Getting our new gaming PC yesterday, I’ve been feeling the cyber-itch again. Last night, in a moment of weakness, I flipped through the pages of Shadowrun5 and realised why I want to run this at the school club.
But that wasn’t the only input: I also saw again the excellent CyberPunk 2077 trailer video… and I wanted to play!
What is it about Cyberpunk settings? It’s not just the chrome, and it’s certainly not simply the guns and violence. Something about the dystopia and the conspiracy lurking in the background makes it feel really… compelling.
As I contemplate my own “modern conspiracy weird-shit” campaign, dubbed Lore of Chaos, I feel the itch to layer in the tropes of Cyberpunk: the beginnings of cyberware, the Corporate takeover in progress, the price of life on the streets. What would you prefer to play: the Corporate agents… or the Street Samurai? I can feel the itch even more now.
Game on!
P.S.: What do you MEAN you’ve not seen the Cyberpunk video?! –> Cyberpunk 2077
Do remember the old cyberpunk games – running along the streets, fighting off the local cyber-gangs, and then selling their tech to a cyber-dealer.
Was always fun trying to see if it was worth it to get that next bit of cyber-tech, before you went mad. Always liked the idea of supping up the body with tech, but the trade off that you may damage the mind.
SR5, now that they have release official errata, is back on my list as well. The core rules are my bedtime reading lately. I think this may also be spurred on by the (hopefully not, but very likely short lived) Almost Human TV show. Great plots on there that cover all the usual cyber/transhuman tropes, plus the fun of a buddy cop formula.