NEWS

State of 6e today

  • 411 Replies
  • 63910 Views

tenchi2a

  • *
  • Chummer
  • **
  • Posts: 120
« Reply #180 on: <06-22-20/1837:57> »
The main problem with any game setting giving a set training time is that Strength and Logic advance differently, Firearms and Influence are different and have totally different groups of skills under them.

The idea that all attributes advance at this rate and all skills advance at that rate is a product of the simplification bug that has been going around the TTRPG industry for awhile now.

First you have Strength and Logic which are two totally different attributes that still advance the same way.

It gets even worst with skills. Like the idea that combing multiple skills into one is a good idea. I mean Longarms, Pistols, Heavy Weapons is to much lets combined it into Firearms. Now you have a skill that is effectively 3 skills (more if you want to be realistic) that you are trying to give a good justification for advancing because you fired your Ares a few times.

I may be alone in this but I love how GURPS handled it.
Attributes have different point cost so they advance at a different rate. So ST and IQ cost different amounts. Time is up in the air but works well with the rules below.

Skills are rated from Easy to Very Hard and their point cost to advance reflects this. Then you have to spend 200 training hours per point to advance. If the cost is 1 it take 3.3 days (200 hours) where if it cost 4 it takes 13.3 days (800 hours) to train. Assuming sleepless nights. The game also gives limits on the time that can be spent per day.
« Last Edit: <06-22-20/1842:01> by tenchi2a »

Marcus

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 2802
  • Success always demands a greater effort.
« Reply #181 on: <06-22-20/2009:54> »
Seriously, there are real issues that deserve the Salt. This is such a minor thing in the grand scheme

This is very true, of all the things that I don't like in reference to SR, 6e or any edition of SR this not one that really worth getting overly concerned about.
*Play-by-Post color guide*
Thinking
com
speaking

dezmont

  • *
  • Chummer
  • **
  • Posts: 190
« Reply #182 on: <06-30-20/0324:52> »
While it is true that claiming the state of 6e is up there with the woes of the world would be ridiculous, the statement 'This is such a minor thing in the grand scheme' and stating other things are worth being upset about compared to SR is actually one of the more insidious fallacies, the Fallacy of Relative Privation. It seems logical (No one really SHOULD be losing SR over SR being good or bad or whatever), but because its still a statement that doesn't adress the veracity of any claim about anything (and thus makes any criticism impossible) the fact it seems logical is kinda spooky.

So like... yeah... No one should really care (and I would say the fact most people simply don't care anymore is a big problem for the game going forward, at least anger is a form of engagement) too much, but that really doesn't address any of the criticisms and doesn't offer any solutions to any problems. It is just a sentiment that subtly argues that people don't have the right to complain about a commercial product because first world problems.

This is an issue because SR is really important to people, and caring about SR doesn't require you to care less about other things. Like obviously toxic nerd rage is actually a really big problem, but the point of all media, especially 'lifestyle transmedia' like SR is, is to affect people and make them feel things. SR is, low key, one of the 'bigger' scifi-worlds that people are emotionally attached to, its been around for 31 years and has had 66 novels (for reference, that means SR is about 33% the size of the library of old EU star wars novels, and is essentially as big as the current collection of star wars novels for Disney Canon) and around 175 sourcebooks published. I seriously doubt anyone who writes for it doesn't feel like it is important that it affects people and enriches their lives in some way.

I am personally way more focused on other things (hence why I haven't posted in a while) but also SR is important to me because it literally got me into gradschool, and turned me into a writer rather than a miserable lawyer (can you imagine? Dezzmont Dezmont a wageslave?), and made me meet a friend group who I am closer to than anyone else on the planet, and all other sorts of really important things. It isn't invalid to care about something as 'trivial' as fiction as long as that care is a healthy sort of care, rather than an abusive one (Which is a trap I fully admit I fell into at times in my life).

This isn't an intractiable problem, Opti did a GREAT job of mending those bridges back in 2017. People WANT to like SR, but the wound (whether you believe the product is fundamentally bad or just that the communication strategy of CGL was actively damaging) has festered due to a lack of desire or ability to address it. If people didn't care, they wouldn't be offering feedback, and it is a dangerous argument for SR's future to say that people should give a fig about the quality of it because life is happening, life is always happening, and it is basically an admission that SR will never be worth caring about again. It just isn't a good argument to make against caring too much (which, again, can be and often IS a problem).

Though while we are on the topic of things worthy of salt, I would say SR in general has a real problem with being a game with overtly political themes and doing them badly, insensitively, or ignorantly, which contributes to a greater problem with our media landscape that IS one of the bigger problems in the world right now, though that isn't really the topic being discussed in this thread. It has gotten better in some ways (Thank Firebringer that mental limits on metatypes being lowered is gone, and essence now explicitly not being a 'purity' attribute and more just a mechanistic function of biology and Not A Big Deal), but SR is still very bad on gender, sexuality, neurodiversity, and ableism, and still needs to seriously watch out for eugenics-y themes with magic. These aren't abstract issues either, I do sincerely think that CGL needs to invest in bringing on board a sensitivity reader/writer because sometimes it can get shocklingly bad, like with Metatype Reduction or some of the mid-late SR5 magic stuff. I literally can't play SR with the group I met through it anymore because the themeing has gotten so outright ugly at times that they don't want to touch it with a +3 reach pole, which is honestly really sad.
« Last Edit: <06-30-20/0622:40> by dezmont »

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

  • *
  • Errata Coordinator
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 4572
« Reply #183 on: <06-30-20/1025:38> »
Interesting thoughts, dezmont.

Back in the 80s and 90s SR (like all Cyberpunk) felt to me like it was on the leading edge of social awareness.

Having Lone Star breaking SINless and Ork protestors' legs and faces was edgy then. It shouldn't be hitting any more  "closer to home" now than then, but frankly for most of the RPG demographic today it is.

Segueing on the topic of changing what the Essence attribute means: What auras look like/are!
4e was my own ragequit edition, so I don't know it as well. But in 5e it never mentioned that you can discern sex and/or race via assensing.  Now maybe that's because it was simple change blindness to forget to ever say "of course you can see that in an aura".  Or perhaps that age/sex/race was purposely left off the assensing results and some change blindness manifested itself (pardon the pun) by forgetting to ever say such information is obvious and discernable w/o even assensing.

However, I've interpreted that to mean that you simply can't see such details because they're irrelevant on the astral plane. Yeah, yeah.  You USED to be able to see it in prior editions, sure.  Whatever.  You also USED to see differences between Hermetics and Shamans, and Nature Spirits and Elementals too!  Chalk it up to more UMT.  Now on the astral you're not man, you're not a woman, you're not a troll, you're not an elf.. you're a living being who has emotions and desires. THOSE are what you see instead.  In fact, with trans acceptance becoming more mainstream, I think saying your aura showing your "true" sex is a very loaded concept.  A trans woman is a woman, and there's only two acceptable ways for the game to work: either the aura confirms woman (no matter what genitalia is between her thighs) or the concept is irrelevant anyway on the astral.

The concept can also be extended to "Poserdom" (not to imply that trans people are "posing", mind you).  Should an Elf/Ork poser have a human aura or elf/ork aura as that's their sincerely chosen/adopted identity?  Or instead should race simply be irrelevant on the astral?  I think it's better design AND better gameplay for auras to simply not "transmit" any data regarding age/sex/race, and whether 5e and 6e do this by accident or by design, I think it's the right call.

« Last Edit: <06-30-20/1028:05> by Stainless Steel Devil Rat »
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

Hobbes

  • *
  • Catalyst Demo Team
  • Prime Runner
  • ***
  • Posts: 3078
« Reply #184 on: <06-30-20/1138:26> »
I think it's fair to say people can feel, Masculine, or Elfy, or UCASian even.  Especially as these feelings are then filtered through the Astral observers own particular emotional perceptions and foibles. 

Those particular feelings may or may not be the gender/nationality/metatype of an individual but on a plane that is all about emotions I think those feelings would be perceptible.  Gender Identity, Nationalism, Racial Identity and such are huge drivers of human behavior, I would think they would have an Astral component.  Again, may or may not match what physically is perceived.

Also, things like clothes, armor, weapons, ect, cast an Astral shadow so there would be some inference as to general shape and size.  At least as much information as you could get from a silhouette.  Or the shadow of a silhouette anyway.   :P

Reaver

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 6422
  • 60% alcohol 40% asshole...
« Reply #185 on: <06-30-20/1154:36> »
In my humble opinion, the writers would do well to stay away from any political issues of the time and trying to wrap that into Shadowrun, They never age well, nor do the general public have much appetite for Political Causes in their entertainment as a whole...

Also, what some consider the "political Flavour" de jour, is a hostile of even illegal topic in another country...


 
Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

penllawen

  • *
  • Omae
  • ***
  • Posts: 804
  • Let's go. In and out. Twenty minute milk run.
« Reply #186 on: <06-30-20/1214:23> »
In my humble opinion, the writers would do well to stay away from any political issues of the time and trying to wrap that into Shadowrun, They never age well, nor do the general public have much appetite for Political Causes in their entertainment as a whole...
What's left if you take the politics out of cyberpunk? Cool neon lights but without downtrodden masses and sticking it to the man? Cyber...pop?

Banshee

  • *
  • Catalyst Demo Team
  • Ace Runner
  • ***
  • Posts: 1095
« Reply #187 on: <06-30-20/1222:15> »
In my humble opinion, the writers would do well to stay away from any political issues of the time and trying to wrap that into Shadowrun, They never age well, nor do the general public have much appetite for Political Causes in their entertainment as a whole...
What's left if you take the politics out of cyberpunk? Cool neon lights but without downtrodden masses and sticking it to the man? Cyber...pop?

I was going to say the same thing. Politics is so integral to the punk movement which is in turn integral to cyberpunk that you can't just remove it. The best you can do is be sensitive to how it is presented and make adjustments and allowance as the world and setting changes.
Robert "Banshee" Volbrecht
Freelancer & FAQ Committee member
Former RPG Lead Agent
Catalyst Demo Team

Hobbes

  • *
  • Catalyst Demo Team
  • Prime Runner
  • ***
  • Posts: 3078
« Reply #188 on: <06-30-20/1244:42> »
Shadowrun world history has several events based on (Sixth World) Racism.  Is the Night of Rage and the Humanis Poli club essential to the setting?  Yumi Island?  No, you can play without ever mentioning them.  But Sixth World Racism vs Metahumans is part of the setting, and can be presented sensitively.  People can have conversations about Bigotry and/or whatever "-ism" (and should...actually) without hurt feelings.

I feel it should be in the game material, and let individual tables handle it however they're comfortable with it.

The tricky part is that several in game groups are direct references to real world ethnic groups.  Sometimes that material isn't going to age well.  Not sure what you can do about that because the only way perceptions can change is if there is an acceptable way to communicate on these topics. 

dezmont

  • *
  • Chummer
  • **
  • Posts: 190
« Reply #189 on: <06-30-20/1524:31> »
Saying that writing shouldn't have political under or overtones is definitely why the 'Wow Cool Robot' meme came about. A huge POINT of writing stories is to comment on the world and express values, like that is literally how culture works, and saying 'dont write about politics' is REALLY saying 'don't raise any but the most milktoast of points.'

Part of why SR kinda got grody, at least in my opinion, was because of this shift during 4e where it hit peak post 9/11 cyberpunk. You see this really clear divide between 3e and earlier where the 'Corp Man professional runner' is this character who is despised by other runners due to being an untrustworthy sellout who wouldn't blow up some black ops torture-lab just because it was the right thing to do, to these moral robots who do things as cogs in the machine minimizing collateral damage and political aspirations. And, to be clear, this was probably unavoidable because part of SR's old thesis was 'political terrorism is justified to resist legitimate atrocities' which is.... not a message anyone in 2005 was gunna be down to have in their books. No shade at all for that happening, slight shade for being resistant to re-directing back, but eh, fictional inertia is a thing.

We are leaving that post-9/11 phase of media, and are now in the post-post-9/11 phase (which is probably not going to be its name when future media historians talk about this) and society is now not super mega-obsessed with stability and feeling invincible, which is part of why SR fans in 2015-2016 were so riotous about the ongoing tone of SR trending so cynical and passive.

Heck, SR as a RPG was one of the first 'Counter Tolkienian' RPGs. Till Shadowrun, most games, even ones with absolutely wild settings like RIFTs, treated racial moral absolutism as something that was totally normal, even though Tolkien's works were already being talked about through the lens of how absolutely racist they were in the 60's (To be clear, that isn't a 'cancel Tolkien jab, Tolkien IS a good example of a work being influenced by their time and writer), and he himself addressed how he made a mistake making all Orcs evil (To be fair, more because cosmological issues: the way evil works was the issue: The forces of evil couldn't create anything, so orcs as a pure evil servitor race rather than free willed beings didn't make sense in his universe, so good orcs were theoretically possible, and the way good worked meant that being dishonest to orcs was evil which likewise indicated that orcs have moral weight he never explored. It was never about race and he openly talked about racial pariables with the fictional peoples of middle earth). SR was one of the first settings to look at how fantasy peoples treated each other, how utterly charged the term 'fantasy race' was, and actively turn it on its head and make Orks and Trolls not marauding hordes, but an actively oppressed people. But it still dropped the ball by just sorta copy-pasting D&D concepts of Ork and Troll intellegence to them (and 1e's mixed ideas on how you should pay to be a minority standin was pretty... not great). RPGs are interesting because they lean extremely far left of mainstream media, forget most gaming cultures, yet because of Tolkien they trend towards being extremely bad on race. SR is both weirdly progressive yet also makes horrible mistakes because they code their metatypes as real world minorities to make a point (And a good one, in my opinion) but still also play into the 'they are ugly, savage, dumb, rage filled monsters' aspects of Tolkien's works.

Other things in more modern SR, however, are just plain bad writing for their own time. Like, again, no one involved in 5e shoulda thought Metatype Reduction was a good idea because it was explicitly commenting on an issue known to be a problem in its own day in... absolutely the wrong way. Likewise, the hard push for 'magical specialness' hit at a really bad time here at least in the US where the concept of being 'born better and with special powers and privleges' was NOT something that needed to be framed as an absolutely good thing, and attempts to tamp it down came across as tone deaf and very 'poor little rich boy.' Like it says something pretty terrible about your setting when if you aren't born so special that the universe itself loves you and allows you to snap your fingers for a spirit butler that you just aren't allowed to try to break your own limits via essence loss being framed as a purity discussion. It mixes so poorly with any real world non-abstract issue because body purity arguments inevitably echo into really gross weird ones. For example it frames Plan 9's method of expressing themselves through altering their body, including utilizing augmentation to express being genderfluid, as an act of 'self mutilation.'  It is especially ugly when you consider the implied original plans for CFD that a freelancer implied on reddit back in 2016, made it so that Plan 9 got themselves turned into a cyber-abomination for the 'crime of doing this.' At least now they are having their day in the sun as an important character and are way less of a joke about how weird a person they would be to want to change their body a lot in a setting where... people change their body a lot. And they are even a good example of a fictionally neurodiverse character to boot (though they risk that becoming one note. Hopefully we still see some of their quirks even as they keep being a serious character).

As was said, things can get better, and the changes to Plan 9's portrayal prove it. As was noted, it was a smart idea for the astral plane to not make real commentary on your physical body and for essence loss to require deep insight and observation of an aura (it... really stinks that a lot of GMs will say a low essence aura looks 'mangled' or 'has holes' though), or for essence to not be a purity thing. A lot of people forget this, but 'Cybernetics eat your soul' was not really a thing in any foundational story to the genre, and cybernetics were actually used to talk about body policing and purity politics (because the language and politics of purity are so... fundemental to racism and prejudice, maybe its just a good idea to not posit things make you 'impure' in a cosmic sense down the line) rather than a 'loss of humanity.' Like if you read Neuromancer or GITS or watch Blade Runner and get the message 'robot parts make you less human' you... deeply failed to comprehend the intended messages of these stories. The trope of 'cybernetics eat your soul' is specifically noted to be associated with RPG tabletop gaming (mainly cyberpunk 20XX and Shadowrun) because it was an invented rationale for game balance that had the direct opposite message for how you were meant to view people altering their body and society judging them (You were meant to hate society because its super clear their partially or wholly artificial natures were not negative forces in the character's lives) and it is good that SR moved out of that lane. SR has a lot of room to move out of a lot of lanes, and to improve on its rather severe modern tone issues (Ex: Making the fact that most of the Jackpoint mages are... truly biggoted assholes who no one should like a bit more overt, and noting that magical supremacists are locked hand in hand with racial supremacists for example).

Then there are just subtle biases that come through the books. Like... SR, at least in most parts of the setting, are pro-sex, sex equal places, yet the writing often does talk about gender in Seattle through a modern lens (which is fine if that is how they want to go but its weird cuz its explicitly not the case that, for example, male orks would be arrested more than female orks in 2070 when RF was written) and its art DEFINITELY isn't gender equal: Despite it in theory being as common as women doing this, we don't get any voyeuristic art pieces of scantily clad dudes striking poses in fights. We also don't see anyone with transgressing gender expressions or an androgenous look or anything like this. This is, again, in part because of the necessity to 'de-punkify' SR post 9/11 and have everyone dress in a very unpunk way that mainstream people would still associate with punk (Again, glad that trend died with 6e and the art got way more varied and runners became more vibrant. The rigger on 54 is my fave) but... lets be fair its also because I doubt anyone holding the pursestrings for SR is inclined to ask for a sexy streetsam dude in a revealing outfit or would even know what to specifically ask for, and because its a gaming space and having the cover art for Street Spells be a pseudo-upskirt shot of a woman rather than a man, or having the person on 138 wearing a jacket open with nothing but a bra under it, is an attempt to pander with cheesecake in a way that doesn't actually make sense in SR to do. The setting (outside of areas like Japan or Aztland) don't have double standards, but the writers/artists certainly do.

Again, these are not intractable problems, and the take away shouldn't be 'give up' or 'don't try because trying gets you yelled at.' SR tried for some 20 years and because of that people ignored how bad racial mental caps were to a greater or lesser extent, it only became an 'issue' when SR basically stopped trying and became a setting that was subtly pro-eugenics, pro-body purity, anti-body autonomy.
« Last Edit: <06-30-20/1546:57> by dezmont »

Marcus

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 2802
  • Success always demands a greater effort.
« Reply #190 on: <06-30-20/1533:36> »
Modern Politics isn't important to punk, the classic themes of oppression, Prejudice, Bigotry, Sexism, exploitation, over population, resource competition are and thus by extension are important to Cyberpunk. Is it important to include those elements? Absolutely, 100%. Tragically in so many ways our time at this moment is very perfect lens to see many of these themes in action. American is as sharply divided in this moment as we were in the lead up to the civil war. So while concept of putting in a viral outbreak is very appropriate to SR, or adding in Meta Human Live Matter, could be very appropriate; Using them right now carries political connotations, that could be disruptive to your table, or it might be to meta, or might be the perfect example to help your player get into the fantasy in a very real way. But It's something to look at in case by case.   

 
*Play-by-Post color guide*
Thinking
com
speaking

dezmont

  • *
  • Chummer
  • **
  • Posts: 190
« Reply #191 on: <06-30-20/1600:15> »
Modern Politics isn't important to punk, the classic themes of oppression, Prejudice, Bigotry, Sexism, exploitation, over population, resource competition are and thus by extension are important to Cyberpunk.

If you don't think those concepts are modern political issues (save over-population, which is often used as an eco-facist dog whistle, and its good that SR basically says outright feeding the population is trivial to do), then you have a strange take on modern politics.

SR was written in 1989. Its contemporary politics included a major viral outbreak encouraged by the political establishment, Regan being a super pro-corporate president, an increased awareness of how we essentially committed genocide against American Indians, natural disasters in the US including a volcanic eruption in the state of Washington, multiple riots (including a racist police riot a year before SR was published), and a perception of the decline of American Exceptionalism and the ability for America to 'get things done' due to multiple high profile failures and corruption cases, along with a general decline in belief in The American Dream.

SR was *about* contemporary politics, it was basically a giant 'frag you' to Regan, and implied that he would kill undesirables if he could (And him actively trying to make the AIDs crisis worse shows this was a 100% true assessment). While you don't want to be *too* crass about real world allegories (And you need to UNDERSTAND them, say it with me again, Metatype Reduction Surgery was GROSS and a lot of Complete Trog was no better from what I have been told by some friends who were the subject of the allegory who, suffice to say, no longer play SR despite liking it otherwise), you shouldn't 'give up' on being topical and relevant just because it can be hard. Again, part of the point of writing is to comment on the world you live in, and SR is actually REALLY good at it in some places, like how it manages to, despite its problems on race, frame racial issues in a way not just where everyone you play is against racism, but its 'cool' to be someone who will use forced to defend the oppressed from racists and bash on the paper thinly veiled reference to the KKK.

Trying to be non-political is an inherently futile effort when your writing about the real world, especially in a speculative fiction setting. Look at how the essence rules consistently said garbage things about real world groups for multiple editions no matter how often they tried to patch those issues in, as opposed to just admitting purity language is a fundamentally bad language to every describe a person with. You can never escape understanding issues by just refusing to comment on them, because you always sorta are. Its a permanent aspect of having a platform (Which we all do) and gets more critical the larger and more important your platform is. And, again, I think SR is deceptively important. Neutrality is an incorrect concept because a lot of issues are binary once you introduce objective measurement systems like RPGs do: Do you think trans people are perverting and twisting their bodies or not? You can't be 'neutral' on that issue once you introduce essence as a concept linked to modifying the body. Do you think certain minorities are naturally less intellegent, or not? Once you introduce mechanics that measure intelligence objectively (in the real world most attempts to quantify intellegence are... pretty thinly pseudo-scientific systems used to try to justify eugenics or abandoning certain children's educations, so its tricky already) you need to actually state if its true or not which is a pretty big political stance when your setting's metatypes are coded super hard for real world minorities. Doubly so when the genre your in is explicitly a political one, and your game uses political language and is sold partially on being political.
« Last Edit: <06-30-20/1621:58> by dezmont »

Reaver

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 6422
  • 60% alcohol 40% asshole...
« Reply #192 on: <06-30-20/1636:24> »
You are proving my point...
Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

dezmont

  • *
  • Chummer
  • **
  • Posts: 190
« Reply #193 on: <06-30-20/1639:58> »
You are proving my point...

My point is by your logic SR should never have been written in the first place, and no media should exist, because you can't avoid writing about politics, you can only delude yourself into thinking you aren't. One of SR's literal thesis statements, which is controversial TOO THIS DAY, is that capitalism is fundamentally evil, and has a Marx influence view of social class down to believing the working class literally isn't going to be capable of rising up without elites (like Shadowrunners). You think that isn't political?

SR was entirely political and it DIDN'T age poorly. Most of the poorly aged political things about SR aren't poorly aged because they espouse old worldviews, but because they weren't thought of in political terms AT ALL (Ex: Essence, some aspects of magic, metatype atts). By trying to NOT talk about these issues, you actually say something about them (Ex: Not creating allowances for body modifications that aren't augmentative says very negative things about people who alter their body for any reason, such as prosthetic, changing your gender, or even getting cosmetic modifications, as well as people who would consider such a thing, because it turns out modifying your body isn't a pure scifi concept). As body modification becomes more and more realistic to happen on a 'mainstream' level refusing to adress the political nature of what essence was (A measure of 'cosmic bodily purity') wasn't becoming 'more dated.' It was just more visible that inverting the take away for body modification from foundational cyberpunk stories was bad on many levels and there is a reason they actively were against judging people for these things.

What you are saying, knowing or not, is more 'SR shouldn't comment on social issues, especially that pertain to minorities' which is... quite frankly terrible. Why should we have settings that explore the ramifications of late stage capitalism but NOT have settings that explore issues of gender, sexuality, neurodiversity, ect, ESPECIALLY when those are the issues that made Cyberpunk popular in the first place?

Are you saying we should move SR to a world not based on earth, remove corporations as the main antagonist force, remove metatypes, and have the PCs fight... I dunno... some non-religiously alegorical pseudo demons? Even THAT is kinda political in its own sense.



Shadowrun (And cyberpunk) was never not political. It is an inherently mega-political genre that was created SPECIFICALLY to make political commentary on our lifestyles, how we treat other people, police their bodies, relate to technology both good and ill, and basically oppress ourselves and ruin our own future that has all this potential simply to uphold old outdated social structures. Major Kusanagi didn't joke about her period for no reason, it was specifically a commentary on how even with a cyborg body radically stronger than any organic man's people treated her poorly because she presented as a woman. Molly Millions didn't spit instead of crying as some quirky character tic, it is a metaphor for the trauma she faced making her struggle to portray and feel emotions 'correctly' and society was not set up at all to help people like her or stop things like that from happening.

Likewise, KE and Lonestar defending Humanis more than Orks despite the federal police being 'reformed' by going private after participating in a brutal race riot wasn't some accidental quirk of the setting's history, its a direct commentary on how the police exist to preserve the status quo and hierarchies, both wealth and race, because that benefits the people with access to power who get to make the rules. I highly doubt that is EVER going to be dated, because its actually clever and was thought of THROUGH a political lens!
« Last Edit: <06-30-20/1705:44> by dezmont »

adzling

  • *
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 3290
« Reply #194 on: <06-30-20/1715:59> »
cyberpunk as a genre is political at it's heart, no doubt.

IMHO it's mostly about how rampant, over-abundant technology and late stage capitalism dehumanizes people and tears apart communities.

Taken together you can boil it down to capitalism and technology destroy humanity (physically and metaphorically).

In this milieu I am totally fine with the core conceits that:

> installing invasive tech into your body dehumanizes you (essence)
> the fantasy races all have built-in limits to their capabilities, some of which make them greater than humans and some of which make them lesser (attribute variances)
> some people are special/ born lucky (awakened vs mundane)
> transhumanism (metahumanity is changing as it becomes more intimately integrated with technology)

I don't have the same reservations/ beliefs that Dezzmont does on these topics.

I consider them good as they drive conflict, and every good story needs conflict at it's core.

Racism, political divisiveness, downtrodden, corporate overlords, societal collapse, alternate communities.

These are all memes that are important to my cyberpunk experience.