Reading “Cyberpunk 2020” from Talsorian Games

1. Wonderful citations from a game book

1.4. If you live to rock, this is where you belong. Rockerboys are the street poets, social consciences and rebels of the 2000’s. With the advent of digital porta-studios and garage laser disk mastering, every Rocker with a message can take it to the street; put it in the record stores, bounce it off the comsats. Sometimes, this message isn’t something the Corporations or the Government wants to hear. Sometimes what you say is going to get right in the faces of the powerful people who really run this world. But you don’t care, because as a Rockerboy, you know it’s your place to challenge authority, whether in straight-out protest songs that tell it like it is, or just by playing kick-ass rock n’ roll to get the people away from the 1V sets and into the Streets. You have a proud history as a Rockerboy-Dylan, Springsteen, Who, Elvis, the Stones- the legions of hardrock heroes who told the truth with screaming guitars and gut-honest lyrics

The most interesting thing is that none of this has happened.

We have the world shifted by whoever… programmers, gangsters, politicians, doctors, the military… but not the musicians. With the advent of YouTube and Bandcamp, all of those leaders of the crowd have entered the stable, as if it had always been their actual desire.

Rock music has ossified forever in the 80s, and is not going back.

1.6. It isn’t easy. They’ve tried to pressure your Mediacorp dozens of times. You’ve had stories suppressed-once, Corporate pressure forced them to cancel your news show. Each time, you went to the top, backed by your news d irector and your crew, and fought to get the story out.

Hm… also didn’t happen. MSM are producing garbage, and the independent teams are producing the hot stuff. But maybe the independent teams are just the coverage for the MSM? Anyway, this is all much smarter and less straightforward.

1.7. Not a quotation, but it is interesting that Cyberpunk calls hired guns “Solos”.

I wonder why? I mean we do live in a lonely world, but in most military professions the key thing is the concentration of force. Literally the opposite of “soloing”.

2. Character design

2.1. Stats

9 to 90 by a dice roll.

  1. Intelligence (generalised “cleverness”)
  2. Reflexes (generalised “body”)
  3. Cool (generalised “resist”)
  4. TECH (generalised “skillfullness”) :: while I certainly see why this is nit Int, I don’t understand why this is a Stat, not a Skill
  5. Luck :: add these points to the dice roll
  6. Attractiveness (generalised “charisma”)
  7. Movement :: Why is this not the same as “reflexes”?

3. Unknown words

  1. sporting ::
  2. panache ::
  3. swagger into ::
  4. find a cause and go to the wall with it ::
  5. pitch off ::
  6. “sporting the latest” ::
  7. get into a dustdown :: become involved in a heated argument, dispute, or fight
  8. “have a knack for” :: to be exceptionally proficient at (doing) something
  9. garden variety :: very common