Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

[Susano]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

I found Jennifer Government a great read and highly recommend it.

[monster]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

no, i dont have a cyber hero game going yet but i am very intamate with the genre. i haven't read all the posts so there may be some overlap.

first you need an overall "feel" and there are many.

1. traditional; this covers stuff like cp2020, robocop and the like.

2. manga or shirowpunk as i like to call it. mainly ghost in the shell (gits), appleseed (as) or even battle angel alita (baa).

these are the two most popular and they are both good.

then you need a voice,

the first common voice is three fold, style over substance, attitude is everything, and the future is disposible. this works best for traditional cp

the second is questions of humanity/morality. and this seems to be a shirowpunk thing.

another thing about the cp genre is combat, it should be VICIOUS. there should be consequences for just hauling out a gun to solve a problem. in short the life expectancy for any character that just blazes guns should be unforgiving.

and lastly don't ever forget the saying high tech/low life.

 

i dont have any web pages to link but you should search online for shirowpunk

and rads cutom gun page and militech

[UltraRob]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

I have a scenario for "low" Cyberpunk I always wanted to use but didn't get the chance yet...

 

The GM needs a city map (preferably the Night City Sourcebook or some other resource), or they can fudge it, but they do need to know the city and setting fairly well.

 

So, the scenario is this:

 

The players start off with no equipment but dirty clothes (and maybe other small non-combat items of marginal usefullness), just enough money for two days food and a single unloaded gun. They're in a rat-infested appartment which is only paid up for a few more days and have no jobs, all their leads seeming to have run dry.

 

GO!

 

The point is to see what the players do, and can do, to survive. How far they get, and how much they accomplish.

 

I call this one "4 men and an unloaded gun".

 

Rob

[Susano]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

The local (Maryland) gaming group is interested in my setting up a KAZEI 5 game. This should be interesting!

[SirViss]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

The local (Maryland) gaming group is interested in my setting up a KAZEI 5 game. This should be interesting!

 

Let us know how it goes!

[Susano]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

Let us know how it goes!

 

Sure. I told the players that the structure of the game will be up to them. By that I mean the PC's place in the world. They can decide to be a black ops government group (ala Section 9 from Ghost in the Shell), an elite police unit (ala the AD Police, Attacked Mystification Police, or ESWAT), a mercenary team (such as the Knight Sabers), or a freelance unit of shadowrunners (ala Shadowrun). The only requirement is that they, as PCs< should be a step up on the moral scale then most everyone else. They they believe in a high cause/better world/better future. Although this is not par for the course for most Western cyberpunk, it tends to fit with a lot of anime cyberpunk.

[Adventus]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

I thought this would be a good place to post this thought. If you want to see a fixer in action, watch the first 10-15 minutes of Phone Booth. The main character is a fixer setting up a gig for a white rapper. it will show you how to play a fixer. The section up to where he gets into the phone booth.

[arcady]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

Thread necromancy...

I'm running a postCyberpunk game right now using the Ex Machina system.

 

I've got a setting here:

http://home.pacbell.net/arcady0/SciFi/

 

And a lifepath generator here:

http://home.pacbell.net/arcady0/SciFi/lifepath.html

 

 

 

I'd adopt the above to Hero in a flash given the right tools to do so.

 

 

These projects have since moved to:

 

http://home.comcast.net/~brianfwong/SciFi/

 

and:

http://www.geocities.com/arcady0/SciFi/lifepath.html

 

And conversion to Hero of the setting is now underway, for which I am open to suggestions.

 

The lifepath generator is now downloadable and can be highly customized. In addition, it contains presets for a number of different styles of Cyberpunk.

[Vondy]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

Cyberpunk as a literary/cinematic genre relies as much on the psyche of the individual protagonist as it does the look, feel, and milieu to make it go. They provide the human element that survives in a dark, soulless world - and the story motivation. The best cyberpunk is really a character arc centered on a lone protagonist (and sometimes their antagonist). The ability to duplicate that in a role-playing games, especially with a group rather than an individual player, is limited at best. I've seldom seen a cyberpunk game that caught what was at the core of the genre. Instead, they tend to embrace the dark, soulless milieu of the genre for "fun and profit" - and freqeuntly look like old-school hackmaster style games with dystopian science fiction trappings. I guess my answer is: no. I enjoy the genre, but not for games.

[arcady]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

I've been working very hard to avoid that.

 

I've been looking for 'natural team dynamics' withing the genre. In my opinion, Ghost in the Shell, despite being anime, shows a great way to do this - make them cops and make it a cop drama.

 

You can also see this working well in books such as 'Future Cops'.

 

Other dynamics exist as well, but the problem you cite is, in my opinion, not one of Cyberpunk, but of all Anglo-American genres.

 

We only get away with a random group of thugs who meet in a tavern in fantasy because we are used to it, but it honestly fails on most genre analysis - even LotR has a very structured team. The genre generally prefers the single protagonist when it is written by westerners.

 

Asian literature comes out of a more group focused society, so their protagonist concept does not have this same problem, which is probably why Ghost in the Shell works the way it does. Anime, despite its many flaws, often is more comfortable with team dynamics. The same is true of Manwa (Korean comics), and probably also of Chinese fiction as well.

 

An American Cop drama would pick one Cop and make him the rebel with a divorced wife and kid and a black sidekick who gets killed halfway through or makes inspiring jokes... (and even when the lead is Black (Will Smith) or Chinese (Jackie Chan), the buddy is still usually a spunky black guy) but it is essentially single protagonist...

 

We have become accustomed to ignoring the problem in fantasy for the sake of the game, though there are countless commentaries on the silliness through which 'Dungeon Crawlers' meet up, but the problem is still natural to the genre.

 

One of the few western genres with a built in solution is Super Comics, about half of which have been team comics and have always had a different discourse, but the other half of this genre still has the single protagonist complex...

 

And holding a group of super-protagonists together is still a big gaming problem when gamers want to think like individuals and not a group...

 

My theory therefore is that the problem you cite is not special to Cyberpunk, and can be overcome there just as it can in other genres.

 

A police angle is the one I have preferred, but there are other team dynamics within the genre.

 

The "fun and profit" thugs problem is different one in my opinion, stemming from just how bad of a take on the literary genre Cyberpunk 2013 did, and how much worse of a take Shadowrun did. Both of these games were not Cyberpunk, they were 'Cybered-punks'. They were wholly new genres built out of the name of the genre, but not out of any of its soul...

[ghost-angel]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

Cyberpunk as a literary/cinematic genre relies as much on the psyche of the individual protagonist as it does the look' date=' feel, and milieu to make it go. They provide the human element that survives in a dark, soulless world - and the story motivation. The best cyberpunk is really a character arc centered on a lone protagonist (and sometimes their antagonist). The ability to duplicate that in a role-playing games, especially with a group rather than an individual player, is limited at best. I've seldom seen a cyberpunk game that caught what was at the core of the genre. Instead, they tend to embrace the dark, soulless milieu of the genre for "fun and profit" - and freqeuntly look like old-school hackmaster style games with dystopian science fiction trappings. I guess my answer is: [u']no.[/u] I enjoy the genre, but not for games.

 

I'm in agreance with the second half - regarding the way Cyberpunk is played as a gaming Genre. It's why I generally decline to play in CP games not GMed by me.

 

My last 2, and most successful, CP games did not involve the standard "fun and profit, mercenaries" scenario. In fact the last one had all the PCs working for a corporation as an agent group sent around to investigate various other corporate activities. I also tended to strongly discourage the Friday Night Firefight mentality.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

It's true, that you do need a core human element to make a Cyberpunk campaign work. However, HERO is ideally suited for this, more so than almost any other system except possibly GURPS, because of the built in disad system.

 

Through that, you can make each individual's struggle stand out, and that enables you as DM to build story arcs around them resolving those conflicts, and in those arcs build in new, personal conflicts. My current campaign is now being retooled to a "Conspiracy Theory" sort of thing, set in my non-dystopian future.

 

Yeah. NON Dystopian. Dystopia is over done and offers limited RP. I'm think of doing a PA campaign next. Big big guns, hard core, fantasy style RP.

[arcady]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

I would disagree on Dystopian being overdone. In fact, I haven't seen a dystopian setting for Cyberpunk roleplay published yet.

 

I've seen action genre settings (Cyberpunk 2013/2020, OGL Cybernet), and I've seen classical science fiction and transhuman (GURPS), I've seen Dungeon Crawl with guns (Shadowrun), as well as post-Collapse (MAd Max style), and even 'bright new wonderful future (two of the settings in Ex Machina feel this way), and I've seen 'Global Gladiatorial Arena' like 'Escape from New York (another of the Ex Machina settings), and I've seen 'Nano-Cyborg meets Project Aiko complete with fan-service and Team-America visuals' (Cyberpunk v3, and the last setting of Ex Machina [minus visuals])...

 

But Dystopia?

 

Nope, haven't found it yet.

 

Of course, I have a few rants online about my personal opinion that the Cyberpunk genre hasn't actually been done yet in an RPG. None of the offerings fit into the genre I see in the literature. Some come close to the movies and anime, but I don't accept that as genre-meeting.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

But Dystopia?

 

Nope, haven't found it yet.

 

Of course, I have a few rants online about my personal opinion that the Cyberpunk genre hasn't actually been done yet in an RPG. None of the offerings fit into the genre I see in the literature. Some come close to the movies and anime, but I don't accept that as genre-meeting.

 

Find a sourcebook called Cyber Generation. It's an old R.Taslsorian CP2020 book (it was built from CP2020, uses that as the base ruleset, it is not CP2020 however). It goes and fixes all the crap they screwed up with CP2020. In fact there's a forward that mentions how it went wrong and why they didn't like it.

 

It has it's flaws, but it's the single closest thing I have ever seen to a true Cyberpunk RPG.

[arcady]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

Isn't that the book with teenage cyber-super-heroes though?

- If so, that would throw it straight out of my view of Cyberpunk.

[Susano]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

I would disagree on Dystopian being overdone. In fact, I haven't seen a dystopian setting for Cyberpunk roleplay published yet.

 

I've seen action genre settings (Cyberpunk 2013/2020, OGL Cybernet), and I've seen classical science fiction and transhuman (GURPS), I've seen Dungeon Crawl with guns (Shadowrun), as well as post-Collapse (MAd Max style), and even 'bright new wonderful future (two of the settings in Ex Machina feel this way), and I've seen 'Global Gladiatorial Arena' like 'Escape from New York (another of the Ex Machina settings), and I've seen 'Nano-Cyborg meets Project Aiko complete with fan-service and Team-America visuals' (Cyberpunk v3, and the last setting of Ex Machina [minus visuals])...

 

But Dystopia?

 

Nope, haven't found it yet.

 

Of course, I have a few rants online about my personal opinion that the Cyberpunk genre hasn't actually been done yet in an RPG. None of the offerings fit into the genre I see in the literature. Some come close to the movies and anime, but I don't accept that as genre-meeting.

 

Don't look at Kazei 5 then.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

A Dystopia is in the eye of the beholder.

 

On man's Dystopia is another man's Utopia.

 

The grass is always greener on the other side of the electrified razorwire.

 

As the guy on death row on the way to the chair said to the new guy, "Cheer up, things could be worse!"

 

 

The point being that the portrayal of a Dystopia boils down to the GM and players injecting the tone / mood / ambiance that equates to a Dystopia _for them_. The amount of action or lack thereof, focus on the individual or on society, fatalism or hard boiled grimy grit, etc is all just spice for the stew.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

Isn't that the book with teenage cyber-super-heroes though?

- If so, that would throw it straight out of my view of Cyberpunk.

 

Ok, the cyber-super stuff was . . . silly almost

 

But it managed to capture the feel of Cyberpunk so much better than anything else. Sure, the kids had essentially low level superpowers. They were still outnumbered, outgunnned, out trained and pretty much just screwed over. They were fighting against a Dystopia in almost every sense of the word.

 

And KS is right: creating a Dystopia is as much up to the GM and Players keeping the feel as it is the setting.

[Alverant]

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO?

 

I've run a lot of Cyberpunk 2020 with good success. I'll skip duplicating others' info, but here's what I haven't seen:

 

--It's worth your time to find a copy of "Listen Up You Primative Screwheads". It's the Cyberpunk 2020 GM's guide. It's not very mechanics-heavy and I recommend it to anyone that wants to run a CP game.

 

--CP is a good style for fostering paranoia between party members and even a little PvP action, as long as you've got players that understand that up front. One of the most successful series of adventures I ran had all the players selling-out to someone. In addition to the regular jobs they were running, they had to deliver a MacGuffin, spy on other party members, and so on and keep it all a secret. Kinda like Paranoia in a way. Tons of fun all the same.

 

--Everybody wants something. Any time you introduce a character, have at least one thing they want and if/how they can use the party to advance their goal. Some people will be up-front about it. Some people will lie, cheat, and steal. But, everybody wants something.

 

As someone who has CP2020 and CP203X, what did you think of 3rd edition? Personally I was surprised on how they made the world WORSE. I mean I thought 2020 was bad, then I read how things really went to heck in a hand basket. The transition from 2nd to 3rd edition starts with the PCs getting nuked and goes downhill from there.

 

I think the new alt.cults came up too quickly. I would have put it in 5X or 6X, you know give a few decades for these new cultures to evolve and establish their own traditions. But the mechanics... ugh. Where else is the best option for not getting hit in a firefight without expending a lot of points is getting down on one knee? (There's a big bonus for half-sized non-moving objects.)

 

I'll give him credit for using action figures. It's different. (Note, I did not say it was better, just different.)