading materials. Nada.

So, ideas, recommendations would be appreciated. I think I have a solid concept for a campaign....but nothing much to go on.

Regards,
David R

What is Biopunk? I've not heard the term before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopunk

Regards,
David R

OIC! Thanks for the link. Should have googled it, really.

If in doubt, set it in your local town or a place you know well. Place names, shops and so on would be well known but then the people living there would have the genetic modifications.

It might also be fun to suggest that the characters have to change to stay alive. If they don't keep drinking toxin, they die. When they drink toxin, they change. One minute, you have a super human, the next someone who has the jitters and so on.

Rob, I really like your theme of addiction. It's not something I've done in any of my games.

Regards,
David R

Do you have to stay on earth?

Enlarge your CP game to offplanet colonies. Have the PCs as an exploration/law enforcement/military/security team working for the company that is trying to check out new biosystems. Engineered retrovirus, a virus designed to make the requisite DNA changes, may get out of hand on this colony world. Perhaps they mutate quicker than expected, and the poison pill protocol in them fails to function, or functions in an unexpected way. Whatever the path you choose, the virus starts infecting colonists, changing them considerably and threatening to get the Company's licence to colonise revoked.

Soon the company is bringing in orbital clean up crews backed by heavy weapons to clear up their mistake before they stage a nuclear accident to cover up what they've done.

The PCs, unlike everyone else, don't try to escape but rather to penetrate into the major facility to access a friendly insider to get a message out.

The PCs have to find and undergo various gene changes to have a hope of succeeding. Perhaps one of the places that they get to is underwater, they'll first need a gill/pressure modification.

By the end of the campaign they may have saved the colony at the cost of their own humanity.

I may end up doing something like that chalkline. Thinking about it further I think a better movie (esp when considering the theme of addiction) would be Requiem For A Dream. Your off world idea sounds interesting, but I'd be more comfortable using it for a Transhuman Space campaign

Regards,
David R

Sounds like a cool Sorcerer game.

I haven't read a lot on that list, but I have read Brave New World (not to mention seen Dark Angel). Somebody got me to read Vurt. Does that count?

Videodrome is a cool flick, but Gattaca seems too glossy and heartless. Maybe that's the point.

Vurt not so much.

Videodrome yes but I think eXistenZ would be the kind of "messy tech" I'm aiming for. In fact the whole vibe of this film could work for this setting.

Edit: Whatever advantages biotech grants, most folks just shudder and turn their backs on it. I think for this campaign, I'm aiming for a desperate subculture feel, rather than kewl tech for sticking it to the man.

Regards,
David R

You could call it "Harry Otter and the Stoned Philosophers".

Or not.

Quote from: David REdit: Whatever advantages biotech grants, most folks just shudder and turn their backs on it. I think for this campaign, I'm aiming for a desperate subculture feel, rather than kewl tech for sticking it to the man.

That really would be a cool Sorcerer game. The PCs are the outlaws who draw on the power of biotech. But using biotech risks your humanity. Define what 'humanity' means for your game and you're off.

And of course: Pick up GURPS Biotech. Not because the current run is nearly that useful as GURPS books go, but as a source of ideas on how to handle biotechnology in a game it is, as always, a top notch product.


My critique, while out of place, is in that in so many words it just tells you how to spend your points making a biotech character, rather than actually introducing new things to spend them on... again, as a source for ideas on how to run your game... top notch.

Quote from: SpikeMy critique, while out of place, is in that in so many words it just tells you how to spend your points making a biotech character, rather than actually introducing new things to spend them on...

Actually this is one of the reasons why this particluar sourcebook is in my "design library" for this campaign.

Regards,
David R