Been playing a lot of cyberpunk recently—no, not that one, the #Shadowrun kind! (Specifically Dragonfall, which I tried to play back when it came out, but I kept dying in the tutorial.)
Shadowrun does some things really well that are good design ideas...
(A thread.)
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Like most cyberpunk genre media, in Shadowrun, megacorporations have global reach and influence. The game books include top-ten lists of the largest, wealthiest, most influential corporations, and ideas about what they do and what kinds of cutting-edge research they sponsor.
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Shadowrun lays out the corporations for you, giving them names, chairpeople, and agendas. This makes it really easy for you, as a GM, to figure out missions that involve them. It also does worldbuilding for you: These organizations exist, they have logos and goals.
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Often, Shadowrun corporations have names that, just like a character's, are signals to you about what they are like. Ares Macrotech, named for the god of war, a supplier of military hardware. Yamatetsu (loosely, "hell steel,") cutting-edge cybernetics research.
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In Shadowrun, there's not really such a thing as a "good" corporation. Any sufficiently large organization driven by profit motive will engage in shady and unethical business. This means that while they are patrons to the characters in the game, hiring them for dirty work...
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... they're also enemies; you can't trust them, and they use you because you are deniable, disposable, and cheap. A good heroic story often stands on the strength of its villain, and the megacorps of SR give you really solid, dangerous, nasty villains!
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But if corporations aren't going to do any good, how do people get by? How do you just survive when the powers running the world are out only for themselves, and in many cases, actively malicious? Shadowrun tackles this too; it does so explicitly in Dragonfall:
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People rely on each other. They rely on aid, they form their own networks, they find ways to help one another. Not for the profit motive, but because it's the humane thing to do.
In Dragonfall, you interact with communities, and those communities are just trying to survive.
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You have chances to help these communities, to form larger mutual aid networks. The story of the game even hinges on your role taking a leadership position in an anarchistic, unregulated zone, and on how you can negotiate treaties and inspire connections. It's even rewarded.
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You have the chance to help with a shelter for the dispossessed, to aid the homeless and oppressed. You even get paid to take on racists. Nothing is forced on you, because it's an RPG. You decide what you do and why. But the opportunity is there, to be a hero.
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The thing is, while the cyberpunk genre is a dystopia, a pure dystopia with no hope for change is just nihilism. In Shadowrun, technology and magic can make the future worse, but they can also make it better, because it all comes down to how people use them.
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From a design perspective, this is very important: You give the players choices to express what their characters are like, what matters to them, and how they leave an impact on the world. They can do it with chrome, magic, or guns, but they 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦.
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Sometimes people think that cyberpunk-genre games are all about the hustle: How do you get paid? Who do you shoot? But they're about the 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘦: To what depths do you sink? How far can you fall? And... can you come back?
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Are you as terrible as people say you are? Is it machinery that makes you inhuman, or is that just an excuse used by those with no moral compass? The human who can't connect to others, who is just a killing robot, is inhuman regardless of their cyber.
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And the person who's full of metal and machines, but is able to connect with other people, to care about something, to take action that is risky or costly because they have that connection, is still humane.
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Cyberpunk-genre stuff resonates with us partly because we live in a world so close to it, one full of massive powerful corporations, rich people who don't care about the rest of us, and media that tells us that caring about things is for losers.
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For generations born after me, there's also a sense of nihilism: The sense that there is nothing to be done, that the world is already doomed because of the actions of those who came before and used their power for selfish ends.
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But that makes the stories that resonate all the more poignant when they are about the characters who 𝘥𝘰 care about something, who 𝘥𝘰 have some kind of principles, who 𝘥𝘰 have a line they won't cross—and they explore what those characters will sacrifice to stay true.
~Fin~
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On my prior thread about #cyberpunk, some people asked if you can't just enjoy the aesthetic of cyborgs and neon without the revolutionary elements. The answer is no, so let's explore how the aesthetic of cyberpunk is tied into dystopia and rebellion!
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Cyberpunk aesthetics owe some debts to earlier art forms, both from the punk movement and from underground and futuristic art, like that explored in 𝘔𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘏𝘶𝘳𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘵. (𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘺 𝘔𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘭 magazine for yanks.)
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The granddaddy fiction of cyberpunk, 𝘕𝘦𝘶𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘳, commonly describes the world in its dismal tones, its popping lights, and its toxins and waste. The cyberpunk world is one in which even air is a commodity, because everything's polluted.
What would a cyberpunk story look like when you start cleaning out problematic things like racism and transphobia? Let's investigate.
(A thread)
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Cyberpunk's root words are: "cyber," which really refers to communication, but was taken from communication between human (bodies) and machines and popularized as talking about synthetic body parts and neural interfaces.
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"Punk," referring to the rebellious movement that came out of Britain in the '70s and spread rapidly as people showed their dissatisfaction with authoritarianism and consumerism.
Hey @Wizards_DnD players, 𝘛𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘢'𝘴 𝘊𝘢𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘳𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 is finally here, and with it the new rules about changing up ability score modifiers, languages, and skills that are connected with race in the core book. Let's chat!
(cw: bigotry)
(A thread)
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D&D rarely does extradiegetic text. Going back to 1st edition there are some places where Gygax writes essay-form analysis of what constitutes good play and gives advice about successful adventuring...
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... but by and large, the game rarely has text explaining "Here's WHY this rule exists" or "You may want to do X, instead of Y, depending on the goals for your game." (Monte Cook talked about this in an interview where he said their original goal was to...
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If you want to be a better game designer, destroy your ego.
(A thread.)
You will make mistakes. You will make cringeworthy material. You will design something that is clunky, or ineffective, or a perverse incentive, or insensitive, or a mechanic that threatens the entire game's integrity.
These are moments to learn from, and people who talk about them are giving you feedback to absorb.
Taste is subjective. People who rail on your material because of differences in taste are expressing opinions, which means you can decide how much weight to give them.
Recently designer @justice_arman wrote a bit about D&D effects that take players out of play - spells like 𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 and 𝘮𝘢𝘻𝘦, which (if the dice don't favor you) just take you out of the game for some amount of time. (thread) #dnd
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Of course this has a long pedigree in D&D. Spells like this go back to the early editions. Not to mention that much of D&D's game mechanics are built on a "roll well or you just lost your turn" system - attack and miss? Failed your skill check? Often similar to doin' nuthin'.
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In early early early editions of D&D, characters had few options, meaning that taking your turn was fast. That meant that combat was quick. Swing, miss! Next! Swing, hit! Next! 𝘔𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘤 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦 and you've used your one spell! Next!
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Why the Internet and Social Media is a Minefield for Game Devs: A Thread. 1/
Fans of @trekonlinegame may recall @VengeanceGOD's oft-repeated refrain of "we don't talk about upcoming content!" This is for several reasons, typically learned through hard experience. 2/
First, when you announce an upcoming feature, there's always the possibility of something beyond your control happening and delaying or cancelling it. The further away the release date, the bigger the chance that something could change. 3/