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Old 02-21-2009, 09:47 AM   #11
baakyocalder
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
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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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Old 02-21-2009, 12:03 PM   #12
Redcrow
 
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Default Re: 4e Cyberpunk???

For me Transhuman Space + GURPS: Action is all I really need to run a good Cyberpunk game. Just tweak the TS setting a little to make it darker and more dystopian.
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Old 02-21-2009, 12:48 PM   #13
Crakkerjakk
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Default Re: 4e Cyberpunk???

Quote:
Originally Posted by Redcrow
For me Transhuman Space + GURPS: Action is all I really need to run a good Cyberpunk game. Just tweak the TS setting a little to make it darker and more dystopian.
Just run it somewhere dark and dystopian in THS. No need to tweak the setting at all, really, unless you're looking for a more globe-trotting game. But pretty much anywhere detailed in Broken Dreams would work for cyberpunk.
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Old 02-21-2009, 12:52 PM   #14
Kal
 
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Default Re: 4e Cyberpunk???

I'll check out GURPS Action - havent looked at it yet.

As a player, my frist big campaign of cyberpunk had a group of random folks (aka the players) waking up in a bio lab, and recieving a phone call that we had a virus that would kill us in 48 hours and heres what to do to fix it - then we continued on to corporate extraction of a med tech that eventually turned out to be a unique and experiement bio-borg AI without knowing it (bit like blade runner i guess) and we had to fight and run across most of north america back to LA (Night City), where we basically had a massive fight (including orbital weaponry, nomad bikers, full borgs, air ships, army vets, bars with massive weapon emplacements etc...) to end the campaign - good fun
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Old 02-21-2009, 01:21 PM   #15
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Default Re: 4e Cyberpunk???

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kal
I'll check out GURPS Action - havent looked at it yet.

As a player, my frist big campaign of cyberpunk had a group of random folks (aka the players) waking up in a bio lab, and recieving a phone call that we had a virus that would kill us in 48 hours and heres what to do to fix it - then we continued on to corporate extraction of a med tech that eventually turned out to be a unique and experiement bio-borg AI without knowing it (bit like blade runner i guess) and we had to fight and run across most of north america back to LA (Night City), where we basically had a massive fight (including orbital weaponry, nomad bikers, full borgs, air ships, army vets, bars with massive weapon emplacements etc...) to end the campaign - good fun
I view Action 2 as pretty much the perfect supplement for the Shadowrun style mission based cyberpunk game.
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Old 02-21-2009, 06:02 PM   #16
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Default Re: 4e Cyberpunk???

I think the templates from Action 1 will work in cyberpunk quite well, maybe a little tweak here or there to adapt to certain changes in the world, but in general they give a good starting point.
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Old 02-22-2009, 12:51 AM   #17
David L Pulver
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Default Re: 4e Cyberpunk???

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kal
Hi folks - after re-reading some of my Gibson boooks, I'm wanting to run a GURPS cyberpunk game - has any cyberpunk setting material been updated to 4e. I'm assuming that I'm gonna mostly using ultra tech and bio tech for the rules....

Any suggestions for running GURPS cyberpunk, as ive only run modern day GURPS games before?

Cheers

Kal
Much of the GURPS Cyberpunk Adventures for 3e, available on e23, is fairly easily ported to 4e. Just ignore the netrunning bits (or replace with some simple hacking). I'm rather fond of my Medusa Sanction scenario, and with Bio-Tech and Ultra-Tech you can easily convert it over.
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Old 02-22-2009, 07:39 AM   #18
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Default Re: 4e Cyberpunk???

The action series is a natural fit for cyberpunk games, I agree. An eqaully valid approach would be to play it grim n' gritty instead, using all the harsh realism rules.
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Old 12-13-2013, 06:05 AM   #19
Otto Harkaman
 
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Default Re: 4e Cyberpunk???

Just watched "Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" and it rekindled my interest in Cyberpunk campaigns.
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Old 12-13-2013, 07:10 AM   #20
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Default Re: 4e Cyberpunk???

I've found Pyramid #3/21 to be very useful. It has two essential articles (and the rest of it is really good as well): Console Cowboys and Cyberspace Kung Fu, by W.A. Frick, which covers netrunning, and Down in the Mall, by Matt Riggsby, which has a chart to randomly determine shops and such in, for example, a mall.

Alongside Action and Biotech/Ultratech, with a handful of other books seasoning to taste, GURPS has pretty much everything you need to run cyberpunk (imho).
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