change the setting to real life and we're golden.

bye bye, Donald Trump.

>>37706897
already exists

Reminds me of Red Jenny from Dragon Age

This is awesome.


"Yea I got my big brake in crowdfunding. Kikstarted enough money for an m14 and shot some cheating husband. Before I new it, I had a minigun and exoskelton, and now I assasinate entire governments. So don't give up guys!!!"

>>37706897
Haha, that's fantastic, great idea, especially with the setting.

>>37706897
what are the stretch goals?

>>37706897
I actually had a similar idea to this.

HeadKicker, the site for crowdfunded bounties. That way, if someone's a big enough asshole to piss off multiple people, they can pool their money together and entice professional killers instead of learning to be vigilantes.

Of course, HK is gonna take a huge cut of the profits, but that's business.

>>37707165
>>37706897
Wouldn't that lead to every famous person dying within three months? Even really stupid and ill-conceived Kickstarters get funded if they have a famous name or popular reference behind them, and a campaign to kill a famous person would probably count.

But then again, maybe that would be for the best. Imagine a world where everyone is famous for fifteen minutes and then dies. High turnover among public figures means that every political office has strict term limits, artists die at their peak before they can go stale or sell out, and people who are famous for no good reason will not trouble the planet for long.

>>37707299
>High turnover among public figures means that every political office has strict term limits

Shadow governments intensify

>>37707299

assassinations aren't all that cheap.

>>37707299
>Wouldn't that lead to every famous person dying within three months?
>>37707165 here
Yeah, that was my main issue with reconciling the idea into a larger setting. I was thinking of having the original poster have to have some sort of proof of their wrongdoing and contributors can also post their own proof if they have any, but it would also be fun to have some of those ill thought out bounties akin to some of the godawful kickstarters your see.

Something like "Anna was a big dumb meanie who stole my favorite pencil today! I'll give you five dollars and one of my mom's homemade cookies to go beat her up! -Kelly, Age 11".
>But then again, maybe that would be for the best. Imagine a world where everyone is famous for fifteen minutes and then dies. High turnover among public figures means that every political office has strict term limits, artists die at their peak before they can go stale or sell out, and people who are famous for no good reason will not trouble the planet for long.
Now this would be interesting for a setting centered around the concept instead of just being a fun little take on bounty hunting.

>>37707299
>Wouldn't that lead to every famous person dying within three months?

And the problem is? Especially the little shits famous for being famous.

>>37707160
We'll also burn down their house

>>37707431
Kickstarters raise ten times their goals as a matter of routine. The amount of money raised has little or no correlation to the amount of money needed. It could be the best-paying job an assassin ever took.

>>37707395
Yes, they would. Only idiots would become conspicuously famous on purpose in such a world. Of course, there's no shortage of idiots.

>>37707435
> I was thinking of having the original poster have to have some sort of proof of their wrongdoing
If we're using today's internet culture as a model, people don't especially care about evidence in the court of public opinion. Presumption of innocence until proven guilty is an idea that's losing popularity.

>>37707299
Constant assassination threats like this to important figures could justify the militaristic levels of security common to cyberpunk settings, and create a market for hired bodyguards.

>>37707042
Not >I kickstarted enough money for an industrial grade 3D printer and then printed an m14.

Do you even future?

That aside, I can also see people trying to use crowdfunding sites to hold the world hostage. Raise X number of dollars or I activate my nuclear device, kind of thing.

Or freelance intelligence operatives using crowfunding to leverage their secrets, either selling them to backers, with higher backer-levels getting their dirt sooner so they can react faster, and stretch goals earning more interesting stuff, or promising to publish all their intel at the end of the campagin unless the goal is met, with backers being able to have their secrets held back for X level of investment.

Of course you'd want to make damn sure that you couldn't be tracked through your crowdfunding platform in any of those cases.

>>37707616
>Uh, boss is the cavity check in addition to retinal scan and loyalty pills really necisary?
My bounty is currently at 3.5 million credits. Went up .5 mill over lunch.

>>37707837
>Of course you'd want to make damn sure that you couldn't be tracked through your crowdfunding platform in any of those cases.

Enter the cyberpunkian mob-run crowdfunding platforms.

>>37706897
>The Idea - Crowdfunded Assassinations

I have a perfect name for this campaign!

Kickstopper.

>>37708103
>>not killstarter

>>37708103
Even Headkicker was better than that.

>>37707435
Assassins would have a pretty high fucking turnover. They'd basically turn into crowdfunded gladiator matches. "I wanna hire Quickshot to try and kill Thunderfucker"

>Dude, kickass,
>I wanna see this!
>Quickshot is a fag, I'm paying just to see him kill that pussy

>>37708161
>>37708194
You guys are just jealous that I came up with an awesome name.

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>>37708161
I was going to suggest this.

While many kickstarters reach or exceed their goals don't a lot of them end up not delivering?
How does that work in this case - the pool that you contribute to to hasten somebodies death only pays out when the target is confirmed dead?

Also I think kickstarters can be used for money laundering?

>>37708431
You contribute a percentage of the current pot with a "prediction" of when the target's going to die. The percentage is such that by guessing costs you more than the expected return. If the site admin confirms the death to have happened at the time you specified, you get the cash. Or bitcoins, as the case may be.

Admin takes a cut, they're happy, and the community can sweeten the deal for potential hitmen by contributing to the pot without a prediction.

Crowdfunded assassinations are an idea older than the idea of crowdfunding itself, and would have actually worked on a principle similar to a celebrity death pool. Certain people would "bet" on the date of someone's assassination, and whoever "predicted" the correct date would take the pot. The people who came up with this idea specifically hoped it would make the turnover rate for any public office so high that organized government would collapse.

>>37706897
kickstop their hearts

>>37708161
Surely, if they're getting the money ONLY AFTER the kill, it's more like slaytreon

>>37708587
that's actually quite a workable solution, the 'predictions' would have to be secret to stop both the targets from defending themselves and other people from 'stealing' parts of the profit, however the total pool would be public

>>37708715
Fairly certain it's done with encrypted predictions, sent in advance and decrypted with a key you pass the administrator after the event.

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>>37708587
That seems less "crowdfunding", more betting pool.

I guess I was thinking more along the lines of a "kill whoever" "project" is launched, with a description of why that person should die, which people contribute to.
The pot is then used to buy the services of hitmen, with the help of the admin (sometimes corp, sometimes criminal, there's little to no difference).

Some guys or teams will make it known that they do certain jobs "will work on any contracts against Pro Starcraft players that reach over $250k", while others don't advertise and just approach any pots they feel are large enough to be worth the risk.

People can also bid against an assassination - though whether this is more or less effective than a security team is hard to say

This would be even more interesting if people were allowed to spend money to reduce the bounty*. That way the really rich fuckers still get vigilantes after them, allowing for further conflicts.

* And get this: The proceeds of anti-bounty income goes to worthy charities. Even if the Headkicker funding meets it's goal.

It's about ethics in video game assassination!
On a more serious note, if I ran a SR game I'd totally hand the runners jobs funded by cyberdeck warriors.

You know this idea also helps show why corporations may have rose to power in the first place.
>Public Officials keep getting geeked.
>Government effectively collapses
>Corps can afford good security
>Corps step in to run shit
>cyberpunk intensifies

>>37709722
...that makes a disturbing amount of sense...

>>37707165
>Of course, HK is gonna take a huge cut of the profits, but that's business.
Actually, thanks to capitalism, competition would push the website's profit into the bare minimum it needs to keep the server ticking over.

>>37706897
it's all the egocentric validation of ideology of a lynch mob or a riot with none of the personal risk or constant organization issues of rallying large numbers of stupid people: genius

>>37710637
>Actually, thanks to capitalism, competition would push the website's profit into the bare minimum it needs to keep the server ticking over.
It would, were it not for the fact that HK keeps on assassinating their competition, thus giving them a monopoly.
Also, price fixing is a thing.

>>37707837
Even better, use crowdfunding to determine which megacorporation you fire your horrible homemade salting nuke at. Stretch goals include the chance to have your name on a piece of the shrapnel or include a message to a friend in the atomic fire.

>>37707165
the target could also counter bid

>>37712086
one would assume that it would be very hard to find the physical location and identities of your competition because all of this would take place on the darknet to avoid authorities.

>>37712086
If they spend all their money on assassins they're going to have less profit left over than if they'd just cut their prices in the first place.

Also, cartel breaking is a thing.

>>37712233
Yeah, look how well that worked out with silk road.
My favorite bit is where the goverment agents said "Hey, look over there!" and ran off with his laptop when he wasn't looking.

>>37712265
the silk road worked for a while, and even if there was a sizable attrition rate there would still be competition if the demand was high enough.

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>>37706897
Pretty sure humanity would end up complete shut-ins and public identities would refer to people who may not exist or are played by multiple actors pretty quick.

>>37712265
>the goverment agents said "Hey, look over there!" and ran off with his laptop when he wasn't looking

Did that actually happen? The only sources I've found say they seized his laptop either after/when they arrested him.

>>37714022
Sorta. He logged into his laptop at a public library. Then, two goverment agents pretended to be having a violent breakup, and a third ran off with his laptop before they arrested him. (They nicked it before they arrested him because if he logged himself in to the laptop, they wouldn't have to go through the effort of breaking the encryption.)
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/how-the-feds-took-down-the-dread-pirate-roberts/

>>37714297
And on that note, it turns out buttcoins are less anonymous than fiat. (Paper fiat that is.)
http://www.wired.com/2015/01/prosecutors-trace-13-4-million-bitcoins-silk-road-ulbrichts-laptop/

I love the idea, totally stealing the next time I run or play shadowrun, either as a side quest, the main focus, or my characters day job.

>>37714554

No shit. Do people not read the spec or something? It's triple-entry accounted. It is the most traceable form of currency currently in existence.

>>37707603
>Kickstarters raise ten times their goals as a matter of routine. The amount of money raised has little or no correlation to the amount of money needed. It could be the best-paying job an assassin ever took.

but htat's often due to additional stretch goals - what would be the stretch goals for an assassination? Bonus assassinations, kill an actor, kill their wife if we get double the original goal? disseminate information or objects the target had to backers? Go-Pro killcams of the deed? body parts for high tier backers?

>>37721083
>Body parts for high tier backers

I could see a sideline organ trafficking ring developing between the Kickstarter assassins and certain backers who just contribute to any crowdfunded murder they in order to receive livers and hearts and whatnot.

>>37721083
Using specific methods to kill them?
>$10,000; I'll put a high powered bullet through his head from 200 yards
>$20,000; I'll infiltrate his house and put a pistol round in his head
>$50,000; I'll wait until he goes to the bathroom, and then detonate the block of C4 I left waiting for him!

Or something. Obviously they couldn't be too specific, or the target might know how to avoid the assassination.
>"Ah ah ah! Can't kill me with that gun, I know you're supposed to beat me with a floppy dildo!"

>>37721083
>go pro
stilltwitching.tv

>>37721622
It could be part of the challenge, with internet-celebrity assassins streaming the whole thing with a delay.

>Shiet, guys, you raised so much money today is going to be special. I'll be streaming this drek LIVE, starting in two hours. Strawpoll picks the method. Go!

>>37721648
You'd end up weird cross-over campaigns as stretch goals, too.

>Alright Killas and Killettes, Wally Wetwork here. For this next job you've all raised a whopping $25,000, so I was able to bring in the very cool Ms. Skullkicker to work with me one this one. I'm a big fan of Ms. Skullkicker's work, and I'm really looking forward to this one.

>Thanks, Wally. For you viewers at home, I'm an infiltration and close-quarters specialist, so I'm going to be handling that end of things for you while Wally provides the top notch ranged support that makes these kinds of campaigns successful.

>Thanks, Skull, that's kind of you to say. Alright, Killas and Killettes, we're going to be moving into our safehouse to get ready soon, so things will be dark for a little while. We'll report back when the action starts. Wally and Skullkicker out!

>>37721648
And then the target orders every subordinate and friend to vote for floppy dildo.
This sounds like a fun game to run in something like GURPS or Shadowrun. A group of Killstarter hotshots on their road to fame, money, and killing actors with bowling pins while dressed as a kombat wombat.

>>37721804
>the entire strategy of a pumishingly hard mission based around getting a guy in a goofy suit and using ineffective weapons into close quarters with Vin Diesel for long enough to make a kill.

This has a surprising amount of potential. Fuck, I'll GM it for you guys if we can get 3 or 4 people.

>>37707160
Public desecration of the corpse.

>>37721932
>stretch goals
>public desecration
okay, I laughed

No more Twitch plays pokemon.
Twitch murders Maclemore.


The possebilities...

>>37709092
>>37712225
Separate projects for counter-assassins. Like a popstar's fans see your drive to get him shot and start their own to hit your hitman first, then you're both racing over stretch goals to hire badder and badder dudes.

>God damn it, they hit their mark to get Jango Fett! We need Deathstroke now, I'm increasing my pledge!

>>37722865

Of course this can only lead to WarStarters between the equivalent of Beibers fans and One Direction fans.

>>37707160
Highest donation received a body part of the victim, or head as default if they don't want to choose.

>>37724270

Well remember there's several hundred bones in the human body - it'd probably be undamaged internal organs for the highest donaters and tiers, then miscellaneous body parts and bones in various conditions, the lowest tier of which would be finger and toe bones just above "bespoke organic sausage filling made from th target"

>>37706897
this already exist in real life

how it works:
https://web.archive.org/web/20041209151654/http://jya.com/ap.htm

>>37724462
>several hundred bones
~250 (assuming you count skull as one piece)

>>37724517
>ban betting like the did on brazil
>kill assacination market idea

>>37724232
Being able to counter-bid (either increasing the amount needed or by using counter-assassins) would be one method of how somebody stays alive in a position of fame/power (along with their actual security team)

And nothing says "we don't need you" quite as well as the counter-bid your company made against your assassination being withdrawn

>>37724791

There'd also be security forces for the more famous targets - basically someone like Taylor Swift would have hte money to be able to afford guards to take care of the legions of punks dressed in pedobear costumes waving dragon dildo flame throwers around as they try to "roast her"

>>37724462
>>37724518
>several hundred
It's 206 actually.

>>37726136

2 is several enough to satisfy the $100 dollar tier of most kickstarters.

>>37707165
>Justin Bieber dead within 3 hours of the website's opening

>>37726955

>Justin Beiber concert in full swing
>suddenly people at the back of the concert start running out
>all of them repeat the same thing, over and over again
>Omar is coming yo!

>>37712265
Silk road guy fucked up by posting code from his site on a debug forum using an account that was traced back to him. If he hadn't screwed up he'd have been fine.

>>37727213

He also visited the admin pages of his site at various points over unencrypted http on public wifi.

Which is a fair bit higher up there on the retardometer.

>>37727213
>>37727261
The biggest mistake was actually kinda minor.
When SR started up, he shilled it on a forum.
The feds figured that the first person to mention it on the normal internet must have been involved in founding it.
He used his own email to create the shill accounts, thus giving the feds his name.

>>37724791

Certain positions and titles in society would come with a counter-bidding package in the event of an assassination Headkicker.

>>37706897
Would not work in Cyberpunk because it gives too much power to mob justice.

(Which most cyberpunk settings actually need because to *be* cyberpunk the rule of law has to be perverted into something that is no longer worth defending)

>>37730015

If you think about it, mob justice a la Headkicker basically ensures a tyranny of swine. It's just as bad as having heartless megacorps in control, but with the tables turned. The many oppressing the few, etc. So it'd be like a futuristic version of the French Revolution, but without end.

>>37706951
screenshot or it didn't happen

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>>37730015
hardly. the corps could smack this shit down pretty easily, but they don't, because it posses very little actual risk, and entertains the masses. serious public figures, corporate superstars, etc would have security and counter bid funds/deals set up so that headkicker doesn't end up nuked off the map by corporate powers for overstepping their bounds

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>>37732654
I would have head kicker assassins be a really minor force, just another reason somebody might get shot up among the multitudes of cartels, syndicates, cults, gangs, anarchist collectives, combat lawyers, independent contractors, and bored citizens

>>37732654
Wouldn't be cyberpunk anymore.

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>>37736187
Yeah, this.
Just another flavour of violence for a cyberpunk world, but a fun and interesting one.

Add crowdsourced assassins to the vat-grown ninjas, private police forces and para-legals that dish out death in the city streets.

>>37712260
>cartel breaking

This is cyberpunk we're talking about.

>>37737265
The harder they fall.

>>37708301
>crowdfunded gladiator matches
This is technically legal and doable now well at least with out the "to the death" part, fuck its very tempting to try.

>>37730015

Don't most corps control the populace anyway? if anything, it's just another tool for them to use in order to remain in power.

>>37738832
Robot fights?

>>37736078

Even worse: there'd be Headkicker insurance corps (who secretly run the headkicker system anyway, of course)

>>37736563
It would be Cyberpunk if the punks "won". It would be a fun little tale to show how the masses are just as bad as their oppressors.

>>37743430
Or jut plain ol' swordfightan to first blood. Or with non-lethal weapons like stunsticks.

>>37707868
>our evil megacorp won't hire any manager without bounty at least 10m.

>>37744838
Well, with robots there would be no real blood but you're free to tear the other party to pieces. Literally.

>>37707299
>people spending money to kill people
>Thinks the richest people are going to die first

That is the most retarded thing I've ever heard. illegal crowdfunding someone who has no morals and is better at killing than you is essentially giving away your money because why would they go through with it.

Why do you think your cut rate assassin would be better than tom cruise's highly paid body guard?

You're all idiots. but especially you.

>>37745021
Yeah but you can't chain up a robot's daughter above a lion pit to motivate them.

>>37745031
>killing people
>having no morals
While those two do go hand in hand at times it's not always the case.

>>37745031
>implying morals=professionalism
>implying tom cruise's highly paid body guard never clocks out

>>37745021
True, but a dude fighting a robot doesn't have the same allure as a dude fighting a dude. Especially if the audience know the robot is forbidden from killing the gladiator.

>>37745031
It's one of the reason crowdfunding has been such a success.

>A single person or entity has 10million Gcreds to spend on security.
>Targets competitor sees an opportunity and drops a couple mill on the service.
>Deathcult drops a solid half a mill on 500kGc backer reward for the genitals of target to use in their rituals and orgies
>Various organ traders do the same.
>Crowdssassin goes viral and gets a few million pledges averaging a few hundred Gc
>Single individuals resources are quickly outstripped by the shear magnitude of smaller pledges.

>>37745265
That said most of the crowdfunded hits will be suspected cheating spouses, bosses, McNeon burger and Fries managers, "that asshole who cut me off on the freeway", etc.

I picture this as a case where the assassin isn't officially hired, but instead the fund is delivered bounty style to whoever provides proof of the deed. Obviously, some considerations have to be made when the deed is illegal.

>>37707299
You're greatly overestimating the ease of assassination. It would require famous people to invest in personal security more to stave off amateur assassins after a particular bounty, but that's about it.

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>>37744333

Nah, what happens in cyberpunk is there's riots and terrorism, but the state is largely concerned with keeping the corps in power, so things can go like the peasents revolt or tianamen square for a time, and then artillery barrages of "peace gas" is dropped on rioting areas while lazsats evaporate any leadership that might emerge. Meanwhile the megacorp arcologies are too robust to lose more than a little office space to something like 9/11 or a terrorist attack.

Or things are like the Hoops in Ballad of Halo Jones: with the nightly news giving riot forcasts along with the scheduled weather.

>>37709055
>That seems less "crowdfunding", more betting pool.
A betting pool works fine now.

Besides, if you combine the two, that means that a failed assassin adds to the pot, and that seems like a fun feature for something like this to have.

>see HeadKicker project to kill my favorite actor
>instead of pledging in the counterassassination project, spend all my savings on a high tier pledge on the assassination
>Emma stone is killed
>since I pledged a lot, I get her liver
>implant her liver into myself
>now she's with me forever

>>37709055
>People can also bid against an assassination - though whether this is more or less effective than a security team is hard to say

Seems like a way to handle debts as well - offer a bounty for half what's owed, then have double the amount owed as a cancellation fee.

Debtors generally being easy enough kills that only dayjobbers and psychopaths would take those sorts of contracts for "easy money for easy kills"

>>37745462
That's a decent way to mug someone remotely, too.

Either the person you're trying to kill is going to be too well loved for it to work (actors/musicians/etc)
Too rich to be outbid (trump/other rich fucks)
Or too boring for anyone else to bother donating (Nobody is going donate money for you to kill your ex-girlfriend)


The entire concept is fucking stupid in every way.

>>37745413

I can't prove you wrong, but here's how I feel about it. You're talking about the status quo, of a genre no less. There's nothing to stop a writer from changing the narrative. That's what makes them a writer, as it happens!

>>37745101
The idea was two robots funded by separate projects facing each other.

>>37743430
no you basically get a few guy to sign on to compete, the pay them a cut, more if they win,

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>>37746549
>Nobody is going donate money for you to kill your ex-girlfriend

Hey, Zoe Quinn's ex probably would have managed it if this had been around during gamergate.

Never underestimate the ability for sad idiots to be seperated from their money so that others can do evil.

But imagine if this was around when /b/ went on one of their few noble crusades against animal abuse, or when that woman in the UK got filmed putting her neighbours cat in a bin.

People have also pointed out that it's an effective way for blackmarket organleggers to get their hands on fresh meats to resell, the amount of cash they'd have to put in for offing someone's ex would be more than repaid in the resale value of his or her organs.

Plus the possibility for BIEBERWAR is too cool to make any of the problems with it worth caring about.

>>37746602

Oh right, that's fair enough - ancient athenian/roman mob rule + cyberpunk is doable and appropo given twitter and social media.

>>37712265
The admin of Silk Road was a goddamn moron. Any properly paranoid decker wouldn't get caught like that.

>>37746720
>Never underestimate the ability for sad idiots to be seperated from their money so that others can do evil.
Isn't that whole point of taxes?

>>37746756
*tips fedora*
Back to zerohedge.

>>37707868
"Hey Rcik, heard your bounty got upped half a mil over lunch! But check *this* out: BAM! THIRTY MIL! That jump was because I just posted my vacation photos on Facebook+! Haha, you gotta work harder, Ricky."

>>37707868
>Uh, boss is the cavity check in addition to retinal scan and loyalty pills really necisary?

If you're having to ask, clearly you need more loyalty pills. GLORY TO NANOTRASEN!

>>37747255
"Oh, hey Tim. I guess you're right. POST THIS!"
...
"Honey, remeber how I said we couldn't afford that new villa with those state of the art security options? Now we can! And I got promoted! yeah, they 'fired' Tim two minutes ago"

And you'd probably get Paintreon, where you get paid every time you make a hit. Now, depending on the person you might get a strawpoll to decide the next hit, Send a email to a encrypted address, choose when you pledge so much or just who ever the guy gets pissed off at that day and puts in his murder-vine.

>>37748038
Patreon is just a revamped version of the Patronage system. Odds are, Paintreon would be for killers with agendas, so you put money into the Punisher's paintreon so he can buy more bullets to shoot mobsters with or whatever.

>>37748398
Not a bad point, although I do still like the idea of psycho-vine, first part a small infraction, the rest the offender getting their head staved in.