Corporation is a cyberpunk-themed RPG published by Brutal Games set five hundred years in the future, where five huge corporations battle for control of the planet under the watchful eyes of the United International Government.
The players are `Agents` in service of these Corporations, highly trained cyborgs who don't feel pain and laugh off organ trauma thank to their upgrades.
There are five main Corporations in the world.
Ai-Jinn: Formed out of almost every organised crime group in the world, the Ai-Jinn control the China, the Middle East and much of Southeast Asia. Their legitimate business is heavy manufacturing, mining and industry. They also have unique access to Far Drive, the setting's Faster Than Light travel mechanism.
Comoros: Controls India and Africa. Comoros are the poorest of the Corporations, but they also possess the most powerful psychics in the setting. They are in charge of education and culture, and also fund a lot of other projects, from charity work to terrorism.
Eurasian Incorporated: Formed from a merger of the EU with Russia, EI is by far the richest corporation, owning an entire planet built for them by the Ai-Jinn. They run medical care services and leisure facilities, and their agents are known for being wild and hedonistic...and extremely undisciplined.
Shi Yukiro: Rule Japan and create most hi-tech electronics. They specalise in high tech electronics; most computer systems in the world are made by them. Their agents are given special ion weapons, usually katanas, when they reach a certain level.
Western Federation: Control North America in a police state. The WF creates and sells most of the world's firearms, and run a tight, military culture within their corporation's ranks. They also control the media shown, meaning that their agent's brave deeds in the field are often filmed and shown to the masses.
The UIG, a combination of national governments stops these Corporations breaking out into out and out warfare, partially due to the alien technology given to them super-advanced A.I.s found on Venus called the Archons. Instead, underground, covert operations are the order of the day, and, if the players are caught, they may lose all their rights in a process called depersonalisation, under the UIG's harsh laws.
Uses a 2D10 system rolling under a target (usually stat+skill).
Tropes:
- Arm Cannon: There's a cybernetic for that.
- Applied Phlebotinum: All technology in the game has this to some extent, but the UIG have this. The UIG have all of this. Thanks, Archons.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Everywhere. The first sapient human AI, Mineva, nuked France. Most A.I.s that gain sapience follow this root.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: Agents are all over this trope, as evidenced by the cover for the revised edition corebook. Word of God has it that while Corporation's world fits into the rough genre of cyberpunk, it is explicitly not a cyberpunk game. Agents are professional executive troubleshooters and the cyberware and large gun comes with a suit and tie attached, there is nothing "punk" about them.
- Big Brother Is Employing You: Especially if you are working for the UIG but since all Agents get the Law enforcement license for free at character creation it applies to everyone.
- Bigger Stick: Eurasian Inc. solve every problem by throwing money at it. Accordingly, they favor "nuke" Agents for combat, using heavy area-effect weapons to reduce every problem to a smoking crater and letting insurance payouts cover the collateral damage. Accuracy is optional, and surgical strikes go against the corporate culture.
- Body Horror: The Cult of Machina, hoo boy, the Cult of Machina. Nevermind the fact that most of their cybernetics are literally ripped out of other people's bodies or cobbled together DIY-style, the really lucky cultists like to implant Active Naninium under their skin, a kind of nanotech machine cancer that slowly starts to transform their entire body into a giant metal tumour.
- Chunky Salsa Rule: The main book provides rules for limb servering, including head (Survivable with the right cyberware, including potential for the classical skeleton/zombie scene of "where is my head"). Later books have introduced limb pulping rules, for close encounters with such events as shotgun blasts.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Averted by the Ai-Jinn. Yes, they're the government in China. Yes, they make most of their money off of heavy industry, construction, mining and space. But they're still The Syndicate at heart, hiring criminals as Agents, built around criminal clans, and they're still running the old standbys of gambling and protection rackets.
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Averted. Cybernetics usually have a positive effect on human psychology. The only side-effects are an increase in the food you need to eat each day and an increased probablity that cyborgs called the Cult of Machina will rip them out of you and leave you in a dumpster. Though this is hinted at several times in the core, it doesn't appear to actually come into play.
- Death World: Miller-Urey, a UIG-owned artificial planetoid ordered into six distinct biomes intended for biological experimentation off-Earth where there is less chance of anything dangerous getting loose. Considering that most of the corporations use it for testing bioweapons it pretty much deserves the trope.
- Deflector Shields: Hard Ion Shields, which can be fitted to vehicles or people sized ones. Lasers can be calibrated to go through them.
- Duct Tape for Everything: Endorsed by celebrity Agent, Tex Calahan himself, Tex Tape has a breaking strain of 300Kg and 100Kg of force per 10cm of tape used.
- Dyson Sphere: Not yet in-setting but Ai-Jinn is currently working on several megastructures, one of which is a series of interlocking solar panels to be built in orbit over the sun. They did ponder the possibility of building a dyson sphere but thought the other corporations might object rather vigorously, especially as they'd need to break down the Earth for raw materials.
- Future Food Is Artificial: Most of the worlds' food supply is manufactured by the UIG-run Multymeat Corporation, with such delicious comestibles on offer as Smork artificial pork (now in smoothie form!), Conana synthetic banana, Snoutie-Bites and Egg-U-Like (in strawberry, curry and mint flavours, with anti-cancer additives! An Egg-U-Like a day keeps cellular mutogenesis at bay!)
- Gone Horribly Right: This is Gemini Bioware's modus operandi. They take genetics and create blood curdling monstrosities labelled BI Os which the UIG have banned on Earth.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Although Gemini are equally happy with this outcome, since an escaped BIO is effectively a field tested BIO.
- Hand Signals: WF military sign.
- Healing Factor: Those with Biokinesis are able to heal themselves, even in the middle of combat.
- Healing Hands: Whereas those with the training Biokine can heal others.
- Humongous Mecha: Cyberlins, the Corporations' weapons of surgically applied mass destruction. Come in a variety of shapes and sizes but most qualify as Humongous Mecha.
- Immortality Begins at Twenty:
- Agents age as normal humans, then age veeerrryyy slloooowly once augmented. Average age of becoming an agent is mid-20s.
- Most Spire-dwellers can get the same if they want; anagathic technology is affordable for the typical Spire-living elite and widely available, aging in the Corporation universe is a lifestyle choice... well, unless you're poor.
- Invisibility: Invisibility Fields are incredibly expensive, burn out after a single use, but give massive bonuses to stealth. Telepaths with the ability Cloak can also perform this.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Yes and no. Katanas as such aren't anything special, but they're the iconic weapons of the Shi Yukiro samurai, and ion melee weapons really are just better.
- La Résistance: The American Underground are the Western Federation's only real weakness since they exist within their territory solely as a result of and stand in opposition to WF culture. As such the other corporations continually fund the American Underground since it is their best way of undermining the Western Federation.
- MegaCorp: Most of the planet is owned by them.
- Mind over Matter: Telekinesis is a common psychic power used by telepaths.
- Oh, Crap!: Pretty much any normal day for agents is this trope for civilians. See Also: Malenbrach for agents, or cyberlins at any time.
- Organ Theft: Chopping someone up for their organs is a quick source of cash. The PCs can do it too if they terminate someone in the course of their duty (or capture non-persons and deliver them intact to a chop shop!).
- Outlaw: Someone marked as a criminal has no rights and may be disposed of at anyone's leisure. Being Made a Slave or subjected to Organ Theft are just two of the happy fates that might await them.
- Pleasure Planet: Eurasian Inc. has one, Vastaag, built for them by the Ai-Jinn. More of a planetoid, really, but still a freakin' massive artificial structure.
- Powered Armor: Cyberframes, fully armoured servo-assisted battlesuits controlled through a neural interface. Not originally intended for military use, they were used by macroconstruction workers in deep space until the cyborg terrorist Cult of Machina started fusing them with their bodies and going on rampages.
- Psychic Powers: Telepaths are capable of a host of psychic abilities.
- Resignations Not Accepted: Even more than most corporations, Shi Yukiro has a no-defections policy. If you're born a Shi Yukiro citizen, you're in the corporation for life, and Rōnin are hunted mercilessly.
- Sanity Slippage: A side effect of prolonged piloting of Cyberlins. Termed immersion psychosis in universe; when an individual spends too long jacked into these vehicles they steadily lose their mind, becoming megalomaniacal and suffering from delusions of grandeur or godhood. Interestingly this comes hand in hand with a decreased ability to function outside of piloting Cyberlins and a drastic improvement in piloting them.
- Spider-Sense: One of the many applications of the Prescience power.
- The Syndicate: The Ai-Jinn are a crime syndicate that's become a legit corporation in its own right, but they're still heavily involved in criminal activities.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: In Eurasian Inc., accuracy and conserving ammo are for losers, and collateral damage is just fine. Their iconic soldiers are their heavy weapons dudes.
- Truce Zone: The Eastern Bank and other Capital Code Zones are supposed to be this. While in most places, lawbreaking by Agents barely gets a slap on the wrist, here the law is in full, "we really mean it" force even for them. Of course, this means that the real rule is "don't get caught."
- Unit Confusion: As mentioned before, the description of Tex Tape gives force in units of Kilograms. This is of course, nonsensical.
- Upper-Class Twit: Eurasian Inc. Agents are expected to flash their bling and act like rich assholes.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: Comoros. For the greater good, they'll conquer the world.
- We Have Reserves: According to EI analysts, Comoros' telepathic Agents cost far less on a man-to-man basis than any other corporation's, which means that they can afford to fight a war of attrition and expect to come out ahead.
