Cyberpunk 2020
Encyclopedia
Cyberpunk 2020 is a cyberpunk
role-playing game
written by Mike Pondsmith
and published by R. Talsorian Games
.
, Bruce Sterling
, and other authors of the "Mirrorshades
group". The game includes a number of elements now associated with the 1980s, such as the idea of "style over substance" and glam rock
.
The game tends to emphasize some aspects of the source material more than others. Much of the focus of the game is paid to combat
, high tech weaponry and cybernetic modification; however, performance enhancing and recreational drug use is either played down or discouraged. Although artificial intelligence
, genetic engineering
, and cloning
are barely mentioned in the core rulebook they are reintroduced in later add-ons such as the chromebook manuals.
The range of characters players can adopt is very diverse, ranging from hardwired mercenaries
with psycholinked weapons and boosted reflexes, to Armani-wearing corporate mega-yuppie
s who make and break national economies with the stroke of a pen.
novel of the same name.
The second edition featured rules updates and changes, and additionally moved the timeline forward by 7 years, to 2020. The game's timeline was also retcon
ned to accommodate the German reunification
in 1990.
) is skill-based instead of level
-based, with players being awarded points to be spent on their skill sets. New skills outside their expertise can be learned but in-game time needs to be spent on this. A large part of the system is the player characters' ability to augment themselves with cyber-technology and the ensuing loss of humanity as they become more machine than man.
Cyberpunk 2020 claims to lend itself to play in the street level, dark film noir
genre, but certain aspects of the basic system can influence game sessions toward a high body-count, 1980s action movie style.
Although each player must choose a character class or "role" from those given in the basic rules, there is enough variation in the skill system so that no two members of the same class are alike. Because Cyberpunk 2020 is skill-based, the choice of skills around the class-specific special ability allows a wide range of character development choices including non-combatants.
The combat system, called "Friday Night Firefight", emphasizes lethality. Several pages in the rules are devoted to discussing real combat vs. the illusions often seen on TV. Attempts are made to keep the combat as realistic as possible in a game setting. No matter who the character is, a single bullet can result in a lethal wound. This encourages a more tactically-oriented and sneaky game play, which is in accordance to the rough-and-gritty ethos of the Cyberpunk genre. Also, the amount of damage a character can sustain does not increase as the character develops. The only way a character can become more damage resistant is to either become better at not being hit, physically augment their body with muscle (trained or implanted) or cybernetics, or wear armor.
Cyberpunk 2020, as the name implies, takes place in the year 2020. The game's default setting is the fictional Night City located between Los Angeles
and San Francisco on the west coast of the United States (near San Jose, California
). Later supplements to the game have contained information about the rest of the US and the world.
Following a vast socio-economical collapse and a period of martial law
, the United States government has had to rely on several megacorporations to survive. This has given them a veritable carte blanche
to operate as they will.
es are Roles, of which the main rulebook contains 9, and later supplements have expanded the number considerably. Each Role has a special ability which gives a character a unique edge.
During the conflict, the long-standing bitter rivalry between Arasaka and Militech causes them to forget about their customers and go for each other. In the beginning they feud quietly (the phase called the "Shadow War"). But the covert war between the two heats up, becoming the Fourth Corporate War.
In the course of the adventure setting, the characters are hired to hunt down a pesky netrunner who is making their anonymous employer unhappy. Little do they realize that the hacker is the infamous (and already "dead") Rache Bartmoss. Regardless of what they do, their employer pinpoints the apartment with an orbital mass-driver and vaporizes it.
Waves of cyberviruses corrupt databases worldwide, leaving the isolated Arasaka Towers arcology in Night City the last viable data storage mainframe in the world.
Militech gathers together the surviving meta-characters and a Special Forces team played by the player characters into a "super team". Their job: to take out Arasaka's Night City arcology with a tactical nuke to deny its assets to Arasaka.
Then they find out that Alt Cunningham, who was captured by Arasaka earlier, is trapped inside the mainframe. Of course, Johnny won't let Alt die a second time, so the team tries to break her out.
The end result is that the meta-characters go out in a blaze of glory. Johnny Silverhand dies at the hands of Arasaka's cyborg assassin Adam Smasher in order to buy Spider Murphy enough time to break Alt into a series of datapackets and downloads her into the Net. Morgan Blackhand then takes on Adam Smasher atop Arasaka Towers while the rest of the team gets extracted out. The outcome of the duel is greatly disputed because the low-yield tactical nuke the team deployed sets off the 2-kiloton "self destruct" bomb Arasaka had placed in its data core. This destroyed much of downtown Night City and contaminated the ruins and anything downwind of it with lethal fallout.
, its delays due to other projects and Pondsmith's involvement in the development of The Matrix Online
.
The game was released first in PDF form on December 17, 2005 and as a conventional book on January 15, 2006.
The setting has been heavily updated from its last event book series, Firestorm, which covered the opening of the Fourth Corporate War. The aftermath of the Fourth Corporate War has resulted in widespread corruption of the Net and major losses of hardcopied data, to the point that all data is intangible and recent recorded history is in doubt. An example that pops up in Pondsmith's demos at conventions
, releases on the Internet
, and in the finished game is that history has become so corrupted that many people in the world now believe Richard Nixon
, instead of resigning over Watergate
, committed suicide on camera
and that meme
s such as the moon landing being hoaxed
become prevalent.
The war has also led to the collapse of nations, the world economy, and many of the staple megacorporations. This civil upheaval leads to the rise of the "altcults", alternative cultures similar in vein to the "phyles" from Neal Stephenson
's The Diamond Age
. In fact, Cyberpunk V.3 has more to do with the new postcyberpunk literary movement and transhumanism
than with the Gibson
-Sterling
mirrorshades
movement.
In addition to rules changes to the Fuzion system and background, Cyberpunk V.3 also uses concepts taken from Pondsmith's experience at Microsoft
with computer
and video games as well as corporate culture, such as a simpler character generation system using templates, web-based active content URL
links for updates, and making groups, organizations, and corporations their own "characters".
In addition, there is also the Fallen Angels, space-bound scavengers, the Ghosts, people who have uploaded their minds, and the Neo-Corps, the surviving corporations of the Cyberpunk 2020 world that are now organized in the form of organized crime syndicates. However, the six listed above are the only ones that have been mentioned in deep detail.
s have been published, both written by Stephen Billias:
s have been licensed and produced based on the Cyberpunk setting. The first, called Netrunner
, was designed by Richard Garfield
, and released by Wizards of the Coast
in 1996. The second was called Cyberpunk CCG and was released in 2003. It was designed by Peter Wacks and published by Social Games.
Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...
role-playing game
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
written by Mike Pondsmith
Mike Pondsmith
Michael Alyn Pondsmith is a roleplaying game and video game designer.He is best known for his work with R. Talsorian Games, where he developed most role-playing game lines from the company's beginning to the present: Mekton , Cyberpunk , Cybergeneration, Teenagers from Outer Space, Castle...
and published by R. Talsorian Games
R. Talsorian Games
R. Talsorian Games, based in Renton, WA , is a publisher of role-playing game books and accessories. Their titles include the Cyberpunk 2020 series and for anime-related titles such as Dragonball Z. Their major product line today is the Fuzion system.The company's chairman is Mike Pondsmith,...
.
Overview
This role-playing game is based on the works of William GibsonWilliam Gibson
William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:-Association football:*Will Gibson , Scottish footballer...
, Bruce Sterling
Bruce Sterling
Michael Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which helped define the cyberpunk genre.-Writings:...
, and other authors of the "Mirrorshades
Mirrorshades
Mirrored sunglasses are sunglasses with a reflective optical coating on the outside of the lenses to make them appear like small mirrors. The lenses typically give the wearer's vision a brown or grey tint...
group". The game includes a number of elements now associated with the 1980s, such as the idea of "style over substance" and glam rock
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...
.
The game tends to emphasize some aspects of the source material more than others. Much of the focus of the game is paid to combat
Combat
Combat, or fighting, is a purposeful violent conflict meant to establish dominance over the opposition, or to terminate the opposition forever, or drive the opposition away from a location where it is not wanted or needed....
, high tech weaponry and cybernetic modification; however, performance enhancing and recreational drug use is either played down or discouraged. Although artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
, genetic engineering
Genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genome using modern DNA technology. It involves the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes into the organism of interest...
, and cloning
Cloning
Cloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...
are barely mentioned in the core rulebook they are reintroduced in later add-ons such as the chromebook manuals.
The range of characters players can adopt is very diverse, ranging from hardwired mercenaries
Mercenary
A mercenary, is a person who takes part in an armed conflict based on the promise of material compensation rather than having a direct interest in, or a legal obligation to, the conflict itself. A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he...
with psycholinked weapons and boosted reflexes, to Armani-wearing corporate mega-yuppie
Yuppie
Yuppie is a term that refers to a member of the upper middle class or upper class in their 20s or 30s. It first came into use in the early-1980s and largely faded from American popular culture in the late-1980s, due to the 1987 stock market crash and the early 1990s recession...
s who make and break national economies with the stroke of a pen.
Cyberpunk 2013
Cyberpunk 2020 is the second edition of the original game, Cyberpunk 2013, often just called "Cyberpunk." It was originally published as a boxed set in 1988, and R. Talsorian released a few supplements for this edition, including Rockerboy, Solo of Fortune, and Hardwired, the latter based on the Walter Jon WilliamsWalter Jon Williams
Walter Jon Williams is an American writer, primarily of science fiction.Several of Williams' novels have a distinct cyberpunk feel to them, notably Hardwired , Voice of the Whirlwind and Angel Stationn...
novel of the same name.
The second edition featured rules updates and changes, and additionally moved the timeline forward by 7 years, to 2020. The game's timeline was also retcon
Retcon
Retroactive continuity is the alteration of previously established facts in a fictional work. Retcons are done for many reasons, including the accommodation of sequels or further derivative works in a series, wherein newer authors or creators want to revise the in-story history to allow a course...
ned to accommodate the German reunification
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
in 1990.
Game mechanics
The basic rules system of Cyberpunk 2020 (called the Interlock SystemInterlock System
The Interlock System is R. Talsorian Games' proprietary role-playing system. It is one of the direct parents of the Fuzion system . The Interlock System is a "skill-based" system — characters are created by choosing skills for them, and by advancing those skills individually; rather than by...
) is skill-based instead of level
Level Up
Level Up was a UK children's TV programme that was broadcast on CBBC. It was launched on the 3rd April 2006, replacing Xchange. The show was an hour long and during the school year broadcasting from 7:30am until 8:30am...
-based, with players being awarded points to be spent on their skill sets. New skills outside their expertise can be learned but in-game time needs to be spent on this. A large part of the system is the player characters' ability to augment themselves with cyber-technology and the ensuing loss of humanity as they become more machine than man.
Cyberpunk 2020 claims to lend itself to play in the street level, dark film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
genre, but certain aspects of the basic system can influence game sessions toward a high body-count, 1980s action movie style.
Although each player must choose a character class or "role" from those given in the basic rules, there is enough variation in the skill system so that no two members of the same class are alike. Because Cyberpunk 2020 is skill-based, the choice of skills around the class-specific special ability allows a wide range of character development choices including non-combatants.
The combat system, called "Friday Night Firefight", emphasizes lethality. Several pages in the rules are devoted to discussing real combat vs. the illusions often seen on TV. Attempts are made to keep the combat as realistic as possible in a game setting. No matter who the character is, a single bullet can result in a lethal wound. This encourages a more tactically-oriented and sneaky game play, which is in accordance to the rough-and-gritty ethos of the Cyberpunk genre. Also, the amount of damage a character can sustain does not increase as the character develops. The only way a character can become more damage resistant is to either become better at not being hit, physically augment their body with muscle (trained or implanted) or cybernetics, or wear armor.
The world of Cyberpunk 2020
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and San Francisco on the west coast of the United States (near San Jose, California
San Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
). Later supplements to the game have contained information about the rest of the US and the world.
Following a vast socio-economical collapse and a period of martial law
Martial law
Martial law is the imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions on an emergency basis— only temporary—when the civilian government or civilian authorities fail to function effectively , when there are extensive riots and protests, or when the disobedience of the law...
, the United States government has had to rely on several megacorporations to survive. This has given them a veritable carte blanche
Full Powers
Full Powers is a term in international law and is the authority of a person to sign a treaty or convention on behalf of a sovereign state. Persons other than the head of state, head of government or foreign minister of the state must produce Full Powers in order to sign a treaty binding their...
to operate as they will.
The megacorporations
- Arasaka, a huge Japanese zaibatsuZaibatsuis a Japanese term referring to industrial and financial business conglomerates in the Empire of Japan, whose influence and size allowed for control over significant parts of the Japanese economy from the Meiji period until the end of World War II.-Terminology:...
, megalomaniacal CEO obsessed with making JapanJapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
into a superpowerSuperpowerA superpower is a state with a dominant position in the international system which has the ability to influence events and its own interests and project power on a worldwide scale to protect those interests...
. Likely nod to World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
arms manufacturer ArisakaArisakaArisaka is a family of Japanese military bolt action rifles, in production from approximately 1898, when it replaced the Murata rifle, until the end of World War II in 1945...
. - Biotechnica, an Italian biotechnology, pharmacology, and cybernetics firm.
- Euro Business Machines (EBM), an information technology corporation (an obvious nod towards IBMIBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
). - Infocomp, a commercial think-tank and information repository.
- Kendachi, a Japanese armament company.
- Merril, Asukaga & Finch, financial analysts. Quite probably an allusion to Merrill LynchMerrill LynchMerrill Lynch is the wealth management division of Bank of America. With over 15,000 financial advisors and $2.2 trillion in client assets it is the world's largest brokerage. Formerly known as Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., prior to 2009 the firm was publicly owned and traded on the New York...
. - Microtech, a computer and electronics manufacturer.
- Militech, American arms and mercenary contractor.
- MitsubishiMitsubishiThe Mitsubishi Group , Mitsubishi Group of Companies, or Mitsubishi Companies is a Japanese multinational conglomerate company that consists of a range of autonomous businesses which share the Mitsubishi brand, trademark and legacy...
-Sugo, a major transportation manufacturer. - Network News 54, an American broadcasting company.
- Orbital Air, an African corporation with a monopoly on space transportation.
- Petrochem, an energy company.
- SovOil, a neo-Soviet oil giant, controlling a vast percentage of the petrochemicals market.
- Trauma Team International, a private medical firm also dealing in medical insurance, prepaid disaster relief, prepaid CSARCombat search and rescueCombat search and rescue are search and rescue operations that are carried out during war that are within or near combat zones.A CSAR mission may be carried out by a task force of helicopters, ground-attack aircraft, tankers and an airborne command post...
, etc. - World News Service, a worldwide news conglomerate, similar to the Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
. - WorldSat Communications Network, a satellite communications giant.
- Zetatech, a computer, cyberdeck, robotics, and cybernetics manufacturing company.
Roles
The Cyberpunk 2020 equivalent of character classCharacter class
In role-playing games, a common method of arbitrating the capabilities of different game characters is to assign each one to a character class. A character class aggregates several abilities and aptitudes, and may also sometimes detail aspects of background and social standing or impose behaviour...
es are Roles, of which the main rulebook contains 9, and later supplements have expanded the number considerably. Each Role has a special ability which gives a character a unique edge.
| Role | Description | Special Ability |
| Cop | Maximum lawmen on mean 21st century streets | Authority |
| Corporate | Slick business raiders and multi-millionaires | Resources |
| Fixer | Deal makers, smugglers, organizers and information brokers | Streetdeal |
| Media | Newsmen and reporters who go to the wall for the truth | Credibility |
| Netrunner | Cybernetic computer hackers | Interface |
| Nomad | Road warriors and Gypsies who roam the highways | Family |
| Rockerboy | Rebel rockers who use music and revolt to fight authority | Charismatic Leadership |
| Solo | Hired assassins, bodyguards, killers, soldiers | Combat Sense |
| Techie | Renegade mechanics and doctors | Jury Rig/Medical Tech |
Iconic characters
The game's backstory had a series of powerful characters that influenced the world of Cyberpunk."Good Guys"
- Alt Cunningham: A brilliant Netrunner and programmer, she invented the beta version of Soulkiller, a program that would make a digital emulation or copy of a netrunner's mind. Arasaka kidnapped her, extracted the information from her, and made a more deadly version that would simultaneously fry the netrunner's mind after backing it up, allowing a Sysop to interrogate it at will. They then used it on Alt since she was of no further use to them, but her digital "ghost" broke free into the Net.
- Johnny Silverhand: A famous and idealistic Rockerboy singer and guitarist with a silver-chrome cyberlimb arm who opposes Arasaka for a grocery list of personal grudges from the loss of his arm to the death of many of his close friends and family. He is Alt's ex-boyfriend. He was in the band SamuraiSamurai (Cyberpunk 2020)Samurai is a fictional band fronted by the character Johnny Silverhand in the Cyberpunk 2020 role-playing game.*Johnny Silverhand : A flashy and cynical Rockerboy singer and guitarist with a silver-chrome cyberlimb arm...
with fellow famous rocker Kerry Eurodyne, and is most famous for the songs "Chippin' In" and "Never Fade Away". - Morgan Blackhand: A pragmatic Solo with an anodised black-chrome cyberlimb arm. Generally considered to be a "Solo's Solo", with years of experience and ops under his belt.
- Rache Bartmoss: The most brilliant (and paranoid) hacker in the Net, he invented the Demon series of programs and was the "narrator" of the Guide to the Net and Brainware Blowout sourcebooks (posthumously edited by his rival/colleague, supreme hackerette Spider Murphy). Rache finally flatlined in 2021, either by a lucky Sysop or poor health due to repeated bouts of malnutrition and dehydration from surfing the Net too long. Fortunately he had top-of-the-line life support to maintain him. Unfortunately, he was too paranoid to trust anyone with his location or leave any means of recovering him. He spent his time deteriorating in a cryogenic freezer (disguised to look like a refrigerator) while still managing to be one of the best hackers in the Net prior to his death in the opening salvos of the Fourth Corporate War.
"Bad Guys"
- Saburo Arasaka: The devious head of the diversified Arasaka Corporation, which not only dominates most of the Third World (including America), but also Japan. He has united factions of the Japanese government, the military, organized crime and various lesser corporations under his control. Some have begun calling this era in history the "Arasaka Shogunate".
The Firestorm Series
Firestorm was supposed to be the bridge between Cyberpunk 2020 (the 2nd edition rules and milieu) and Cyberpunk V.3 (the 3rd Edition rules and milieu). Its purpose was to shake up everything and get players prepared for the new background they were cooking up.Firestorm I: Stormfront
Set in 2023, the backstory has two deep-ocean-based megacorporations duelling for control over a third one (the period known as the "Ocean War"). When it escalates into open warfare, they each hire mercenaries. One hires the Japanese diversified technology and security services firm Arasaka and the other hires the American military technology and mercenary services firm Militech.During the conflict, the long-standing bitter rivalry between Arasaka and Militech causes them to forget about their customers and go for each other. In the beginning they feud quietly (the phase called the "Shadow War"). But the covert war between the two heats up, becoming the Fourth Corporate War.
In the course of the adventure setting, the characters are hired to hunt down a pesky netrunner who is making their anonymous employer unhappy. Little do they realize that the hacker is the infamous (and already "dead") Rache Bartmoss. Regardless of what they do, their employer pinpoints the apartment with an orbital mass-driver and vaporizes it.
Firestorm II: Shockwave
Set in 2024, the second part of the Firestorm series sees Arasaka mobilize the Japanese Defense Force to take on Militech and the American military in a series of "proxy conflicts" (the phase dubbed the "Hot War").Waves of cyberviruses corrupt databases worldwide, leaving the isolated Arasaka Towers arcology in Night City the last viable data storage mainframe in the world.
Militech gathers together the surviving meta-characters and a Special Forces team played by the player characters into a "super team". Their job: to take out Arasaka's Night City arcology with a tactical nuke to deny its assets to Arasaka.
Then they find out that Alt Cunningham, who was captured by Arasaka earlier, is trapped inside the mainframe. Of course, Johnny won't let Alt die a second time, so the team tries to break her out.
The end result is that the meta-characters go out in a blaze of glory. Johnny Silverhand dies at the hands of Arasaka's cyborg assassin Adam Smasher in order to buy Spider Murphy enough time to break Alt into a series of datapackets and downloads her into the Net. Morgan Blackhand then takes on Adam Smasher atop Arasaka Towers while the rest of the team gets extracted out. The outcome of the duel is greatly disputed because the low-yield tactical nuke the team deployed sets off the 2-kiloton "self destruct" bomb Arasaka had placed in its data core. This destroyed much of downtown Night City and contaminated the ruins and anything downwind of it with lethal fallout.
Firestorm III: Aftershock
The long-awaited third volume, Aftershock promised to tie all the loose ends together and herald the end of the old Cyberpunk 2020 (or "Cyberpunk V.2") game world and usher in the beginning of the new Cyberpunk 2030 (or "Cyberpunk V.3") game world. It was later cancelled and its material was folded into the Cyberpunk 203X rules book.Cybergeneration
Cybergeneration takes place in an alternate future of the core Cyberpunk 2020 timeline, where a nanotech virus epidemic has resulted in a subgroup of teenagers with unusual, superhuman skills. It began as a supplement that still required the Cyberpunk 2020 rulebook, but the second edition became a standalone game.Cyberpunk 203X
Ever since the 1998 release of the Cyberpunk 2020 sourcebook Firestorm: Shockwave, fans of the game had been waiting for a third edition of the Cyberpunk game, known as Cyberpunk 203X. Over the years, the entire project had at times been discounted as vaporwareVaporware
Vaporware is a term in the computer industry that describes a product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is never actually released nor officially canceled. Vaporware is also a term sometimes used to describe events that are announced or predicted,...
, its delays due to other projects and Pondsmith's involvement in the development of The Matrix Online
The Matrix Online
The Matrix Online was a massively multiplayer online game developed by Monolith Productions created by Richard Carroll. It was the official continuation of the storyline of the Matrix series of films. The game began closed beta-testing in June 2004 which was then opened for people who pre-ordered...
.
The game was released first in PDF form on December 17, 2005 and as a conventional book on January 15, 2006.
The setting has been heavily updated from its last event book series, Firestorm, which covered the opening of the Fourth Corporate War. The aftermath of the Fourth Corporate War has resulted in widespread corruption of the Net and major losses of hardcopied data, to the point that all data is intangible and recent recorded history is in doubt. An example that pops up in Pondsmith's demos at conventions
Fan convention
A fan convention, or con , is an event in which fans of a particular film, television series, comic book, actor, or an entire genre of entertainment such as science fiction or anime and manga, gather to participate and hold programs and other events, and to meet experts, famous personalities, and...
, releases on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, and in the finished game is that history has become so corrupted that many people in the world now believe Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
, instead of resigning over Watergate
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...
, committed suicide on camera
Budd Dwyer
Robert Budd Dwyer was an American politician in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He served from 1971 to 1981 as a member of the Pennsylvania State Senate representing the state's 50th district...
and that meme
Meme
A meme is "an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena...
s such as the moon landing being hoaxed
Apollo Moon Landing hoax accusations
Different Moon landing conspiracy theories claim that some or all elements of the Apollo program and the associated Moon landings were hoaxes staged by NASA and members of other organizations. Various groups and individuals have made such conspiracy claims since the end of the Apollo program in 1975...
become prevalent.
The war has also led to the collapse of nations, the world economy, and many of the staple megacorporations. This civil upheaval leads to the rise of the "altcults", alternative cultures similar in vein to the "phyles" from Neal Stephenson
Neal Stephenson
Neal Town Stephenson is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction.Difficult to categorize, his novels have been variously referred to as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk...
's The Diamond Age
The Diamond Age
The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a postcyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. It is to some extent a science fiction bildungsroman, focused on a young girl named Nell, and set in a future world in which nanotechnology affects all aspects of life. The novel deals with themes of...
. In fact, Cyberpunk V.3 has more to do with the new postcyberpunk literary movement and transhumanism
Transhumanism
Transhumanism, often abbreviated as H+ or h+, is an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human...
than with the Gibson
William Gibson
William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:-Association football:*Will Gibson , Scottish footballer...
-Sterling
Bruce Sterling
Michael Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which helped define the cyberpunk genre.-Writings:...
mirrorshades
Mirrorshades
Mirrored sunglasses are sunglasses with a reflective optical coating on the outside of the lenses to make them appear like small mirrors. The lenses typically give the wearer's vision a brown or grey tint...
movement.
In addition to rules changes to the Fuzion system and background, Cyberpunk V.3 also uses concepts taken from Pondsmith's experience at Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
with computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
and video games as well as corporate culture, such as a simpler character generation system using templates, web-based active content URL
Uniform Resource Locator
In computing, a uniform resource locator or universal resource locator is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to an Internet resource....
links for updates, and making groups, organizations, and corporations their own "characters".
The Altcults
- Corpore Metal or Cee-Metal - a society of full-body cyborgs that use Livemetal technology, where a modular braincase unit is inserted into a variety of purpose-built body frames.
- Desnai' - Disneyworld-like series of amusement park arcology that strive to shelter themselves from the anarchy outside their walls. It is run heavily on automation and uses telepresence-piloted drones for travel, security, maintenance, labor, etc.
- Edgerunners - the descendants of the anti-corporation Cyberpunk movement. Integral cyberlimbs are replaced by Neo-Cyber technology, in which detachable articulated frames called "bracers" worn over the body can be modified to perform all the functions of dedicated cybertechnology.
- Reef - an undersea community whose members are heavily genetically-modified to adapt and survive in the depths of the ocean.
- Riptide Confederation - a fleet of Japanese floating arcologies that were cut off from their country following a nuclear civil war. They use bio-engineering to make living "tools" to aid them.
- Rolling State - the descendants of the Nomad families in Cyberpunk 2020, who now use advanced nanotechnology and megatechnology to create land-based mobile cities.
In addition, there is also the Fallen Angels, space-bound scavengers, the Ghosts, people who have uploaded their minds, and the Neo-Corps, the surviving corporations of the Cyberpunk 2020 world that are now organized in the form of organized crime syndicates. However, the six listed above are the only ones that have been mentioned in deep detail.
Novels
Two Cyberpunk 2020 novelNovel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s have been published, both written by Stephen Billias:
- The Ravengers (1995)
- Holo Men (1996)
Collectible card games
Two different, independent collectible card gameCollectible card game
thumb|Players and their decksA collectible card game , also called a trading card game or customizable card game, is a game played using specially designed sets of playing cards...
s have been licensed and produced based on the Cyberpunk setting. The first, called Netrunner
Netrunner
Netrunner is a collectible card game designed by Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: The Gathering. It was published by Wizards of the Coast and introduced in 1996. The game is based heavily on the Cyberpunk 2020 role-playing game published by R. Talsorian Games, but also draws additional...
, was designed by Richard Garfield
Richard Garfield
Richard Channing Garfield is a mathematics professor and game designer who created the card games Magic: The Gathering, Netrunner, BattleTech CCG, Vampire: The Eternal Struggle , The Great Dalmuti, Star Wars Trading Card Game, and the board game RoboRally...
, and released by Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games...
in 1996. The second was called Cyberpunk CCG and was released in 2003. It was designed by Peter Wacks and published by Social Games.