Background for a pulp dark future campaign?

[AusJeb]

Blue Planet, oddly enough, fits your criteria, although the post-Blight cities are not that populated. If you wanted, you could leave off the Wormhole and Poseidon and just focus on post-Blight Earth and the Solar System.

Ghost in the Shell would also seem to be a good fit.

[Schatten]

The two that sprung immediately to my mind were already mentioned, Dark Conspiracy and Underground.

I'd splice the backgrounds together, but use the system from Godlike, make the Talents twiggy Underground vets. Push the retro feel from Dark Conspiracy for cars, phones, etc to 11 and then have at it.

Hmmm...*plots, plans and possibly schemes*

[Orsino]

GURPS Cyberworld was nice and dystopian, if you can find it. Fascist American States, worldwide economic collapse, and no one's heard from Australia for six years.

[SunFury79]

It's out dated and not easy to get ahold of, but the Bubblegum Crisis is pretty good for that "mirrorshades-&-chrome" feel. Not only does it have a series of videos for visuals (the animation isn't half bad and the stories are pretty good), but the same great people that made Cyberpunk also make the BGC RPG. The setting info is really great stuff. After some adjustment, I used it in a Cyberhorror game I homebrewed and it ran great.

[Tim Kirk]

How pulpish do you want?

I mean there is the Dark Megacities of Marshall Law, or Judge Dred (is there a ML game? not sure)

There are the dark, pastiche of Marsall Law, genetics, supersoldiers gone mad, but trying to do good in Underground.


There is SLA Industries tough I'm less familiar with it, there is Marvel 2099 as a comics resource (which in the first few issues /was/ darker than normal MU, but more superheroic than standard dark future--there is Dark Champions which is more modern day, if you find a copy ofr if they've done a new one.

Dark ish:First Adventure in Gurps Supers Adventures (mining corporation out near Jupiter, may knowingly have let people suffer the mutational effects of various things)

Gurps Transhuman Space/PBG is dark, but not terribly so, it isn't rebelling such as embracing revolution through human+

[Tim Kirk]

Oh check innto Khromosome-- Genetic punk from TSR using the Amazing Engine system (lots of world stuff, not a lot of rules)

and FREELANCERS< Top Secret SI+supers, it and the novels are very pulpy--backpack battlefield lasers, lower powered Metables, MAP (Man Amplified Power suits--the tractors of power armor), a Fragmented US, with no Federal power, annd more state power, and corporations ranging from powerful (the man who owns Nasa) to notable and effective (FREELancers themselves) and then some less so..


FREELANCER is probably perfect but you should loko for the novels first (easier to find) than the game books.


Freelancers (Game book)
FreeAmerica (Gamebook)
Freelancers (Novel by Mel Odom)
FreeFall (Novel by Mel Odom)

[Lord Liaden]

I'm going to recommend Kazei Five, an anime-style cyberpunk sourcebook for the HERO System by Michael Surbrook (author of the second edition Ninja HERO genre book). From your description it sounds just about perfect for what you want to run: megacorporations, cool gadgets, cyberpunk style. It has a well-developed campaign setting, "Neo-York," and lots of NPCs. Moreover, because it incorporates anime genre conventions of super martial arts, techno-augmentation and psionic powers, it easily handles low-powered supers.

K5 is available as a PDF e-book download from the Hero Games Online Store for $9.95 US. However, Mike Surbrook has put substantial samples from the book on his website, so you can get a good idea of what it contains. You can view those samples here.