(Thread IKs:
Nuns with Guns)
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there was a solid minute between each post, none of those posts took y'all a minute to write
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Jan 21, 2021 07:50
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I took a smoke break in the middle of writing mine.
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Jan 21, 2021 07:57
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The funniest thing about cyberpunk the RPG was, as the game came more into prominence, people who thought the ttrpg was just shadowrun without orcs started looking into it and realized how comically, insanely, over the top racist and ableist they were
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Jan 21, 2021 08:36
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I was debating whether or not to include a tangent about one of the editions using photos of dolls with photoshop filters for art.
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Jan 21, 2021 08:39
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Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:The funniest thing about cyberpunk the RPG was, as the game came more into prominence, people who thought the ttrpg was just shadowrun without orcs started looking into it and realized how comically, insanely, over the top racist and ableist they were It doesn't get more cyberpunk than that.
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Jan 21, 2021 09:27
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Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:The funniest thing about cyberpunk the RPG was, as the game came more into prominence, people who thought the ttrpg was just shadowrun without orcs started looking into it and realized how comically, insanely, over the top racist and ableist they were Any 'good' highlights?
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Jan 21, 2021 09:43
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Ghostlight posted:It is a setting, but Cyberpunk 2077 is explicitly based on the creatively named Cyberpunk (later named Cyberpunk 2020), a fairly niche cyberpunk setting tabletop roleplaying game, so it's not really surprising that people confuse the name for a reference to the more widely known setting rather than to the source material. It's kind of a mix because like, really the Cyberpunk 20XX RPGs were a big part of originating "cyberpunk" as a distinct subgenre of scifi/dystopia fiction. It's a game that compiled a lot of disassociated-but-similar parts of different specific near-future scifi stories and settings from books and movies in the 80s. It pulls a lot of very specific terminology from Neuromancer and Snow Crash and Blade Runner, too. But then Shadowrun came along and did Cyberpunk-but-with-your-comfortable-D&D-things and rapidly overshadowed it. Terrible Opinions posted:I was debating whether or not to include a tangent about one of the editions using photos of dolls with photoshop filters for art. Yeah, like straight up Barbie Dolls in the art. It's amazing.  Samovar posted:Any 'good' highlights? I don't know what Babysitter Super Sleuth is specifically referring to, but with Cyberpunk 20XX (and also Shadowrun in a similar vein) both "balance" the installation of cyber augments by baking into the mechanics certain ways it dissociates you from your humanity or otherwise removes you from being "natural". In the Cyberpunk RPGs you usually have an Empathy score that goes down as you get more augments, and if your Empathy score hits 0, you enter a cyber-psychosis killing state and the character reverts to a GM-controlled NPC. This is kind of lovely, given plenty of people who do have modern day "augments" or artificial limbs manage not to do this. As far as the racism, both Cyberpunk and Shadowrun kind of run into a series of racist depictions of various cultures, being products of the 80s where people were sort of more aware that they should acknowledge other races but still mostly writing in broad stereotypes. Some of the Cyberpunk gangs in particular are pretty dumb, like the Voodoo Boys and Tyger Claws (which are both in Cyberpunk 2077 in a revised state  ). Shadowrun has a lot of uh... fun depictions of Native Americans since in its alt future, there was a massive cultural uprising and multiple Native American nations seceded from the USA. Naturally, the Confederate States rose again, too, because apparently you couldn't have an alt future where the Confederacy wasn't back in a big way. There was also a lot of Orientalism in the games from the appropriation of Japanese cultural stuff, but then Shadowrun especially was and is comparatively big in Japan so there was also a feedback cycle of genuine contributions from Japanese people, too.
Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 13:21 on Jan 21, 2021 |
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Jan 21, 2021 13:11
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The Orientalism was a definite product of its time, seeing as in the 80's the Japanese economy was booming like crazy and there was a feeling that they'd be a major player on the world economic scale. So when you start imagine a corporate run future dystopia in those days, your mind would quickly go for big Asian megacorps. It's similar to what we have now with Elon Musk/Steve Jobs/crazy disruptor guy when we think of corporate dystopias. Now that I think of it, both Blade Runner films play into this. The original had all the kanji signs and geishas on huge signs to inform the viewer of Asian dominance, and 2049 has Jared Leto as the visionary dude that took control of a waning Tyrell Corp and single handedly brought it back to dominance. Archer666 fucked around with this message at 13:43 on Jan 21, 2021 |
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Jan 21, 2021 13:41
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Nuns with Guns posted:I don't know what Babysitter Super Sleuth is specifically referring to, but with Cyberpunk 20XX (and also Shadowrun in a similar vein) both "balance" the installation of cyber augments by baking into the mechanics certain ways it dissociates you from your humanity or otherwise removes you from being "natural". In the Cyberpunk RPGs you usually have an Empathy score that goes down as you get more augments, and if your Empathy score hits 0, you enter a cyber-psychosis killing state and the character reverts to a GM-controlled NPC. This is kind of lovely, given plenty of people who do have modern day "augments" or artificial limbs manage not to do this. This stuff always felt so annoying in Shadowrun due to how game-y and unrealistic it felt. And yeah I know it sounds strange to call a fantasy game unrealistic, but it felt notably so even next to all the elves and dragons and stuff. It’s like, you could tell it was put there solely as an attempt to railroad players into specializing in magic or tech rather than mixing them together. Meanwhile CP2077 does away with this entirely, at least within the game's own continuity. You can get as many augmentations are you like without penalty, and it turns out that “cyberpsychosis” is just a lie the corps invented to cover for their selling people defective implants.
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Jan 21, 2021 13:53
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Bakeneko posted:This stuff always felt so annoying in Shadowrun due to how game-y and unrealistic it felt. And yeah I know it sounds strange to call a fantasy game unrealistic, but it felt notably so even next to all the elves and dragons and stuff. It’s like, you could tell it was put there solely as an attempt to railroad players into specializing in magic or tech rather than mixing them together. To be fair, in most Shadowrun editions I have played, you can break the game horribly if allowed to do full cyberware plus magic. Casters could already attack the enemy's weakest stat, alternating between Mana spells and Power spells, to clear rooms and trivialize enemies not specifically designed to counter them. If you added in wired reflexes giving them initiative and multiple actions, cerebral implants boosting their mental stats to the stratosphere.... hell, lots of mages took an essence hit for cybereyes with infrared and magnification to abuse the "If you can see it, your can cast at it" rule, and it was already crazy strong.
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Jan 21, 2021 14:04
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Bakeneko posted:Meanwhile CP2077 does away with this entirely, at least within the game's own continuity. You can get as many augmentations are you like without penalty, and it turns out that “cyberpsychosis” is just a lie the corps invented to cover for their selling people defective implants.
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Jan 21, 2021 14:23
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Bakeneko posted:Meanwhile CP2077 does away with this entirely, at least within the game's own continuity. You can get as many augmentations are you like without penalty, and it turns out that “cyberpsychosis” is just a lie the corps invented to cover for their selling people defective implants. Which in itself is funny as among the laundry list of complaints people have about CP2077, both good and bad, that was what people said it should be and... it was. Re: Shadowrun, it itself being propped up as light years better than Cyberpunk as an RPG is funny. The HBS games are better designed but even they carry the core of the original RPG's racist notions (itself carried over from D&D, so it's hardly just Shadowrun) where you get things like now that other species have popped up, humans are no longer racist towards each other and whoops, orks are often coded as black people. Orks and trolls also being able to be as smart as humans. They can b stronger though! So, you know, born athletes. Harebrained Schemes I think mostly side-stepped this, not dwelling much on the progressive for the time but really badly aged Native American Nations or the cringe Confederated States of America back when people thought only the southeast was racist. And thanks to the company putting out the tabletop edition, the latest version of Shadowrun is just a dumpster en flambe. Gibson likes Cyberpunk more than Shadowrun for what that's worth, even if Pondsmith hadn't read any Gibson when he put out the first edition of the game.
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Jan 21, 2021 15:35
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Every 90s RPG has basically the same embarrassing racism in it, that only really fully blooms into something hilarious once you get enough sourcebooks for the authors to be tasked with expanded the kinda racist gloss into a full 300 page book. Specifically thinking of the Hengeyokai: Shapeshifers of the East book for World of Darkness.
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Jan 21, 2021 16:21
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Terrible Opinions posted:Every 90s RPG has basically the same embarrassing racism in it, that only really fully blooms into something hilarious once you get enough sourcebooks for the authors to be tasked with expanded the kinda racist gloss into a full 300 page book. Specifically thinking of the Hengeyokai: Shapeshifers of the East book for World of Darkness. Some skipped right to it, like the original Werewolf. Imagine naming a Native American group the Wendigo.
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Jan 21, 2021 17:21
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Werewolf is an amazing goldmine of "this was still okay in the 90s?". Right up there with all the pedoshit in Changeling.
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Jan 21, 2021 17:26
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I'd give Shadowrun a pass on the cybernetics stuff, since they are significantly more invasive and neurological integrated than modern protheses so it doesn't come across as a comment about modern day robot arms. Having some races having inherently less max intelligent than others, tho 
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Jan 21, 2021 18:01
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Is the Nomad's hovertank an homage to Walter Jon Williams' Hardwired, or was that in the original tabletop game too?
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Jan 21, 2021 18:07
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Zoracle Zed posted:Is the Nomad's hovertank an homage to Walter Jon Williams' Hardwired, or was that in the original tabletop game too? Yeah. Interestingly Pondsmith hadn't read a word of Gibson when he did the first edition of Cyberpunk, but he'd read Hardwired (and Williams was in the playtest group) and that was a big inspiration.
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Jan 21, 2021 18:38
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Terrible Opinions posted:Werewolf is an amazing goldmine of "this was still okay in the 90s?". Right up there with all the pedoshit in Changeling. I've heard that a lot of the Classic World of Darkness games had some interesting choices. Does anyone know of a good breakdown of them anywhere? If it's a video, even better, given what thread we're in.
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Jan 21, 2021 19:14
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Nuns with Guns posted:Yeah, like straight up Barbie Dolls in the art. It's amazing. okay but this rules, tho
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Jan 21, 2021 19:22
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Argas posted:Shadowrun remains the signature cyberpunk work to me which is funny given how it's mixed with fantasy. With how often sci fi has characters basically doing magic and explaining it away with nano machines or whatever, just having a guy who can straight up cast magic spells just doesn't feel out of place.
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Jan 21, 2021 19:32
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Schwarzwald posted:okay but this rules, tho Noah did a whole Counter Monkey episode about that book fwiw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIf12h4zjaw
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Jan 21, 2021 19:38
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No More Toast posted:I've heard that a lot of the Classic World of Darkness games had some interesting choices. Does anyone know of a good breakdown of them anywhere? If it's a video, even better, given what thread we're in. I don't know of a good video breakdown, but there's some: - Racial stereotypes a-plenty - Metis werewolves! - Badly researched history - Victorian view of morality - Lots of edgy stuff to be "mature" and "dark" - Terrible pre-made adventures - Changeling pedo-bait with changelings being old at like 16 (the King though is like 60 so no consistency!) - Speaking of Changeling, Banality is super badly defined and conceived - Some splats having built-in hooks for terrible players - Bad math - Bad editing
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Jan 21, 2021 19:54
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Dawgstar posted:Some skipped right to it, like the original Werewolf. Imagine naming a Native American group the Wendigo. Missed this post: Imagine naming the malformed offspring of forbidden love the Métis, a real-life minority group.
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Jan 21, 2021 19:56
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MonsieurChoc posted:Missed this post: Imagine naming the malformed offspring of forbidden love the Métis, a real-life minority group. I have the vague idea it might have related to the Greek myth but you know.
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Jan 21, 2021 20:21
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Remembering the Werewolf Australia book that blamed the systematic genocide of native Australians on the setting's resident cultist mooks doing false flags to get rid of a strain of Werewolves. Edit: Aaaaaand the Gy*sies splatbook. Or the Ravnos vampire clan who are just every awful stereotype about Traveller groups packaged into one badly written bundle. SteelMentor fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Jan 21, 2021 |
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Jan 21, 2021 22:24
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I figured this was worth posting here. https://twitter.com/GuyFieri/status/1352319386007330817?s=19
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Jan 21, 2021 22:51
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Nuns with Guns posted:It's kind of a mix because like, really the Cyberpunk 20XX RPGs were a big part of originating "cyberpunk" as a distinct subgenre of scifi/dystopia fiction. It's a game that compiled a lot of disassociated-but-similar parts of different specific near-future scifi stories and settings from books and movies in the 80s. It pulls a lot of very specific terminology from Neuromancer and Snow Crash and Blade Runner, too. But then Shadowrun came along and did Cyberpunk-but-with-your-comfortable-D&D-things and rapidly overshadowed it.
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Jan 21, 2021 23:00
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Maggie Mae Fish - LGBT+ Fantasy: Lord of the Rings and The Old Guard https://youtu.be/cBck3tNj-1g
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Jan 21, 2021 23:27
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Ghostlight posted:I love Snow Crash but it post-dates all of those works and the establishment of the genre. My understanding was Snow Crash wasn't considered cyberpunk as such when it was first released, what with the balkanized state powers giving way to a multitude of anarcho- societies.
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Jan 21, 2021 23:47
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They shoulda licensed Paranoia instead of Cyberjunk. I actually didn't know there was a terrible isometric Paranoia game in existence until today.
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Jan 21, 2021 23:49
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At least the Paranoia developers got that sweet Epic Games money. I was originally bummed that it was an exclusive until I saw Many a True Nerd preview it. It's a shame since the actual tone and writing seem to do a good job of adapting the game, but the actual game part seemed terrible.
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Jan 22, 2021 00:05
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Watched both of the hour long Cyberpunk videos. The first one was mostly just clips without commentary highlighting the broken promises and other marketing bullshit. Pretty damning stuff. Didn't even touch on the whole epliepsy trigger debacle. A nice overview of why people are mad and disappointed. I don't have a huge amount of sympathy for people buying into marketing hype in this day and age, how many more launch day disasters will it take to stop people from preordering based on bunch of flim-flam about radiant npcs or whatever. I remeber watching the outrage about Molyneux's latest kickstarter a few years back wondering why anyone was suprised in the slightest, feeling the same way about CP77 in general tbh although the epilepsy thing and especially the last gen performance were shocking new lows I'll admit. The second vid actually talked about the game as it is right now and what works/doesn't work for them. Suprisingly positive, nice to have some of the good work the devs did highlighted and celebrated despite the whole situation. I'd like to see CP77 go down the same route as NMS, where they invest all that filthy preorder money back into full time game development and free updates and just pretend like it was an early access game all along. I don't know how feasable that is on a high budget AAA though.
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Jan 22, 2021 00:42
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It should be possible considering CDPR probably won't put a new game out for at least five years.
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Jan 22, 2021 01:53
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No More Toast posted:I've heard that a lot of the Classic World of Darkness games had some interesting choices. Does anyone know of a good breakdown of them anywhere? If it's a video, even better, given what thread we're in.
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Jan 22, 2021 01:58
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Mokinokaro posted:It should be possible considering CDPR probably won't put a new game out for at least five years. They are gonna spend at least another 2 or 3 of those fixing Cyberpunk. Whatever they put out next will not have the same amount of confidence.
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Jan 22, 2021 02:04
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Yeah, after the sheer amount of "we're rockstars and this is going to be the best game of all time" that they put out there before Cyberpunk fell on its face, I expect the promotion surrounding their next game will be considerably more humble.
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Jan 22, 2021 02:14
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Ariong posted:Yeah, after the sheer amount of "we're rockstars and this is going to be the best game of all time" that they put out there before Cyberpunk fell on its face, I expect the promotion surrounding their next game will be considerably more humble. cd projekt red: famous for always learning from their mistakes
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Jan 22, 2021 02:33
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flatluigi posted:cd projekt red: famous for always learning from their mistakes I'm sure this time the weird government ballooned internet nerds will be humble.
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Jan 22, 2021 02:36
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No More Toast posted:I've heard that a lot of the Classic World of Darkness games had some interesting choices. Does anyone know of a good breakdown of them anywhere? If it's a video, even better, given what thread we're in. Some basic points were covered by other people. The classic World of Darkness book lines are pretty much precisely what you'd imagine when you picture what some gothy, mostly white late boomer/early gen-xer suburban kids would make to stick it to the maaan. Lots of idolization and objectification of underclass and minority people, questionable appropriation of every non-white culture a Halloween monster would bump up against, no coherence or logic to the game math that'll lead to players accidentally breaking the game over their knees a lot, Metaplot nightmare shenanigans, Sascha Vykos, the whole porny Black Dog "adult" book line, the aforementioned time they made Racial Slur: The Game About Being Magical Racial Slurs. You could go ask the World of Darkness thread for everyone's favorite awful thing and probably get a 10+ page discussion going while people list off everything they remember, really. Ghostlight posted:I love Snow Crash but it post-dates all of those works and the establishment of the genre. In retrospect, yeah, I was thinking of Hardwired. Both two-syllable word book title things people toss around in cyberpunk conversations, I guess. Ariong posted:Yeah, after the sheer amount of "we're rockstars and this is going to be the best game of all time" that they put out there before Cyberpunk fell on its face, I expect the promotion surrounding their next game will be considerably more humble. At the very least I bet they won't put this at the end of their next teaser trailer: 
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Jan 22, 2021 02:43
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