Another tiny update

I'm terribly sorry for the lack of real posts here, but I have yet to actually start playing CP...which is annoying, but considering everything going on here at CMU, completely expected.

Here's a thought. Cyberpunk talks about technology and its power for social change...this is cyberpunk in general, though mostly on the literary side of it.

By earning an engineering degree in the beginning of the 21st century, I am on the edge of joining the next real technocratic revolution.

I don't know if this will look anything like CP, but it's pretty freaking cool anyway.

Advice to all you college students out there: Go and see guest lecturers. They will broaden your mental horizon.

Update...

I haven't posted in a while, mostly because I've been making the transition to college. I am now settled into my CMU dorm, and ready to gleefully work my ass off and other assorted things. Oh well. On a cooler (and nerdier) note, I have found a few gamers, and there is a store in Pittsburgh which sells used sourcebooks, including (I believe) Eurosource and Media Front for Cybergeneration. This is good. I have not started any campaign, Cyberpunk or otherwise, but I hope to by the end of September. In the meanwhile, I plan to take full advantage of CMU and Pittsburgh. Much, much, much more interesting than CCHS and Carlisle.

Ab3

Horror Stories Like You've Never Heard Them Before

Go onto the site, then click on "Rants/Reviews".

I very much agree with his review of Perdido Street Station, but the rants are more interesting. Read the RPG.net rants, because you will realize, as I did, that they are scary because of both the content and the familiarity. Ab3 tells the story that we all know too well, even if we deny it. And, it's flipping hilarious, as long as you can be a bit self-deprecatory.

Book Review: The Traveller

The Traveller, by John Twelve Hawks

John Twelve Hawks is an author I had never heard of, so when I saw this book at Barnes and Noble, I thought it was a book based on the RPG Traveller, so I immediately picked it up (In Listen up you Primitive Screwheads, Craig Sheeley called Traveller the most over-weaponed RPG in circulation). It wasn't but I read it anyway, because there were "critical acclaim" blurbs all over the jacket, and if an author has both blurbs, and only one published book, it has to be worth something.
It is, despite my jabs at the way I came upon it, quite a good book. Towards the beginning, it seemed that Twelve Hawks' writing style was reminiscent of Garth Nix writing Shade's Children, that is, a bit too young adult. His descriptions are very straight-forward and no-nonsense, and while this is a relief to those of us accustomed to Gibson-esque flourish that leaves the plot miles away and the reader confused, it feels like the weight of the writing is lacking.
Before I go beyond the mere technicalities, let me say that this novel is not cyberpunk. It is what could be termed science fantasy, but the conceit of the novel is one that would appeal to any fan of Gibson, Stephenson, Sterling, or any other cyberpunk author. Twelve Hawks writes the book on the principle that society is built on a network of computers, cameras, and communications lines that make it possible to monitor almost any action one would choose to make. The extent of this network is dubbed by Twelve Hawks as The Grid (apparently, the Net was taken), and the two major players in the book have very different relationships with this Grid. The Tabula, the antagonists of the story, are a group who wish to control society in a way modeled on the Panopticon (the theory behind the Panopticon is described at length in the book, and while I don't recall the name of the man who came up with it, I can give a basic overview: the Panopticon was a planned model prison where cells were arranged around a guard tower where the guards could see the prisoners, but the prisoners couldn't see the guards. The theory was that as long as the prisoners believed they were being watched, it was unnecessary to watch them every waking minute). Now, the tenets of the Panopticon are fine for a prison, but quite scary for real life. Later in the book, the head honcho of the Tabula waxes Marxist about the concept, saying that people are unaware they're trapped, and as long as they're kept distracted, they'll never find out or even care that they're being monitored (if you don't know what I mean by "waxing Marxist", go read Marx's The Communist Manifesto. The analogy will make more sense). Anyhoo...basically, the Tabula want to control society. On the other side are two groups, the Harlequins and the Travellers. The Harlequins live a life of violence and randomness (The protagonist, a Harlequin, carries a five-digit random number generator with her, and uses it to determine her actions in certain situations) and live their lives solely to protect Travellers. Travellers are born with the mythic ability to "pass their bodily energy into other realms"...and, the book goes Buddhist and doesn't return. The concept is original, but during one scene where the main characters are staying with families living "Off the Grid", the Paid-Avoidance zones from Shockwave Rider kept on flashing into my mind.
The way Twelve Hawks develops the plotis the books key element that makes it interesting. Twelve Hawks is quite a good writer, and knows how to spin up tense conflicts and subconflicts that keep you reading page after page. Once I had really gotten into the meat of the story, I read 200 pages in one night just to see what was going to happen next. Although some of the characters are not subtle at all (The greedy land developer who *gasp* is actually a Traveler), Twelve Hawks still manages to throw them into an embroiled conflict. Though, if I was to tell you whether his choice was money or family, I'd be giving some of the plot away. Up until the very end, the conflict is gripping. And that's the part that got me. I will just say now, a once-published author has a lot of nerve to end his first-ever book with To be continued. I read those words, and wanted to scream and throw the book across the room. I thought I was finally going to see the resolution of the whole thing, and this crafty little romantic subplot that was actually done really well, but all I got was a nice stopping point and a f---ing Cliffhanger. Urgh. That being said, the fact that he built up so much emotion that I reacted as such to this abrupt and frustrating ending is a testament to how well the book had built up to that point. I'd recommend this to Cyberpunk fans, but you may want to wait until they announce a release date for his next book.

"Version City"

Another short post, though a more detailed one is soon coming. I have done little work on my new campaign setting, though after some musical listening, I have decided to rename the place "Version City", after the song by The Clash of the same name. The song and several other songs on the album Sandinista! gave me the ideas for the noir-type atmosphere I want to convey, which is good because it gives me an idea about the game I want to run as well. I'm trying to think about the level of headware, and I'm thinking kind of alternate-history: Cyberpunk tech level, with a 1930's feel. Something with lots of vacuum tubes. I dunno. The guns will probably be old, with a couple WWII throwbacks (recoilless rifles, anyone?), and I'm definitely thinking about crazy walker-type robots. Mad-scientist shit, though the possibilities are endless, and awesome. The budget would definitely be low...I'm thinking of raising the prices of "old guns" back to full from what is entailed in the core book, and anything big and ridiculous could be 2x-5x base before black market mods. I don't know, but it's all being worked out. Things would be mostly new, though the majority of things would be "old guns". Well, new idea, new things to implement. Off I go...

Gibson has a blog!

William Gibson has started updating his blog again. You can find it here.

I know I've been short on entries, but the only real Cyberpunk thing I've been doing is rocking back and forth waiting for Cyberpunk 203x to come out. Oh well...
More updates later, I promise.

The Cyberpunk Collective

Not much time to update, it's been a little crazy round here. I do have one link of note, however.

The Cyberpunk Collective

It's a livejournal community centered around cyberpunk, and a lot of neat entries and threads have been made. If you have a livejournal, I'd recommend joining, and if you don't, look around anyway. Many of the threads are worth a read.

New Campaign Setting

I've started writing a new campaign setting. The city, Nuevo Praha, is a European-founded city on the Nuclear pock-marked East Coast of the United States. I'm writing up several new corporations, but since the setting is for 203x (and consequently happens 15 years after 2020 is set), it incorporates Night City (merely its existence) and uses the old corps as trademark properties, so I don't have to rewrite every item available. I will rebrand them, eventually.
I've mapped some basic stuff, including rudimentary public transit. It's going, so I expect to put more work into it over the summer. It should be playable when I go to Pittsburgh, but that may depend on the premier of 203x. I'm waiting eagerly, to be sure.

If anyone has any suggestions or ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Maps

This is really for any roleplayer anywhere out there in the blogosphere. Do you like maps? I do.

When I played D&D, I made maps for everything. As I detailed earlier, I used street maps for CP, but detail maps I didn't really have many of. And from the few times I have used them, I know they are a big help for organization and for your players.

Right now, I'm in the brainstorming stage for a new campaign that I want to have semi-playable when I move to Pittsburgh for college in about five weeks. I have some ideas and some inspiration (see: Batman Begins and Divine Inspiration), but I want to put them down on paper now.

Here's a GM's boon: quadrille notebooks. I bought a bright orange quadrille book in France the summer after eighth grade, and it's been a GM primary for me for the past five years. I now need to get another one and start drafting.

Any brilliant ideas for a new and completely original campaign? I have a lot of corporations and mobs and gangs to write up, so any advice is appreciated.

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.