For anyone who has seen the movie Johnny Mnemonic

[Monolith Brookshadow]

That's basically the story board of this game (and i love it). Minus the telepathic Dolphin (not joking) but especially if you start corpo.

I know there are differences but the similarities are amazing and I adore the fact Keanu is a lead in both.

[Sardukhar]

Publicado originalmente por Nar!:

I haven't seen Johnny Mnemonic in so long. I need to pull it up soon. Another movie that shares similar visuals is Dredd. (the Megabuildings and mini van chase sequence). :)

@Sardukhar, I've been wanting to pick up Neuromancer. Gotta remember to slot that in my Amazon shop list.

Neuromancer is excellent, but my personal favourite is Hardwired.

Not only is HW a huge inspiration for Cyberpunk, there is even a source book for it for the TTRPG and the author and Mike Pondsmith are friends.

Plus, it's really, really cool. All about a badass ex-fighter jock turned smuggler in a custom-built hovertank and the professional killer he meets during a problem run.

[MajorBarf]

Everybody remembers Neuromancer - but Gibson also wrote Count Zero, Burning Chrome & Mona Lisa Overdrive which are equally good and, to my mind, better.

I loved Hardwired - remember getting the TTRPG book for it as soon as it appeared.

Then there was Metrophage by Richard Kadrey which painted a vivid cyberpunk vision of Los Angeles - city of fallen angels.

But predating them by some way (1975) is The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner. It is not cyberpunk as we think of it today but which has some fascinating overtones that would be right at home in Night City.

Or for a really dark & nasty future, check out Bad Voltage by Jonathan Littell - A mass shooting being labelled as performance art? Fresh human brains at a dinner party?
Or Ambient by Jack Womack where corporate takeovers are decided by a killer-takes-all roller derby and office workers are shackled to desks.

[Silverbane7]

I don't mind the GM trying to kill the player.
That's a given, at least in cyberpunk. It's kinda their job as they are playing the Corpo side, the gangoons, mooks and so on.

Part of it was power creep.
All's well when you are starting out. Your fresh meat and easy to flatline.
Things get good once you make it out of newb territory. A few levels under your belt so to speak. You survive a couple of dangerous gigs and get some decent gear.

But sooner or later, if you didn't get too sure of yourself and walk face first into a sh#tstorm you couldn't wade out of...you get to be epic with a capital E.
And that's where things start to slide.
Because now.... Now it takes the Arasaka Elite Black Ops squad in full murder mode, just to take ONE of your team out.
Or they have to resort to the Big Bad Rock from Orbit to take your base (and you) out.
You can pretty much pinky-flick the likes of Oda and Smasher....
And now your GM is out of options, because...who the frak can they send after you to make things exciting again?

That was (afaik) why Cybergenerations happened. And why Cyberpunk 203X happened.
Generation failed because while it was fun to be cyber X-Men....you were teenaged.
No guns, no cars, no booze, no drugs and no relations.
(well... Ok, you *could* do all that...but not legally)
And it wasn't much fun if everyone was playing 'mom n pop' old Edgerunners ether.

And I think 203X failed because the cyberpunk version of MadMax was just that bit too much out there for folks.
(and it hit just as tabletop games were becoming... old and unfun as everyone edgy was moving to Vampire the Masquerade or Warewolf the Apocalypse lol. 'story driven' games where the 'narrative is more important than the ruleset')

The truly devious GM knew when to give and when to take (take back lol. Usually what they just let the party get, play a little with and then start to depend on lmao)

When to get personal with a player's backstory (kidnapped loved ones.. blackmail... a crazed friend, lover or rival who has everything to throw at you, and as much restraint as a wet paper bag XD)

I'm probably just getting old lol... But I feel like games now (story wise) go right for the jugular like a starving and maddened monster, rather than building a slow burn to that seriously significant strike.

I remember reading an article in Dragon, back before it was WotC I think.
Where the party was playing 'call of cthulu' and one of the pc's kept failing.
A spooky old house, an old fashioned car and bad fumble rolls.
They were supposed to get into the house and find sinister goings on.
But this was the 2nd car one of the players had, and she didn't want to get to car number 3.
So she kept trying to start the (crank handle started) car. Failing her rolls. Slipping and falling under the car wheel, loosing a couple hp.
The GM decided that he would change up what he had planned, and suggested they try the front door.
Instead of locked... Scary and dangerous....
They found the front door unlocked, hallway empty...a study door open with a cosy fire in the hearth...brandy in the decanter and time to dry off.
Which made the horrors downstairs all the worse, because they let their guard down (lol)
He said it was one of the most memorable and fun sessions they had played in that campaign.

When I was playing, we had a house rule.
If you made it to living legend levels...you would become a NPC character.
It was what they used to do in the old Dragonlance game.
If your character made it to lvl 20, you became an Npc. Handed over your character sheet and the GM would play them after that, should they be in the story. (it's what happened to Raistlin when they were first playing, the game that created the whole story of the Hero's of the Lance iirc)

Only for cyberpunk, the way it went was... Your main decided it was time to 'retire'. You rolled up a fresh char and played both of them together. Your new char was 'mentored' by your old one for a while. Then the old char was retired to Npc and you used the new one.
You could use the old one in a story but only a couple of times.
Like going to Rogue for Hellman. Or Wakako for the festival info.
Or getting Nix to get you the MaxTac schedule.
And the GM could use them against you for storylines too. Your 'ace in the hole' could become your kick in the britches sometimes.
The tabletop version of 'new game +' lol.

[Krasker]

Publicado originalmente por -∞-dissolve-∞-:

There's also a cool melee weapon that is inspired from the bad guy in that movie, the Monowire.

Not sure about this. Cyberpunk 2020 (1992 ed) had the Kendachi Monowhip, 3 years before Johnny Mnemonic.

[MajorBarf]

The Johnny Mnemonic short story was first published in 1981 in Omni magazine and then republished in the Burning Chrome collection in 1986. The first edition of the Cyberpunk TTRPG was published in 1988. The second edition, Cyberpunk 2020, came in 1990. The Kendachi Monowhip was in Chromebook Vol. 2 in 1992. The Johnny Mnemonic film was 1995.

[Monolith Brookshadow]

Publicado originalmente por MajorBarf:

The Johnny Mnemonic short story was first published in 1981 in Omni magazine and then republished in the Burning Chrome collection in 1986. The first edition of the Cyberpunk TTRPG was published in 1988. The second edition, Cyberpunk 2020, came in 1990. The Kendachi Monowhip was in Chromebook Vol. 2 in 1992. The Johnny Mnemonic film was 1995.

Didn't know any of this, and while that is interesting, i'm still happy about the parallels here

[Nar!]

Publicado originalmente por Sardukhar:

Publicado originalmente por Nar!:

I haven't seen Johnny Mnemonic in so long. I need to pull it up soon. Another movie that shares similar visuals is Dredd. (the Megabuildings and mini van chase sequence). :)

@Sardukhar, I've been wanting to pick up Neuromancer. Gotta remember to slot that in my Amazon shop list.

Neuromancer is excellent, but my personal favourite is Hardwired.

Not only is HW a huge inspiration for Cyberpunk, there is even a source book for it for the TTRPG and the author and Mike Pondsmith are friends.

Plus, it's really, really cool. All about a badass ex-fighter jock turned smuggler in a custom-built hovertank and the professional killer he meets during a problem run.

I'll definitely check out Hardwired. I just added it to my list of books to pick up. Thanks for mentioning it!