"Generate an artpunk OSR scenario"
The players are members of an underground art collective known as the Velvet Revolution. They've just landed a commission from the wealthy and eccentric art patron, Baroness de Vries, to create a masterpiece that will shock the city to its core. The catch? The Baroness has given them just three days to complete the work, and the clock is ticking.
As the players set out to create their magnum opus, they soon find themselves embroiled in a web of intrigue and danger. They must navigate the city's dangerous streets, avoiding the roving gangs of cyberpunks and mutant freaks that roam the city, while also fending off the machinations of rival art collectives who will stop at nothing to steal the commission out from under them.
But as they work on their masterpiece, the players begin to uncover a sinister plot that threatens the very fabric of reality itself. A shadowy figure known only as the Archon is using the power of art to reshape the city in his image, and he will stop at nothing to achieve his twisted vision.
To stop the Archon and save the city, the players must delve deep into the neon-lit heart of Neonburg, facing off against his army of twisted creations and navigating a maze of mind-bending art installations. Along the way, they'll encounter a cast of strange and colorful characters, from avant-garde poets to rogue AI systems, and they'll need all of their wits and creativity to survive.
In the end, the players must create a work of art that is not only visually stunning but also powerful enough to counteract the Archon's influence and restore balance to the city. Will they be able to rise to the challenge and create a masterpiece that will save Neonburg, or will they fall victim to the city's dark underbelly? The fate of the city is in their hands.
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Don't think I'm going home just yet: this feels...pretty generic. A skeleton of a scenario, and the rival Art Gangs/Power of Art element is, if not hackneyed, a staple of Arthouse-bracket Speculative Fiction. 'A shadowy figure known only as the Archon'? Might as well call him the Dark Lord. Likewise, the most effective Cyberpunk media probably doesn't call anyone Cyberpunks.
ReplyDeleteI think that the Techno-Djinn has spat out something Arty and Punky (or -punky), rather than something done with the sensibilities and/or principles of Artpunk (as I discern them). Hence the emphasis on Neonburg, a city right in the heightened familiar dangerous-teeming-colourful-diverse-beautiful mould. I suspect something that would be widely recognised as Artpunk could be set in (for instance) a hyper-regulated industrial landscape, a rural idyll, a provincial town.....
But this is going too deep into the fruitless 'define sub-genre X' waters, so I shall stop.
No, I agree with you completely (and I wondered who would be the first person to take issue with the deliberately provocative title!) Every piece of writing I've seen generated in this manner exhibits this regression-to-the-mean vanillaisation. This is slightly better than most (I quite like "avant-garde poets to rogue AI systems"), but only slightly. After generating this response I tried a few more, to see whether it could up with something better, but if anything they got worse as they went on.
DeleteI do think it could be handy for generating ideas though (particularly if given a more detailed prompt). I'd never really thought before about the idea of players creating art, and am now wondering what sort of mechanic would make that work (subject of a future post...)
Incidentally I'm sure it has some model of "OSR" style, but I think "artpunk" is too niche for it to know anything about. All of the generated content featured both art and punks.
This is not bad, weirdly close to some ideas I've been starting to think about haha.
ReplyDelete