Thread: 4e Cyberpunk???
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Old 02-21-2009, 09:47 AM   #11
baakyocalder
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Sacramento metro, California
Default Re: 4e Cyberpunk???

GURPS Bio-tech 4e has a lot of the cloning and biomodifications that could easily be nanites or cyberwear. Ultra-tech has several modifications that could fit the more mechanical cyberpunk. So, your book choices should cover most of the tech.

GURPS Cyberpunk hacking rules made you basically build each network like a dungeon. There were many ways to beat it. Unless you want to run hacking as a side session, I'd suggest figuring out which parts of the net are significant connections to the network being hacked and use the Basic Action Difficulty (BAD)idea from GURPS Action 2: Exploits. BAD gives each action a difficulty based on your plot, so a -5 indicates a tougher network to crack than a -3. PCs can use skills to reduce some of the penalties and it works well with teams. You don't use BAD for the key scenes, but to quickly do hacking, this is a nice way to handle it.

Guns and weapons are covered in the basic set, high-tech and ultra-tech. If you want something a little different, just make minor changes since high-tech has a huge range of guns. Martial arts has a ton of martial arts weapons, most of which aren't so different from basic set weapons.

I haven't run GURPS cyberpunk or biopunk in a while, but the key is going to be maintaining tone. If you don't want a game to be Shadowrun, you've got to make sure that it doesn't become Shadowrun (A Transhuman Space campaign I played in was completely ruined when everyone else made it Shadowrun). Most of my cyberpunk elements were fairly silly-like an adventure where a hacker PC who was supposed to take out Disneyland and used a bunch of remotely-operated vehicles to do so.

Be sure to make enough of the game a team game unless the players like screwing each other over. I'm hazy on my cyberpunk, but if I recall correctly, a common theme is alienation and being alone. Lone protagonists work a lot better in fiction than in RPGs.

Good luck!
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