Cyberpunk 2020
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{{Infobox RPG |title=Cyberpunk 2020 |image=Image:Cyberpunk2020.jpg |caption=The cover of cyberpunk 2020 2nd edition |designer=Mike Pondsmith |publisher=R. Talsorian Games |date=1990 |system=Interlock System |genre= Science fiction, Cyberpunk |footnotes= }}
Cyberpunk 2020 is a cyberpunk role-playing game written by Mike Pondsmith and published by R. Talsorian Games.
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Overview
Based on the works of William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and other authors of the "mirrorshades group". The game includes a number of elements now associated with the 1980s, such as the idea of "style over substance" and glam rock. The fictional timeline also includes some notable omissions such as the fall of the Soviet Union and the adoption of cell phones as the preferred mode of communication.
The game tends to emphasize some aspects of the source material more than others, with much attention being paid to combat, high tech weaponry and cybernetic modification, while both performance enhancing and recreational drug use is either played down or discouraged, and Artificial Intelligence, genetic engineering, and cloning barely mentioned.
The range of characters players can adopt is very diverse, ranging from hardwired mercenaries with psycholinked weapons and boosted reflexes, to Armani-wearing corporate mega-yuppies who make and break national economies with the stroke of a pen.
The game setting has been licensed twice for a collectible card game. The first time for Richard Garfield's Netrunner, published by Wizards of the Coast in 1996, and later for Cyberpunk CCG published by Social Games.
Cyberpunk 2013
Cyberpunk 2020 is the second edition of the original game, Cyberpunk 2013, often just called "Cyberpunk." It was originally published as a boxed set in 1988, and R. Talsorian released a few supplements for this edition, including Rockerboy, Solo of Fortune, and Hardwired.
The second edition featured rules updates and changes, and additionally moved the timeline forward by 7 years, from 2013 to 2020.
Game Mechanics
The basic rules system of Cyberpunk 2020 (called the Interlock System) is skill-based instead of level-based, with players being awarded points to be spent on their skill sets. New skills outside their expertise can be learned but in-game time needs to be spent on this. A large part of the system is the player characters' ability to augment themselves with cyber-technology and the ensuing loss of humanity as they become more machine than man.
Cyberpunk 2020 lends itself to play in the street level, dark film noir genre, although certain aspects of the basic system can make game sessions devolve into high body count 1980s action movie style.
Although each player must choose a character class or "role" from those given in the basic rules, there is enough variation in the skill system so that no two members of the same class are alike. This differentiates it from games such as Advanced Dungeons and Dragons where the class can almost completely define a character. Because Cyberpunk 2020 is skill-based, the choice of skills around the class-specific special ability allows a wide range of character development choices. It is also possible to design a character as a total non-combatant.
The combat system, called Friday Night Firefight, is more lethal than many other games. No matter who the character is, a single bullet can result in a lethal wound. This encourages a more tactically-oriented and sneaky game play, which is accordance to the rough-and-gritty ethos of the Cyberpunk genre. As an example, a .22 calibre bullet can kill a character if the round is fired at close range into the head. This is a completely different model to the common model of an overall hit points count, found in many other games, where damage is not usually taken at a single focal point. Also, the amount of damage a character can sustain does not increase with a notional level value. The only way a character can become more damage resistant is to either become better at not being hit, physically augment their body with armour or muscle or, finally, wear armour.
The World of Cyberpunk 2020
Cyberpunk 2020, as the name implies, takes place in North America in the year 2020. The game's default setting is the fictional Night City located between Los Angeles and San Francisco on the west coast of the United States. Later supplements to the game have contained information about the rest of the US and the world.
Following a vast socio-economical collapse and a period of martial law, the United States government has had to rely on several megacorporations to survive. This has given them a veritable carte blanche to operate as they will.
The Megacorporations
- Arasaka, a Japanese zaibatsu conglomerate whose megalomaniacal CEO wishes to realize his dream of Japanese world power.
- Biotechnica
- Eurobusiness Machines (EBM), information technology corporation (an obvious nod towards IBM).
- Kendachi
- Merril, Asukaga & Finch, financial analysts.
- Microtech
- Militech, American arms and mercenary contractor.
- Mitsubishi-Koridanshu
- Petrochem, an energy company.
- SovOil, a neo-Soviet oil giant, controlling a vast percentage of the petrochemicals market
- Zetatech
Sequels
Cybergeneration
Cybergeneration is a follow-up to the original Cyberpunk 2020 game. It is set 7 years after Cyberpunk 2020, in the year 2027, and is considered an "alternate" universe (independent of the general Cyberpunk timeline, see V3 below). Cybergeneration is heavily dependent on the concepts and application of nanotechnology. A nano-plague is mutating and morphing the youth of society, driving them underground, as society dramatically fears their capabilities and differences. "Cybergen" was originally published as a supplement for Cyberpunk, but later re-released as a fully featured game in its own right.
Starblade Battalion
Starblade Battalion, a setting for R. Talsorian's related Mekton RPG, postulates a more distant future to the Cyberpunk 2020 world (set in the year 2180), where the "primitive" ACPA technology of 2020 has evolved into 15-meter-tall giant robots called Mektons. Between Cyberpunk and Starblade Battalion, the Earth suffered a devastating global ecological disaster called the "Ecocollapse" and is now governed by a totalitarian Green government called the United Stellar States Alliance. Humanity's interstellar colonies are governed by a manipulative corporatist government called the Pleiades Confederacy. The Starblade Battalion setting has been noted for its similarities to Gundam, particularly in that neither antagonistic party is particularly "good", and the primary division is "My side" and "their side." Also similar to Gundam, there is an idealistic third front (in this case, the eponymous Starblade Battalion) that fights against both sides for a better future.
Cyberpunk V.3
Cyberpunk V.3 (also known as Cyberpunk Version 3 or its working title of Cyberpunk 203X) is the next-generation of the Cyberpunk 2020 role-playing game. The setting has been heavily updated from its last event book series, Firestorm, which covered the opening of the Fourth Corporate War.
The aftermath of the Fourth Corporate War has resulted in widespread corruption of the Net and major losses of hardcopied data, to the point that all data is intangible and recent recorded history is in doubt. An example that pops up in Pondsmith's demos at conventions, releases on the Internet, and in the finished game is that history has become so corrupted that many people in the world now believe Richard Nixon, instead of resigning over Watergate, committed suicide on camera and that memes such as the moon landing being hoaxed become prevalent.
The war has also lead to the collapse of nations, the world economy, and many of the staple megacorporations. This civil upheaval leads to the rise of the altcults, alternative cultures similar in vein to the phyles from Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. In fact, Cyberpunk V.3 has more to do with the new postcyberpunk literary movement and transhumanism than with the Gibson-Sterling mirrorshades movement.
In addition to rules changes to the Fuzion system and background, the Cyberpunk V.3 also uses concepts taken Pondsmith's experience at Microsoft with computer and video games as well as corporate culture, such as a faster and simpler character generation system using templates, web-based active content URL links for updates, and making groups, organizations, and corporations their own "characters".
Cyberpunk V.3 was notorious for its overly long development period (first expected circa 1998) and often rumored release dates.
As of 17 December, 2005, the online PDF version of the rulebook is available, with the print version promised to follow [1]. The initial reaction from fan websites like RPG.net is mixed and generally unenthusiastic. However, much of this reaction appears to be from people reacting to reports of the new version, rather than people who have read it themselves. There has been an overall negative reaction to the artwork contained in PDF - even from those who are positive about the content, as well as formatting and continunity errors. The artwork mostly consists of editted images of action figures, all in green, black and white colours. There is no other colour in the PDF. The print version was released on January 15, 2006, with little change from the PDF.
The Altcults
- Corpore Metal or Cee-Metal - a society of full-body cyborgs.
- Desnai' - Disneyworld-like series of amusement park arcology that strive to shelter themselves from the anarchy outside their walls and run heavily on automation.
- Edgerunners - the descendants of the anti-corporation cyberpunk movement.
- Reef - an undersea community whose members are heavily genetically modified to survive in the ocean.
- Riptide Confederation - a flotilla of Japanese floating cities that were cut off from Japan following a nuclear civil war inside the country.
- Rolling State - the descendants of the Nomad families in Cyberpunk 2020, who now use advanced nanotechnology and megatechnology to create land-based mobile cities.
In addition, there is also the Fallen Angels, space-bound scavengers, the Ghosts, people who have uploaded their minds, and the Neo-Corps, the surviving corporations of the CP2020 world that are now organized in the form of organized crime syndicates. However, the six listed above are the only ones that have been mentioned in deep detail.
External links
- Homepage of R. Talsorian Games, publisher of the game
- Views From the Edge, a forum dedicated to Cyberpunk 2020 and the genre in general
- An unofficial list of Cyberpunk productsde:Cyberpunk 2020
es:Cyberpunk 2020 fr:Cyberpunk (jeu de rôle) it:Cyberpunk 2020 pl:Cyberpunk 2020 fi:Cyberpunk 2020 sv:Cyberpunk 2020