Cyberpunk via Sorcerer
From AdamWiki
This is a hack to play a cyberpunk game (I'm thinking a game a lot like the old R. Talsorian Cyberpunk 2020 RPG) using the rules for Sorcerer. Really, you don't have to change a lot. Some of these changes are just for flavor.
Scheduling and Logs
All games will go 8PM - 11PM ET.
- 3/4 -- Setting jamming and character concepts. (log)
- 3/10 -- Finished up characters. Talked about dice rules. Discussed the relationship map. (log)
- 3/17 -- First play session! (log)
- 3/24 -- Second play session. (log)
- 3/31 -- Third play session.
Characters (and Players)
Demons are listed as sub-bullets under each character
- Jesse Aning (Daniel)
- Exit Here (Anik)
- Henry Franklin (Jon)
- Adaya Omri (Naomi)
Rules Reference
Setting
This is a cyberpunk setting that this group created together.
Themes
Overall, the main theme is that The System is the main source of power, but to get that power, you have to integrate more tightly with The System.
- Individual empowerment through exploiting the system
- Dependency on technology
- Technology that breaks down barriers and threatens individuality, privacy, or consent
- Dark noir
- Alienated anti-heroes
- Impossible future technology that threatens to make people into horrible gods
- Technology subsuming societal norms
- Accidental greatness
- Tongue-in-cheek humor, surreal postmodern combinations of unlike things
- Counteracting technology by making the impersonal personal again
- Letting technology live your life for you
- Technology as a social divider
Details
There's an island arcology in Malaysia run by a company called MINER Corporation. The city, called Altima, is a sovereign corporate-state with its own military and security force. About 70% of the people on the island city work for MINER. The rest either don't work at all or work for the various services on the island (food, retail, medical, transportation, fashion, etc.).
Everywhere in the civilized world, but especially in the arcologies, people are tied into "the System," also called Akasha. It is a worldwide computer network that people access through old-school terminals and newtech guaranteed neural interfaces ("genie"), which uses quantum teleportation effects for instantaneous communication between the brain and Akasha's computers. Just about every manufactured item and container is connected to Akasha, creating a level of monitoring that is difficult to comprehend. The System can give users great power over the world but doing so requires opening one's mind to the network. This makes the user susceptible to attack, too, though "firewall" software and other protections exist.
The average person connects to Akasha more or less constantly, and uses it like she'd use the Internet today (primarily for communication, entertainment, shopping, and light research). People stay connected even while asleep, so they can better control their dreams or get more restful sleep.
"Sorcerers" are those people who tamper with Akasha and other networked technology in a far scarier way. They need huge amounts of processing power, which they can get from Akasha's computing cloud, but this comes with a price. Akasha is controlled by numerous "mindless" AIs. While mindless, they do sometimes pick up the subconscious desires of the billions of connected users, and can spontaneously create autonomous, sentient, unconsciously-recurring agents ("ASURAs"). These are essentially free-floating AIs with a wide variety of power. They can live entirely in the network, or they can inhabit technological devices, computer software or hardware, and even human minds. Some people call them "demons." Sorcerers know how to create, control, and use these autonomous agents to do things for them.
