I’ve spent a lot of time in the evenings over the last week reading the GURPS core rulebooks, reading some William Gibson cyberpunk, and brainstorming a cyberpunk/bio-tech kind of campaign setting.
It’s actually quite a lot of work, but really enjoyable too.
I ended up buying the GURPS Ultra-Tech and Bio-Tech books as PDFs. They are out of print, and the nice hardback editions are going for over $150 on Amazon for a new copy, or $70 used. They were totally out of them at the local game store, but they did have GURPS Horror. Now, I’m not planning a Horror campaign, but I went ahead and got the book as it is really well done and if history repeats, it will soon cost over $100 to get a nice copy. If I ever see used copies of these hardbacks at Half Price Books I will snag them.
Coming up with a “unique” campaign setting that still makes use of most of the common elements of the whole Tech-Dystopia-Cyberspace-Cyborg-BioTech stuff is challenging. I want to have at least the skeleton of an entire world built. It would be easier to just say “You guys live in MegaCity” and just jump right in, making it all up as I go. Most of my gaming history has involved just that. This time I want to be a bit more creative, even if it turns out kind of hacky. You gotta start somewhere, right? I considered just doing kind of a “real world Plus” game, with the PCs starting in New York City or something like that, just about 20 years in the future.
One thing that the classic CyberPunk literature seems to have missed (though honestly I haven’t read that much) is climate change. Very few people were thinking about it back in the 1980s. So I’m looking at the year being 2065, with the effects of climate change influencing everything. While I’m doing a rough outline of what the United States and the rest of the world look like in that year, the game will be based in the “Texas Corridor” – an enclosed MegaCity that includes the current Dallas area, down IH-35, all the way down to San Antonio, with a branch out to Houston. Action will also take place in the Mexico City Complex (El Complejo Grande). This will allow me to put a little Texas/Southwest flavor and style into the game.
Now I need to come up with some of the major players in this environment. People, corporations, the cops, etc.
One thing I’d recommend for such a campaign is Action 2: Exploits and Pyramid #3/21: Cyberpunk – the first because it covers a LOT of the things you find cyberpunk characters doing and the second for cyberpunk-style hacking/decking. The Tech and Toys Pyramid issues (#12, #37, and #51) might be something you want to pick up as well. Maybe also Pyramid #3/55: Military Sci-Fi. You can find them here:
http://www.warehouse23.com/products/gurps-action-2-exploits
http://www.warehouse23.com/products/pyramid-number-3-slash-21-cyberpunk
http://www.warehouse23.com/products?utf8=%E2%9C%93&keywords=Tech+and+Toys+Pyramid&x=0&y=0
http://www.warehouse23.com/products/pyramid-number-3-slash-55-military-sci-fi
Thank you, Christopher!