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Skip Navigation LinksMetaCyber>GM>Technology>The NET>GM Notes
 
MetaCyber
 
 

The Net

Architecture Terminals Security NET Content
Game Mechanics GM Notes History
 
 
 
GM Notes
Of course, pretty much all GM's and players know what the CyberSpace is supposed to be, at least vaguely. We've seen representations of the basic idea before in movies like Johnny Mnemonic, The 13th Floor, The Cell, and peripherally the Matrix movies. Some of us have read about different takes on the net in the original literary sources. Others of us with a roleplaying background have played Cyberpunk 2020, Shadowrun, and similar games.
Different spins take different tacts, but the basic idea is easily understandable. Combine something like the World Wide Web (WWW) of the real world and a videogame with graphics so real that suspension of disbelief is very high, and there you go. An interactive, anthropomorphic, submersive skinning of the normally dry subject of data, programming, and network protocols. That's what CyberSpace is supposed to be like; a Virtual Reality almost as meaningful and rich as the "Meat Reality" of "real life".
CYBERSPACE IN RPGS
In literary and cinematic settings the dual existence of characters in the physical and virtual realities allows for interesting storytelling, and the idea of a world spanning network with practically global access was a mind expanding idea back when the genre of Cyberpunk was first explored. RPG's that followed in this wake dutifully included complex rules for including a separate CyberSpace reality, called different things but fundamentally rooted in the same idea.
Unfortunately, the way CyberSpace was represented in most games introduced a fundamental problem in that they basically required that all the characters in a PC group have some ability to participate in CyberSpace based adventures (which seldom makes sense even within the context of the setting), or else cause gameplay to fracture into two seperate games that happened to intersect occassionally.
While this works in a literary or cinematic medium where the author or director can control flow and pacing and contrive parallelism, it seldom works as well in a roleplaying game where many elements of the events in play are not entirely under the GM's control.
Further, while the idea of a seperate reality "inside the computer" with many fantastical and wish-fulfillment properties provides literary opportunities for polarity contrasts in pursuit of an engaging and thought provoking experience, this does not always work for extended periods of roleplaying. Additionally it is also very easy for the two nearly incompatible realities to detract from each other, to dillute each other, to soften the impact of the more extreme aspects of both.
CYBERSPACE IN METACYBER
The approach taken in the MetaCyber setting is to encourage / push Hackers to stay with non-Hackers on runs, and to make it so that Hacker actions taken via the NET can be resolved concurrently with actions taken by characters in the physical world. 
In games run with the HERO System that involve "Mentalists", this is regularly accomplished without fuss; for instance in a superhero campaign the team telepath runs aroudn with the rest of the heroes and takes part in the same encounters as they do, even though their Mental powers are being resolved in what amounts to another reality -- in a mindscape rather than the landscape if you will.
By handling the NET via (limited) Mental Powers, this basic functionality of the underlying game system is capitalized upon.
The focus should be maintained on the grim and gritty action-adventure aspects of Runs, not on extended interludes of everyone else sitting around watching a Hacker's comatose body while the Hacker carries on in virtual reality.