Guest Post: The not-too-distant future!

Today, guest blogger Chris of Dreadnoughts and Dragons takes us back to the future with this look at 1980s classic Cyberpunk and its vision of the dark dystopian future of, er ...

... 2013.

One of the greatest problems with roleplaying games in general is that they over-engineer solutions to problems that don't really exist, and ignore problems that would actually make life a little better. Of course, in the real world the exact opposite is true: technology advances fastest in areas where there is greatest consumer demand.

If you want an illustration of just how this can date a game, look no further than Cyberpunk: The Roleplaying Game of the Dark Future. Unfortunately, this dark 'future' is the world of 2013, as envisaged by Mike Pondsmith in 1988. I picked up the first edition of this game for £1, and found myself back in the world before the Internet. Imagine the bastard RPG lovechild of William Gibson and Don Johnson, then add more hair spray. How dark is 2013? Well, apart from being perpetually set at night (this is cyberpunk, duh) it's your basic corporate police state/impoverished street gang dystopia. 

The 'cyber' side comes in the form of a worldwide network which you literally have to plug yourself into (to help out players who have never used a computer that didn't require a cassette tape, there are detailed sections explaining what a modem does). 

The 'punk' aspect are the party-loving, tech-fixated gang members. The character creation guide states that your motive is to wear the coolest clothes and visit the coolest clubs. One of the nine classes available to play is Rockstar. The willpower stat is called Cool. Everyone uses a nickname ('handle') to sound as cool as your idol, Johnny Silverhand.

But the technology... oh, the technology is glorious. Behold this little gem.

Fax. This is the letter-writing mode of the future.

Thank fuck the game was wrong on that score.

It's not the only glaring anachronism. In a world where the first NPC you meet (an uninteresting hacker girl called Alt) has a “gold-plated cyberarm with hidden compartment”, mobiles are still giant bricks the size of walkie-talkies.

In fact, it's worth noting where Cyberpunk gets it right, and where it gets it wrong:

Right:

• Internet! 
• Europe is great apart from Spain and Greece, who are broke 
• 24/7 news coverage has turned the media into crazed lunatics 
• People love technology 
• Everyone wants a gold-plated cyberarm with hidden compartment.

Wrong:

• No cyborg implants are in general use, let alone gold ones with sneaky compartments 
• No gangs of mullet-sporting rock musicians roam the mean streets of America like they're the fucking Sharks and Jets 
• Phones are not bricks 
• People use the internet for things other than corporate espionage, like looking at pictures of cats 
• Newspapers are not printed out by fax on street corners 
• Fax is not the letter-writing mode of the future, cat pictures are 
• Nobody wants a modem or fax machine planted in their skull 
• Phones are not the size of bricks 
• Hovercars don't exist 
• You can't melt people's brains with your 133t haxxor fax skillz 
• A phone or a laptop is not more expensive than a motorbike. 

 Anachronisms aside, Cyperpunk is surprisingly easy to pick up and play: you can generate a character very accurately in a few minutes. Part of this is because it removes any real say in your character's background; you have to pick from one of nine classes (including Rockerboys, Solos, Cops and Corporates), each with a single special skill. You're then encouraged to generate your life history, with one event per year after 16, roll for your sweet sense of style, even roll to see who you care about. 

This is all very, very easy indeed to get moving: I generated a full character in under 10 minutes, who ended up a 'silly fluffhead' rockerboy addicted to drugs and with a mental health problem, who dresses in battle armour and spiked heels, has a kid sister who looks up to him, and a pet cassette tape that he loves more than anything else in the world.

While it can appear simple, there's more than enough detail to go on. The three books (my edition also has the Friday Night Firefight expansion) come to a whole 150 pages, but have detailed corporate biographies, walkthroughs of games, and even encounter generators for anyone who wants to surprise their players with chance run-ins with celebrities, gangs (the 'Bradi Bunch' is mentioned as a particularly vicious band of miscreants) or corporate secret police.

Overall, Cyberpunk is silly, simple and hopelessly outdated. It's pretty much a defining game for the 1980s.

---

Chris also points out that to send a fax you type it into a computer, which sends it to a local post office, which then prints it out and delivers it to the recipient; also, adding call-waiting and autodial to your phone costs $2600.

Now, I went to high school with computer-loving kids in the 1990s, so obviously I know a lot of Cyberpunk fans, although they mostly came up playing the second edition. Despite all that -- and despite that same edition being one of the games owned by the cousin who set me on the Call of Cthulhu path -- I have never actually played it. Have you? Did you update it or was the retro-futurism part of the appeal for you? Let us know!

More combi-weapons and the random Renaissance bionic arm

I spent some time in a local museum the other day and snapped some photographs which had possible relevance to games and the blog!

Axe-gun, like in this post.
I think in order for this to be good in games, you'd need a
game that has drawing a weapon as a slow action.

I find the idea of a blunderbuss with a bayonet hilarious for some reason.

"Ha ha! You thought I had a gun, but actually it's ... a knife ..."

OK, so those are my flashbacks. On to the meat of the post. I also saw this prosthetic hand -- there were actually two, but I don't think my photo of the other came out well enough. As you can see, this is an iron prosthetic from the Renaissance, and it's pretty cool-looking. From the description on the card, it doesn't sound like it was actually very functional, but we can beef it up for gaming a little bit. But we don't want bionic hands to just work like replacement hands; how boring would that be? 

First off, obviously the fantasy replacement hand is made of metal, so it has some good points: great for opening poison-needle traps with, for instance. Probably not great on the ol' dexterity, though, so you probably don't want to be trying to open traps that work by explosives or deadfalls. I assume they probably take Dex penalties for tasks performed with that hand? I'll think of it when I get to it.

Anyway, I like the idea that these things are made individually by local smiths, so no two of them are the same. With that in mind, I have created the Random Mechanical Hand Table. It is designed for my home D&D game, which is like d20 but I ignore the complicated bits. I think that PCs should be able to try to influence the outcome -- maybe you can get a second roll on the table, but it costs extra? Anyway:

Random Mechanical Hand Table

Roll d10 once for each section.

Advantages

1. Decorative inlay. Looks really cool. 
2. Knuckle spikes. Unarmed strikes do an additional d4 damage. 
3. Integral multitool. Saw, screwdriver, pliers, little knife, etc. Gives +2 bonus on crafty skills, handy for cutting ropes, etc. 
4. Hidden finger compartment. Secrete one small object -- a note, a few gems, some lockpicks. 
5. Joint lock. Set to hold hand in one position. +2 to resist disarm, but needs to be reset before you can do anything else with it. 
6. Integral dart launcher. Compressed-air charge fires a single dart; provide your own poison. Reloading takes several minutes, tools and removing the hand. 
7. Armoured plating. Counts as a buckler in combat. 
8. Exotic construction. Double base cost. 1-2: Silver. 3-4: Meteoric iron. 5: Bones of a saint / cursed relics. 6: Bamboo, whalebone and exotic hardwoods. 
9. Magnetised plate. Good for attracting small metal objects. Can be inconvenient. 
10. Cable reel. Works like a grappling hook. 

Disadvantages

1. Decorative inlay is highly offensive in a randomly-determined language or carries symbols of hated cult/insurgency/noble house/whatever. 
2. Joints squeak unless regularly oiled. -2 on stealthy stuff unless regularly maintained. 
3. Loose fit. If you land a critical hit with this hand, roll d6. On a 1, the hand falls off. 
4. Tight fit. Bites into the arm, causing irritation. -2 to any rolls involving remaining calm (like resisting Rage spells). 
5. Evil. 
6. Shoddy construction. When putting high pressure on the hand (e.g. carrying a heavy object, clinging to a cliff edge), roll d6: 1-3 no effect. 4-5 minor damage; -2 on all rolls with this hand until repaired. 6 catastrophic failure. 
7. Rough finish. Wears away at ropes. Apply a penalty to skills using ropes or 10% chance of snapping rope when used with this hand if skills aren't your bag. 
8. Non-retractable spikes: not bad as a weapon, but don't shake hands with people, as this hand is covered in jagged blades and spikes. 
9. Crooked smith concealed valuable information/stolen goods in hidden compartment; dangerous people and/or the law are desperate to retrieve it. 
10. Unpredictable lock. As with grip lock above, but roll d6 when trying to unlock the hand: on a 4-6 it remains stuck and has to be opened by painstakingly dismantling the lock mechanism.