MUSIK IST MACHT CYBERPUNK GAME IDEAS FROM MUSIC from the ears and mind of Hound

WARNING: all the song lyrics included in this email are from memory, and have probably been QUITE mangled
"You are accused of commerce with the devil!" "there is no devil!"
	Golden Dawn by Ministry became the basis of an Inquisitors module/encounter where they players are not just blindly attacked by the Inquisition, but are brought before a mock tribunal where they are accused of their sins and then manage to wrangle an escape. The events occured in a closed shopping concourse, with the tribunal in the central food court and fountains, and the ensuing fighting moving through several clothing stores before breaking onto the streets.
"You had to give them all a sign, didn't you, didn't you?" "You had to covet what was mine, didn't you, didn't you?"
	Ruiner by Nine Inch Nails was inspirational for making a game based on the attempts of a jealous media to discredit and destroy successful PCs. He feels that the limelight afforded them by another media is undeserved and wants to show them up as incompetent and even better, as killing machines, monsters, inhumane beasts, or whatever it takes to turn the public against them.
"This drug makes me crazy, makes me see more clearly, so baby now I can see you"
	So Alive from Love and Rockets self-titled release was the inspiration for a drug which drastically increases awareness, but also causes delusions. In the first case, of course, the player on the drug encountered a girl who he never saw when sober.. an imaginary girl who distracted him enough to allow the rest of the party to be ambused while he was on watch.
"hunt them out - drag them into the streets - humiliate them - baseball bats - spinning out of control in the city's belly - running wild throughout the veins of the night - mangle - ripped clothing - "open wide" - nothing you can do - nothing you can do - abduction - "he's so cute" - daddy's little boy - getting all amped up to split this toy - ugly joy ride - ugly joy ride - revving engines - overheating - boiling up - exposed and bleeding"
	Blunt Force Trauma, definitely one of the harder punk/industrial tracks from ChemLab brought about an extended scene where a small group (1 or 2) of PCs get caught up in a Grand Theft Auto - style carjacking and crazed cross-town romp. I tried successfully to use every element of the song during the session - it's a messy, bloody, adrenaline-pumping run that digs at the very edges of gang mentality and basic humanity / compassion.
"Home over there knows Keith an But he be thiefin' I don't truss him, rather bust'em Up out goes his hand and I cough, He once stole from me, Yeah I wanna cut it off! Once again, I test a friend wit' sincerity - Or Consider Him An Enemy"
	Public Enemy's NightTrain gives us a sequence where the players have to deal with the fact that their friends and fellow nomads aren't really their friends. Just because someone should share your goals, doesn't mean he will. You may all be getting the shaft by Biotechnica and they could well have killed each and every one of your famillies, but money is still the great seducer, and you probably have a traitor in your ranks.
"I like the violence in you / It's like addiction ot pain / I see you dying to kill / with a smile on your face" "Im in love with the devil / she's a twisted little girl / she sleeps in body bags / and likes the shotgun blasts"
	Matador by Acumen brings us a great way to make your players doubt their own game world. After all, edgerunners are on edge, right? It's a love affair with a 16 year old girl (or thereabouts) with little or no humanity. She's twisted and lovely and for some reason the PC just can't say no to her. Enforce this. Even alude to it being some supernatural power she has over him if needed (that should creep the PCs out, she's a Vampire with Dominate & Presence!). It's obviously up to you whether she is indeed kindred, but it's best to just leave it in a fashion that leaves the players in doubt forever. Once she's got the PC good and screwed up, sharing her lifestyle, her taste in blood and violence and the downward spiral of humanity loss, have her disappear forever. Never to be seen again.
"Ill try to continue this emergency broadcast as long as I can hold out... no emergency services... people infected are driven to senseless acts of extreme violence... scattered reports of people mutated, their bodies swelling and distorting... it is impossible to determine how many unaffected people there are left..."
	Mortal, the instrumental track from Front Line Assembly's HardWired CD, was the insiration for a riot-gas that was also a hallucinogen (but only when it broke down, such as under high temperatures of mid-summer heat waves). Rioters dispersed from one riot would come out the next day with the effects of mindless aggression, hallucinations, paranoia and so on... Riots spread, and the media sources became unreliable as more and more medias succumbed to the side effects of being exposed to small amounts of the gas on a regular basis during their reports and investigations. This was used as the backdrop for a game involving the attempted assassination of a PC, and the Assassin's defection to the PC group and their attempts to shake the assassin's assassin.
EINE AUSGESPROCHENE VERBINDUNG VON SCHLAU UND DUMM
This article is dedicated to Ilona Johanny, who introduced me to Industrial music. I don't know where she is anymore, so I hope you play your industrial music loud enough for her to hear it.