Building a Cyberpunk Campaign

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For me it started with Blade Runner. I remember being blown away by the majestic sweeping images while Vangelis played in the background. It was that mixture of noir and sci-fi, dark tech and it just oozed attitude.

Snow Crash was next, the 1992 novel that really opened my eyes to the full cyberpunk experience. Ghost in the Shell, Altered Carbon, Akira, Battle Angel Alita, the Matrix and more recently Kacey Ezell’s Second Chance Angel rounded out my hard drive.

As for roleplaying I played in a short lived GURPS Cyberpunk campaign, and while I enjoyed it, I felt like it was missing something. Something that didn’t quite connect what was in my head to the game we were playing. So, a couple of years ago when Mike asked if I was interested in playing Cyberpunk Red I jumped at the chance. It was fun and I had a good time, but to be honest, it was missing something. That same something that was missing the first time I gave it a go. The cyberpunk in my head just wasn’t jiving with the cyberpunk in the game.

Then, at the urging of Mike and Christina I downloaded Cyberpunk 2077. And that was it. What I had been missing in those games is what I found in 2077. The world of cyberpunk. The world your characters lived in. In the table top attempts, the story took front row to the world, but for cyberpunk to really flourish the world has to take priority over the story. What is it to be human? What is it to truly live?

After a few hours of 2077 I hit Mike back up.

“So, I would love to play more cyberpunk, especially in the 2077 world.”

His response was “Well, I’m working on it”

And here we are. We thought this would be a perfect opportunity to talk more Cyberpunk while getting a behind the scenes look at how Mike goes about building a campaign.

Mike, I described what I was always chasing in cyberpunk. What about you? What draws you to cyberpunk?