Futurewave From the Past - Vol. 1 Ed. 19
Nov 25, 2020 12:01 am
World Builders' Guild Newsletter
A static world is a dying world.
The 1980s were a wild time in geopolitics and cultural dynamics. Communications technology exploded facilitating corporate media consolidation. Nations stood on edge, watching the supreme heavyweights The United States and Russia stack warheads to the proverbial rafters. Passive powers grimaced, always a second from chaos. Helpless in their assured annihilation.
The public gripped the rails on an economic rollercoaster; Eastern market dominance always over the next rise.
Nintendo won. Atari lost.
Mohawked dropouts growled over buzzsaw guitars about the dangers of conformity. Pearl-clutching preachers whipped themselves into a frothy panic over children playing a dice game about dragons. The talking heads moaned on about nuclear fallout; the Red Menace; enemies foreign and domestic. The world was teased by the promise of technology and interconnectivity; a covenant that once consecrated would smash barriers, erase borders, melt restrictions, abolish rules.
Neon nightscapes. Drugs not included. (Photo by Alexander Popov on Unsplash)
In the minds of the makers, a world brewed and bubbled with excitement. The energy was fuel. Fear was fun.
The raw uncertainty of it all forced the creative class to dig deep; to mine the static-laden, propagandized, corporatized, weaponized world around them for the seeds of joy.
People needed to play.
One West-coast geek whose techno-forward punk rock attitude saw the 1980s world around him for what it was: the start of something dark and beautiful.
Mike Pondsmith's Cyberpunk is the retro-futuristic manifestation of humanity's basest urges rammed through the electric sieve of pervasive technology and brutal corporate warfare. Contrasting wealth abounds. The haves and have-nots have never had so little in common.
Crime pays. Honesty is in short supply. Bullets are not.
Style is everything in the retro future. (Photo by Wilmer Martinez on Unplash)
Through four iterations, the world of Cyberpunk earned countless scars while its inhabitants slung the newest, most illicit weaponry at one another.
Pondsmith and his team have spent the past actual four decades teasing out the machinations of the virtual four decades of Night City's warring factions.
2020 bears much in common with the 80s. The players are different, the mood is the same.
That's why we celebrate the team at R. Talsorian Games' latest marvel of a roleplaying game (with no pearl-clutching necessary), Cyberpunk Red.
The world needs to know where not to go, if only long enough to avoid the darkest timeline.
Cyberpunk is the map that leads us away from calamity.
Sharpening the Toolkit
- A world consumes a world as Bally's Corp. buys Bally's Atlantic City in a deal that includes sports betting and iGaming prospects.
- Did you know that every week, you can get the highest quality RPG battlemaps delivered to your inbox? Mapping Greatness has you covered.
- Demakes imagine worlds sent back in time: this is a brilliant Game Boy rendition of the new Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.
To future worlds,
Matt Ventre
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