The Problem With Cry Dark Future

Over at Save Vs. Poison, DM Wieg has been working up his own version of Cyberpunk 2020 using Sword & Wizardry as a base. Which is hip and all, but not really my cup-o-tea. I lost interest in CP2020 about the same time as I actually had a chance to play it. Maybe a little later (I sure did buy a lot of material for the game considering how little use I got out of it...though how could anyone pass up a supplement called The Chrome Berets?).

I love this supplement.

ANYway, he asked me to take a look at what he was doing based on my work on the as-yet-unpublished Cry Dark Future, which made me actually dig out and look at Cry Dark Future and see just why the hell it ISN'T published yet. After all, I finished the writing quite a while ago, it worked fine in play-testing (got great reviews from one game group), and was even able to attract interest at the one Con I took it to. Since I'm willing to pay for art these days, and have a printer (and the money to pay said printer), why haven't I just put it out there for the world to give me their dollars? Heck it was even edited...twice.

Because. That's why.

Because it's not great. I mean, it's just B/X Shadowrun, folks. And that's not good enough.

Part of the whole raison d'être for writing the thing was me realizing A) Shadowrun is just D&D with guns and cybernetics, and B) The B/X system is easy enough to mod, and C) why not bring a simpler, easier, friendlier system to the whole Shadowrun concept? So that's what I did...I mean, the game is STILL "Shadowrun"...you won't find Vancian spell lists for example the way the White Star folks (for example) crammed the magic-user and cleric lists into their game.

Shadowrun is a nice enough game. I've gotten some mileage out of it in the past (much more so when I was a teenager), and the recent editions have some truly excellent artwork of a kind I find particularly inspiring.

[I also very much enjoyed the first three novels set in the Shadowrun 'verse; some good stuff in there dealing with the types of issues rarely if ever seen in play at an actual SR table]

But remember that angsty post I wrote about 5 minutes before starting this one? The one in which I said I should be designing and developing games I want to run? Okay, B/X Shadowrun isn't really a game I want to run. Shadowrun isn't a game I want to run.

[sorry to Greg, of course...and all my friends in the U.S. Navy who happen to LOVE Shadowrun]

But that's a concept thing, and there's more to my dislike of my own game than the basic concept (which, by the way, should probably be enough!). There are a number of problems inherent in the design. Chargen, being based on Shadowrun, was too fiddly and took too long (there's a reason why every single edition of SR has included a list of standard archetypes for ready play, rather than making chargen a central part of play). Parts of combat (like bullet counting) are too fiddly. Magic, heavily based on Shadowrun, was too loose and grab-ass for my taste. And, if memory serves me right, there were some problems with the whole "random-monetary-reward-for-job-generator." Though truth be told, any game in which you're playing for money and the money allows you to buy all "system upgrades" (bigger weapons, better cyberware) has some inherent flaws of "game currency" built into the long-term play of the game. I know I found that in my days of playing ACTUAL Shadowrun, too.

[in D&D, for example, no paladin just goes into a shop, plops down his money, and purchases a +5 Holy Avenger. Even if you find a mage willing to create one for you...and you have the money...the DM can make the finding of the magical ingredients exceptionally difficult or challenging; it may even be easier to simply search out legends of an existing holy avenger (no doubt guarded by a host of fierce creatures). But in Shadowrun, the right contacts coupled with the proper credstick will get you anything you need with regard to gear, weapons, and cyberware...heck, even spells and magic items]

So, yeah...there are/were some inherent "system failures" in the game as written, mainly due to me adhering too closely to the structure and system of Shadowrun.

But the whole SR concept is...well, it's fairly unappealing to me at this time. It's dated, sure...the whole "Cyberpunk" thang is pretty dated. But just because a genre is dated doesn't mean it's bad, or lacks value. Many genres over the years have been considered "dead" only to make startling comebacks (the western, the space opera, '30s pulp adventure all come to mind). Many concepts considered "traditional cyberpunk" may be dated, but the idea of a dystopian future ruled by soulless corporations is still a pertinent subject of fiction and role-playing.

Does this illo really suggest "cyberpunk?"

No, it's the introduction/overlay of fantasy tropes/species into an existing structure (i.e. "the real (future) world") and the assumed outcome ("adventurers") that bugs me. It's the idea of going on "missions" for those same soulless corporations...the same way a party of D&D characters get hired by some mysterious figure in a smoky tavern...that bugs me. Scurrilous rogues trying to make a living in a largely lawless fantasy world is more believable to me than the SINless squatting abandoned warehouses filled with stashes of high-tech gear. Are you really stuck eating nutria-soy glop while sporting state-o-the-art combat enhancements? Who pays for the WD40 when your bionic blades get squeaky?

Fact is, there are cooler ways to structure a mash-up of fantasy and futuristic, which is why I started rewriting the whole damn game. The problem is, even though I was doing so (re-conceptualizing the setting as something more post-apocalyptic...kind of a Dark Sun meets Bakshi's Wizards meets Heavy Metal meets Appleseed meets the Deathlands novels)...AND fixing the other problems (the reward system, the fiddly chargen, the magic system, the bullet-counting, etc.)...even though I was doing that I found:

A) I wasn't terribly excited about the prospect of running such a game, and
B) The re-writes were taking a LOT of work.

[and would require even more work for a book worth publication...more play-testing, more editing, etc.]

And so the thing got back-burnered, and I just haven't gotten back to it. THAT is the problem with Cry Dark Future. It wasn't good enough as originally conceived/written, and I my dwindling interest in rewriting a post-apocalyptic fantasy game just to make use of a handful of B/X-based guns/cyberborg systems wasn't enough to sustain my writing/design stamina. That's why CDF may very well NEVER see the light of publication in any format.

Which is kind of depressing when I consider how much work I put into the thing originally (and later) and how I dismantled my old D&D campaign to do a bunch of play-testing for something that just ended up scrapped.

Like I said, I'm feeling a little angsty at the moment.

I'm sure this isn't the final word on CDF, by the way. I have hope that someday, something called "Cry Dark Future" will be published by Yours Truly in some format or other. It might even be before I get back from Paraguay (which for the interested means "before August"). But it's really not one of my priority projects at the moment. Just so folks know.

Soylent Green Is People!

Watched Logan's Run and Soylent Green today...started watching THX 1138, but that was too much dystopian society even for me.

I haven't seen any of these films before, nor have I read the books (can't believe Soylent Green was written by Harry Harrison! Wow!), but nothing in the films were new or surprising to me...I've already known their plots, how they end, the spoilers, etc. Didn't stop me from wanting to watch them...plus my wife hadn't seen 'em (well she has seen SG, but not since she was a small child) so it was fun to watch with her and hear what she thought and felt about 'em.

My thoughts on Logan's Run: this film would be a great one to remake. And apparently one has been in state of development hell for most of the the decade.

My thoughts on SG: wow.

Already knowing the "big secret" of the movie (see the title of this post) I just spent the film looking at the dystopian society pained by the filmmaker...and wow, pretty friggin' bleak. And yet so atmospheric. It was great...right down to Chuck Heston's little engineer hat and scarf. The whole thing reminded me of a story from Heavy Metal magazine (a publication that really fired my imagination as a youngster, and NOT just for the erotica). I wouldn't have minded

However, what was especially interesting was the subject matter of the story in light of two recent posts. Well, interesting to me (sorry). I would certainly look at Soylent Green as a PA type of film though in category #1 (civilization beginning to crumble and folks trying to hold on)...however, their resignation of their situation, trying to make the best of things, made me realize I was a bit off-base when I said ALL PA fiction is about looking forward to what happens next.

Perhaps, the "civilization on the edge of disaster" needs to be taken out of the PA equation, though Mad Max certainly fits the ideas I wrote about, others don't...Blade Runner, Max Headroom, even Deathrace 2000 or Escape from New York...these films (and Dick's novel that Blade Runner's based on) show societies on the brink of collapse, but the characters in the story are generally trying to do what they can to live "normally" based on their circumstances. They do their jobs...whether as a police officer (Blade Runner, Soylent Green), a reporter (Max Headroom), an athlete (Deathrace, Rollerball), or what have you. Few are trying to make the world a better place or hold SOCIETY together...they're simply trying to stay afloat the best way they know how in their fairly limited fashion.

Of course, SOMEtimes the "everyman" hero is called to a greater or higher calling (see The Running Man, for example), but for an RPG this isn't what I'm interested in...I want something episodic in nature, not a one-off story of heroism and sacrifice. Soylent Green may have been a story of "the big story" but the underlying story of the character IS one that could be episodic.

Well, assuming one can avoid the big green elephant in the room.