Thoughtful Thursday #16

I played CyberPunk from 1988 through 2004. Parts of it were flights of fancy (the EU forming), parts of it were sheer genius (mega-corps) and part of it was absurd (poser gangs). I felt inspired by Bubblegum Crisis, Blade Runner, RoboCop and Gibson. My style was to suppress the PCs while allowing them to change the world. One example was to give the players 1,000,000 EuroBucks each in their accounts. Then after they spend it, that is when the Russian Mafia comes to retreive their money. And of course there is the classic rescue that is actually an extraction. This was when I developed a habit of, "if things get slow, Ninjas!" Also, I really learned that there is no reliable way to make a recurring villain (thanks Mike!). The only complaint I ever had about CP2020 was the power creep as more supplements came out. It wasn’t as bad as Rifts with MDC riot armor, but it did escalate to the point where it felt like Power Armor was needed to enter a fight.
In my own games I do my best to avoid power creep and to enable GMs to throw the kitchen sink at the players.