Nuts & Bolts #114 - Inspirational - Into the Badlands

I got clued onto Into the Badlands a while back, but it wasn't until it recently hit Netflix that I was able to actually watch the first season. I can honestly say it was worth the wait. Into the Badlands (ItB from here out) is the kind of show that refuses labels. It's got martial arts, but it's not really a "kung fu" show. It's set in a post-apocalyptic world, but it's not really a post-apocalyptic show. It takes and fuses elements of a number of genres includes the aforementioned into something unique.

Though tough to pin down from a genre perspective the show can easily inspire any number of genres. What stands out to me is how little world building the show uses during the first season, and yet how well that works. The show sets up its world with a minimalist flair that both paints in broad strokes while also providing small snippets of detail.

Here's the opening narration:

The wars were so long ago nobody even remembers. Darkness and fear ruled until the time of the barons, seven men and women who forged order out of chaos. People flocked to them for protection. That protection became servitude. They banished guns and trained armies of lethal fighters they called Clippers. This world is built on blood. Nobody is innocent here. Welcome to the Badlands.

That's not a lot of specific detail, but it also tells us a lot. Broadly we know that the titular badlands are ruled over by a society that is more or less feudal, with Barons controlling vast tracts of land and the people who work them like the serfs of old. These Barons each control some kind of resource trade, petroleum, opium, minerals and the like. There's a tenuous peace between the Barons at the outset. Oh yeah, and the the barons also have armies of martial arts trained thugs.

Beyond that initial setup he later learn that somewhere beyond the badlands is a city that may or may not be legend known as Azra. There's also a river that runs through the badlands and is controlled by "The River King" who is not a baron but has both their respect and a similar purview of power.

Once you get into the show a bit we see that remnants of the old world exist. Motorcycles. Cars. Phonographs. There seems to be a lack of electronics but many early 20th century technologies seem to be at least semi-common. Less is more in creating the world. Broad strokes set the canvas of the setting and the detail slowly fills in with each episode on an as needed basis.

I said that I didn't think this was really a post-apocalypse show, and I stick by that, it's more like a post-post-apocalypse show. The usual themes of a post-apocalypse tale are gone. Resources are available, society has returned in some way, and scavenging seems to be a thing of the past. In some ways this reminds me of Numenera, it's a setting about living in the society that has grown up in the corpse of the old world and lives among its bones.

While ItB isn't post-apocalyptic in its themes it can still be useful for a GM. The way that the setting is laid out would work just as well for a more traditional post-apocalyptic setting. Those same broad strokes will allow your players to easily grasp the generalities of the setting while the limited detail and very narrow view of the story at the start will keep them from being overwhelmed by setting download syndrome. You can even use your players to help flesh out the setting by taking the ideas they have for their characters and expanding on them in little, or big, ways. Minimal effort, maximum return.

The second season of ItB started recently, and I imagine it'll make it to Netflix in due time. I'm eager for it to do so because I'm curious to see how else they develop the setting.

Inspirational - Person of Interest

This is a trial of a new column that may become a semi-regular feature. We'll see how it goes. If you want to see more posts like this please comment, if not, do nothing and I'll take the hint.

So I stopped paying for (live) TV back in 2015. I was traveling a lot for work at the time and paying for cable when I wouldn't be around much to watch seemed silly. It proved an easy life change and I never went back. I do still pay for Netflix, and I have Amazon Prime, so when I heard that the last season of Person of Interest was on Netflix I decided to finish the series by rewatching it from the get-go.

Turns out Person of Interest (POI) is cyberpunk as hell and I hadn't noticed till now.

Oh, and by the by, there'll be spoilers within....

A note, while I think POI is cyberpunk I don't think it represents what most gamers picture as cyberpunk because it is decidedly NOT Shadowrun, Cyberpunk 2020, or Interface Zero. Granted it's not your typical trope laden cyberpunk in the way that you might expect.

It's its own thing and that's fine. Actually it's great because it makes POI different and, in a way, new.

The core premise of the show is different. It's less about big corporations and more about big brother. It's about artificial intelligence, privacy, how technology is changing the way that we live. It's also about power in many forms and almost all of the sub-stories involve power struggles.

Characters & Archetypes

• Harold Finch & Root - Hackers - These character's can navigate the digital world in ways that allow them access to information hidden from most of us, and information is power. Finch is almost pure hacker, whereas Root is more of a "combat hacker" or "practical hacker" but both are very capable in their own ways.
• John Reese & Sameen Shaw - Combat & Covert Ops Specialists - I'd argue that Reese is the prototype of a Street Samurai, and Shaw is more of an Operative but regardless these characters are highly trained in intelligence gathering, covert surveillance, and combat in all forms. Both are more than capable of taking on multiple assailants when needed, though even they can't be more than one place at a time.
• Lionel Fusco & Joss Carter - Investigators - These two have the connections to resources that can't be hacked and/or cannot be obtained via less than legal means. It pays to have connections on the honest side of the street. Both Carter and Fusco also know their way around a firearm which helps to provide backup for the specialists or allow the team to spread resources farther. 
• Zoe Morgan - The Face - When the POI regulars need a little extra diplomacy they often call on Zoe for her skills with applying a different form of pressure to people. Zoe allows them the option to blackmail, dirty deal, trade in secrets, and similar. 

But wait what about cyborgs and the man-machine interface themes? What about the trans-human themes involved with genetic modifications and cybernetic modifications? Well Root is technically a cyborg, though a very minor one, with her cochlear implant granting direct access to the Machine. Decima also toyed with brain interface and control once Samaritan was running and we don't know if they had any level of success. 

The Machine and Samaritan also tie in some of the post-humanist themes. Finch is afraid of the Machine, especially after the machine's "reboot," and his fears come from his understanding that an intelligence as vastly beyond human as the AIs are could very easily begin to view us in the way we view pets or even insects. 

POI may not be the chrome and mirror shades Cyberpunk that probably comes to mind most often when people think of the theme, but I believe that it is most certainly a cyberpunk series and in its own way it shows us that cyberpunk need not be limited to that stereotype of post-modern dystopia.