Things RPG designers missed
SF RPG designers, like authors, miss technology trends. As I've been poking my nose into games written in the 80's and 90's lately, some of these are more glaring. Traveller, written in the 70's, is its own category. Games like Shadowrun work noticibly different if you presume modern cell-phone techology. Playing these older games with a modern mindset creates some challenges for the GM, and even game balance within the game.
Everyone has a cell phone.
One upon a time, having a cell was a swank thing only for the upper crust. Now its the 2nd purchase after food for a lot of people. The players all have them (unless you're playing with an older group, at which point cell-resistors may exist and this won't be true), know what can be done with them, and will use them in game if at all possible.
For games like Cyberpunk and Shadowrun that presume all comm gear except MilSpec comgear is interceptable by anyone with a hacked radio-scanner this runs up against how the real life tech-tree evolved. Modern cell-phones use digital transmission methods, which make the $20 hacked scanner useless. What's more, they're now using digital-spread-spectrum as a way of improving interference resistance. And DSS is exactly the sort of tech these MilSpec comm units were using in the RPGs. They can be eavesdropped, but you have to have very specific gear for this and be within the right radius of the hand unit to do it.
So instead of having their inter-party communications done over the very expensive comm rigs, players just use their cells.
Or hack the phone company and listen to it that way. Which leads to...
The Internet
Everyone is online. From their phones, too. This is most definitely not "The Matrix", or whatever they're calling that fully immersive alternate reality you connect directly to your brain from your Hashituba 2000 CyberDeck. The Matrix of yore was the hangout of the digital elite and corporations the elite stole from. The vasty multitudes never went there. This was stolen directly from the CyberPunk books of the early 1980's and the dawn of the PC revolution. They guessed wrong.
The vasty multitudes all have internet access of some kind. Be it from public libraries, or in their pants via their cell phones. Information gathering and contacting contacts can now be done through the internet by anyone, not just your 'Decker'. Actual hacking is still the purview of the 'Decker', so they're still useful.
No one has to know you're a Troll on the Internet.
Heck, you can even do internet based research while in the darkened van on a stake-out. Which leads to...
Wireless data networks
These games all assumed that all data-network access was hardline. Once the Decker was in the darkened van on a stake out, their only role was comic relief, or hanging back by the Medic in case things went wrong later on when something happened. Since Radio is fundamentally analog in these games, except for satellite uplinks for some reason, the idea of a municiple area network of some kind is completely alien.
This means that your Decker can now hack your target's security system from the stakeout van itself.
And when you're done, you can post the victory-bash video to the Internet from your phone while still at the bar.
A Cam-corder in every pocket
This one is subtle. Cyberpunk's system made it clear that video-cameras look a lot like sholder mounted guns, and indy newsies were at a constant threat of personal harm from security personel mistaking them as such. Now a low quality cam-corder is built into the phone everyone carries. This makes documenting things one hell of a lot easier, which greatly reduces, "Your word against mine, and people believe me more than you," sorts of problems.
It also helps salve one of the fundamental weaknesses of the client/patron relationship for games like Cyberpunk and Shadowrun. That of witholding payment for (illegal) services rendered; what'cha gonna do, sue me? No, I'll post the video of you hiring us out onto the internet and see what that does for your reputation.
In some of these games, this could have been done with a Cyber-eye with the right options. Now anyone can do it, and doesn't have to replace a body part in the process.
Everything a computer can do
This one started showing up in the mid 90's, and has only gotten worse. "The Matrix" was what these games were predicting would happen, and that's just not what did. Digital forgeries and the equipment to make them is a LOT cheaper than these games list, and any player who has dinked around enough in PhotoShop to know their way around knows, the barrier to entry is pretty low. If all you need is a pretty piece of paper to get past the stiff-necked guards, well... one pretty piece of paper coming up.
The possibilities are endless. As we all know.
While a lot of the above focus on the 'near-future' games of Cyberpunk and Shadowrun, they also apply to other games. Like MechWarrior, supposedly set between 3025 and 3065, and Traveller, a thousand or so years after that. Traveller is especially bad since it was an extrapolation on a 1970's tech-base and is therefore even further off of true.
It's really hard to hack modern technologic progress into some of these games. It takes a lot of flexibility on the part of the GM. Later editions can be 'patched' by the games designers, but it always looks like a patch; much like the Digital Web in White Wolf. Fantasy games don't have these problems, which is a large part of why D&D is still playable 35 years later and Traveller is barely playable.
Everyone has a cell phone.
One upon a time, having a cell was a swank thing only for the upper crust. Now its the 2nd purchase after food for a lot of people. The players all have them (unless you're playing with an older group, at which point cell-resistors may exist and this won't be true), know what can be done with them, and will use them in game if at all possible.
For games like Cyberpunk and Shadowrun that presume all comm gear except MilSpec comgear is interceptable by anyone with a hacked radio-scanner this runs up against how the real life tech-tree evolved. Modern cell-phones use digital transmission methods, which make the $20 hacked scanner useless. What's more, they're now using digital-spread-spectrum as a way of improving interference resistance. And DSS is exactly the sort of tech these MilSpec comm units were using in the RPGs. They can be eavesdropped, but you have to have very specific gear for this and be within the right radius of the hand unit to do it.
So instead of having their inter-party communications done over the very expensive comm rigs, players just use their cells.
Or hack the phone company and listen to it that way. Which leads to...
The Internet
Everyone is online. From their phones, too. This is most definitely not "The Matrix", or whatever they're calling that fully immersive alternate reality you connect directly to your brain from your Hashituba 2000 CyberDeck. The Matrix of yore was the hangout of the digital elite and corporations the elite stole from. The vasty multitudes never went there. This was stolen directly from the CyberPunk books of the early 1980's and the dawn of the PC revolution. They guessed wrong.
The vasty multitudes all have internet access of some kind. Be it from public libraries, or in their pants via their cell phones. Information gathering and contacting contacts can now be done through the internet by anyone, not just your 'Decker'. Actual hacking is still the purview of the 'Decker', so they're still useful.
No one has to know you're a Troll on the Internet.
Heck, you can even do internet based research while in the darkened van on a stake-out. Which leads to...
Wireless data networks
These games all assumed that all data-network access was hardline. Once the Decker was in the darkened van on a stake out, their only role was comic relief, or hanging back by the Medic in case things went wrong later on when something happened. Since Radio is fundamentally analog in these games, except for satellite uplinks for some reason, the idea of a municiple area network of some kind is completely alien.
This means that your Decker can now hack your target's security system from the stakeout van itself.
And when you're done, you can post the victory-bash video to the Internet from your phone while still at the bar.
A Cam-corder in every pocket
This one is subtle. Cyberpunk's system made it clear that video-cameras look a lot like sholder mounted guns, and indy newsies were at a constant threat of personal harm from security personel mistaking them as such. Now a low quality cam-corder is built into the phone everyone carries. This makes documenting things one hell of a lot easier, which greatly reduces, "Your word against mine, and people believe me more than you," sorts of problems.
It also helps salve one of the fundamental weaknesses of the client/patron relationship for games like Cyberpunk and Shadowrun. That of witholding payment for (illegal) services rendered; what'cha gonna do, sue me? No, I'll post the video of you hiring us out onto the internet and see what that does for your reputation.
In some of these games, this could have been done with a Cyber-eye with the right options. Now anyone can do it, and doesn't have to replace a body part in the process.
Everything a computer can do
This one started showing up in the mid 90's, and has only gotten worse. "The Matrix" was what these games were predicting would happen, and that's just not what did. Digital forgeries and the equipment to make them is a LOT cheaper than these games list, and any player who has dinked around enough in PhotoShop to know their way around knows, the barrier to entry is pretty low. If all you need is a pretty piece of paper to get past the stiff-necked guards, well... one pretty piece of paper coming up.
The possibilities are endless. As we all know.
While a lot of the above focus on the 'near-future' games of Cyberpunk and Shadowrun, they also apply to other games. Like MechWarrior, supposedly set between 3025 and 3065, and Traveller, a thousand or so years after that. Traveller is especially bad since it was an extrapolation on a 1970's tech-base and is therefore even further off of true.
It's really hard to hack modern technologic progress into some of these games. It takes a lot of flexibility on the part of the GM. Later editions can be 'patched' by the games designers, but it always looks like a patch; much like the Digital Web in White Wolf. Fantasy games don't have these problems, which is a large part of why D&D is still playable 35 years later and Traveller is barely playable.