Suriel

After my first character died (a fighter, naturally) I felt his death as a real loss. Now, no.

Do my characters have something in common? I made the test once in my Cyberpunk online game. Most of my pen-and-paper group, accusing me to always play a certain kind of character, are players there, too. So I invented a new character and told them it was a new player. Wow, did they love him! Such a splendid tragic hero. Had I tried that in pen-and-paper, no chance. The imagination is such a great plane, the possibilities myriad. But mostly it´s your friends who can´t see you in another way then the way they got to know you.

And the longer they know you, the more they tend to search for the bad traits, not the good ones.

Still, there are things I admire and frequently these things surface in my characters.

I once mastered a Kult session (Yeah, Kult rules!..the horror...)  with the players playing themselves. I really liked it, especially the character creation. More like self-estimation.

Naturally, most of them died and the rest went insane.

Using the same Natural born killers concept in my campaign.

::Back to drugs::

You start the evening with beer, wine and tequila. You´re still at home feeling comfortable. You take some speed for the first party of the evening. You´re getting talkative, you think of yourself as charming and convincing. And in a way you are, as are you friends. You go to the party. Alcohol? No problem anymore...

You decide to go dancing. You´ll have to stay up real long. You´re not tired. You can´t be tired. No. But ecstasy pills are better for dancing, so you take two, just to overcome the effects of the speed. Yeah, now the drugs alternate effects... Great feeling and as you rush into the crowd on the dance floor you feel real good.

Of course, you can´t sleep for hours when you get home. You couldn´t even f*ck if you wanted to. The speed...

You watch your sweat trickle down your head, hitting the pillow where it gathers in a small pool. You´ll feel miserable tomorrow, but the day after, everything will be ok.

You can smoke some weed to get you down faster.

This is today, what is tomorrow? So much to drugs in Cyberpunk. Oh, I´m NOT an addict, by the way.

Only difference is, the USA is powerful enough to dictate many of their anti-liberal ideas on us Europeans.

No pre-revolution european state, not even France with Napoleon, proved powerful enough to do so.

Don´t be fooled, the USA is a country leading the world in many aspects. But as you stated, I don´t think they have developed enough to cope with that responsibility.

Hm... And we´re following them, in many ways...

Hate to interrupt the trail of thoughts here, but I´ve been to many arabic countries (and not just for easter holidays) and I can tell you, I hate all this Islamist talk. If you compare the number of islamists to peaceful worshipers of Allah, you´d come out with a figure that would roughly resemble the figure of terrorists (political, worldly and religious [iRA]) in the western countries. (If you don´t believe me, I´ll be happy to give you some scientific reports on the subject)

So life is terrible and wars are never fair and history is written by the winners. But an uneducated populace that craves for an enemy makes it easy for them to do so. I don´t mean the US, I see the same signs in germany, too.

I don´t believe in conspiracy theories, but the pure process of "elections" brings those to power who crave for power.

These people normally aren´t the nice guys whom you´d talk about everything with. (Spell that : GOOD FRIENDS).

They made their way to the top though a system of darvinism.

Ok, as for this special topic: It´s no conspiracy theory but a fact that government spies of several countries have been deeply involved in the drug trade. As the Taliban, during their sponsorship has been running opiates to finance their war.

(Though I´ve been told that they were never sponsored as much as the Mujjahedin. Chief Opiate traders ;-))

But, well, we are all democratic civilized western states now, so who cares.

Amen!

Hey folks! I started this topic to look out for real world signs of a possible Cyberpunk future. No, I´m not a fatalist, although I often sound like one. This is for fun and better campaigns. So here is what I found:

"Similarly, in a system where corporations or cartels have their own power that transcends the strictly economic, the United States will have to decide what sort of relationship to have with transnational corporations or multinational cartels. Should, for instance, the United States consider signing treaties, perhaps even nonaggression pacts with powerful corporations? And, if corporations do appear to pose an actual challenge to the power of the state, should the U.S. Government pursue a strategy designed specifically to prevent the accumulation of non-economic power by corporations? And, what should U.S. policy be toward transnational security corporations (a.k.a. mercenaries) such as the highly successful Executive Outcomes composed of former South African soldiers? Clearly, if power continues to accrue to transnational corporations, the United States will have to re-think some of the basic tenets of its approach to security and world politics."

(http://www.cdi.org/issues/mercenaries/merc1.html)

Don´t know if such stuff is of interest to you. But if you find articles like this one, please either mail me or post them here.

Quote:"The private sector has 12 months to agree on a standard, or the Secretary of Commerce will step in. Industry groups that can participate: "representatives of interactive digital device manufacturers and representatives of copyright owners."

I really wonder WHO´s gonna set up this security standard. Who´s gonna butcher the golden calf?

Whichever company it´ll be, they won´t do it for patriotism. No, they´ll wipe their asses with 1000 dollar bills instead.

Yes, indeed. "May you live in interesting times!" is an ancient chinese curse. As I studied that language once, I can tell you, it has some implications far different from the western ones and still applying to the world as a whole.

Hm... Perhaps Linux and the Open Source Project will be incorporated into the axis of evil. Somehow I feel the US government is freaking out. It´s not only that the "Land of the Free and Home of the Brave" slowly (?) transforms into the most militaristic and anti-liberal Industrial Country on our wonderful blue planet. No, they are trying to pull the other countries down with them.

So what if Europe doesn´t want this new law?

"You´re either with us, or with the Linux Community?"

I hope they won´t get this thing through, for I´m fed up with the self-righteous and apocalyptic stuff they are doing.

And I´m also fed up with the US government giving a sh*t to their "friends" and allies and the rest of the world in general.

Besides I´m really in love with the Open Source community. They provide me with better programs than Microsoft, that rolling giant of a bug collection, ever could.

One good point: It´s a great idea for a law in my Cyberpunk campaign!

That´s true, the kind of atrocities humans can do are scary enough.

My mother worked in a prison once. Some of the things she told me about the murderers there were unbelievable. That rapist who cut off the heads of cats then masturbated into the skull... His spare time hobby, he had killed five women already. Damn, I´m not amazed she quit the job after only a year.

If you want to give the thing the "magic" touch, give it some Voodoo or other background. Or let the voodoo guys be creepy but innocent... Use them as a red hering. I did a voodoo campaign once. Was great, did a lot of research before I started it. The end was shitty though. My fault, I allowed them to just go there and shoot it out...

A 1000 posts, wew... I wonder if I should congratulate you or try to send C-SWAT over to your place.

Oh, hunger and thirst can be exceptions, of course. But only if the setting makes it important. Yeah, I do keep track of their food and water supply in the desert.

Exactly... Otherwise one would start to ask other questions:

They are not puritans:

When do those without a girl/boy friend feel the need to masturbate?

Do they get a cold, running through that cold cold night?

When does menstruation cycle come for the female runners?

And a lot of nastier questions, too.

Really, Roleplaying shouldn´t go too much into the details.

But then that´s only my opinion.

Give them some nasty diarrhea, after they eat that burgers!

For the main characters I choose names myself. But then again, there are only so many (30?) Japanese family names I know, so when I create a Yakuza family, I love that editor.

Also, some names give me ideas on the character of the people. So a faceless bodyguard type suddenly gets his own personality.

All I could say to this is that Gibson AND Chandler are my two top authors.

Whenever I see that my Cyberpunk PBEM gets too Gibson, I make it more Chandler... and vice versa.

That is I try to.

They are/were both writers that captured the depressing elements of society. With Chandler it´s HIS present, with Gibson it was HIS future.

Social Criticism... Ah, Chandler´s "Long Goodbye" really made my heart bleed. It captured all (that is:most) levels.

I´m rather sure Gibson is annoyed, or at least he would be if he´d read our postings here.

A friend of mine is a programmer. His main project is to do a Virtual Reality Internet as described in Neuromancer. He tried first with five Pentium 90 CPUs, I don´t know what he is up to now. Haven´t seen him in some time. For all I know, he is an AI by now.

I think there are those among us who like high-tech massacre and those who try to go a little deeper. And what Mr Gibson THINKS ain´t my problem after all.

He might like to live without his own Email, who cares? He is an author, not a relígious symbol. At least to me. I like his work, I don´t have to like him.

Too many people (s)trolling around who like my work, but don´t like it anymore when they get to know me.

I say to   with them.

And I think he does, too.

Right! Naked green ladies with large slitted eyes... Not so much different to earth after all...

Personally I like the Roleplaying Game Assistant to do such work for me, if I need names fast.

It has several databases with Fantasy, Shadowrun (irrrkk... Talaya Strom), original Japanese, English, etc... names.

Plus you can create whole parties with a mouse-click. 1 Solo, 1 Rockerboy, 2 Nomads and a Media please...

You can also configure the whole thing for new names, RPG,...

It´s free and originally I wanted to supply you with a link, too, but as it is, RPGnet´s server is either down or doesn´t want to talk to me at the moment.

Yeah, gimme a LINK, then I´ll be happy to answer.

The site looks great! What´s been there first, the movie or the Book by A.D. Foster?

Neuromancer movie: You can download the screenplay from www.cyberpunk.de (They moved to another domain, but if you´re quick about it, there´ll still be a link) Otherwise you can ask me. I think I still have it here somewhere.

I haven´t heard anything else about the Neuromancer film project either. If anybody´s got some more info?

Strange days is one of the top Cyberpunk movies. It´s also a believable plot. I just love to watch the main character get a beating more often than I could count. And, yes, it´s far better than JM, although I liked that movie somewhat, too. It´s not stimulating, but I watched it with a new group of CP players (Strange Days, too) and I noticed (with a smile) that they took more inspiration from JM (No, nobody was playing a dolphin!), though all said that Strange Days was the better movie. Probably because the characters in JM are cool in an obvious way (the main character, anyway), while the one in Strange Days is a typical loser. Or so it seems?  Well, I love losers.

Gibson´s a luddite after all. Perhaps he dreams to jump off a high-tech bridge one day. I hope he doesn´t, though. I love his books and "All Tomorrow´s parties" is one of my favorites. Possibly because I read it in a mood I could easily identify with some of the main characters.

Thanks, I´ll check them out. Hm. So there still IS a Rutger Hauer film I´ve never seen.

I actually do write short stories and novels, most of them in my native german language. But german doesn´t really suit  Cyberpunk too well, so I tried writing some English Cyberpunk stories, first for my online Cyberpunk game. Now I´m into a slightly bigger Cyberpunk novel.

It´s just damned hard to NOT fall into the stereotype set by the game. Some of the Cyberware I just can´t imagine anyone would use. Rippers...Wolvers... Granted, they ARE cool. I love them in the game. But, anyway, I tried to go for my own kind of Cyberware, looking at scientific reports on cloning, gene-coding, nerve-stimulation/over-riding, etc..

Then it´s also hard to create one´s own mood.

I wrote a Cyberpunk 100 pages story in german once, settled in Berlin. I went to lots of research with my camera, looking at the photos later and imagining how that place would look in 30 years or maybe a hundred years.

All to get my head free of Gibson´s Chiba. Shanghai is future city for me anyway, but I think Gibson mentioned that in an interview, too.

Ok, my No.1 SF book is still Neuromancer.

Thanks for the book recommendations. I´ll have a look at them.

I don´t really know if I´d go to Mars myself (50% chance on sunny days, 99% chance on cloudy). But I´d certainly join a mission to Antarctica.

What was the name of that movie again... Gattaca? Something like that... Genetically engineered humans are superior, but some "normal" guy with a heart condition problem sneaks himself into the space program... Very good movie.

The story behind the wolves:

The girlfriend of one of my flatmates here raised a litter of wolves.

I myself have only watched them once in the wild, but they are just such magnificient animals, though I personally am happy to be able to deal with my dog.

I also read a book a while ago about a man living with a pack of wolves for several years, they "adopted" him into their pack.

I agree, foreign cultures is what makes travelling interesting, though I also do it to just enjoy nature and get away from my human fellows for a while.

I just played another round of Alien Crossfire against a friend, and so that old topic returned to my mind.

If there was a mission to colonize Mars with, let´s say, a 2000 colonists and you had the feeling, they really could make it, would any of you volunteer?

If so, why? I can say for myself that sometimes I feel the need for adventure. I´ve travelled this world a lot, but still, sometimes I just feel fed up with civilisation and our civilized problems.

Would you go for the REAL adventure, or do you agree to an article that I read a few years back, that humans (especially men) who feel the need for adventure are just trying to flee reality´s problems?

I did some crazy adventure touring on my own, I learned a lot doing so. I´m not rich, but I often found ways to travel cheap.

So perhaps this is a threefold topic:

1. Would you join the Mars Mission?

2. Do you like visiting foreign places on our own planet, as a backpack tourist? (Outside Europe, USA, etc.)

3. Do you think staying with a pack of wolves for a year is a)idiocy/fleeing life or a great adventure?