Running Deeper Cyberpunk Games
The genre of cyberpunk is often described as “high tech, low life.” The statement is accurate, but the genre goes far beyond that into soulless nihilism. A better description—or one that adds an extra element—comes from the 80s supergroup Chequered Past’s song World Gone Wild, in which the chorus says, “We will survive / In a world gone wild / Where love is a lie.”
Cyberpunk emphasizes living in the now. Take the drug, get drunk, drive fast, bring down the man. Why? Because it feels good in the moment. Consequences are ignored. People are simply objects to be bought and sold, used and discarded. You may have a friend of years that you shared adventures with, gone clubbing with, and shared intimate moments with, but if offered money, a penthouse suite, or a Lamborghini, you’d shoot them in the face. Or you may just shoot them for fun—because nothing matters except you.
Yet a common theme that runs through cyberpunk is the quest for eternal life—whether through stealing other people’s bodies or by downloading one’s consciousness into a computer. It begs the question: what do you want to live for? Why survive in a world gone wild, where love is a lie? These are questions that Bruce Sterling and William Gibson pointed out—but didn’t truly answer.
What does this have to do with role-playing? When running cyberpunk RPG campaigns, we can simply run cool heists with awesome tech and have a blast with our friends. That’s perfect for casual gaming. But it also means we can go deeper.
We can challenge our players by having NPCs turn on their characters for no reason. We can tempt PCs with power and money to see if they’ll betray their friends. And if they don’t, they’ll face striking consequences. Missions or jobs can be meaningless exercises. The PCs hack and fight their way to steal valuable tech, only to see their employer destroy it, or not want it, or refuse to pay them.
Role-playing games are unique in that we can have a surface experience that is extremely entertaining—and yet we can go to another level and challenge ourselves to think about weighty topics like friendship and love.
My Cyberpunk RPG Resources
I have created books of random tables to help game masters run cyberpunk campaigns. Between the three books, there are 93 d100 random tables.
Best Cyberpunk Tabletop RPGs – Several years ago, I created a list of excellent cyberpunk tabletop role-playing games.
Megacity: Lagos – A System Agnostic Cyberpunk Resource (FREE) – This is a collection of notes and resources I began putting together for a campaign I am running. I wanted to move my cyberpunk game outside of America and use a real-world city. It’s not meant to be an exhaustive setting but rather ideas to help gamemasters begin constructing their own setting.
Cyberpunk Documentary
An excellent three-part documentary on the Cyberpunk genre. Sit back and enjoy.
Cyberpunk RED Reviews
Cyberpunk RED is the undisputed heavyweight of cyberpunk RPGs.
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