What would a mirror universe version of a (Heroic) Cyberpunk RPG look like?
Keep the Faith
Shepherd Humanity
Protect the Conspiracy
Technology Can Save Us All
Mirrors are not inversions, they aren't quite the same thing as trying to put a logical not on every descriptor of the Cyberpunk genre. So there's more than one path for such a setting to take.
My attempt here is going to be partly a general brainstorm and partly a kind of "fun house mirror" to David Jarvis' essay about Cyberpunk relating to his setting book Interface Zero and Mike Pondsmith's video "Cyberpunk 2077 - Mike Pondsmith about Cyberpunk World"
1. Let's call it "Golden Chess Master" for now because I think it would involve the super-rich, and even corporations, being the good guys. Think Wild C.A.T.'s Halo Corp, Stark Industries, Batman Incorporated, Kord Industries, Mason in the Invisibles, that time Sunspot bought out AIM and merged it with his own corporation. Additionally you're not rebelling against a domineering society, you're working to preserve Truth, Justice, and the American (insert your country here) Way. If you're dissatisfied with the way things work right now you use your considerable influence to engineer societal change - as such there's a feeling of Optimism and Hope for the future to come as you and yours work to Shepherd humanity to a Post-Singularity Utopia. Recommended reading is the essay from Iain Banks on the Culture if you're looking for a goal the PCs might ultimately be working toward even if they aren't around to see it.
One RPG that might already sorta fit into this genre is Corporia - take the perspective of the CEO (Lancelot) rather than one of the knights and add in some similar benevolent corporations. Having trappings of varied sorts - like Camelot & its Round Table - to suit your PC's personality is a good move, switching out the grittiness of Cyberpunk for Opulence.
2. So the enemy can be cults, alien demons, super villians and maybe also corrupt governments, evil drug cartels (as opposed to the good ones), etc. Of course many of the enemy are just pieces on the chess board between a Lex Luthor and a Bruce Wayne. You're not a runner on the streets, you're mercantile nobility in a sky rise (or maybe even a habitable satellite). You might be a power, a superhero like Grant Morrison's Super-Obama but a CEO instead of the PotUS. Even if you don't have superpowers if you're brave/foolhardy or just emotionally damaged enough you can also be a tech-powered crusader leading the troops into battle...though entering the battlefield would be considerably risky and recommended as a last resort. More likely you'll have to defend your own corporate headquarters against the enemy. (One way this might actually be played is in addition to their CEO "Wizard", to use Age of Wonders parlance, you also have your Heroes and your other units.)
3. Technology makes us better people, or at least it should. (Cyberpunk - AFAICTell - seems to be about humanity's flaws just staying the same and in many cases getting worse due to technology.) Teilhard, in describing the Noosphere, suggested that there would be an increase in compassion as part of humanity's evolution. One could argue the extent to which the Internet brought this about and to the extent it failed but part of this - from the perspective of the Golden Chess Masters - is the need for more technology to increase our empathy for one another. VR, radio telepathy, playbacks like in Strange Days (still love that final song), Augmented Intelligence therapists that can work virtually with multiple patients, etc. It's not just about healing/improving bodies, about being better/faster/harder/stronger, it's also about encouraging a life of Virtue in all citizens.
4. Atheistic Cynicism is replaced with Spiritual Resilience. Yes, things are gonna go wrong, horrible actions committed by cruel villains will challenge one's faith in humanity (and/or whatever species are involved), but you are meant to come out the other side with your Optimism & Hope intact. Part of what you lean on is not cybernetics (though you probably have them under your gorgeous body), it's your faith in Something More. People look to your commitment to the Good to maintain their own faith in the Benevolence, whatever that is - God(s?)(ess?), Plato's Good, Brahman, the Wyck, etc. This isn't to say every PC's faith aligns, you could easily have different responses that will pit Golden Chess Masters against each other.
This could extend into having some secret magical abilities for the PCs and their units, or maybe magic is common enough like in Shadowrun.
Or maybe in addition to controlling a corporate entity you are the head of a religion. You might even be able to ditch the corporation part if you can get donors of the faith to keep you flush with cash to play Chess Master.
5. Preserve the Conspiracy for the Greater Good. This is one of the challenging parts of being a Chess Master, albeit the worst aspects should be optional. You aren't trying to uncover the conspiracy, risking your own life to do so, you are putting other people in harm's way and killing possibly well meaning people to keep the breadth and width of your influence - and that of the Enemy (which might not even be of this world) - under wraps. In a Cyberpunk game the Enemy would justify their horrific actions with reference to the "Greater Good", but here you embrace the Utilitarian Ideal even as you have to take on the deep guilt of your actions. Thankfully you have that Faith mentioned in 4.
Of course the "killing innocents" can be replaced with MiB memory flash erasers, and a big part of the game can be preserving the Secret(s) without having to take innocent life. You might even bring in some of the more virtuous of those intrepid investigators & hackers trying to get to the Truth.
Alternatively, maybe everyone knows a lot about what you do for the world and they (mostly) love you for (some of) it.
6. Cities - at least the PC's cities - are (aspiring?) Camelots. Urban Farming Towers, Solar Panel Fields, Aquaponics, all that good stuff. Urban life is cosmopolitan in a variety of ways, your police are honorable knights (possibly b/c they're androids or robots), your politicians are inspired by your own dedication to the Good...largely because you ensured they'd (honestly?) win using the vast resources at your disposal.
Or perhaps you're not quite there yet, both the government and the tech needs tweaking. So you use the Conspiracy to simultaneously clean & remodel the city/city-state of residence.
7. An Open World/Universe. While you aren't necessarily restricted to a single area in a cyberpunk game there is a certain assumed closure (though that closure may just be the entire world).
Here you aren't limited to a single city, or really even cities at all. As a CEO in an idealistic setting your agents may dig out ruins, travel to other worlds/times/realities, seek out cures in a rain forest as wild as Marvel's Savage Land. You might even have to go yourself to hammer out a treaty with the Underdark or Galactic Federation.
Shepherd Humanity
Protect the Conspiracy
Technology Can Save Us All
Mirrors are not inversions, they aren't quite the same thing as trying to put a logical not on every descriptor of the Cyberpunk genre. So there's more than one path for such a setting to take.
My attempt here is going to be partly a general brainstorm and partly a kind of "fun house mirror" to David Jarvis' essay about Cyberpunk relating to his setting book Interface Zero and Mike Pondsmith's video "Cyberpunk 2077 - Mike Pondsmith about Cyberpunk World"
1. Let's call it "Golden Chess Master" for now because I think it would involve the super-rich, and even corporations, being the good guys. Think Wild C.A.T.'s Halo Corp, Stark Industries, Batman Incorporated, Kord Industries, Mason in the Invisibles, that time Sunspot bought out AIM and merged it with his own corporation. Additionally you're not rebelling against a domineering society, you're working to preserve Truth, Justice, and the American (insert your country here) Way. If you're dissatisfied with the way things work right now you use your considerable influence to engineer societal change - as such there's a feeling of Optimism and Hope for the future to come as you and yours work to Shepherd humanity to a Post-Singularity Utopia. Recommended reading is the essay from Iain Banks on the Culture if you're looking for a goal the PCs might ultimately be working toward even if they aren't around to see it.
One RPG that might already sorta fit into this genre is Corporia - take the perspective of the CEO (Lancelot) rather than one of the knights and add in some similar benevolent corporations. Having trappings of varied sorts - like Camelot & its Round Table - to suit your PC's personality is a good move, switching out the grittiness of Cyberpunk for Opulence.
2. So the enemy can be cults, alien demons, super villians and maybe also corrupt governments, evil drug cartels (as opposed to the good ones), etc. Of course many of the enemy are just pieces on the chess board between a Lex Luthor and a Bruce Wayne. You're not a runner on the streets, you're mercantile nobility in a sky rise (or maybe even a habitable satellite). You might be a power, a superhero like Grant Morrison's Super-Obama but a CEO instead of the PotUS. Even if you don't have superpowers if you're brave/foolhardy or just emotionally damaged enough you can also be a tech-powered crusader leading the troops into battle...though entering the battlefield would be considerably risky and recommended as a last resort. More likely you'll have to defend your own corporate headquarters against the enemy. (One way this might actually be played is in addition to their CEO "Wizard", to use Age of Wonders parlance, you also have your Heroes and your other units.)
3. Technology makes us better people, or at least it should. (Cyberpunk - AFAICTell - seems to be about humanity's flaws just staying the same and in many cases getting worse due to technology.) Teilhard, in describing the Noosphere, suggested that there would be an increase in compassion as part of humanity's evolution. One could argue the extent to which the Internet brought this about and to the extent it failed but part of this - from the perspective of the Golden Chess Masters - is the need for more technology to increase our empathy for one another. VR, radio telepathy, playbacks like in Strange Days (still love that final song), Augmented Intelligence therapists that can work virtually with multiple patients, etc. It's not just about healing/improving bodies, about being better/faster/harder/stronger, it's also about encouraging a life of Virtue in all citizens.
4. Atheistic Cynicism is replaced with Spiritual Resilience. Yes, things are gonna go wrong, horrible actions committed by cruel villains will challenge one's faith in humanity (and/or whatever species are involved), but you are meant to come out the other side with your Optimism & Hope intact. Part of what you lean on is not cybernetics (though you probably have them under your gorgeous body), it's your faith in Something More. People look to your commitment to the Good to maintain their own faith in the Benevolence, whatever that is - God(s?)(ess?), Plato's Good, Brahman, the Wyck, etc. This isn't to say every PC's faith aligns, you could easily have different responses that will pit Golden Chess Masters against each other.
This could extend into having some secret magical abilities for the PCs and their units, or maybe magic is common enough like in Shadowrun.
Or maybe in addition to controlling a corporate entity you are the head of a religion. You might even be able to ditch the corporation part if you can get donors of the faith to keep you flush with cash to play Chess Master.
5. Preserve the Conspiracy for the Greater Good. This is one of the challenging parts of being a Chess Master, albeit the worst aspects should be optional. You aren't trying to uncover the conspiracy, risking your own life to do so, you are putting other people in harm's way and killing possibly well meaning people to keep the breadth and width of your influence - and that of the Enemy (which might not even be of this world) - under wraps. In a Cyberpunk game the Enemy would justify their horrific actions with reference to the "Greater Good", but here you embrace the Utilitarian Ideal even as you have to take on the deep guilt of your actions. Thankfully you have that Faith mentioned in 4.
Of course the "killing innocents" can be replaced with MiB memory flash erasers, and a big part of the game can be preserving the Secret(s) without having to take innocent life. You might even bring in some of the more virtuous of those intrepid investigators & hackers trying to get to the Truth.
Alternatively, maybe everyone knows a lot about what you do for the world and they (mostly) love you for (some of) it.
6. Cities - at least the PC's cities - are (aspiring?) Camelots. Urban Farming Towers, Solar Panel Fields, Aquaponics, all that good stuff. Urban life is cosmopolitan in a variety of ways, your police are honorable knights (possibly b/c they're androids or robots), your politicians are inspired by your own dedication to the Good...largely because you ensured they'd (honestly?) win using the vast resources at your disposal.
Or perhaps you're not quite there yet, both the government and the tech needs tweaking. So you use the Conspiracy to simultaneously clean & remodel the city/city-state of residence.
7. An Open World/Universe. While you aren't necessarily restricted to a single area in a cyberpunk game there is a certain assumed closure (though that closure may just be the entire world).
Here you aren't limited to a single city, or really even cities at all. As a CEO in an idealistic setting your agents may dig out ruins, travel to other worlds/times/realities, seek out cures in a rain forest as wild as Marvel's Savage Land. You might even have to go yourself to hammer out a treaty with the Underdark or Galactic Federation.
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