Batman Begins and Divine Inspiration

I saw Batman Begins tonight.

And, being the GM I am, I started thinking. Thinking about inner-city dystopia, thinking about Gibson...thinking about Cyberpunk in film.

Cyberpunk and the Original Batman

Gotham's new interpretation has not strayed from its dystopian nature, rather, it has embraced it. Instead of the glossed-over Gotham, this new Gotham has an underworld, has shantytowns, has ugliness. And the key thing is that ugliness is really the reality.
There is one scene in the movie where a kid is outside his corrugated aluminum "house". Inside, it's clear that some form of domestic situation is ensuing. Batman shows up, and the kid looks up in awe. A light in a desolate world.

It is very difficult for many people, especially people such as myself who come from relatively comfortable backgrounds, to understand what it means to truly struggle against the world. Liberal idealists can claim to fight for those struggling, but when they do not have to struggle for themselves, it is truly a useless rallying cry.

Gotham is a world, that like the Chiba of Gibson, the Tampa of Williams, or the burbclaves of Stephenson, is modeled on reality. A reality that the powers-that-be try to mask, and a world that we can choose to ignore.

The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer. The way that the government combats this is with anemic and useless subsidies which pretend to be doing something, and continual spoon-feeding of "patriotic" propaganda, as well as television: the ultimate alternative to action. Nowhere in history has a more compelling argument to sit on our asses and do nothing been written.

This is my new scary campaign idea. The world outside has become a cruel dystopia. 2% owns 90% of everything, and the other 98% can only comply or starve. So, while 95% get contracted, 3% choose to grab life on their own terms. Only about .2%, in total, succeed. Everyone else either starves, gets capped, or submits, and does nothing but watch TV or threevee every single fucking day after getting home from work.

The .2% in question are the edgerunners. A combination of idealists and jaded cynics who run a rigged black market created by the higher-ups. Things are under such tight control, that even the black market is corporate controlled. Crime is simulated in suburban communities by professional anarchists with political science degrees because the real crime in the slums and at ground level almost always goes uninvestigated.

This campaign would start in some corporate suburb. The PCs are here for some reason, be it legitimate or otherwise. The big thing is that somebody wants to mix things up. It's nothing new, making money rarely follows the rules. But, it's an opportunity. A big what if: can someone catch an opportunity, or will it turn into a cyclical mess of raping the masses for personal gain? I'm sure we'll learn the hard way that people don't tend to be very moral when they have more to gain and less to lose by being heartless.

It'll be interesting. In the meanwhile, I have writing to get to.