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Gryphonadmin
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20917 posts
Dec-14-20, 05:48 PM (EST)
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"speaking of Cyberpunk 2020"
 
   If, like me, you've moved a million times since you last played and lost all your sourcebooks, there's a Humble Bundle for that, at least for the next 20 days. $15 or more gets you what looks like pretty much everything R.Tal ever published for the game (plus, a bit oddly, the starter kit for Cyberpunk Red--I say "a bit oddly" because while I can see them throwing it in as an attempted upsell, Red does, uh... not seem to be in print right now, and is going for stoooopid prices secondhand for reasons that should be obvious.

They're also selling GOG codes for CP2077, but that is not pay-what-you-wanna. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
  RE: speaking of Cyberpunk 2020 McFortner Dec-15-20 1
  RE: speaking of Cyberpunk 2020 BobSchroeck Dec-15-20 2
     RE: speaking of Cyberpunk 2020 StClair Dec-15-20 3
     RE: speaking of Cyberpunk 2020 Gryphonadmin Dec-15-20 4
         RE: speaking of Cyberpunk 2020 Zemyla Dec-16-20 5

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McFortner
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Dec-15-20, 04:52 PM (EST)
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1. "RE: speaking of Cyberpunk 2020"
In response to message #0
 
   LAST EDITED ON Dec-15-20 AT 04:55 PM (EST)
 
They are all ebooks, so no dead tree copies to worry about.

Michael C. Fortner
"Maxim 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".


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BobSchroeck
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Dec-15-20, 10:34 PM (EST)
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2. "RE: speaking of Cyberpunk 2020"
In response to message #0
 
   I just got the $15+ assortment a couple days ago, because a friend called out of the blue and said "let's do a campaign and there just happens to be a HumbleBundle..."

(And it may be the season, but I just cannot actually say "HumbleBundle" these days without it coming out as "Humble Bumble", complete with Yukon Cornelius inflection.)

Anyway, I've been reading the core rulebook for the last few days, with great amusement. One, because of the note saying "oh, this isn't a new edition, this is just a new printing with all the typos and errors fixed" combined with all the typos and grammar errors that are sprinkled across every page as though from a pepper shaker, and b) the amusingly antique or simply wrong future tech. Cell access to the net is impossible unless you're in a city, and even then it's difficult? <Willy Wonka Meme> Tell me more.

-- Bob
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.


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StClair
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Dec-15-20, 10:49 PM (EST)
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3. "RE: speaking of Cyberpunk 2020"
In response to message #2
 
   > b) the amusingly antique or simply wrong future tech. Cell access to the net is impossible unless you're in a city, and even then it's difficult? <Willy Wonka Meme> Tell me more.

To be fair, some of this is because of "failure to look ahead" and some is simply "if we let this happen, it would break the game/setting." I'm reminded of an issue of Amarillo Design Bureau's STAR FLEET BATTLES magazine from '91 where they talk about watching the end of ST 6, featuring a ship that can fire while remaining cloaked, and turning to each other and groaning, "We're gonna get maillll..."

That said, it works the other way around sometimes too.
1990: "Why is all of this stuff, all these doors and alarm systems and cameras and other devices, hooked up to the Net where any hacker can get into them?"
2020: "Why not?"

(*imitating Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber* "You ask me for a stupid security hole, I give you the Internet of Things.")


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-15-20, 11:16 PM (EST)
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4. "RE: speaking of Cyberpunk 2020"
In response to message #2
 
   >Anyway, I've been reading the core rulebook for the last few days,
>with great amusement. One, because of the note saying "oh, this isn't
>a new edition, this is just a new printing with all the typos and
>errors fixed" combined with all the typos and grammar errors
>that are sprinkled across every page as though from a pepper shaker,

Well, let's be fair, these are not games that were produced on a stupendously high budget. Cyberpunk 2077 has probably had more spent on it in a year than the p&p games have had to work with since 1984, put together. :)

(That said, the "starter kit" for Cyberpunk RED, the current edition, is included in the CP2020 Humble Bundle, and it reveals that R.Tal still needs to hire an editor who knows the difference between its and it's, which is harder to excuse nowadays.)

The Cyberpunk 2020 core book has my favorite RPG rule in it, narrowly edging out the BattleTech Technical Readout 3026's note that "each grenade may be used only once." In the section about medical technology, there's a paragraph about how much it costs to have a surgeon increase your character's Attractiveness stat (spoiler: it costs a lot), and immediately following it is the immortal sentence:

"Want to decrease your Attractiveness? A straight razor costs fifty-nine cents."

>and b) the amusingly antique or simply wrong future tech. Cell
>access to the net is impossible unless you're in a city, and even then
>it's difficult? <Willy Wonka Meme> Tell me more.

That kind of thing is the bugaboo of all near-future sci-fi, but especially cyberpunk, since so much of its emphasis is on the tech. I mean, look at the original Bubblegum Crisis. It's 2032, there are intelligent robots and a space colony... and not a cellphone in sight.

That said, my favorite technological anachronism in Cyberpunk 2020 is also in BGC. Both correctly predicted that newspapers were a dead technology (although CP2020 thought they would be gone by 2020, which they are, well, not quite), but in both cases what replaced them was... a fax machine. You go to your nearest public DataTerm (in CP) or your home computer (in BGC) and... print a newspaper. Sorry, screamsheet. :)

Mind you, in Cyberpunk RED, the Net no longer exists, and the classical cyberpunk trope of "jacking in" with your whole sensorium is just a thing a handful of old-timers can reminisce about having done. Netrunners are reduced to wandering around the meat world screwing with wireless LANs, which seems like a pretty pathetic fate for the character class that launched the cyberpunk genre in the first place (in the person of Case in Neuromancer).

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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Zemyla
Member since Mar-26-08
269 posts
Dec-16-20, 00:47 AM (EST)
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5. "RE: speaking of Cyberpunk 2020"
In response to message #4
 
   >That said, my favorite technological anachronism in Cyberpunk
>2020
is also in BGC. Both correctly predicted that newspapers
>were a dead technology (although CP2020 thought they would be gone by
>2020, which they are, well, not quite), but in both cases what
>replaced them was... a fax machine. You go to your nearest public
>DataTerm (in CP) or your home computer (in BGC) and... print a
>newspaper. Sorry, screamsheet. :)

This does serve a purpose. You can't use a digital article to line a birdcage, much as some richly deserve it.


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