@TerminalThe third element I largely see as just a component of it. Of course there are "good" people and there can be, but most of who the players are going to be dealing with, keeping with the cyberpunk theme, are morally questionable. Everyone sort of is to some extent, even philosophically. Being augmented and covered in chrome might be beautiful, even to the point of obsession, or sickening. Just as doing the "right thing" might not be the good thing in all cases. That gives it that sort of hazy cling about an already uncertain future I think. There is nothing definitive there, just saying that most everyone, players likely as well aren't much of "good" people. People trying to get by in a predatory environment, however? That is likely.
As for the doings of the lieutenant and the consequences, I see it as a sort of issue where everyone will have their hand in the jar and no one is going to get what they want. The gangs obviously want their cyberware and they want it
now, meaning helping or hurting him to get it, all at the same time the actual police are trying to investigate it while the corporate overlords are doing the same thing trying to keep the other three, plus any outer parties, far away. For the group of players themselves it becomes a question of, "What's the
best thing to do?" and I am fond of that.
@BangoSkankThe world of a consumerist future as with cyberpunk generally tend to be highly globalized in the major cities, as those you listed, and anyone outside of them are left in the wayside and dust; sometimes in the literal sense. Many of those locations in the stories of this genre tend to be nuclear wastelands or otherwise totally irrelevant. Governments are corrupt and defunct, mostly owned in every sense, even transparent enough for people to be jaded to it, by megacorporations who have their hands in everything. Imagine buying gas, food, and water from only
one company. While being completely dominated there, there is a plethora of competing and massive heads of technology; cyberware of various sorts and models is plentiful and expensive, with every corporation out to steal the other's secrets or run them out of business. Buying them out is considered a kind way to cease to exist.
For myself I always liked the idea of tiered approaches and zones, say no-go zones which are basically the slums where only the armed and armored police go and are ruled by gangs and low-level criminals, then of course the major, ultra dense, overly saturated metropolis locations where skyscrapers cram the heart of a city. My personal preference for this is California, Los Angeles or San Francisco because of the sprawl and say, a massive buildup over it, surrounded by huge concrete barriers and walls.
As for dystopia, yes, expect plenty of low resolution cameras but few belonging to the government. The sort of assumption that if you are on corporate territory things are alarmed or watched to some extent but nothing like London today. More dysfunctional and cynical than that. Say, where getting mugged or stabbed is common place as a real threat still if you go down the wrong isle between buildings and a camera might be watching, but the corporate security shrug and "get around to it" when they can.
My general feeling is that technology varies wildly and people with money flaunt it. Headvisors to replace eyes, internal cellphones and credit devices, artificial livers and kidneys, implants for memory or knowledge circuitry, robotic hands that could be replaced and removed with false flesh ones, chrome, matte black, etc, while the poorest of people haven't even a phone at all. I really suspect a full gambit given the tone
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