Need some help in creating an Cyberpunk world

[LWhitehead]

Hi I need help in creating a Cyberpunk world, now the city were it takes place is in Vancouver\ Victoria BC Canada in 2060.



I need help figuring the corporations of this world, and criminals as well.


LW

 

[Swampy]

One thing that I have found in alot of cyberpunk literature that includes corps is that they tend to be big, very big. Most deal with multiple areas of buisness and research. Read William Gibsons Count Zero, how he treats Marly and her interactions with Virek are an excellent way to portray a corp. Basically they are so big that what ever you see is only a small part of it.
Give it a Chinese sounding name and what ever you want for it put in. If its a medical company then it has genetic and biological research, cybernetic development and security that will do what it needs to protect the corporations interests. A computer company will have cutting edge cybernet equipment and lethal countermeasures. Any company may have brought out others and so have other interests. The medical corp that buys out a weapons developer will have better armed security.
As for criminals you would have the big ones like the yakusa who are more like corporations. There will be gangs that could number anywhere from a handfull of people to hundreds. Most of the gangs will tend to have something that holds them together such as music or political beliefs. You just need to look at some of the cyberpunk books out there and you'll find lots of ideas.
Good luck in your campaign.

 

[Mike V]

Not to be a self promotion whore however, in CthulhuTech mankind lives in arcologies and visually they appear allot like something you'd see in Blade Runner, Appleseed, or Ghost In the Shell II. The setting meets us in the year 2085 and there are a few pieces of fiction that take place in the Pacific North West. The entire design team was working from out of Seattle when we first started on the property, now Matthew Grau (Writer) is down in Los Angeles and the other 3 partners are still here in WA. If you'd like to learn more jump over to www.cthulhutech.com We'll have the review copies in hand this Friday and full production (print and shipping) should start soon after.

 

[LWhitehead]

Well Shadowrun has bin a big help, but I don't want simliar type of corps in my setting and novel series.



LW

 

[aelius]

Try finding a copy of Cyberpunk 2020 by R. Talsorian Games. That is the essential cyberpunk setting. It is full of helpful hints and many corps to use.
Personally I like the griminess of cyberpunk and make sure to play it up. Also you can never have too much treachery aimed at the players. If someone isn't trying to screw them than it's a tame adventure. My personal favorites for corporate villains are Arisaka Security, and Biotechnica. The paranoid and vengeful security company makes an excellent opponent for players and uncovering the byzantine plots of Biotechnica is sure to get any good band of PC's in trouble.

 

[Aragorn300]

Part of the deal with CYBERpunk settings is over-reliance on competing corporations...There are other groups competing in the real world, why not the cyberworld?

*cyber-religions= people who literally worship the net...after all if they *Hollywood North---since Vancouver is the new hot spot for making Hollywood movies, make it competing movie companies...imagine Warner-brother hiring thugs to take out MGM...or for a little fun have directors caught up in a cyber sex scandal with a virtual star who doesn't really existcan totally download their brain, isn't that imortality?
*Government Bureacracies---Believe it or not, many governments take in more money in taxes that most super-corporations make in profits...And if Canadian Bureaucrats are anything like ours down here in the US, then god help you...Imagine two agencies that are competing to CONTROL the net or regulate it using black ops---like a politically correct group that wants to stamp out crude humor vs a bunch of netrunners who believe in free speech. Or even competing police agencies---Corrupt Mounties vs Corrupt Local PD for territory

 

[Da Boss]

Try finding a copy of Cyberpunk 2020 by R. Talsorian Games. That is the essential cyberpunk setting. It is full of helpful hints and many corps to use.
Personally I like the griminess of cyberpunk and make sure to play it up. Also you can never have too much treachery aimed at the players. If someone isn't trying to screw them than it's a tame adventure. My personal favorites for corporate villains are Arisaka Security, and Biotechnica. The paranoid and vengeful security company makes an excellent opponent for players and uncovering the byzantine plots of Biotechnica is sure to get any good band of PC's in trouble.

I'd agree with that - although the Corp books themselves are a little dry - Shadowrun has a great flavour as well - espe some of the novels.......

treachery works well - especially if you are moving within the Corporate structure - speaking as former Petrochem Exec.......kill or discredit them before they do it to you.........

Another different slant would be SLA - every dark and bit confusing but elements would be interesting .

or just Omni Consumer Products from the first and best Robocop film - its soooooo a Cyberpunck coporation and you get to use Ed 209

 

[MegazoicWizard]

It's a bit purple, but I love this article from the Austin Chronicle about the state of 'traditional' cyberpunk in present times...

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A648404

Summary: cyberpunk the fiction is dead, because it became cyberpunk the reality. If you want CP inspiration - just read a newspaper!

Just a side-note - I had a CP setting planned around the Seattle/BC region several years ago. The premise was that a trans-Bering Straight bridge, uber-NAFTA consolidation and the rise of the Asian economic bloc had turned Seattle and Vancouver into a massive financial metropole and the biggest conurbation on the continent. Being a border-spanning city with various legal loopholes and horrible civic administration, it would be rife with fraud and vice of every kind, and thus a mecca for corporate elites.

 

[AKAramis]

Another different slant would be SLA - every dark and bit confusing but elements would be interesting .

or just Omni Consumer Products from the first and best Robocop film - its soooooo a Cyberpunck coporation and you get to use Ed 209

SLA being available for free via DTRPG, it's a good dystopian transhumanist cyberpunk setting, and rife for ripping off into whichever ruleset you want.