Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker

[Username17]

Uhm, 'scuse me but:

“Men has killed men for thousands of years. Why should the future be different?”

should that not be:
“Man has killed man for thousands of years. Why should the future be different?”?

Not if you are Colonel Santiago.

Anyway, having thought more about the RPS situation, I've come up with a more nuanced setup. By letting people get magic in increments rather than forcing everyone to select magician or mundane at the beginning, we eliminate the hard magic/mundane divide altogether. Our primary concerns then pivot to "roles" rather than "power sources". Within any particular role, there are magical and mundane tricks that might be in your quiver, and those should have clear and demonstrable plusses and minuses within those roles. But the roles themselves need to have their own RPS setup.

For example: if you're an Enforcer, you should be able to reliably beat the crap out of a summoner's pets and then beat the summoner up. Because the summoner is able to accomplish stuff with little or no real risk to himself and can be scouting in several places at once, and thus has real advantages infiltration and disaster management that the enforcer cannot match. And that logic applies exactly the same way if the Enforcer is a military Cauldron Born, a Juicer, an Asura Cuisinart, or Sword Fetishist. And it applies the same if the "Summoner" is an @Man, a Puppeteer, or some kind of literal conjurer.

The Juicer needs to feel different from the Cuisinart. But they are both Enforcers.

-Username17

[Seerow]

So now you're going back to Cyber/Hacker/Mage (roles) as your triage rather than Mundane/Cyber/Magic(Power Sources)?


It's easier to make work, but it also eliminates the unaugmented badass role that you were very adamant about protecting earlier. What changed? Personally I really liked the idea of an unaugmented guy being the ideal face/brainhacker.

[Stahlseele]

Uhm, 'scuse me but:

“Men has killed men for thousands of years. Why should the future be different?”

should that not be:
“Man has killed man for thousands of years. Why should the future be different?”?

Not if you are Colonel Santiago.
-Username17

I'm afraid i don't follow? O.o

[Chamomile]

The quote is evidently a direct quote from Colonel Santiago.

[fectin]

Are @men supposed to be summoners or enforcers? Before, I had thought that they were big bruisers.

[Stahlseele]

The quote is evidently a direct quote from Colonel Santiago.

Ah, thank you.

[Endovior]

“The Bureaucracy has expanded to meet the expanding needs of the expanding bureaucracy.”

Perhaps similarly, that appears a misquote; the middle 'expanding' is incorrect.

[Vebyast]

Are @men supposed to be summoners or enforcers? Before, I had thought that they were big bruisers.

I think they're a kind of specialist. @men can carry out "suicide" missions at the cost of money rather than their life, they can customize themselves to the mission to a greater degree than any other single character, and so on.

[jadagul]

The quote is evidently a direct quote from Colonel Santiago.

Ah, thank you.

I'm pretty sure the quote is actually "Man has killed man," and wikiquote e.g. backs me up, but she speaks with a pretty thick accent so it does sound like "men."

[RiotGearEpsilon]

It seems to me that one of the most obvious routes for any underclass to take is to smash and ruin as many critical labor-saving devices as possible, in order to create work for them to be paid to do. Also, I imagine the number of people with children in this world is so low as to approach Children of Men issues, as there is literally nothing for them to do.

[A Man In Black]

It seems to me that one of the most obvious routes for any underclass to take is to smash and ruin as many critical labor-saving devices as possible, in order to create work for them to be paid to do.

A historical example of this is the origin of the word "saboteur".

[Orion]

So we like having Discipline and Reaction be stats. Does that mean that we want ther est of the stats to also come in opposed pairs? You could do a physical/menta/social split with something like: endurance/effort, reaction/discipline, and charm/force for instance.

Alternatively, keep everything nice and abstract and make all the stats "mental" stats. With Reaction and Discipline come maybe "Processing" or something to do with being able to sift through large amoutns of data/stimulus to solve problems quickly. Key stat for hackers and technical types. You could honestly stop there with those three, or tack on strength and charisma if you want to.

I like

[Grek]

It says in the entertainment section that <1% of people are in the business, and that 50 times that want to be in the business. So that means <50% of people want to be in entertainment.

[Chamomile]

Does that really strike you as being incorrect? It seems about right to me.

[Grek]

50% seems like way too many aspiring movie stars. I know it's 50% or less, but that's half the possible range of percentages. It tells us next to nothing.

[Endovior]

It's not just movies... that number includes all the amateur writers who post fanfiction online instead of getting their work published, any sort of musician who currently lacks a recording contract, all the graphic artists who aren't currently being paid to render models, all the unemployed programmers who busy themselves with open-source game projects to keep their skills sharp... the list goes on.

[Draco_Argentum]

In the crushing dystopia of the near future there is only stardom. With so few normal jobs to acquire and work at to buy the [nationality] dream hoping to become a superstar is about the best bet for anyone who isn't already rich.

[Chamomile]

It's not just movies... that number includes all the amateur writers who post fanfiction online instead of getting their work published, any sort of musician who currently lacks a recording contract, all the graphic artists who aren't currently being paid to render models, all the unemployed programmers who busy themselves with open-source game projects to keep their skills sharp... the list goes on.

Like, seriously, is there anyone here who doesn't have at least one of these dreams on the backburner, despite the knowledge that the odds it'll ever replace our dayjob are basically zero? Now imagine you do not have and cannot find a dayjob for months at a time, and you're only going to find more people like that, who will be even more prolific.

[geordie racer]

Like, seriously, is there anyone here who doesn't have at least one of these dreams on the backburner, despite the knowledge that the odds it'll ever replace our dayjob are basically zero? Now imagine you do not have and cannot find a dayjob for months at a time, and you're only going to find more people like that, who will be even more prolific.

Yeah, over here in England, everyone's got a project NOW, like hoping to catch the eye of some Karoake Sauron for seconds in the spotlight. Take away our free health care and auto-benefits and whoa - we'd be fulltime hustlin' for attention.

[RiotGearEpsilon]

Technically, making and selling roleplaying games also falls under the 'entertainment industry', so... we all fall on that list.

Here's a question: what's the situation in the future regarding the price of housing, food, water, medical care, communications, and entertainment? Currently, even super poor people can usually scrape their way to access to a used laptop or whatever, even if they have difficulty finding housing; I'd love to have a more solid understanding of what the face of poverty is in this setting, and if it's worse than it is today. Obviously, far more people are poor - but is the standard of living of truly poor people any higher than it is today, or lower, or what?

[kzt]

Not really. I'd argue that if you are not actively working towards that goal in where you live and how you live you are not really trying to make it in the entertainment industry.

If you want to be a movie star and you haven't moved to LA and picked up every extra job, or want to be a country star and haven't move to Nashville and spend your free time singing in bars for tips you are not really trying. You might have a fantasy that someone you talk to as a ticket agent for Southwest in Orland is going to want to make you a star, but it's just a fantasy.

[geordie racer]

Not really. I'd argue that if you are not actively working towards that goal in where you live and how you live you are not really trying to make it in the entertainment industry.

If you want to be a movie star and you haven't moved to LA and picked up every extra job, or want to be a country star and haven't move to Nashville and spend your free time singing in bars for tips you are not really trying. You might have a fantasy that someone you talk to as a ticket agent for Southwest in Orland is going to want to make you a star, but it's just a fantasy.

But that's the way it is with celebrity culture, the myth that anyone could be made a superstar if they were GIVEN an opportunity. And then people start thinking they are ENTITLED to it -they are SPECIAL and UNIQUE Now extrapolate that into more desperate impersonal times.

[Username17]

So now you're going back to Cyber/Hacker/Mage (roles) as your triage rather than Mundane/Cyber/Magic(Power Sources)?

Well, in that model, "cyber" is a power source. So is hacking and magic for that matter. Your "roles" are things like Fighter and Thief. So as a BnE specialist, you might do that by being a hacker, but you also might do that with sorcery or by being a demolitions expert. As an Enforcer, you might get that way by being cybered up and good with a chain saw, but you also might get that way by being jazzed up on magic.

The key things to throw down are that:

• Everyone needs to be able to sneak. Being stealthy is not a role, because hiding is a thing everyone needs to be able to do. Being innocuous enough to tail people is a thing someone can have in their role, and enhanced stealth through actual invisibility or camera spoofing can be a role, but participation in the stealth mini-game is a given.
• Ditto on "phone a friend". Everyone has contacts, everyone gets to participate in the rumor mill minigame at the start of the adventure. Everyone gets to buy gear in the middle and end of the adventure.

I'm a bit up in the air as to exactly what roles I'm putting in there, but since it's skill based, I am seriously considering making like 25 and having people select 3 or more for their character.

Are @men supposed to be summoners or enforcers? Before, I had thought that they were big bruisers.

I think they're a kind of specialist. @men can carry out "suicide" missions at the cost of money rather than their life, they can customize themselves to the mission to a greater degree than any other single character, and so on.

The @Man hops into a machine and pokemon fights with it. He can maintain multiple potential body jump points and in any case suffers only a modest setback when the specific robot he is explodes. The analogous character is the warlock or golem smith that maintains a single high quality pet at a time. The Puppeteer orders a swarm of devices around, and is analogous to the imp farmer or voodoo zombie master that has a swarm of low-quality pets.

In either case the tradeoff of quality for quantity is much the same. Quantity is less stealthy and less able to overcome competent opposition at a single point. But quantity is also able to guard more territory and is able to attack more areas at once. Zombies excel at plant the bomb missions (both sides) and golems excel at rescure the hostage missions (both sides).

It seems to me that one of the most obvious routes for any underclass to take is to smash and ruin as many critical labor-saving devices as possible, in order to create work for them to be paid to do.

Certainly the neo-Luddites would get a lot of traction. "Smash the Looms!" makes a lot more sense when the world is literally running out of cotton to spin. The thing is: that might not really work. Because while the depression we are having right now in 2011 is one where the limit is that not enough money is being spent on making things (and thus you actually could get out of the problem by blowing up all the factories, forcing the companies to spend their money on rebuilding them and employing everyone in the process), the 2075 depression doesn't work like that. Since it's an actual materials limited economic crisis, it probably works like medieval economics where if you break anything you have less total goods in the economy and everyone suffers. But on the flip side, you might force people to use less manpower efficient rebuilding techniques - in effect transferring wealth from corporate profits to private citizens.

The real issue is that the amount of money in the system doesn't much matter - there simply isn't enough plastic to make all the stuff you could make and distribute.

-Username17

[Lokathor]

Okay so my question go like this: How do people get along at all if they're only employed 3 months out of a year most years? Do the corps just give out food to prevent the revolution from rising up and burning everything down or what? I can't imagine the earth having 9 billion people if there's so little work to be done and you need to do work to get fed.

As a smaller side question: How are the corps making money if most of society has no money to spend? Seems like you need to be giving out a lot of funds to the middle class to really make Conspicuous Consumption work.

[Murtak]

Okay so my question go like this: How do people get along at all if they're only employed 3 months out of a year most years? Do the corps just give out food to prevent the revolution from rising up and burning everything down or what? I can't imagine the earth having 9 billion people if there's so little work to be done and you need to do work to get fed.

As long as there is enough food on earth and as long as it can be transported to those in need it does not even matter how big the number on your paycheck is. They only question is: how willing are food companies to dump perfectly fine food onto landfills so they can inflate the prices on the food that they do sell? And with universal poverty I expect they can't wring very much out of people. Accordingly the basics should be dirt cheap.

As a smaller side question: How are the corps making money if most of society has no money to spend? Seems like you need to be giving out a lot of funds to the middle class to really make Conspicuous Consumption work.

There are two ways to get more wealthy: produce more or steal from others. Presumably corporations will attempt to produce more stuff with fewer resources expended in the process and they will attempt to steal from those who have something worth stealing - corporations are the obvious answer, but so are governments, rich individuals, organized crime and indeed the poor. They may not have much money (though you can probably still squeeze out worthwhile sums from a large enough mass of peasants) but more importantly they have labor.



Basically you can just look at lopsided economies from our time and extrapolate from there. Barring natural catastrophes and wars the population does not starve to death. They suffer, they hunger but they do not die. And all the wealth, monetary or otherwise gets concentrated in the hands offewer and fewer people and individuals, with what little middle class existing being used to control the poor. That is the world that has been proposed in a nutshell, except you exchange government employees for corporate citizens, rural exploitation for toxic landfills and AK47 rifles for AK97 rifles. Or, if you want to go further back, have a look at traditional feudal systems. The pattern is the same.