Quote from: Jaeger;1112627Except not really one you scratch the surface.

The problem I have with the Cyberpunk genre is that the core conceit of the genre: Mega Corporations taking over from governments.

That just can't and would never happen in real life.

You are dangerously naive then. Corps control more and more of the government. Just usually not out in the open.

Quote from: Jaeger;1112733LOL, We come from a similar direction; it's my understanding of the Austrian Economic theory and how corporations relate to, and are in fact creatures of government, that make the traditional cyberpunk "corporations taking over" conceit hard to dismiss in play.

The reason I find it easier to set aside my"world logic" a bit in Elf games and "sword and planet" Sci-fi; is that neither genre tries to make a direct connection to modern day circumstances when you are reading the setting info.

Now I do think that one can capture the feel of traditional "cyberpunk", Without the "Mega corps Rule!" meme. But it would involve writing the background setting so that it more resembles a high-tech version of the Great Depression/Economic collapse + wild west lawlessness + urban Sprawl + Government incompetence/corruption + surviving Big/Mega? Corporations running a amok in the Chaos, that society seems largely unable to pull itself out of...

Neurospasta intentionally inverts the "megacorp" and "chrome" tropes of cyberpunk while attempting to invoke the rest. YMMV as to how successful the attempt. is.

This is a great thread! Thank you to all of you! Lots of stuff to mull over for my re-write.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1112629I think it's best just to treat Cyberpunk as a retro future and enjoy it for what it was.

True. It's retro-alt-future.

However, I think its possible to tweak some of the tropes to being more "realistic" to our era's future and still build something gameable. I think one aspect of making cyberpunk work is for hacking to be ahead of the surveillance tools. AKA, yes, there's this oppressive mega-state all around us, but their tech can't compete with mad skillz and with a hacker nearby, you can break rules that shackle the masses.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1112522Yeah, that's one of the problems of Cyberpunk games.  Now that we are well within the "How we Got Here" history chapter of any Cyberpunk Game, and the writing is on the wall, playing the game as the ones fighting the power just reinforces the fact that in the real world, you're one of the narcissistic consumers that walks through life like a good little Sarariman, not seeing the chain around your neck or even worse, not caring.  It strikes way too close to home.

Hulk, those are some depressing truth bombs. You owe me a bottle of tequila because its empty suddenly for no reason.

However, isn't D&D the same thing. Entertainment as wish fulfillment, yearned for especially because of mundane reality? I remember REH's correspondence with HPL discussing their writing as a way to escape the unbearable boring real world they felt they were shackled with.

I purchased a new copy of the Cyberpunk 2020 rulebook from DriveThruRPG's print on demand service last week. To replace my well-worn copy.

I'm still a fan of the game. It has brought me a lot of joy over the years owning it. I have quite a few of the supplements for it.

Someone earlier mentioned CyberGeneration. I own all of the supplements for it that ever saw physical book form. Including the two from Firestorm Ink. I loved it.

Quote from: Omega;1113063You are dangerously naive then. Corps control more and more of the government. Just usually not out in the open.

They're not at the point yet where they are basically nations of their own, but they do have the politicians in their pocket. Then again, in other parts of the world that they exploit, it looks like they have defacto mercenary armies that will gun down locals.

Also, the current situation with our southern neighbor and their struggle with the Cartel seems like a twisted version of a mega corp rivaling the government for control.

Quote from: Jaeger;1112627Except not really one you scratch the surface.

The problem I have with the Cyberpunk genre is that the core conceit of the genre: Mega Corporations taking over from governments.

That just can't and would never happen in real life.

For the sake of discussion - I will challenge this idea. Why not? A government, like a corporation, is nothing more than an organizational structure whose constituents agree to participate in - or are forced to.

One of the very real issues with any government is the basic idea of solvency. If a government cannot afford to sustain itself - which we've invented a lot of convenient smoke and mirrors since coming off the Gold Standard and allowing the Fed to accrete power, it cannot hold itself together. You can't pay for the soldiers to enforce your will etc. While this isn't an overnight thing, it certainly becomes a very salient issue that demands the realities of the Cyberpunk Future(tm) to be examined.

Cyberpunk generally assumes economic downturns of varying degrees. Generally hyper-wealthy via Mega-Corporations as global entities backed by AI entities that regulate a lot, if not most of the complexities of such systems. National governments by their very nature have to be in direct competition because rampant globalism - via state agencies might not be real, but it they're very much real on a Mega-Corporate level.

People have to realize that the notion of a Mega-Corp is vastly more powerful than what we see today. A Mega-Corp isn't just "one thing" - it's a veritable Amazon that controls huge swathes of production, manufacturing, distribution, and in the dark future - the infrastructure and security necessary to keep a hold of it's market-share. Imagine if Amazon owned Googly, Boeing, Lockheed, and a shit-ton of subsidiaries, had most of the politicians in key positions on its payroll, wrote its own legislation "protecting itself legally" with a veritable army of lawyers and judges, tribunals, on an international scale - backed by AI's created by the corporation itself... and the largely gutted U.S. government, which relied on those companies and subsidiaries for its own needs had to compete against them.

Now imagine that same government had SIX other Mega-Corps of similar stature to contend with - but only with it's own national resources to bear.

This is not to say the government couldn't deal with it... my contention is by the time the government needed to deal with the situation, it would be too late without *massive* bloodshed. And frankly I think the government would collapse first because as we see today, they would be too weak.

That *is* the cyberpunk future which our characters have to deal with. That post-national question... it could be pre-collapse/post-collapse but there IS a collapsing paradigm in there.

This assumes we do not go post-scarcity. Which is a fun thing to play with in a cyberpunk game... an adventure where the secrets of cold-fusion are unlocked, and what would governments or Mega-Corps do to suppress/unleash it?

I think Corporations *can* take over. I think that's one of the hallmark conceits of the genre, it's not that government doesn't exist, it's that the government has become so fundamentally weakened, it has outsourced the few things on the federal level it was intended to do.

Possible themes to explore in Cyberpunk -

- AI Jyhad - Megacorps being undermined by their own AIs for *reasons*. AI conspiracies. AI's have secretly started to play 5-d chess for their own GM-determined reasons that could be like Vampire, where immortal elders use the PC's for inscrutable machinations
- Post-Scarcity - One of the means of control is resources. Post-Scarcity is a threat to any corporation(s) leveraging that control over the populace and even government itself.
- Revolution - There may have already been a revolution before. And it failed. Or failed to enact the necessary changes. Time for a do-over and run it back. Why anytime is a good time for a revolution.
- Fuck this Rock - Why fight it, when you can run from it. Take it to space. Be the king of your trash-heap elsewhere, where *you* can be the top-dog with less G's.
- Rulers of the Wasteland Let the Mega-Corps rule in their domed cities. We control the byways and highways between the cities. We have created our own civilization, our own city-states. We are the Ayatollah's of Rockn'rolla!!!! This can also translate to ocean-traffic too. Imagine this happening on islands in the caribbean, where people hijack automated shipping, piracy etc.

These would all be big-backdrop conceits to mix-and-match and use to inform your adventures of course. The players can get involved with these things as you see fit.

Quote from: tenbones;1113114For the sake of discussion - I will challenge this idea. Why not? A government, like a corporation, is nothing more than an organizational structure whose constituents agree to participate in - or are forced to.

One of the very real issues with any government is the basic idea of solvency. If a government cannot afford to sustain itself - which we've invented a lot of convenient smoke and mirrors since coming off the Gold Standard and allowing the Fed to accrete power, it cannot hold itself together. You can't pay for the soldiers to enforce your will etc. While this isn't an overnight thing, it certainly becomes a very salient issue that demands the realities of the Cyberpunk Future(tm) to be examined.

Cyberpunk generally assumes economic downturns of varying degrees. Generally hyper-wealthy via Mega-Corporations as global entities backed by AI entities that regulate a lot, if not most of the complexities of such systems. National governments by their very nature have to be in direct competition because rampant globalism - via state agencies might not be real, but it they're very much real on a Mega-Corporate level.

People have to realize that the notion of a Mega-Corp is vastly more powerful than what we see today. A Mega-Corp isn't just "one thing" - it's a veritable Amazon that controls huge swathes of production, manufacturing, distribution, and in the dark future - the infrastructure and security necessary to keep a hold of it's market-share. Imagine if Amazon owned Googly, Boeing, Lockheed, and a shit-ton of subsidiaries, had most of the politicians in key positions on its payroll, wrote its own legislation "protecting itself legally" with a veritable army of lawyers and judges, tribunals, on an international scale - backed by AI's created by the corporation itself... and the largely gutted U.S. government, which relied on those companies and subsidiaries for its own needs had to compete against them.

Now imagine that same government had SIX other Mega-Corps of similar stature to contend with - but only with it's own national resources to bear.

This is not to say the government couldn't deal with it... my contention is by the time the government needed to deal with the situation, it would be too late without *massive* bloodshed. And frankly I think the government would collapse first because as we see today, they would be too weak.

That *is* the cyberpunk future which our characters have to deal with. That post-national question... it could be pre-collapse/post-collapse but there IS a collapsing paradigm in there.

This assumes we do not go post-scarcity. Which is a fun thing to play with in a cyberpunk game... an adventure where the secrets of cold-fusion are unlocked, and what would governments or Mega-Corps do to suppress/unleash it?

I think Corporations *can* take over. I think that's one of the hallmark conceits of the genre, it's not that government doesn't exist, it's that the government has become so fundamentally weakened, it has outsourced the few things on the federal level it was intended to do.

An alternative is private-public "partnership" writ large. Government stays out of they way because govt officials benefit from MegaCorp "largesse" - the larger the MegaCorp, the greater the "largesse".

Quote from: RandyB;1113117An alternative is private-public "partnership" writ large. Government stays out of they way because govt officials benefit from MegaCorp "largesse" - the larger the MegaCorp, the greater the "largesse".

I think that's the actual natural outcome: ineffective government bureaucrats living large on the largesse... while the Mega-Corps "do what they want".

In the Home of the Brave book for CP2020 they have a fun story about the American government "fighting back"...

QuoteOperation Big Stick
Internally, the U.S. military has gained another duty : balance of power. The elected U.S. government sees the military as a tool to keep the powerful corporations that inhabit U.S. soil in line.

Collectively, the corporations field twice as many soldiers as the U.S. Army and Marine Corps combined. Individually, though, no corporation, not even security giant Arasaka or mercenary power Militech, can match the firepower of three Army regiments. The power of the U.S. military machine vis a vis corporations was amply demonstrated during what is called the Mantoga Incident, when the Mantoga Corporation was destroyed by military effort. This took place prior to the return of free elections in 2008, during an abortive attempt to relax military government and appoint a president. On November 5, 2005, Presidential appointee Henry Jacobi was assassinated.

Evidence strongly pointed to Mantoga, Inc. involvement and instigation, and on November 17, 2005, the corporation was given four hours to completely pull out of the United States of America. This ultimatum was ignored by the corporation ... to its sorrow. Exactly four hours after the issue of the ultimatum, Army forces moved on all Mantoga, Inc. facilities, destroying every Mantoga office with concerted air strikes (the most
impressive being a pin-point attack on the Mantoga office located in a Chicago suburb; a single air-dropped burrowing bomb shattered the entire office building with the surgical precision of a planned demolition), and overrunning all storage and factory facilities with troops, armor and artillery. The operation took twelve-hours, including mopping up. lntelligence operatives and covert military direct-action units (e .g . assassins) followed up, pursuing and killing Mantoga employees and operatives who escaped the country.

On April3, 2006, Operation Big Stick was officially closed when the last Mantoga, Inc. administrator was assassinated in Bonn, Germany.

This genocidal military action has remained as an example to all corporations on American soil of what happens when the U.S. government is pushed too far.

Heh, it's fun to just remind people... even the diseased, sleeping lion can still rise up and prove he's still King of the Jungle... at least on occasion.

Quote from: tenbones;1113121I think that's the actual natural outcome: ineffective government bureaucrats living large on the largesse... while the Mega-Corps "do what they want".

In the Home of the Brave book for CP2020 they have a fun story about the American government "fighting back"...



Heh, it's fun to just remind people... even the diseased, sleeping lion can still rise up and prove he's still King of the Jungle... at least on occasion.

That's similar to how the closing adventure of the original CP2020 metastory, Firestorm:Shockwave, got closed out, too.

Quote from: RandyB;1113153That's similar to how the closing adventure of the original CP2020 metastory, Firestorm:Shockwave, got closed out, too.

yeah it's same story! Home of the Brave is the backdrop America sourcebook for all the metaplot adventures in "Land of the Free" boxset. I don't use the adventure modules much, so I got a LOT of mileage from Home of the Brave.

Quote from: tenbones;1113155yeah it's same story! Home of the Brave is the backdrop America sourcebook for all the metaplot adventures in "Land of the Free" boxset. I don't use the adventure modules much, so I got a LOT of mileage from Home of the Brave.

Not quite. In Firestorm: Shockwave it was Militech itself that got brought to heel by the U.S. Government. They recalled the Militech CEO back to active duty.

Quote from: RandyB;1113164Not quite. In Firestorm: Shockwave it was Militech itself that got brought to heel by the U.S. Government. They recalled the Militech CEO back to active duty.

Yeah I know. Firestorm happens after the events that set up Home of the Brave. HoB is just a setting book for America in CP2020. Firestorm is the mega-module adventure campaign that set's up and plays out the 4th Corporate War.

With the retconning of Cyberpunk 3.0 to be an alternate timeline... it makes Firestorm really the last vestige of CP2020 before CPRed, which I assume they'll establish the "official" outcome.

I'm considering for my first CPRed campaign... to actually run Firestorm with the new rules, as a fun exercise to get my players into the "zone". heh

Quote from: tenbones;1113222Yeah I know. Firestorm happens after the events that set up Home of the Brave. HoB is just a setting book for America in CP2020. Firestorm is the mega-module adventure campaign that set's up and plays out the 4th Corporate War.

With the retconning of Cyberpunk 3.0 to be an alternate timeline... it makes Firestorm really the last vestige of CP2020 before CPRed, which I assume they'll establish the "official" outcome.

I'm considering for my first CPRed campaign... to actually run Firestorm with the new rules, as a fun exercise to get my players into the "zone". heh

I misunderstood. I thought you were conflating the two events.

Yeah. That setting rocked hard. We're on what, the third alt.future? Cybergeneration, CP 3.0, and now Red? And which of those, if any, is the history for Mekton's Starblade Battalion setting?

Quote from: RandyB;1113224I misunderstood. I thought you were conflating the two events.

Yeah. That setting rocked hard. We're on what, the third alt.future? Cybergeneration, CP 3.0, and now Red? And which of those, if any, is the history for Mekton's Starblade Battalion setting?

CPRed is *as I understand it* - is the direct timeline from CP2020. It's the intermediary period between 2020 and 2077. I don't think any of them were overtly connected to Mekton (which is fine - though I used a lot of stuff from Mekton as "futuretech" for prototype stuff).

I've not looked forward to a new game release like this in *years*. Hell I think I'm more excited for CPRed than I was for my own game... Okay that's not true, but it's close!!!!