[gurps] What do you look for in a cyberpunk game?

[Matt Riggsby]

On 7/26/06, hal at buffnet.net <hal at buffnet.net> wrote:
>
> I almost get the feelng then, that what people look for in a cyberpunk
> style game isn't so much as a historical timeline of how we got from the
> here and now of say, 2006 to the here and now of say, 2106 - it is more of
> a this is how it is, who cares how we got here, live in the now punk!  The
> plausibility aspect isn't what is important, the "flavor" or "punk"
> atmosphere is what is important.  No?

For any setting, I'm far more interested in what's going on in the
"now" of that game than in the historical underpinnings.  The PCs are
living in that "now," interacting with the people there and dealing
with the situation as it stands.  ANY setting is there for the PCs do
to things in, not to show of the GM's cleverness in extrapolating
historical trends.  This is not to say that the history is unimportant
or not useful, but (and this is vital) the PCs can't do anything about
it.  Unless it's a time travel campaign, the PCs in 2106 can't do
anything to change the outcome of the Indonesian War of 2038, the
Kinshasa Accords of 2051, or the Cellphone Plague of 2079.  If the
players are interested in knowing how things got to where they are,
that's fine, but on a day-to-day basis, most of the players I know and
the characters they run are far less interested in the minutiae of how
the Grandsons Of Al-Qaida came about than they are in how to get that
particular guy over there with the AK-747 to stop shooting at them.



-- 
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