My name is not important – what is important is that I’ve landed a guest spot on Meta Gamemastery. If you need to have a moniker for whatever purpose, call me Lord Sprug. Yes, there is a reason for that – and no, most of you won’t even want to try and fathom the purpose. In my series of articles I will write about some of the meta gaming techniques I’ve employed to turn a 1990′s obsolete game environment into a thrilling, challenging, and educational campaign for the modern era. Take it or leave it – but please do leave some feedback.

I use GURPS for the gaming system. Notice that I didn’t say that I chose GURPS because GURPS… well, it chose me. Destiny brought us together in a clash of mental ecstasy after a series of unmentionable experiences in a local bookstore. Months later, after reading through several source books (including Bunnies & Burrows), my mind ran rampant with extreme possibilities. I became determined to pull together a cyberpunk campaign that would leave the players wet and gasping for breath. I merged cheap modern day technology with a complete set of game world rules to fashion a fun and immersive experience.

I quickly realized that I knew nothing of “traditional cyberpunk” and consumed William Gibson’s Neuromancer and Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. After reading these I ascertained that our technology is still quite a throw from that fantastic technology of tomorrow. Cybernetics can be role played – but how do you role play a virtual world?

The gameplay originated with lush descriptive backgrounds and a clearly defined hook. The players easily ate the hook and were pulled into a twist that blew their freaking minds! Props and acting were the focus of the day. Hand cuffs – suit jackets – gold badges – bloody gore photos – wigs and an NPC partner. We separated the players into different rooms and went wild with interrogation, intimidation, and threats of physical harm. For the technical puzzles they rolled dice and a global difficulty was assigned (-5). They seemed to keep pausing and waiting for prompts but, as the GM, I would only role play the NPCs, describe the environments, and play out the results of their actions. I pressured them into giving me detailed explanations of their action plans. Instead of “I break the hand scanner” they were asked to provide more. Instead they say “I take a screwdriver from my toolbelt and pry at this edge” – [ROLL (dx-5).. success!] “The lid snaps open with an audible pop; you now see four wires colored blue, green, red and black” – “I clip the black wire with my snips” – [ROLL (dx-5).. fail!] – “An alarm sounds” [queue sound effect].

In my next article I will explain how I used modern programming languages to create a simple program that created secret messages for the players to decode. Thanks for reading and please make sure to write some feedback.