The second book from the 1988 Cyberpunk boxed set, Welcome to Night City, A Sourcebook for 2013, might be what actually made me a lifelong fan of the game. Like View from the Edge, the book is really three different sections: an orientation to the world of 2013 and Night City in particular, a short story featuring a few iconic characters embroiled in a plot that will have far-reaching effects on the metaplot of the game, and some slice of life articles illustrating what its like to live in 2013.
The world of 2013 is one of corporate intrigue, rampant consumerism, and unchecked corruption. Yeah, I know. Our present is our past’s cyberpunk future. That’s probably a series of blog posts down the road if someone hasn’t already done it better than I have. One of the things I found interesting is the rapid optimism of technological advances. I’m sure in the 1986-88 timeframe where much of this was being designed and written, many of these technologies seemed just around the corner, but Spaceplanes, CHOOH2, Arcologies, Massdrivers, all within four years of the game’s publishing date. With the possible exception of arcologies (which I definitely plan to tackle in a future post), I don’t think we’re anywhere near any of these. I would for someone with a better skillset for it to go through science fiction and see what kind of predictions are on target or not. I wonder if there is a tendency to over or underestimate certain things and what other factors influence the predictive success rate.
Reading the snapshot of the 2013 world in Welcome to Night City, I noticed that it really feels like the U.S. is one of the few countries that are worse off than they were in the timeframe the game was written. The EU looms large as, arguably, the world’s strongest power. Japan’s predicted ascendency continued without the economic realities that would soon hit it in real life. A Pan-Africa has been created on the back of the burgeoning orbital economy. Even the Soviet Union was coming to terms with itself and a reform movement was on near-equal terms to the Cold War hardliners. Then there is the U.S. The specifics wouldn’t be defined for a few years, but it is definitely made clear that America as we know it was dead by 2013.
The book then details some of the technologies in the future. Again, it’d be easy to jump on what wasn’t predicted accurately, but I want to think more about how these predictions created a game world. The transportation advances discuss tilt-rotor vehicles, maglev trains, and vectored thrust aircraft. This tells me that ground travel is nowhere near as individual and universal as it was and that, particularly in cities, we have started moving vertically rather than horizontally. The communications section is a trip down memory lane. Reading the section on cell phones, with long-distance and local rates and not working 20 miles outside of city limits was a treat. The fax-based scream sheets replacing newspapers are also an interesting artifact of the snapshot of technology in the 80s. I know in Cyberpunk Red, they have introduced Agents which basically assume the role of the smartphone. Phones are not smart in 2013 (or 2020) and it is still possible to recreate that fantastic scene from Neuromancer where the payphones each ring as Case walks by each one individually. I would definitely consider exploring some of the implications of these predictions.
The tips on Getting Cyberpunk offer up some clues on what the world should look like and feel like. These tips would be greatly expanded in Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads in a few years, but this is one of the more extensive “how to run our game” treatises, especially for 1988. With the exception of West End Games’ d6 Star Wars license and TSR’s Marvel Super Heroes, I don’t recall many games telling you how to run from the perspective of referee thought, motive, and environment. White Wolf would take this to the next level and now it seems pretty commonplace.
Also pretty commonplace nowadays is the piece of setting fiction that helps orient you to the game. Someone with a better grasp of history might be able to answer this, but I don’t recall having this in a game before. The story “Never Fade Away”, along with Sam Liu’s artwork, formed who I thought Johnny Silverhand and Alt were (As breathtaking as Keanu is, he’s still not quite my Johnny Silverhand yet…) and what the world of Cyberpunk felt like. I enjoyed the story then and still do. It’d be interesting to see how it would realize in a movie. What was interesting to me as a teen was the statistics alongside. You could play out the events of the game. It was a nice way to show how to implement all of this lore that the book contains.
The corporate profiles set the stage for the future of the game, with many of these players showing up in the metaplot. It is interesting to see which of them get further development and which ones are simply afterthoughts. And, to my knowledge, no other corps achieve the level of prominence that these ones do.
The last section is a series of articles that illustrate the character and flavor of life in 2013 Night City. This method of conveying information will be used on a larger scale in Solo of Fortune and Rockerboy. It’s a nice way of getting a handle on how the world feels. Getting to know it in your heart and stomach, as opposed to your brain. I think it’s a nice choice.
Overall, Welcome to Night City is an amazing lore book that holds up (outside of some technology) very well and really hasn’t changed much over the years. I am very curious about how Cyberpunk 2077 and Cyberpunk Red will move things forward and what they will keep. It’s a world felt lived-in and a world I have been, in a sense, living in for well over 30 years. You could still use this book as a sourcebook today.
Next week, I’ll wrap up the original box set with Friday Night Firefight and my thoughts on the boxed set as a whole.
The world of 2013 is one of corporate intrigue, rampant consumerism, and unchecked corruption. Yeah, I know. Our present is our past’s cyberpunk future. That’s probably a series of blog posts down the road if someone hasn’t already done it better than I have. One of the things I found interesting is the rapid optimism of technological advances. I’m sure in the 1986-88 timeframe where much of this was being designed and written, many of these technologies seemed just around the corner, but Spaceplanes, CHOOH2, Arcologies, Massdrivers, all within four years of the game’s publishing date. With the possible exception of arcologies (which I definitely plan to tackle in a future post), I don’t think we’re anywhere near any of these. I would for someone with a better skillset for it to go through science fiction and see what kind of predictions are on target or not. I wonder if there is a tendency to over or underestimate certain things and what other factors influence the predictive success rate.
Reading the snapshot of the 2013 world in Welcome to Night City, I noticed that it really feels like the U.S. is one of the few countries that are worse off than they were in the timeframe the game was written. The EU looms large as, arguably, the world’s strongest power. Japan’s predicted ascendency continued without the economic realities that would soon hit it in real life. A Pan-Africa has been created on the back of the burgeoning orbital economy. Even the Soviet Union was coming to terms with itself and a reform movement was on near-equal terms to the Cold War hardliners. Then there is the U.S. The specifics wouldn’t be defined for a few years, but it is definitely made clear that America as we know it was dead by 2013.
The book then details some of the technologies in the future. Again, it’d be easy to jump on what wasn’t predicted accurately, but I want to think more about how these predictions created a game world. The transportation advances discuss tilt-rotor vehicles, maglev trains, and vectored thrust aircraft. This tells me that ground travel is nowhere near as individual and universal as it was and that, particularly in cities, we have started moving vertically rather than horizontally. The communications section is a trip down memory lane. Reading the section on cell phones, with long-distance and local rates and not working 20 miles outside of city limits was a treat. The fax-based scream sheets replacing newspapers are also an interesting artifact of the snapshot of technology in the 80s. I know in Cyberpunk Red, they have introduced Agents which basically assume the role of the smartphone. Phones are not smart in 2013 (or 2020) and it is still possible to recreate that fantastic scene from Neuromancer where the payphones each ring as Case walks by each one individually. I would definitely consider exploring some of the implications of these predictions.
The tips on Getting Cyberpunk offer up some clues on what the world should look like and feel like. These tips would be greatly expanded in Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads in a few years, but this is one of the more extensive “how to run our game” treatises, especially for 1988. With the exception of West End Games’ d6 Star Wars license and TSR’s Marvel Super Heroes, I don’t recall many games telling you how to run from the perspective of referee thought, motive, and environment. White Wolf would take this to the next level and now it seems pretty commonplace.
Also pretty commonplace nowadays is the piece of setting fiction that helps orient you to the game. Someone with a better grasp of history might be able to answer this, but I don’t recall having this in a game before. The story “Never Fade Away”, along with Sam Liu’s artwork, formed who I thought Johnny Silverhand and Alt were (As breathtaking as Keanu is, he’s still not quite my Johnny Silverhand yet…) and what the world of Cyberpunk felt like. I enjoyed the story then and still do. It’d be interesting to see how it would realize in a movie. What was interesting to me as a teen was the statistics alongside. You could play out the events of the game. It was a nice way to show how to implement all of this lore that the book contains.
The corporate profiles set the stage for the future of the game, with many of these players showing up in the metaplot. It is interesting to see which of them get further development and which ones are simply afterthoughts. And, to my knowledge, no other corps achieve the level of prominence that these ones do.
The last section is a series of articles that illustrate the character and flavor of life in 2013 Night City. This method of conveying information will be used on a larger scale in Solo of Fortune and Rockerboy. It’s a nice way of getting a handle on how the world feels. Getting to know it in your heart and stomach, as opposed to your brain. I think it’s a nice choice.
Overall, Welcome to Night City is an amazing lore book that holds up (outside of some technology) very well and really hasn’t changed much over the years. I am very curious about how Cyberpunk 2077 and Cyberpunk Red will move things forward and what they will keep. It’s a world felt lived-in and a world I have been, in a sense, living in for well over 30 years. You could still use this book as a sourcebook today.
Next week, I’ll wrap up the original box set with Friday Night Firefight and my thoughts on the boxed set as a whole.
I’m really enjoying this series of posts of yours. I don’t have problems with the tech predictions being “wrong”. I just treat it as an alternative time line.
ReplyDeleteI have 2020 but I've never read 2013. These retrospectives make me want to pick up a copy and read through it.
ReplyDelete