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View Full Version : Making the worst city. Awful, Corrupt, Insidiously evil. Need some ideas!



Ken Murikumo
2020-11-02, 02:10 PM
Hey folks, today im looking for some input on a city i have coming up in my campaign. To set the tone and technology level, the "city" is a megalopolis in a future fantasy and a melting pot of different races. A collection of metropolis cities so vast & dense it can be seen from space but so packed to the brim with people that it's constantly expanding both up and out. Surrounding the city is just wasteland for hundreds of miles. Similar to the settings of Judge Dread, Cyperpunk, and Blade Runner. For technology, space travel & flying cars do exist (for those who can afford it), AI exists in varying capacities, magic and science have sort of fused to make cheap / everyday magic items (like batteries, engines for vehicles, and so on), a futuristic "space-internet" exists and with it all the goods and bads you would expect, and mild cybernetics are pretty common among people.

So as the title would imply, this place is a pretty bad place to live. If you're wealthy, powerful, have powerful allies, or some combination then life is pretty sweet; For everyone else life is barely scraping by, trying not to cross the wrong person, or end up in the middle of a gang turf war. Stuff like slavery and murder being totally legal is too on the nose, i feel, and not what im looking for. I want this awfulness and corruption to be insidious. Something that has slowly set in over generations and become the new normal.




-Slavery is illegal, but not indentured servitude. It's a good way to pay off debt or even just make money with some included comforts, but that's wishful thinking. The binding contract is sometimes (mostly) written in a way that gives you no freedom and may never actually release you depending on how malicious the contract is. You better have a lawyer check the contract before you sign it (assuming you can afford one that isn't also out to get you).

-The city has no true police force. Instead it has a bunch of PMCs (private military/paramilitary companies) that take on the roles of public security. They have different jurisdictions, rules, levels of hostility, and morals. Do you live in a district we feel like patrolling? Have you donated to or financially backed our PMC (payed your tithe)? No? Well, we'll send a responder if we can spare the manpower.

-First responders like medical and fire prevention operate much like public security.

-As mentioned above, murder is illegal, but trying to get the city to actually do anything about it is costly for everyone involved. Unless you payed your tithe, nobody that matters will bat an eye if you get knifed on your way home from work.

-Crime and gang operations are (as expected) quite rampant. Sometimes this can turn into a gang turf war or even a high collateral firefight with a heavily armed public security unit.

-Jobs are plentiful, but the well paying jobs are rare. Even more rare is a good job with payed benefits. Most jobs pay enough for you to live in one of the low income housing districts. And a good chunk of those jobs are pretty dangerous and have some pretty awful work hazards. You lost an arm in that malfunctioning machine? That's too bad. Can't afford a cybernetic replacement? Well, i guess we'll have to fire you for not being adequate for the job anymore.

-Over population becomes an issue that hits in waves. The city is expanding both up and out. Skyscrapers continue to grow up, while new city districts get constructed on the outskirts of the megalopolis. Sometimes independent settlements are built at the outskirts. They are recognized as citizens and must pay tax, but are not actually living in the city so they don't benefit from any of the city's (dubious) protections. When the city needs to build a new district and an outskirt settlement is in the way, well sometimes it comes down to lethal force.

-Racism and xenophobia are pretty normal as the people who have spent a good portion of their lives in the city have unfortunately absorbed that attitude. Certain races are simply second class citizens. So much so, that they even have different (usually more strict and less forgiving) laws they have to follow. Androids are also second class citizens, but more importantly, if you have too many cybernetic parts or even full body prosthesis, you get lumped in with androids, too.

-The space internet in this city is both censored and advertisement riddled. You want less ads? You pay for ad blockers. You want more unrestricted access or less censorship? You pay for premium service. Using the "free net" is barely good for anything.

-Unless you have money (and lots to burn) most people don't willingly come to the city to settle down. They end up there. Usually financially trapped, too, as they cant save enough to move somewhere else.

So can you folks think of anything to add? Stuff thats in a similar vein as what is listed above. I'm sure it's quite clear where i'm drawing some of my inspiration. Thanks!

Xervous
2020-11-02, 03:26 PM
Maybe read a bit of shadowrun for more ideas? You’ve basically described the setting in broad strokes already.

Corporate repossesses your tools when they fire you. Except corporate paid for those eye implants, tough luck you signed.

Paid in corporate scrip, you work for Fruit company? You can only shop at approved fruit company stores, or try your luck with the exchange rates.

TheStranger
2020-11-02, 03:36 PM
Maybe read a bit of shadowrun for more ideas? You’ve basically described the setting in broad strokes already.

Corporate repossesses your tools when they fire you. Except corporate paid for those eye implants, tough luck you signed.

Paid in corporate scrip, you work for Fruit company? You can only shop at approved fruit company stores, or try your luck with the exchange rates.

Seconding this. Half of what you wrote says “company town” to me. Take a look at some historical examples, put them in a futuristic megalopolis, and turn them up to 11. Borrow liberally from other dystopian settings and stir well.

The “evil megacorporation” schtick has been done to death, but that’s mostly because it works.

Xervous
2020-11-02, 03:55 PM
Seconding this. Half of what you wrote says “company town” to me. Take a look at some historical examples, put them in a futuristic megalopolis, and turn them up to 11. Borrow liberally from other dystopian settings and stir well.

The “evil megacorporation” schtick has been done to death, but that’s mostly because it works.

The street goes both ways, we have a real life Dr Evil heading one now.

KaussH
2020-11-03, 01:25 AM
You may want to take a shift to the left and make it a different kind of worse...

Food for everyone is available. The lower classes have access to kibble dispensers. Tastes and look like dog food but the upper class can say no one starves.

Murder is legal with a permit on levels x and down in the city. To help with over population permits are sold once a (week,month, year) that allow you to murder up to your limit .

Organ failure and limb injury is common, but replacement items are available for a cheap monthly cost. If you fail to pay you must return the property, and repo people are a thing.

If you are born off the books, your a no one. You cant get any legal help.or jobs.

Wealth and power are tied to something physical. If you lose status you might lose health, age, ect.

The lower levels of the city are in fact a prison. People down there are tagged and tracked. Others can visit them, but prison law rules.

Just a few ideas.

King of Nowhere
2020-11-03, 06:18 AM
Murder is illegal, but - also because of lawlessness - there is a wide application of self defence.
A kid climbs your garden fence to retrieve their ball? They invaded your property, so you can legally shoot them.
Somebody is taking the public transport without tiket? He's stealing your money, you csn shoot on sight.
Someone shoots in "self-defence" and stray bullets come too close to you, an innocent bystander? You can return fire. Have massive gunfights escalate from minor occurrences

People don't own stuff, they loan it. If they can't pay, they lose it. Including clothes. Including internal organs

Society is an all-out conflict. There is no concept of love. You marry to have someone to share your loans, and possibly for mutual lust. You make childern because they will pay your bills when you are old (they are basically your debt slaves). You are supposed to beat your wife, unless she's stronger/nastier, in which case she's supposed to beat you. Same with your brothers

In that line, bullism in schools is not just tolerated, but actively encouraged, for it teaches about hierarchy

The very lives of people, at least the poor, have a monetary price. You murder a dude, you have to pay a compensation to his employer for damaging property

Technology/magic controls the weather. If your neighborhood can't pay, they get constant rain/fog/winter

Stattick
2020-11-03, 07:49 AM
The law and courts are very broken, but this is acknowledged. Often, the justice one can get is vigilante justice, which isn't exactly discouraged. If you maim or kill someone, you have to pay their family wereguild, in other words, their "blood price". Lowlifes of low potential may only cost a few thousand to kill. But the price for killing someone in high society will be in the millions, if not billions.

The knock-on effect of this is that murder for hire become not illegal. The person that hires you pays the wereguild (deposits money into an escrow account where they can't pull it out, which then goes to the victim's family on their death), and you get paid something for your labor. It's a good way to make a buck if no-one else will hire you. Some Fixer acts as an intermediary to keep the Johnson clean, like some kind of raincoat, from having to interact directly with slime like you. The Fixer, in theory, should be paid separately from you, but chances are, he's double dipping, taking a portion of your fee too.

Ken Murikumo
2020-11-03, 09:09 AM
Maybe read a bit of shadowrun for more ideas? You’ve basically described the setting in broad strokes already.


Well, it is a futuristic fantasy setting with a heavy dystopia/cyberpunk theme. I can totally see the similarities. I think i have a copy laying around somewhere.



Corporate repossesses your tools when they fire you. Except corporate paid for those eye implants, tough luck you signed.


Organ failure and limb injury is common, but replacement items are available for a cheap monthly cost. If you fail to pay you must return the property, and repo people are a thing.


People don't own stuff, they loan it. If they can't pay, they lose it. Including clothes. Including internal organs


Oh, these are good ones. Just like that repo movie which i cant remember the full name of. The word "Repo man" will make people shudder.



Paid in corporate scrip, you work for Fruit company? You can only shop at approved fruit company stores, or try your luck with the exchange rates.

Seconding this. Half of what you wrote says “company town” to me. Take a look at some historical examples, put them in a futuristic megalopolis, and turn them up to 11. Borrow liberally from other dystopian settings and stir well.


This is a good one. Definitely gonna use it.



The “evil megacorporation” schtick has been done to death, but that’s mostly because it works.

I'm honestly trying to not do specifically this. That doesn't mean these evil megacorps don't exist, but it's mostly mini-corporations. Effectively, if there is a market for it, then there are a bunch of businesses (of varying sizes) that focus on that specific market. And trust me, there's a market for EVERYTHING.



Murder is legal with a permit on levels x and down in the city. To help with over population permits are sold once a (week,month, year) that allow you to murder up to your limit .



The very lives of people, at least the poor, have a monetary price. You murder a dude, you have to pay a compensation to his employer for damaging property


I feel this is TOO on the nose. BUT, that gives me a new idea. It is illegal, but there are businesses that quietly deal with it. In fact, there will be businesses that deal in all manner of deplorable acts, debauchery, & degeneracy. Things that would get me in big trouble with the mods here if i go into detail. If the city gov't can tax it, they are willing to look the other way. Contract killing included. As stated above, there is a market for everything.


Ok, picking these out surgically and responding to them is getting tedious, I'll just address these as a group.



Food for everyone is available. The lower classes have access to kibble dispensers. Tastes and look like dog food but the upper class can say no one starves.

If you are born off the books, your a no one. You cant get any legal help.or jobs.

Wealth and power are tied to something physical. If you lose status you might lose health, age, ect.

The lower levels of the city are in fact a prison. People down there are tagged and tracked. Others can visit them, but prison law rules.


The food and being born off the books thing is a good idea. The food thing makes it believable that someone would get a job at a supermarket just for the food scrip mentioned above. And I can certainly imagine a few "nobodies" using their off the record status to their advantage.

For wealth and status, I suppose, they use their money to stave off aging and some ailments. Some people just have comical amounts of money, plain and simple, so they can live almost forever. But this also gives me an idea; that some people's wealth is LITERALLY tied to an object. Like, they possess something that keeps them in power. I now want the party to get a job where they have to steal the macguffin from some rich jerkbag just to watch all of this jerk's "friends" turn on him like a pack of jackals when he loses his thing.

I don't know about the lower levels being a prison, but i can see a WHOLE district being a walled off prison. Like a prison town with your mentioned "prison law". Kinda like Batman: Arkham City only bit more organized.



Murder is illegal, but - also because of lawlessness - there is a wide application of self defence.
A kid climbs your garden fence to retrieve their ball? They invaded your property, so you can legally shoot them.
Somebody is taking the public transport without tiket? He's stealing your money, you csn shoot on sight.
Someone shoots in "self-defence" and stray bullets come too close to you, an innocent bystander? You can return fire. Have massive gunfights escalate from minor occurrences

Society is an all-out conflict. There is no concept of love. You marry to have someone to share your loans, and possibly for mutual lust. You make childern because they will pay your bills when you are old (they are basically your debt slaves). You are supposed to beat your wife, unless she's stronger/nastier, in which case she's supposed to beat you. Same with your brothers

In that line, bullism in schools is not just tolerated, but actively encouraged, for it teaches about hierarchy

Technology/magic controls the weather. If your neighborhood can't pay, they get constant rain/fog/winter

The self defense thing, yeah i can totally see that escalating into a high collateral fire fight. Not a daily occurrence but enough that most people know someone who saw it happen once.

Hmm, getting married to share a loan burden is a good idea. I don't see this as a universal constant, but definitely as a thing that happens commonly enough where people are like, "that sucks, but i guess it's gotta happen" (kinda like divorce).

For the school bully thing, i can see it more as in tough areas, the staff doesn't actually do anything so it becomes the norm. Social castes are naturally created in school for the sake of power hierarchy.

And for weather, thats a good idea, but i'm thinking it'll be more, per district. Rich areas will have nice warm days, with plenty of sunlight, where the poor areas will be cold, rainy, and overcast almost all the time. It'll be incentive to "move up" in the world (even though we know that it's near impossible).


Whew, that took longer than expected. These are some great ideas. Thanks! Keep'em coming if you got'em!

King of Nowhere
2020-11-03, 02:05 PM
well, my idea is that the city is not just corrupted from the top, with those in power having failed those below; it's also corrupted from the bottom, with the masses not caring for their fellow citizens, having no sense of civic duty, but having absorbed a general culture of pettyness where their only goal in life is to climb as high as they can to piss on those at the bottom. which also explains why the city is not overthrown by revolution despite an heavily armed population; if the population formed an armed mob, they would shoot each other over their own petty rivalries.

so, for example, you could show poor people getting some money and wasting it all in useless, but visible, status symbol. then they would show off as much as possible, and they'd stop hanging out with their former friends because they are now beneath them.
people of the middle class, who could actually make a pretty decent living, still being a short trip away from getting their lungs repossessed, but going around with fancy cars and expensive jewelry.
homes that are opulent outside, but in disrepair on the inside.
people throw their trash out of the window, not because there are no waste bins, but because they don't give a damn.
when that dude who lost an arm in an industrial accident is fired, his coworkers won't stand up for him, but will immediately try to appropriate his office furniture.

by the way, what does the city eat if they are surrounded by wasteland? I assume it's some kind of large scale hydroponics. or perhaps they may eat some synthetic food made from processed coal (incidentally, in germany they were making butter chemically out of coal, it's less weird than it sounds. but i would not want to eat like that)
you may want to make sure the wasteland outside is properly polluted and filled with monsters mutated by the hazardous substances dropped there

Ken Murikumo
2020-11-03, 03:20 PM
The law and courts are very broken, but this is acknowledged. Often, the justice one can get is vigilante justice, which isn't exactly discouraged. If you maim or kill someone, you have to pay their family wereguild, in other words, their "blood price". Lowlifes of low potential may only cost a few thousand to kill. But the price for killing someone in high society will be in the millions, if not billions.

The knock-on effect of this is that murder for hire become not illegal. The person that hires you pays the wereguild (deposits money into an escrow account where they can't pull it out, which then goes to the victim's family on their death), and you get paid something for your labor. It's a good way to make a buck if no-one else will hire you. Some Fixer acts as an intermediary to keep the Johnson clean, like some kind of raincoat, from having to interact directly with slime like you. The Fixer, in theory, should be paid separately from you, but chances are, he's double dipping, taking a portion of your fee too.

Good point about the vigilantes. I'll be sure to integrate them into the encounters. As for everything else murder related, I'm just going to go with what i posted earlier. (You posted your response when i was typing / revising / editing my response, so you didn't get lumped into my post)



well, my idea is that the city is not just corrupted from the top, with those in power having failed those below; it's also corrupted from the bottom, with the masses not caring for their fellow citizens, having no sense of civic duty, but having absorbed a general culture of pettyness where their only goal in life is to climb as high as they can to piss on those at the bottom. which also explains why the city is not overthrown by revolution despite an heavily armed population; if the population formed an armed mob, they would shoot each other over their own petty rivalries.

so, for example, you could show poor people getting some money and wasting it all in useless, but visible, status symbol. then they would show off as much as possible, and they'd stop hanging out with their former friends because they are now beneath them.
people of the middle class, who could actually make a pretty decent living, still being a short trip away from getting their lungs repossessed, but going around with fancy cars and expensive jewelry.
homes that are opulent outside, but in disrepair on the inside.
people throw their trash out of the window, not because there are no waste bins, but because they don't give a damn.
when that dude who lost an arm in an industrial accident is fired, his coworkers won't stand up for him, but will immediately try to appropriate his office furniture.

by the way, what does the city eat if they are surrounded by wasteland? I assume it's some kind of large scale hydroponics. or perhaps they may eat some synthetic food made from processed coal (incidentally, in germany they were making butter chemically out of coal, it's less weird than it sounds. but i would not want to eat like that)
you may want to make sure the wasteland outside is properly polluted and filled with monsters mutated by the hazardous substances dropped there

Being corrupt from both top and bottom is what i was going for. People being apathetic to everyone but friends & family is the picture im going to paint.

As far as showing off wealth and dumping everyone you know to move up in the social caste is a good point.

And for the last point, food is produced within the city. Factories and plants mass produce synthetic grains, vegetables, & meats (or that cheap kibble mentioned up-thread). Only the rich can afford farm grown vegetables and meat from real animals, as it's imported from off planet.

As for the wasteland, you bet it will be polluted, dangerous, & filled with horrible creatures (as are the sewers).

KineticDiplomat
2020-11-03, 04:05 PM
For a possible juxtaposition nuke:

Tell the players that it’s horrible, evil, corrupt, and so forth. Start them off in a bad part of town where this is gospel, poverty line life is common, and the scarcity leads to all the usual gangs, ethnic tensions, extreme religions, and so forth with a great deal of violence and cheap (in all senses of the word) pleasures. Everyone in this part of town believes with all their might and soul that there is no way out other crime and a golden ticket.

Then they leave. And honestly, yeah, there’s some corruption and evil, but it’s mostly just normal people living normal lives (the mega corps didn’t get rich on a population that could afford the daily calories and nothing else). The PC start area is just an unfortunate write off no one besides naive university students care about, because they’re viewed as unproductive, unenlightened, nigh on savages. And its not a viewpoint that is completely unfounded.

And the PCs have, of course, picked up all the mannerisms and social cues of people who live there.

VonKaiserstein
2020-11-03, 04:27 PM
An idea that really hits that bleak, hopeless notion is ancestral debt or virtue. So let's say you are a poor guy who wants to provide for his family. You sell the right to your death to a rich creep, and he gets your kid adopted to middle class once he murders you or tortures you to death. To be a little more eloquent about it, it could be called an upwill, or something of that sort, where you're survivor is willed to the adoption agencies 2 levels up, where it's much nicer.

Likewise, heinous crimes, like causing a mass death accident or diverting public food, can result in your offspring being downleveled by an appropriate number of levels. Access points between levels are few and far between, and require passes to go up- never to go down. The food dispensers work great- Forever War had calories as currency for the lower caste, and they starved themselves in order to buy luxuries, or grew food in every available area. Perhaps some calorie implant that could be used to activate various food dispensers.
Consider power as another analogue of wealth- the lower levels have dark hours, where no lights work outside of factories. Activating electricity makes you a target of every scrounger and criminal out there. The higher you go, the more likely electricity is readily available. Lower levels use tuktuks, bicycles, and animals, while the higher levels are slidewalks, teleporters, hoverbelts and such.

Consider the drugs you want present as well. opiate equivalents, where the victims become less and less productive until they overdose and die, or something really, really nasty like Krokodil, a desomorphine cut with gasoline that causes the body to necrotize.

Stattick
2020-11-03, 05:01 PM
Love, love, love the idea of "food dispenser implants". (Nut implants? Nutplants? Yeah, nutplants.)

So, that's part of the welfare program. Everyone gets an implant as a toddler, so they don't starve. It allows you to get food from one of the dispensaries - one time, every 24 hrs. It provides the minimum amount of calories and nutrition that the average person would need to survive, if they eat everyday. At least in theory.

Problem is, LOTS of people require more than the minimal amount of calories and/or other nutrients. The dispensaries don't take this into account. So many people can literally starve to death, even using the dispensaries every day.

And then you have the vultures, who grab you, drag you someplace where no one will see what's happening, and they cut that implant out of you so they can sell it someone else. Then you've got gang leaders and stuff that have a dozen nutplants. They're swimming in kibble. They can afford to give some of it out to their followers, or pay people in kibble.

Kapow
2020-11-03, 05:59 PM
Love, love, love the idea of "food dispenser implants". (Nut implants? Nutplants? Yeah, nutplants.)

So, that's part of the welfare program. Everyone gets an implant as a toddler, so they don't starve. It allows you to get food from one of the dispensaries - one time, every 24 hrs. It provides the minimum amount of calories and nutrition that the average person would need to survive, if they eat everyday. At least in theory.

Problem is, LOTS of people require more than the minimal amount of calories and/or other nutrients. The dispensaries don't take this into account. So many people can literally starve to death, even using the dispensaries every day.

And then you have the vultures, who grab you, drag you someplace where no one will see what's happening, and they cut that implant out of you so they can sell it someone else. Then you've got gang leaders and stuff that have a dozen nutplants. They're swimming in kibble. They can afford to give some of it out to their followers, or pay people in kibble.

I read a comic once, where (some) people undergo illegal body modification, that let one of them consume stuff (food, drugs,...) only by a connection to one other person, determined during the implantation process.
It is kind of a BDSM-relationship, but in your setting, it could be used, to make people depend on one other person, practically becoming the most loyal of slaves.
They would gladly risk to die for their master/mistress, because without them, they would die for sure.
I can't remember the name, but I will try to look it up.

Another (comic) inspiration could be Transmetropolitan, a bit over the top, but there is a lot of dystopic stuff going on.
e.g. you can buy powdered baby seals and human meat at the food store (perhaps an upper class thing), drugs are legally sold to people of every age at the corner store, nanites are used as advertisement and compel people to buy stuff...

Ken Murikumo
2020-11-04, 09:26 PM
For a possible juxtaposition nuke:

Tell the players that it’s horrible, evil, corrupt, and so forth. Start them off in a bad part of town where this is gospel, poverty line life is common, and the scarcity leads to all the usual gangs, ethnic tensions, extreme religions, and so forth with a great deal of violence and cheap (in all senses of the word) pleasures. Everyone in this part of town believes with all their might and soul that there is no way out other crime and a golden ticket.

Then they leave. And honestly, yeah, there’s some corruption and evil, but it’s mostly just normal people living normal lives (the mega corps didn’t get rich on a population that could afford the daily calories and nothing else). The PC start area is just an unfortunate write off no one besides naive university students care about, because they’re viewed as unproductive, unenlightened, nigh on savages. And its not a viewpoint that is completely unfounded.

And the PCs have, of course, picked up all the mannerisms and social cues of people who live there.

As interesting as this is, i don't feel it jives with the plot i have planned. The long end short is the main antagonistic force (which has been wiping "unclean" worlds out) shows up and tensions rise as this planet is absolutely going to be wiped out. The moral issue is, this will be first time the party sees this process live. As repulsive of a place this city is (thanks to you folks) the party will have to decide if they actually want to stop this process.



An idea that really hits that bleak, hopeless notion is ancestral debt or virtue. So let's say you are a poor guy who wants to provide for his family. You sell the right to your death to a rich creep, and he gets your kid adopted to middle class once he murders you or tortures you to death. To be a little more eloquent about it, it could be called an upwill, or something of that sort, where you're survivor is willed to the adoption agencies 2 levels up, where it's much nicer.

Likewise, heinous crimes, like causing a mass death accident or diverting public food, can result in your offspring being downleveled by an appropriate number of levels. Access points between levels are few and far between, and require passes to go up- never to go down. The food dispensers work great- Forever War had calories as currency for the lower caste, and they starved themselves in order to buy luxuries, or grew food in every available area. Perhaps some calorie implant that could be used to activate various food dispensers.
Consider power as another analogue of wealth- the lower levels have dark hours, where no lights work outside of factories. Activating electricity makes you a target of every scrounger and criminal out there. The higher you go, the more likely electricity is readily available. Lower levels use tuktuks, bicycles, and animals, while the higher levels are slidewalks, teleporters, hoverbelts and such.

Consider the drugs you want present as well. opiate equivalents, where the victims become less and less productive until they overdose and die, or something really, really nasty like Krokodil, a desomorphine cut with gasoline that causes the body to necrotize.

I really like the idea of ancestral debt / virtue. Thats a cool new facet to explore.

As for drugs, me and mine don't really pay much mind to that stuff. I can just say drug use is common, brutal, and rampant. It generally conveys whats needed.



Love, love, love the idea of "food dispenser implants". (Nut implants? Nutplants? Yeah, nutplants.)

So, that's part of the welfare program. Everyone gets an implant as a toddler, so they don't starve. It allows you to get food from one of the dispensaries - one time, every 24 hrs. It provides the minimum amount of calories and nutrition that the average person would need to survive, if they eat everyday. At least in theory.

Problem is, LOTS of people require more than the minimal amount of calories and/or other nutrients. The dispensaries don't take this into account. So many people can literally starve to death, even using the dispensaries every day.

And then you have the vultures, who grab you, drag you someplace where no one will see what's happening, and they cut that implant out of you so they can sell it someone else. Then you've got gang leaders and stuff that have a dozen nutplants. They're swimming in kibble. They can afford to give some of it out to their followers, or pay people in kibble.


I read a comic once, where (some) people undergo illegal body modification, that let one of them consume stuff (food, drugs,...) only by a connection to one other person, determined during the implantation process.
It is kind of a BDSM-relationship, but in your setting, it could be used, to make people depend on one other person, practically becoming the most loyal of slaves.
They would gladly risk to die for their master/mistress, because without them, they would die for sure.
I can't remember the name, but I will try to look it up.

Another (comic) inspiration could be Transmetropolitan, a bit over the top, but there is a lot of dystopic stuff going on.
e.g. you can buy powdered baby seals and human meat at the food store (perhaps an upper class thing), drugs are legally sold to people of every age at the corner store, nanites are used as advertisement and compel people to buy stuff...

Definitely one of the weirder things i've heard. I can see low society thugs using this as leverage among the REALLY poor. Money & food isn't scarce, per se, just that EVERYTHING costs money, so it doesn't go too far. Maybe A boss battle against zealous "food slaves", all rag tag, with junk equipment.

Misereor
2020-11-12, 07:49 AM
Have you given any thought to why people live in this place?
- Is it a boomtown of some sort where people hope to strike it rich?
- Does it have some religious or cultural significance?
- Or is there simply something keeping people there? And what? Natural hazards? Serf hunters on hoverboards? It's actually much worse in the other cities?

There is also bound to be mechanisms of various sorts set up to reinforce what the ruling class want, and others to discourage what they don't. Like the aforementioned food scarcity, running man contests, or golden ticket lotteries.


Other than that, I just thought I'd mention that scarcity = workarounds.
For instance food-sellers where there is food scarcity. Harmless ones, like rat-on-a-stick vendors, and darker ones like Billy-Bob's Unicycle Repair Shop and Family Restaurant, where you can order the special meat if you have the cash to book one of the special booths in the back. Better be able to pay, or you may be the next item on the menu.
(Actually I think there may be an adventure hook in there somewhere...)

Ken Murikumo
2020-11-13, 09:21 AM
Have you given any thought to why people live in this place?
- Is it a boomtown of some sort where people hope to strike it rich?
- Does it have some religious or cultural significance?
- Or is there simply something keeping people there? And what? Natural hazards? Serf hunters on hoverboards? It's actually much worse in the other cities?

There is also bound to be mechanisms of various sorts set up to reinforce what the ruling class want, and others to discourage what they don't. Like the aforementioned food scarcity, running man contests, or golden ticket lotteries.


Other than that, I just thought I'd mention that scarcity = workarounds.
For instance food-sellers where there is food scarcity. Harmless ones, like rat-on-a-stick vendors, and darker ones like Billy-Bob's Unicycle Repair Shop and Family Restaurant, where you can order the special meat if you have the cash to book one of the special booths in the back. Better be able to pay, or you may be the next item on the menu.
(Actually I think there may be an adventure hook in there somewhere...)

These are good questions, so a brief history lesson then we'll get to the answers:

The planet this city sits on is war torn and ravaged from decades (if not hundreds of years) of conflict. The only reason the wars had stopped is because there wasn't much of a planet left. The remaining nations took to space to create massive satellite cities. This was about 100 years ago in the planet's history. Since then the space colonies have stopped fighting (barring the silent cold war going on).

Back on the planet, small settlements have popped up. One of which was built on the ruins of a pre-war mega-city. This evolved into the City in question. For logistics sake, the other nations contributed to building the smaller cities that eventually merged together. Kind of like a joint effort to restore the glory of the world they destroyed.

The city's government was a mess of other nations aiming for more control until the city seceded and the city's government just kinda went off the rails (leading to kind of corruption and stuff mentioned earlier.

so time for answers:

1) People go there (and eventually realize they are trapped there) because the other settlements on the planet are non-sustaining. There simply aren't many available resources left. They also didn't have the same "jump start" the subject city did. Lots of people are naive thinking that they can just move to the big city with the idea of "yeah, i'll just get a job in construction or something and save money while living in a low-income housing district till i can afford to move up or move off planet" only to realize that the system is so stacked against them that they end up trapped. The hundreds of miles of desolation and danger in the wastelands surrounding the city mean that you simply cant up and leave with nothing to your name. Not unless you get lucky or are skilled enough to stow away / punch your way through the wasteland (hmm, this guy sounds like a new legend the city folk may talk about).

2) As for what the ruling class want. It's wealth. I know it's simple and underwhelming, but it doesn't always mean money. Having wealth affords those with it: power, comfort, impunity, theoretical immortality, etc... It's designed from the top down to pull wealth from everyone below.

3) The scarcity / workaround is a good point. I went straight for the brute force approach: desperation. People steal, kidnap, or kill with the intent to acquire wealth to move on. But the workaround angle is a good one to consider. It shows that no matter how bad things get, people can adapt for better or worse.

Metastachydium
2020-11-13, 12:35 PM
A simple thought on options for „affordable housing”: capsule blocks (basically capsule hotels except for the part with hotel and offering comfort of sorts). Each floor of a building of this kind contains two sections. Both sections have 200 boxes each (in two rows, one atop the other), arranged along 5 narrow corridors. A truly luxurious box might be up to 1,5 m (5 ft.) tall and wide and 3 m (10 ft.) deep (although boxes of such size are intended to „suit the needs” of two or more „boxmates”), but smaller ones might hardly be larger than a coffin. In addition to this, both sections have two „bathrooms”, long poorly lit halls with ten „shower stalls”. Each stall contains a pipe sticking out of the wall (the shower) and a squatting toilet. Stalls are separated by half-walls, but none of them have doors. As such they offer no privacy unless a tenant has the means to invest into a makeshift curtain. The opposite wall has a row of cheap sinks.
A hive (as their owners like to call them) with ten floors can house up to 8000 inhabitants, but such buildings tend to have twenty floors or more (with a maximum capacity beyond 16000 tenants). The floors are connected by a staircase each in both sections as well as by four elevators per section (although using these is strongly advised against, since they are invariably old and poorly maintained).
Hives are owned by companies who lease boxes out to their employees. Extra working hours constitute the most common form of payment, and those that lose their jobs are subsequently evicted from their box.

King of Nowhere
2020-11-13, 02:15 PM
A truly luxurious box might be up to 1,5 m (5 ft.) tall and wide and 3 m (10 ft.) deep

Gasp! Them privileged bastards! Could you even imagine living in such luxury?

Jay R
2020-11-13, 08:37 PM
Add a green-haired, white-skinned maniac and a vigilante dressed like a bat, and I think you're there.

Misereor
2020-11-15, 05:56 PM
These are good questions, so a brief history lesson then we'll get to the answers: <snip>

Solid story.
I think you could add a bit more flavor on a couple of counts. Nothing revolutionary, just to add a bit of atmosphere.

Biology:
So it's dirty, contaminated, and downright toxic in places. A species living in those conditions will go through three stages over time. You should determine which one the city is in, and tweak it to your liking.
- An initial dystopic period where the population declines, as it adjusts to it's new circumstances. This is likely to be the most brutal period, as people squabble over insufficient, life-sustaining resources.
- An adaptation period. People still die from all the hardship and pollution, but eventually it will get to the point where they become resitant enough have time to have kids first, and the population will start slowly increase again. The odd mutant will probably be born here and there, and the average lifespan of your typical peon will probably be around 40.
- A post-adaptation period where the species more or less have their environment under control, and can start the rebuilding in earnest and rediscover the world. This is probably what a save-the-world type campaign should aim to bring about. (You can also always create a later fantasy campaign a few thousand years later, in which your players don't know that the setting is based on this ancient destroyed high-tech civilization, possibly even playing direct descendants of their earlier characters.)

Plot twists:
- So everyone is dreaming of getting to the orbital colonies. Would it be too "planet of the apes" predictable to eventually have the players discover that the colonies have been airless, dead wrecks for decades, populated only by insane A.I.'s that make resource retrieval a lethal affair? That the truth is that the city is all there is left?

Add/Invent some setting apropriate mini-games that your players can participate in for a change of pace:
- Block wars. With insufficient room for everyone in the more habitable sectors of the city, factions on the outskirts have to compete for space and resources.
- Introducing "Hippodrome". The most lethal race in al the sectors.
- The influence game. Count points with the rich and powerful to raise your social status and shopping opportunities.

Stattick
2020-11-16, 05:49 AM
For a cyberpunk game I was designing but never finished, I had what I thought was a promising mechanic that punctuates the grimness of the genre.

First off, there'd always be a off-time break between adventures. This was also useful, since healing was slow, and it would probably give the character the chance to heal up between adventures or gigs. It was pretty simple, I'd roll 2d6, and that was the number of weeks that would have passed in off-time. (Also useful for letting the players work on long-term objectives.)

Everyone had a list of things that were important to them. Assets, wealth, place to stay, relationships, etc. There might be a list of group assets too, if the group as a whole has an interest in something. Each one of those things got a roll. A roll in the middle meant that things stayed the same. High meant that things had improved. Low meant that things had gotten worse. Crit success meant things had gotten much, much better, while a crit fail meant that the thing seemed ruined.

Go around the table, people roll on their things, player and gm notes down the changes. Then the player quickly proposes what happened (subject to GM approval), and others at the table can throw in suggestions. Crit fail on your substantial wealth, and downgrade to the shaky relationship with the live-in girlfriend? Maybe the player proposes that she ran out on him, and robbed him blind while doing it. GM approves, writes her down on his antagonist list, with a note that she stole X amount of money from player Y. Different player wipes out on his crash pad. Maybe a different player pipes in with, "And now he's crashing on my sofa." I'd let players who "loose" something with that role to gain something, probably an intangible asset, if they propose a good story. So, someone gets a downgrade to their wealth? Maybe they threw a huge block party after that last big score the players had at the end of the last session. He blew way too much money, but he's made a name for himself in the 'hood. On the other hand, tangible assets can work too - oh, you fumbled your roll with the local mafia don? Yeah, he has a hit ordered on you, because he found out you robbed one of his illegal establishments. But hey, you got money now.

If you do this sort of thing, be good at improvising, and good at statting up people in advance. Because the adventure you bring to the table might be a lot less urgent than the trouble the players make for themselves with the above method. Sure, go ahead and do your plot, just be ready for it if the players ignore it and go after their own troubles, or look for ways to integrate the two problems (or be ready for the players to try to take care of both). So, you still have the fixer show up offering good money to the PCs if they go and assassinate that guy. But instead, the PCs may go after the ex-girlfriend that robbed them (which is why they had to knock off that mob joint, so they could pay back Big Louie before he broke their kneecaps... she stole the money you guys owed and had promised to that friggen ogre loan shark). On the other hand, the fast thinking GM might think, "Hey, the money they'd make from the assassination is about the same that got stolen by the ex... maybe she's the one that put the contract out, because of what the target did to her loved ones."

Cyberpunk, and related genres, are all about moral ambiguity - most people aren't white or black, but somewhere in between.

aglondier
2020-11-16, 07:17 AM
Ran an evil city a while back. Noone was allowed to die. If you died, the city would bring you back, but tainted. Actual troll blood was one of the more common restorative draughts. Corruption of the spirit was the flavour of the day...

Don't be afraid to tpk them...and have them wake up in resurrection vats...

gijoemike
2020-11-16, 10:46 AM
I had a GM run an evil city in D&D a few times. It was a pretty terrible place run by a LE sun-o-itch. The idea of what he did can be easily applied to this setup. Basic idea is there is a legal thieves guild.

In the last 10 years a new corporation has popped up. Acquisitions Inc. For an actual fair price, and small finders fee, they will deliver the materials you need. This is a legal thieves' guild. You want that expensive painting the CEO of Data Unlimited has in their office? DONE. You want the office code to the chief of security of the Military Police? DONE. You want the blueprints to of the 6th floor of the Love Motel? DONE. You need 3 kilos of a street drug? DONE. They want under the table payments and mostly contactless delivery.

How does one protect themselves, a week's thief protection is actually rather cheap, usually cheaper than food. Just buy off the same thieves before someone else has them rob you. These thieves never do shakedowns, they don't do back ally muggings ( for themselves ), or random pick pocketing. These people are skilled cat burglars, thugs, and dealers with a charismatic flair.

Where is their headquarters? They don't have one. It is an interconnected cell network where no one knows who is really in charge. Clearly someone very rich started this thing 10 years back. Who was it? Are they still involved? Acquisitions Inc has been protected at some point in the past. Maybe they still are. They do pay their own Security force. But that force protects completely random people from time to time. They also take care of anyone pretending to be Acquisitions Inc. The entire operation is a giant game of 3 card monte and shell game.

How do I get a job with them? It just happens one day. You run a job or steal something for a paying client. They tell you excellent work. We'll be in touch. 5 Jobs later you realize that client is your contact with Acq.

Why hasn't any Police, Corp, Guild, Gang gotten rid of these thieving punks yet? The protection money is so cheap compared the the deep recon and surveillance required to track down a handler that the cost analysis AI has ALWAYS stated just pay them off.

King of Nowhere
2020-11-16, 07:13 PM
I just had a nice image in my mind
there is a trial. there are the two lawyers talking. each lawyer has a slot machine where the client can insert coins.
as long as the client insert coins, the lawyer talks. when the credit ends, the lawyer stops talking. your lawyer was just about to present the proof of your innocence, but you run out of money at the wrong time...


I had a GM run an evil city in D&D a few times. It was a pretty terrible place run by a LE sun-o-itch. The idea of what he did can be easily applied to this setup. Basic idea is there is a legal thieves guild.

In the last 10 years a new corporation has popped up. Acquisitions Inc. For an actual fair price, and small finders fee, they will deliver the materials you need. This is a legal thieves' guild. You want that expensive painting the CEO of Data Unlimited has in their office? DONE. You want the office code to the chief of security of the Military Police? DONE. You want the blueprints to of the 6th floor of the Love Motel? DONE. You need 3 kilos of a street drug? DONE. They want under the table payments and mostly contactless delivery.

How does one protect themselves, a week's thief protection is actually rather cheap, usually cheaper than food. Just buy off the same thieves before someone else has them rob you. These thieves never do shakedowns, they don't do back ally muggings ( for themselves ), or random pick pocketing. These people are skilled cat burglars, thugs, and dealers with a charismatic flair.

Where is their headquarters? They don't have one. It is an interconnected cell network where no one knows who is really in charge. Clearly someone very rich started this thing 10 years back. Who was it? Are they still involved? Acquisitions Inc has been protected at some point in the past. Maybe they still are. They do pay their own Security force. But that force protects completely random people from time to time. They also take care of anyone pretending to be Acquisitions Inc. The entire operation is a giant game of 3 card monte and shell game.

How do I get a job with them? It just happens one day. You run a job or steal something for a paying client. They tell you excellent work. We'll be in touch. 5 Jobs later you realize that client is your contact with Acq.

Why hasn't any Police, Corp, Guild, Gang gotten rid of these thieving punks yet? The protection money is so cheap compared the the deep recon and surveillance required to track down a handler that the cost analysis AI has ALWAYS stated just pay them off.
this... does not sound particularly evil. it's very close to becoming ank-morpork, where there is a legalized thieves guild and it works at reducing crime

Tvtyrant
2020-11-16, 07:44 PM
Building construction fees and property taxes cost more than minimum wage can pay in rent.

It is illegal to build without paying the construction fees. It is illegal not to pay property taxes.

It is illegal to be homeless.

It is illegal not to work.

It is illegal to leave your workplace without a new job lined up (IE to flee the city.)

It is illegal to live in housing over a certain density due to firecodes.



We have now constructed an individually reasonable system where it is illegal to be poor. But can we build on it?

For instance we can't use prison because it would provide (horrible) housing and food. There has to be a way to make people stay where they are and keep trying while getting ever more stuck.


The city provides free housing to workers.

The free housing is "merit" based.

The "merit" is meted out monthly based on number of hours worked.


I thought of a few more!


Jobs are all legally forced to be on opposite part of city from housing.
Zoning increases housing density the further from the jobs you are, so the poorer you are the further you have to go.
No way to walk or bike to work, must take vehicles.
Vehicles expensive with fees added.


There we go. Now the only way to get out is to work yourself to death in a competition with everyone else, and your enemy are the people in the same situation as you. But can it get worse? Taking sick time of course counts against the system, but maybe benefits are only provided to the children of "merit?" So now if you want your kid to go to a doctor you never can?