Earth 2444, a Cyberpunk RP

[Absenthia]

Hi all,

As I'm sure so many people here have seen that numerous cyberpunk etc things have come out.

A lot of my ideas were pulled from Altered Carbon, Shadow Run, Ghost in the Shell, etc if I'm totally honest. I have a rough idea that's been run through once, but not super extensively. I would like to see people creating Mafia/Yakuza, Corporations, Law Enforcement, Business Owners, anything really you can think of. The idea is to create a world with in character conflict, and possibly a long term thing for players to enjoy.

But before I go creating anything, I want to gauge interest.

Here's a rough synopsis/starter below:

The year is 2444 technology has advanced significantly. The government is corrupt, it cannot be trusted in any way shape or forum. Gangsters, Mobsters, Mafia, Yakuza you name it pretty much run nearly anything and everything.

There are a few good souls left, but they keep their heads low, some have even managed infiltrate and throw these establishments for a loop. Each has a special skills set whether its with electronics, the computer systems, weaponry you name it.

Urban expansion and sprawl has resulted in the merging of major cities, creating supercities like New Los Angeles now taking up nearly half of the west coast and New Vegas the Great Basin. The great majority of people have left the countryside and rural areas for the cities. The minor cities that were not swallowed by the expansion are desolated shells of their former selves.

There are rumors that a underground society has made it's home these in these shells. But few seem to be able to find themselves possessing the courage to seek out the truth or to find out for themselves.

These things have not left the earth unscarred, the skys above the cities are under perpetual darkness called 'Sky Burn'. Rainfall is acid from the chemicals polluting the air, and has decimated much of the American Bread basket placing food at a premium.

This is a future imperfect. Will you be part of the underground resistance against this change or will you accept things as they are and continue to live your life out as it currently is?

[Absenthia]

Still very much interested in doing this, but I do want to gather up some players before comitting.

I've got a rough idea of some stuff to do thanks to a d100 table.

What's Going Down?
New hardware hits the street and everybody wants it. With a high market value, it's no surprise that someone is planning to boost this stuff from a notorious mob. But in reality some hot whizkid is disrupting the net such as crashing a Corp’s system, stealing data, crossing routelines or it could be something in real life affected by the net (misdirecting deliveries, aiding a team of burglars by disabling alarms, messing up credit accounts).

Your characters are are hired by the main sufferer to find and eliminate this wiz kid decker and biggest problem? They know the kid.

[Sepokku]

I think partially due to the heavy saturation of cyberpunk media (like you said) there needs to be a more unique plotline if you're looking to garner more interest. Detroit Become Human explores the idea that synthetic humans can be more human than the originals due to their ability to sync memories and quite literally walk a mile in someone else's shoes, Cyberpunk 2077 goes into how cybernetics eliminate the von Neumann bottleneck most humans experience, Romantically Apocalyptic showcases a future where the internet had awoken to sentience due to advances in captcha (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) and the need to solve them, etc.

If it was always nighttime, the earth's atmosphere would fall apart. Acid rain wouldn't be an issue because it would immediately start raining. Then it would never rain again because the sun's heat is responsible for evaporation. I understand the appeal of a grimdark setting, but part of what draws people to cyberpunk settings is the realism.

The laughing man hacks (whiz kid) spilling over into real-life seems terribly... 90s. Terribly ghost in the shell and dated, no offense. It wouldn't realistically be a huge issue 200+ years in the future where we operate on a credit system. The Chinese currently already have a quantum internet, and that is impossible to hack due to the nature of quantum entanglement. By the year 2444, hacking would only be an issue to the dirt poor... Would def be interested if we workshopped the plot a bit!

[Absenthia]

It was basically what the the d100 generator I used gave me, can't say its good or bad, just a starting point. I initially wanted to challenge myself with a genre that wasn't urban fantasy or hard core scifi.

The original premise is something I found in my old writing stuff and thought maybe rehashing it would be of use to at least someone besides me for some fun. I don't mind working out the plot, but I can see that I'm out of the loop with this genre and likely still stuck in the 90s.

[A Rubber Chicken]

Hi there Absenthia!

I'm a returning writer looking to get involved in a roleplay here. It's been a good few years since I participated but I had some amazing experiences here back in the day!

I'm a cyberpunk fan, and think this would be right up my alley for getting back in to the swing of things. If you're still looking for people then please drop me a PM. I'm a bit rusty but I'm very excited to make a return!

And by the way, some retro 90's inspired cyberpunk isn't a bad thing :D

[Sepokku]

Yeah! Im still interested so long as we workshopped it a bit! For example, Skyburn can still be a phenomenon, but it would make more sense if the phenomena were faked and the actual issue was due to some sort of Dyson sphere (covering sunlight) or the like. Same with acid rain, it could still happen, but it would be (personally) more satisfying if it ended up being artificially created.

Even the hacker could be implemented in such a way. The hacker knows the person who hired us, maybe he has a special key (set of Quantum data) that allows him access to the network! As rubber chicken said, retro isn't bad, but (in my opinion,) there are adjustments to be made for retro plots ^^

edit: The demand for a cyberpunk RP seems to be growing, if you're still up for DMing said Universe

[Absenthia]

Hi folks,

I'm still up for it. I've just had a really busy last few weeks with work IRL on top of some other personal stuff going on.

I'll try to sit down this weekend and get the universe created and get both of you guys the link.

[Absenthia]

The Universe is up, I'm still sorta writing the main introduction based on some ideas suggested. I have a etherpad set up, if anyone wants the link I'm happy to share.

In the meantime, here's the universe