Editing Cyberpunk 2020 (section)

== Style ==
''CP2020'' is a [[cyberpunk]] genre game inspired by the works of William Gibson and others and films such as Ridley Scott's ''Blade Runner''. The game was set in the 2020 (2013 in the original version), when corporations rule the world, the USA has fractured and most of the population have been left to fend for themselves on the mean, dirty streets in the shadows of the glittering corporate towers. The philosophy of the game is summed up in 'The Rules' (not the actual rules), attributed to someone called 'Ripperjack', on page 4:

# '''Style Over Substance'''
# '''Attitude is Everything'''
# '''Always take it to the Edge'''
# '''Break the Rules.'''

'The Edge' is where the characters are meant to exist and operate, and so they are called Edgerunners. Scenarios usually involve the characters getting mixed up in some business which is either legal but deeply unethical, not strictly legal, or downright illegal. Ask no questions and you'll be told no lies. Violence and mortal danger are central elements to ''Cyberpunk'' adventures. Being a cyberpunk game, there are lots of concepts thrown into the mix, such as artificial intelligences, digital copies of people's personalities (trapped on corporate mainframes or loose in the internet), genetically engineered bio-weapons, human cloning, body-snatching and organ-harvesting, and [[Iron Hands|individuals willingly replacing healthy body parts with cybernetic equivalents just to make themselves better computer hackers or killers.]]

In fact, it is plainly assumed that characters will have cybernetic 'enhancements', since the rules for them are dealt with under character creation. There is a huge variety of cybernetic options, including such gems as the Mr Studd Sexual Implant ("All night, every night, and she'll never know"). There's also the Cybersnake, a weapon that you can install in "any orifice of at least one inch", failing to define exactly one inch ''what''. Unlike its main contemporary rivals [[Shadowrun]] and Rifts, CP2020 does not cross over into fantasy, superheroic or high-science fiction genres (with the exception of Cybergeneration).

As an aside, the R Talsorian writers loved to give characters names that were some combination of "Jack", "Ripper" or "Hand". The ultimate ''CP 2020'' character would be called Jack Ripperhand.