Incline Making an 80s themed RPG

[NecroLord]

What ideas do you have for an 80s based rpg?
To quote Frank Lopez:
"Chicas, champagne, flash."
Turn based or real time?
What about the morality system?
Maybe you get to play as either a dutiful and honorable detective who prefers to arrest and apprehend criminals, or a more morally flexible and perhaps even crooked detective, one who prefers to just kill criminals and drug dealers and is perhaps not averse to taking bribes.
"Oh, that dealer I should've brought in? He just fell off the balcony of his mansion, no big deal..."
Or maybe you can even play as a criminal like in Vice City?
What about skills and attributes?
A guns blazing type of detective might need good Strength, Vitality and Reflexes (to be quick on the draw and to handle himself well in a fight, be it a gunfight or a melee), while a diplomatic and slick detective who carefully follows clues needs Charisma and Intellect.

Anyway, c'mon, let's see some of your ideas for a Based 80s RPG.

 

[ropetight]

What ideas do you have for an 80s based rpg?
To quote Frank Lopez:
"Chicas, champagne, flash."
Turn based or real time?
What about the morality system?
Maybe you get to play as either a dutiful and honorable detective who prefers to arrest and apprehend criminals, or a more morally flexible and perhaps even crooked detective, one who prefers to just kill criminals and drug dealers and is perhaps not averse to taking bribes.
"Oh, that dealer I should've brought in? He just fell off the balcony of his mansion, no big deal..."
Or maybe you can even play as a criminal like in Vice City?
What about skills and attributes?
A guns blazing type of detective might need good Strength, Vitality and Reflexes (to be quick on the draw and to handle himself well in a fight, be it a gunfight or a melee), while a diplomatic and slick detective who carefully follows clues needs Charisma and Intellect.

Anyway, c'mon, let's see some of your ideas for a Based 80s RPG.

Making RPG about 80's pop culture is one thing and making it about 80's is completely another thing.
Every little prick that knows shit about 80's can make Stranger Things derivative after watching an evening of Spielberg and Zemeckis movies.
And they do; god, they do.

About main protagonist, background and story:

• I would skip flashy steretypes of 80's Miami drug dealers -Scar Face and Miami Vice were really anomally of the 80's
• Instead, make main hero or his background blue collar - farmer, trucker, high school goof, steelworks worker facing layoff; he can still save the world, according to Big Trouble in Little China, Star Wars. Nothing says 80's more than your average Joe in a mess over his head.
• But if you insist on hero being a hard-boiled cop or an honest journalist (another massive stereotype from the era), he has to be in bad relations with his bosses who are busting his balls. Same goes for the family and women. This is non-negotiable.
• His methods can be unorthodox, but his morals are not - so, no moral grayness, there is good and evil and bad guys are evil
• He has to have best buddies, posse, entourage, or at least drinking buddies
• Women - feminine and often naked. No questions asked there, no explanations needed.
• Lots of fist fighting, goofy martial arts and Ninjas are also requirement
• Cold war has to be vowen into story - it was big part of 80's, in a bit more relaxed, goofy way than in previous decades - but still there
• despite that relaxation of cold war, fear of atomic bombs was ever present through constant activism in mediums
• ecology and sociology alarms were even more common than in 70's and 80's - ozone layer scare and paper recycling were a big thing in the 80's
• Metal was a big thing in 80's, what you already know, so choice of soundtrack is easy.

As for system, original Cyberpunk 2020 is basically 80's incarnated - if you can remove cyberpunk from it.
But something like GURPS/SPECIAL will serve you well.

As for combat...
Somehow first thing's that fell on my mind when thinking about 80's and combat are Final Fight and Street Fighter (both fine RPG's and both more from the 90's than 80's) - and that would mean real-time.
This brings me a lot of shame, but for some reason I can't separate 80's from arcades.

 

[Odoryuk]

Just make it Naked Gun The RPG

 

[NecroLord]

I would skip flashy steretypes of 80's Miami drug dealers -Scar Face and Miami Vice were really anomally of the 80's

Scarface and Miami Vice are pure 80s entertainment.
Their influence is enormous.
It's all about the flash and style.
Neon lights, hot chicks in bikinis on the beach.
You can definitely make an RPG out of that.

 

[Martyr]

I'd dig a reverse Ultima IV - instead of the Avatar being transported from real world into Britannia, how about someone like Iolo, Shamino or even Lord British himself (with option to create a char, too) being transported into 1980s USA and them trying to fit in and behave the right way.

 

[MerchantKing]

Just make the Conan movie into a game. Make sure to fill it with plenty of Gnome heroes though.

 

[Odoryuk]

I'd dig a reverse Ultima IV - instead of the Avatar being transported from real world into Britannia, how about someone like Iolo, Shamino or even Lord British himself (with option to create a char, too) being transported into 1980s USA and them trying to fit in and behave the right way.

Just keep them away from coke.

 

[Gregz]

 

[NecroLord]

One of the only worthwhile games Ubishit spawned...

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I would skip flashy steretypes of 80's Miami drug dealers -Scar Face and Miami Vice were really anomally of the 80's

Scarface and Miami Vice are pure 80s entertainment.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

there was already a pnp rpg about '80s and '90s tropes, can't remember its name now.
feng shui.

 

[d1nolore]

Sounds more like 80’s memes

 

[luj1]

Scarface and Miami Vice are pure 80s entertainment.
Their influence is enormous.
It's all about the flash and style.
Neon lights, hot chicks in bikinis on the beach.
You can definitely make an RPG out of that.

Just add some stats to GTA vice city

 

[tomphonse]

I feel the only worthwhile themes of the 80's to explore is the Scarface/Miami Vice angle of the death of the last values of traditional western civ in favour of the birth of a tech focused, media/TV focused , kinda nihilistic, capitalist one (I am speaking strictly vibes here, free markets and tech have existed long before obviously).
OR you can look more into Western Europe and the end of the Cold War. However, at least in the new world this isn't as connected in peoples minds with the 80's as the former.


In terms of RPG mechanics I guess portable communication with NPCs could be explored via pagers and brick phones. Not many games have actually put unique mechanical twist on this. Most of the time it just serves as quest givers in GTA games to tell you about the next mission or update your objectives. But none really have explored the interactive angle of it. It could be a form of progression, like you have to earn the brick phone and that changes the dynamics of the game in an interesting way. For the Scarface/Vice there is a lot you can do with drug trading.

 

[tomphonse]

Of course there is also the retrofuturism angle, what would people in the 80's think the future would be like?
That's your Bladerunner, Cyberpunk, Far Cry Blood Dragon etc.
I think it's kind of becoming cliche though at this point but so is Scarface/Vice.

 

[luj1]

SWAT rpg would be cool

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Scarface and Miami Vice are pure 80s entertainment.
Their influence is enormous.
It's all about the flash and style.
Neon lights, hot chicks in bikinis on the beach.
You can definitely make an RPG out of that.

What about the 1980's ninja craze? G.I. Joe added a Cobra ninja and Snake Eyes became a ninja. There were several TV shows about Ninja, "The Master" comes to mind. There were scores of movies about ninjas, mostly B-Movies made in foreign countries and pumped straight to cable. Daredevil had several arcs in his comics involving The Hand, which lead to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Then you also had the hero with a cool unique vehicle trope. Knight Rider, Airwolf, Blue Thunder, the Coyote X from Hardcastle and MacCormick, Street Hawk(the motorcycle), Mad Max's V-8 Interceptor, and so on.

 

[NecroLord]

Scarface and Miami Vice are pure 80s entertainment.
Their influence is enormous.
It's all about the flash and style.
Neon lights, hot chicks in bikinis on the beach.
You can definitely make an RPG out of that.

What about the 1980's ninja craze? G.I. Joe added a Cobra ninja and Snake Eyes became a ninja. There were several TV shows about Ninja, "The Master" comes to mind. There were scores of movies about ninjas, mostly B-Movies made in foreign countries and pumped straight to cable. Daredevil had several arcs in his comics involving The Hand, which lead to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Then you also had the hero with a cool unique vehicle trope. Knight Rider, Airwolf, Blue Thunder, the Coyote X from Hardcastle and MacCormick, Street Hawk(the motorcycle), Mad Max's V-8 Interceptor, and so on.

Indeed.
One cannot forget the 80s Ninja/Asian craze.

 

[tritosine2k]

Absurd lack of Narcotics ITT.

 

[NecroLord]

 

[Stoned Ape]

What about the 1980's ninja craze? G.I. Joe added a Cobra ninja and Snake Eyes became a ninja. There were several TV shows about Ninja, "The Master" comes to mind. There were scores of movies about ninjas, mostly B-Movies made in foreign countries and pumped straight to cable. Daredevil had several arcs in his comics involving The Hand, which lead to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

 

[Stoned Ape]

Also:





Still some of my favourite game soundtracks ever.

 

[tritosine2k]

 

[ropetight]

What about the 1980's ninja craze? G.I. Joe added a Cobra ninja and Snake Eyes became a ninja. There were several TV shows about Ninja, "The Master" comes to mind. There were scores of movies about ninjas, mostly B-Movies made in foreign countries and pumped straight to cable. Daredevil had several arcs in his comics involving The Hand, which lead to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Oh, it goes way beyond that, my friend.

 

[just]

beverly hills cop: the rpg