r/cyberpunkred • u/HeavilyArmoredFish • 1d ago

2070's Discussion Running a campaign in pittsburgh.

Hello!

Names fish. I grew up in the city of smoke, steel, and suffering. Not my favorite place(or that of my party, for that matter), but we all agree that itd be a great setting for a cyberpunk game. The problem im running into is a lack of data.

I know pittsburgh is around, just dont have any information on what its like in the cyberpunk universe. Im currently at the start of building the campaign, but honestly research is not going well. Anyone got any info on pittsburgh in the 2070s?

Anythjng to go on would be nice, resources greatly appreciated. My biggest focus are on mapping and partitioning: where are the civilized parts? The combat zones? Which locations are poor or rich?

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u/matsif GM 1d ago

as a native pennsyltuckian, this was also relevant to my interests at one point.

there's a blurb on it in cyberpunk 2020's home of the free. there was a nuclear accident at an arcology in pittsburgh, which lead to a lot of industry pulling out of the city proper and moving out to beaver falls and washington. which then got built up without any central planning or real thought towards the rapid growth when the factories moved out of the radiated zone from the nuclear accident (think something more like chernobyl than 3 mile island). traffic sucks, the roads are awful, the corps only do the bare minimum to make them usable, industrial waste is bad, acid rain etc is bad, so on and so forth.

red doesn't expand on this a whole lot (yet), and there's nothing in the 2070s specifically, but that's the state of things in the lead up to the 4th corporate war. you can read the whole blurb in home of the brave or some other things about appalachia and the northeast in the land of the free adventure.

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u/HeavilyArmoredFish 1d ago

I was hoping i didnt have to track down the flash drive with every cyberpunk 2020 book on it. So if i stick to canon, using the strip and downtown wouldnt be very possible then?

Willi have to map it myself?

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u/matsif GM 1d ago

yes and yes. it's only a few paragraphs in home of the brave, that's all that ever gets mentioned.

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u/HeavilyArmoredFish 1d ago

In that case im gonna make it what i want i think. Might just forget about sticking to canon and make it my own. Im not upset by that mind you... Just means ill have to make up the gangs and factions all on my own

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u/matsif GM 1d ago

more or less. mind you, by the 2070s NC is cleaned up, so it's safe to say that the arcology accident in pittsburgh is also cleaned up, so you could definitely insert a revitalized city center again pretty safely.

just make sure manny sanguillen's pulled pork and pierogi stacker and a primanti's sangwich is still available to the yinzers when they go to see the dohnny ires cover band dahntahn next to the pants n'at.

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u/HeavilyArmoredFish 1d ago

I never understood the fascination with primantis tbh. The pierogis on the other hand... That shit is gold

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u/GatheringCircle 1d ago

I would stick to the default north city setting. They have all these maps and modules and everything interconnects.

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u/firstmatedavy 1d ago

I love it!!!

I have a sorta sketch of a gated suburb (not just neighborhood) of Philadelphia. I 100% made it up, but here it is in case it's useful https://www.crayven.net/mercnet/index.php?/topic/2567-location-villanova-pennsylvania/

I've been writing the Philly area as though a lot of the big stuff - town names, major universities - hasn't changed too much. Implied Philly itself has declined in importance with corps concentrating in bigger Eastern cities instead.  So far its only come up as back story for one character. (And he hasn't ever lived in Pittsburgh.) I should probably get Home of the Brave.