What is cyberpunk to you?
I’ve been consuming cyberpunk for a long while now, since before writing The Veil, and what I’ve found is the truly best cyberpunk I ever get to read is usually post-cyberpunk. Just as it was declared dead, subversive, inventive, inclusive cyberpunk content started to come out of the wood works through many talented writers. And… it’s never really stopped.
Cascade celebrates this fact. It plays within the cyberpunk genre but struggles against it and the conventions/motifs/themes first wave has ingrained in itself.
With the goal of showing people that cyberpunk is just better when it has feminism injected into it. When it reflects today by extrapolating now and therefor being currently relevant. When it has representation, and is geared towards inclusivity and diversity. These things exist only truly in post-cyberpunk literature. And while I want to make clear that I like a lot about first wave cyberpunk literature, it makes sense that as more people contributed to it, the more the genre got better.
I wanted to help people make the kind of amazing fiction within the genre that too few even know about, because 1st wave cyberpunk is in a lot of ways, a barrier to entry cost too high. It can’t appeal to many people outside of the targeted small demographic it was aiming for. And as a result, I think a lot of people never really returned to see what the genre looked like after it’s death. And how post-modern writers used the genre to really unlock some potential lurking there since it’s inception.
This supplement for The Veil comes with a futuristic Taipei setting, extrapolating what’s going on there right now, and turning a few of the 1st wave cyberpunk tropes on their heads along with it. There’s more resources for making your own unique cyberpunk fiction, whatever that may be. There’s a breakdown of both cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk genres by a PhD candidate. There’s playbooks and “plugins” for those playbooks, that focus on emergent play, and a new mechanic for flashbacks.
You’ll play as people brought forward further into the future from The Veil. With imperfect technology to decant the human mind, you have lost some of your memories and use a flashback mechanic that is player facing in order to reconstruct your past. The reward system focuses on those emergent themes so you’ll be rewarded as you unravel your past and as you discover the future you now inhabit, along with your new body. Players create questions about the setting and their identity. As they work toward these answers, they get experience.
Where The Veil is the foundation of the game and the toolkit for creating your own cyberpunk, Cascade has even more support and resources for the players while also aimed at themes targeting identity and our perception of it. It reduces cognitive load by making more things player facing. And it is geared toward being short-term play friendly.
I’ve also assembled some of the finest creators to contribute settings to the game in order to really show case just how much unexplored potential there is in this genre:
Kira Magrann’s “Swim Baby Swim” is a counterculture heavy QuickStart that follows a school of mervamps trying to “swim” their hot new modded fins to the next wet club. It ain’t easy being merfolk weirdos tho, and the cops, the eel gang they used to date, and the norms who hate mer modders are all trying to harsh the flow. Can these fin freaks make it to the party or what?
Dana Cameron’s “Upcycle” will explore what happens when both technology and human flesh fail, forcing the denizens of The Veil to find new ways of existing that rely on neither. Spoiler, people use cats.
Kate Bullock’s Emotions are power. The more of any feeling you have, the more you can do with it. They say anger fuels some people? Or love? Fucking right it does. And we’ve figured it out. From Clairsents to Emo-jacks to Feels Markets, the world has figured it out. The more of something you have, the more you can do with it. Buy, sell, steal, and burn the emotions you have. Don’t wanna be sad? Fucking sell that shit. Need to convince someone you love ‘em? Jack up a few bits of happy and be on your merry. There isn’t anything you can’t do with the right feel.
Quinn Murphy’s “Welcome to Sentax” is a setting about incarceration, but also about transformation: how do you hold on to yourself without compromise, and can you bear the cost? It’s main inspirations are Clockwork Orange, Psycho Pass, and Bitch Planet.
Caitlynn Belle’s “Mirror” A decades-old, massive, decommissioned social media company suddenly stirs to life, and avatars of who you were and what you used to believe gain physical life and roam the streets. What are they here for, and when you finally meet that long-ago-you, what will you say?
Hamish Cameron’s Rage.exe is pairing one of the oldest stories, the Iliad, with cyberpunk.
Come find out what your post-cyberpunk is =)
I’ve got a free Quickstart for anyone interested as well: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/210825/The-Veil-Cascade-Quickstart?term=the+veil+cas&test_epoch=0
I think the -punk part is extremely important, and too often ignored*. Cyberpunk is about small people crushed by the big forces of technology and malignant capitalism, eking out a living in socially-unacceptable ways.
* though, to be fair, more so in its offshoots, like steampunk