[CONTEST] 1KM1KT CYBERPUNK REVIVAL PROJECT

[SheikhJahbooty]

Sorry dude, that was me.

I suggested it first in this thread.



And we talked about it some more in this thread where it became clear that different people had different problems getting people to the table for Cyberpunk games.



My problems are that all my friends here in Atlanta are hippies and small business people (or both), so unregulated corporate greed doesn't seem sinister and evil to them. It seems pathetic. They've accepted contracts with Coca Cola, and it's not a menacing megacorporation; it's a crap client who pays late and is too afraid to make any decisions without wasting huge amounts of time covering their butts to protect their illusions of job security.

And customary cyberpunk settings don't address the clash of values that does concern people in Atlanta. In cyberpunk everyone had the same values, consumerism. In Atlanta everyone has different values.

Concerning gay marriage (just as an example):

One groups says it's an issue of public decency. Are you fighting for polygamist marriage rights? No. What makes gays more moral than other deviants?

Another group says it's a civil rights issue. Loving couples should have the same rights of hospital visitation, taxation, child custody, etc. without regard to whether or not they're the same gender.

Another group says it's a religious freedom issue. What right does the government have to come into our churches and tell our preachers who they can and cannot marry? If my church wants to offer the sacrament of marriage to the gay members of our congregation, the government can come into the church and tell us no, it's not really marriage? This is what we do now in America? We oppress religious minorities? Oh, I didn't notice that the terrorists had won.

That is why my setting addresses those things. It's my attempt to get people to the gaming table for a game of cyborg assassins, computer hackers, daring capers, and strange mysteries, etc. Because other aspects of the setting weren't relevant to my pool of prospective gamers.

Other people have been having different problems, and those are reflected in their entries.

[Kinslayer]

That's interesting. I couch contemporary fears, problems, and topics of serious discussion in the context of Renaissance horror/fantasy, for much the same reasons. The anachronisms and fantasy elements make it more palatable for players to deal with these issues. Then again, Midian is secretly a sci-fi game (shhh), and I suppose good sci-fi is supposed to do just that.

I think I finally understand Ray Bradbury's comment about how Fahrenheit 451 was the only sci-fi book he ever wrote.

As the low version of sci-fi, cyberpunk is fantastic enough so that we don't immediately recoil from it in horror, yet just close enough to our Meat World (R) lives so that we still get a knot in our stomachs from it. Cyberpunk truly is the contemporary redo of noir, perhaps best illustrated by Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep/Bladerunner. Instead of being a way to deal with fears of growing indifference from one's fellow man, growing crime rate, and an inability to make a lasting difference in the world, cyberpunk handles dehumanising technology, ubiquity of information, unmanageably rapid changes in society, excessive power in corporate hands versus governmental, and the fundamental human need to forge one's own identity.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

It occurs to me to discuss some clarifications in rules about rules. How does using a pre-existing set of mechanics affect page count? Is this even an option, since I'm pretty sure vanilla FUDGE/FATE/JAGS/YAGS (as you brought up in the ) are over the 30 page limit by themselves.

Are we looking for a transformed CP setting, or complete new CP games? While the above are rather modular, it seems a bit unfair if some are making new rules from scratch, and others are just re-naming attributes for style.

[misterecho]

The contest is primarily for settings entries. You will not be marked down for writing a full game, although kudos to you. If you write a setting for another freely available RPG mechanic i.e. fudge or YAGS, you will not need to include all of the mechanics. Refer to the Rules text.

[WittyDroog]

Well I've been lurking this website for a long time now, but I can't contain myself and have to give this my best effort.

Now let's see if I can discipline myself...

[papaganoush]

I am almost afraid to throw my hat into the ring but this contest has caught me attention. So I finally registered for the 1km1kt forums.

Looks like I am taking a run at this one

Papa

[misterecho]

Welcome to the chaos

[Hawell]

Im In as well, I may even post a few times working out a few bugs I runto along the way.

[Hawell]

thanx, I wa thinking of posting a few ideas....If its allowed?

[Rob Lang]

Post away, you'll find a special forum where a load of authors have already started!