Essence and Cyber Was Humanity loss
Vasudeva
might not make any sense...
But in a nutshell I agree with everything he said. I disagree
100% with the idea of essence loss for cyberware. It is a
game mechanic to stop munchkinism.
My solution (read up Kris and give me your opinion) is to
multiply the essence cost or body cost of bio/cyberware by 10.
That is the amount of Karma necessary to "adjust" to the cyber.
Don't forget to pay your nuyen as well. :)
For starting PCs use the force points in the resources column
as Karma points.
Using this method, a PC can get a million nuyen and 50 points
to spend on cyber. Now s/he can buy wired reflexes 3 if he wants
but has already spent all of his "karma" points for it and
can't even buy a smartgun link (ouch).
The otehr benefit I see to this is that it gives samurai a use for
Karma again. I mean after a while you get tired of saving karma
so you can have taht wiz firearms level 20! :) (you know what I
mean) :) Mages have a use for karma and spend it out the
ying/yang. Now samurai can too.
Oh, the essence attribute? Toss it. But still subtract the same
figures from the magic attribute for mages.
Well? It's just a thought... :)
Stainless Steel Rat
Vasudeva> But in a nutshell I agree with everything he said. I disagree
Vasudeva> 100% with the idea of essence loss for cyberware. It is a
Vasudeva> game mechanic to stop munchkinism.
However, as a game mechanic, it fits reasonably well in the world FASA
has created. One of the premises of the Sixth World is that there is a
"soul" (or whatever you want to call it), and there is a kind of
sympathy between it and the physical body: if you damage one, the other
is likewise damaged. Damage to the soul can occour when damage to the
body doesn't heal properly, and it can be sucessfully argued that
installing cyber where there was once flesh is an improperly healed
wound. That damage is reflected in the soul. Do enough damage to the
body, and the soul "dies" (or passes on, or whatever).
As opposed to Cyberpunk's "cyber makes you insane" with no other
justification.
Vasudeva> My solution (read up Kris and give me your opinion) is to
Vasudeva> multiply the essence cost or body cost of bio/cyberware by 10.
Vasudeva> That is the amount of Karma necessary to "adjust" to the cyber.
Vasudeva> Don't forget to pay your nuyen as well. :)
If essence loss was purely physiological I'd say just chuck it entirely
and use the Hero motto of "Just Say No". If it is just purely physical
in your game, that's what I'd suggest doing.
--
Rat <rat...@ccs.neu.edu> | Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ratinox |
PGP Public Key: Ask for one today! |
Bill Silvey
: If you haven't read the post about Humanity Loss in CP, then this
: might not make any sense...
: But in a nutshell I agree with everything he said. I disagree
: 100% with the idea of essence loss for cyberware. It is a
: game mechanic to stop munchkinism.
Thank you. That was my post. Cyberpsychosis in CP2020 is a ridculous
game mechanic and should be expunged from the rules, period. Any GM that
can't handle Munchkinism in his game needs to rethink being a CP2020 GM.
Kilroy
: If you haven't read the post about Humanity Loss in CP, then this
: might not make any sense...
: But in a nutshell I agree with everything he said. I disagree
: 100% with the idea of essence loss for cyberware. It is a
: game mechanic to stop munchkinism.
First off, the CP humanity rules and the SR essence rules have different
foundations.
CP states that if the brain can be sustained, it will continue
living. However the psyche is damaged by cyberware; too much and you spas
out.
SR's essence is the idea that a human being's spirit/soul/etc will up and
die if too much metal is implanted. Sure, the body could be life-supported,
but there's nothing there. No soul, nothing. It's a magic thing.
I have problems with CP's humanity system, but any arguements regarding it's
drawbacks or appropriateness need to be kept separate from SR's system. The
fundamentals are just too different. Apples and Oranges. Both are cyber
games, but the analogies fall apart once you get more specific.
Kilroy
MynstiomN
Kig Mat'Zo Mat
Vasudeva
I'm not really sure they are all that different in nature.
I mean, what is the difference between losall four limbs
and or replacing the lost limbs with cyber?
Just losing a limb obviously doesn't lower one's Essence,
because it has happened again and again in real life and these
guys aren't "almost spiritually" dead.
Just slap some metal or whatever in and why does that "kill"
you spiritually? People with pacemakers today would be considered
less spiritually alive than others with FASA's rationale.
See, it's the exact same thing just different words to say the
same thing and do the same thing. Just sit back and rationalize
fora few moments about "realistic" cyber and you'll see what I
mean...
Paul Jonathan Adam
> But in a nutshell I agree with everything he said. I disagree
> 100% with the idea of essence loss for cyberware. It is a
> game mechanic to stop munchkinism.
>
> Karma again. I mean after a while you get tired of saving karma
> so you can have taht wiz firearms level 20! :) (you know what I
> mean) :) Mages have a use for karma and spend it out the
> ying/yang. Now samurai can too.
Urk... Lynch has a use for Karma. Between learning Firearms, Unarmed, and
Armed (Edged) to 10 each, he also learned Fender Stratocaster to 9 dice,
did a military history degree (no real game benefit, but he enjoyed
the correspondence course), learned not just to fly but to build a
an aircraft from the wheels up... If your players are only buying
"pure game" skills they aren't really roleplaying.
And if players protest that "outside" skills aren't useful... Lynch
had to stake out a bar for eight hours one night. How do you be
inconspicuous in a bar for eight hours? You're the guy on stage
playing the blues. Even better than an invisibility spell :-)
As for extra cyber/bioware, it's *much* more fun when you're trading
off tailored pheromones for a few levels of damage compensation. Is
it better to be tough? Or to be more able to talk your way out? The
best fight is the one you never need to fire a shot in. Lynch could
certainly have Wired-III, a tactical computer, enormous cranial cyberdeck,
et cetera under those rules. He had Wired-III for a while but traded
back down to Wired-II: a headware scanner radio was much more use.
--
When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better
or for worse, you have acted decisively.
In fact, the next move is up to him.
Paul J. Adam pa...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk
Charles Sizmore
: >>>>> "Vasudeva" == Vasudeva <st...@rosie.uh.edu> writes:
: V> But in a nutshell I agree with everything he said. I disagree
: V> 100% with the idea of essence loss for cyberware. It is a
: V> game mechanic to stop munchkinism.
: R>However, as a game mechanic, it fits reasonably well in the world FASA
: R>has created. One of the premises of the Sixth World is that there is a
: R>"soul" (or whatever you want to call it), and there is a kind of
: R>sympathy between it and the physical body: if you damage one, the other
: R>is likewise damaged. Damage to the soul can occour when damage to the
: R>body doesn't heal properly, and it can be sucessfully argued that
: R>installing cyber where there was once flesh is an improperly healed
: R>wound. That damage is reflected in the soul. Do enough damage to the
: R>body, and the soul "dies" (or passes on, or whatever).
: R>As opposed to Cyberpunk's "cyber makes you insane" with no other
: R>justification.
I have been a cyperpunk player for a while (boxed set CP:2013).
I have freind who's taken a couple of psyc classes. (EMP:(empathy)
is you ability to relate to others. HP:(Humanity Points) are the
gauge of how tightly your mind is wraped. As a study he looked at
amputes: war vets, car accident victims, ect... sanity. In some of
the cases there was defante psyc truma. In cyberpunk, with out the
sixth world coming in to play, you need some way to gauge peoples
sanity. infact it makes works if you take in the fact that going
in to a ripperdoc to have that new cyberarm atached is going to
cost you more HP than a proper hospital would. the more tramatic
the experiance the more it's going to shred your sanity.
As for cyber where not driving you insane think about this you
mind still thinks that if you grab your costum autopistol you will
feel polomers and metal instead it gets back fps, and attiude read-
ings from each joint. think you no longer can feel the soft carees
of a lover our the sharpness of a knife again. you tell me why those
indivuals who can no longer feel any thing came up a little less sane
than you our me.
: V> My solution (read up Kris and give me your opinion) is to
: V> multiply the essence cost or body cost of bio/cyberware by 10.
: V> That is the amount of Karma necessary to "adjust" to the cyber.
: Vasudeva> Don't forget to pay your nuyen as well. :)
: R>If essence loss was purely physiological I'd say just chuck it entirely
: R>and use the Hero motto of "Just Say No". If it is just purely physical
: R>in your game, that's what I'd suggest doing.
: --
: Rat <rat...@ccs.neu.edu> | Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
: http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ratinox |
: PGP Public Key: Ask for one today! |
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Silver Lyon, Freelance __ __ ____ ___ ___ ____
Corporate Recruiter /__)/__) / / / / /_ /\ / /_ /
gry...@primenet.com / / \ / / / / /__ / \/ /___ /
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stainless Steel Rat
Charles> I have been a cyperpunk player for a while (boxed set CP:2013).
Charles> I have freind who's taken a couple of psyc classes.
Charles> (EMP:(empathy) is you ability to relate to others. HP:(Humanity
Charles> Points) are the gauge of how tightly your mind is wraped. As a
Charles> study he looked at amputes: war vets, car accident victims,
Charles> ect... sanity. In some of the cases there was defante psyc
Charles> truma.
Agreed; however, such psychological trauma is usually indicative of a
more serious problem, specifically, the causes of the physical injuries,
not the injuries themselves. The injuries only exacerbate the
psychological trauma. I'm sure that your friend also found a number of
amputees who have adjusted to their situation. That alone should clue
you into the fact that it's not the injuries that are the cause of the
psychological trauma.
Charles> In cyberpunk, with out the sixth world coming in to play, you
Charles> need some way to gauge peoples sanity.
Why? Give me a believable reason. And if you feel you do need such a
gague, shouldn't that be an aspect of role-playing, not a game mechanic?
Charles> infact it makes works if you take in the fact that going in to
Charles> a ripperdoc to have that new cyberarm atached is going to cost
Charles> you more HP than a proper hospital would. the more tramatic the
Charles> experiance the more it's going to shred your sanity.
But why should there be a loss of "humanity" for grafting on a
prosthetic that works BETTER than the original? It's like cosmetic
surgery; you usually come out feeling better about yourself because you
look better. I'll admit that some don't, but in those cases those people
were already in poor mental shape, and rather than making them feel
better, the changes only made them feel different.
Charles> As for cyber where not driving you insane think about this you
Charles> mind still thinks that if you grab your costum autopistol you
Charles> will feel polomers and metal instead it gets back fps, and
Charles> attiude read-ings from each joint.
If you can graft cyberwear to and control it from the nervous system, if
you can have a full-sensorium virtual reality fed directly into your
brain, you can certainly have realistic feedback from cybernetic
prosthetics. Anything less is poor QC and shoddy workmanship.
Charles> think you no longer can feel the soft carees of a lover our the
Charles> sharpness of a knife again.
As I said, if you can have precice control of the cybernetic prosthetic
via the nervous system, you can have appropriate feedback sent to it.
Charles> you tell me why those indivuals who can no longer feel any
Charles> thing came up a little less sane than you our me.
What about the crippled Multiple Sclerosis patient who has his nervous
system replaced with an early form of wired reflexes, or the girl who
was born with atrophied arms and legs (genetic disorder) who has them
replaced with cybernetic prosthetics. Are these people going to feel
less "human" because of their cybernetics? No. In fact, being confined
to a wheelchair or a bed for your entire life is infinitely more
degrading to one's psyche.
THAT is why I say that cybernetics are not the cause of any psychotic
behaviour. Yes, the situations of these two examples are very much
different from the victim of a neurological toxin or anti-personnel
mine. And it is those differences, and the psycholgical states of these
people *before* the physical trauma, not the loss of functionality, that
is the cause of the psychological trauma.
--
Rat <rat...@ccs.neu.edu> | Warning: pregnant women, the elderly, and
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ratinox | children under 10 should avoid prolonged
PGP Public Key: Ask for one today! | exposure to Happy Fun Ball.
Sean Clark
S>>First off, the CP humanity rules and the SR essence rules have different
S>>foundations.
S>>
S>> CP states that if the brain can be sustained, it will continue
S>>living. However the psyche is damaged by cyberware; too much and you spas
S>>out.
S>> SR's essence is the idea that a human being's spirit/soul/etc will up and
S>>die if too much metal is implanted. Sure, the body could be life-supported,
S>>but there's nothing there. No soul, nothing. It's a magic thing.
S>>
S>>I have problems with CP's humanity system, but any arguements regarding it's
S>>drawbacks or appropriateness need to be kept separate from SR's system. The
S>>fundamentals are just too different. Apples and Oranges. Both are cyber
S>>games, but the analogies fall apart once you get more specific.
S>>
S>I'm not really sure they are all that different in nature.
S>I mean, what is the difference between losall four limbs
S>and or replacing the lost limbs with cyber?
S>Just losing a limb obviously doesn't lower one's Essence,
S>because it has happened again and again in real life and these
S>guys aren't "almost spiritually" dead.
S>Just slap some metal or whatever in and why does that "kill"
S>you spiritually? People with pacemakers today would be considered
S>less spiritually alive than others with FASA's rationale.
S>See, it's the exact same thing just different words to say the
S>same thing and do the same thing. Just sit back and rationalize
S>fora few moments about "realistic" cyber and you'll see what I
S>mean...
There is another aspect that makes some sense, though to do think the
essence rules make it a bit too mechanical:
Most cyberwear modifies the input or output of the natural nervous system.
Cyber senses feed new signals in place of old ones, perhaps in strange
ways (imagine being able to switch your vision back and forth from "normal"
to "predator mode" - just a little added stress).
Cyber limbs have their own reflexes. Simple ones that don't normally
conflict with the natural ones they replace, as long as they don't degrade
or need realigning. Imagine the chips that interpret your natural nervous
system's commands to grip an object. What happens if they get just a little
too sensitive and start crushing things you pick up, or lose sensitivity and
start dropping things?
Bigger changes like wired reflexes, skillwires, etc. replace even bigger
chunks of formerly natural nervous system functions. The electronics
HAVE to be doing some of the processing and handling of your movements, as
there's no way your natural unaugmented brain can keep up with moving and
reacting 3 times faster than you were before. What if some of these
electronic reflexes get just a little twitchy from use? The character
may still be perfectly normal mentally, but may occasionally do strange things
under control of their cybergear.
This is pretty much how I treat "cyber-psychosis" when I run games. It only
becomes a truly mental problem if nothing is done to re-tune the cyberwear,
and the brain starts to do metaphorical backflips trying to adjust to it all.
I also suspect that it's perfectly reasonable that there would be other
medical problems that cybered people are prone to, but I've never gotten
into much detail with that, nor have I seen anyone else do so.
(Imagine a front page article in "Consumer Reports" that shows a 200%
increase in brain cancer in users of certain brands of high-end headware?)
Andy Pearlman
>But in a nutshell I agree with everything he said. I disagree
I slightly modified the essence rules. Basically, the amount of essence you
lost is measured against your stats. If it is greater than an individual stat,
it starts creating problems. Magic Rating does the same, only when casting
spells(and tossing the concentration +2, believe me, it is more than made up
for) Essence loss has no effect on Magic Rating, although a mage can choose to
lower Magic Rating at that time if they want or game start. If you go down to
-4, the stat is considered incapacitated, which generally means really bad
things(this includes the modifiers for wounds). When an essence drainer
strikes(like a vampire), they simply add a point of essence loss. When you
hit -4 in a stat, boom, you're dead(or not dead :-)
Example: Street Sam has 6 Essence worth of cyberware, 5s in all attributes.
5-6 = -1, so basically, he typically ends up with a +1 to all rolls involving
attributes. Also, this means a Serious wound will stop him.
Ex2: Mage has a 6 Magic Rating, 3s in all physical attributes and 5s in all
mental attributes. No modifiers, but when the mage casts a spell, for the
rest of that action, has a +3 modifier to physical rolls and +1 to mental
rolls. Considering this means if he has a light wound, he faints from
casting a spell, he thinks better of it and gets a magic rating of 4.
Ex3: Burned-out mage has a 2 Magic Rating, 3 Essence of cyberware, 4 Int/Will,
3s everywhere else...
Ex4: Physical Adept - just subtract Magic Rating all the time...
Generally, there should be some roleplaying effects as well. Physical tends
to cause minor to major illnesses, character always complaining about
arthritis. Constant coughing. Needs lots of sleep. Mental can cause
daydreaming, easily addicted, or (common with those street sams with low
charisma...) psychosis.
The advantage of this system is there are no 'magic barriers' to cross. Just
that if you get too much, things start breaking down. It also helps out the
samurai a bit, because mages can't afford to both get the really good stats in
mental *and* cast the really nasty high force spells. As a starting character,
you could get up to 8 essense of cyberware/magic without being non-functional,
but I wouldn't recommend it. It also tends to emphasize some of the
stereotypes of the fictional characters - mages weak/sickly, sammis sociopaths.
Andy
--
Andy Pearlman
apea...@panix.com
Deus Ex Machina found to be Gerbil in a Wheel.
David P. Summers
sean....@rti.uucp.netcom.com (Sean Clark) wrote:
> Cyber senses feed new signals in place of old ones, perhaps in strange
> ways (imagine being able to switch your vision back and forth from "normal"
> to "predator mode" - just a little added stress).
First of all, you would then have to eliminate "humanity loss" for any
cyberware that didn't have such conections. Such as holdout pockets,
armour, etc.
[Regarding Limbs]
Hooking in cyberlimbs into the nerves that normally lead to the arm is
not going to cause psychosis. The human nervous system is very adaptable
to changes in inputs. You can wear glasses that flip everything upside
down and you brain will just flip it around (in a day or two, it also
takes it a day or two to flip back when you take them off :-). There
is no reason to believe that cyberarms are going to cause mental problems
(and even if it did, the kind of paroid violent behavior described to
"cyberpsychosis" is way down on the list).
> Bigger changes like wired reflexes, skillwires, etc. replace even bigger
> chunks of formerly natural nervous system functions.
The only place I can see invoking mental problems is in modifications
directly to the brain. Even then, epilepsy, paralysis, and loss of
brain function are much more likely results.
________________________
(Disclaimer: If NASA had any position on any of this do you
think they would have ME give it?)
David Summers - Sum...@Ethyl-the-Frog.ARC.NASA.Gov
Charles Sizmore
35 age you gain 2 skill pts every six years.
and every 5 years 50% chance you lose 1 ref.
75+ 75%+5% per five years chance you lose 1 ref.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Sizmore __ __ ____ ___ ___ ____
gry...@primenet.com /__)/__) / / / / /_ /\ / /_ /
Kevin Montegrande
Sum...@Ethyl-the-Frog.arc.nasa.gov (David P. Summers) wrote:
: Hooking in cyberlimbs into the nerves that normally lead to the arm is
: not going to cause psychosis. The human nervous system is very adaptable
: to changes in inputs. You can wear glasses that flip everything upside
: down and you brain will just flip it around (in a day or two, it also
: takes it a day or two to flip back when you take them off :-). There
: is no reason to believe that cyberarms are going to cause mental problems
: (and even if it did, the kind of paroid violent behavior described to
: "cyberpsychosis" is way down on the list).
I think the missed point is that psychological change is often induced by
one's society. The fact that you become less and less human in
appearance, you often begin to be treated less and less like a human.
Internally, the fact that you can simply replace parts when they are broke
means you also subconcously treat yourself like a piece of hardware.
And don't expect the salesperson to worn you of this aspect. Her only
objective is to sell you the product.
But in game terms, this ads the needed dimesnion/irony to the game of
fighting the "machine" while becoming the "machine" which paralells the
attractiveness of so many Vampire rpgs.
~/_\
(€ €)
===============oOO=(^)=OOo=================== =================================
Kevin Montegrande| monte...@aol.com | Once the world is
31731 Via Perdiz | http://www.lib.occ.cccd.edu/ | seen like a balloon,
Trabuco Canyon, | StudentClubActivities/ | its easy to see that
CA 92679-5814,USA| OCCResearchClub/occrc.html | one prick can blow
| | it for everyone.
==============================================================================
Stainless Steel Rat
Kevin> I think the missed point is that psychological change is often
Kevin> induced by one's society. The fact that you become less and less
Kevin> human in appearance, you often begin to be treated less and less
Kevin> like a human.
In a world where "metal is better than meat" is the common buzz-phrase,
chroming up is NOT going to make other consider you less "human". Then
again, this hinges upon *YOUR* views of what other people think of you.
Which brings me back to the cold, ruthless assassin (Major Joachim
Stuben from Hammer's Slammers comes to mind) who couldn't care less what
anyone thinks about him. Yet according to CP2020's mechanics, he's MORE
likely to go psycho from cybernetic implantation. Um... excuse me?
--
Rat <rat...@ccs.neu.edu> | When not in use, Happy Fun Ball should be
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ratinox | returned to its special container and
PGP Public Key: Ask for one today! | kept under refrigeration.
Robert E Mandeville
Cyberpsychosis is the psychological result of cybernetic enhancement.
It is neither physical nor neurological in nature. The psychological
causes are a combination of megalomania, social shunning, and loss of
sense of self (or, as Eastern philosophers would say, "loss of center").
The megalomania is obvious, and can be most clearly seen in full
conversion borgs. When you have a pop-up gun in your arm, you now
have the ability to kill someone from a distance with no preparation.
If this doesn't take you back, it should. Nobody, without
preparation, can kill you from twenty feet away. And when you can do
that and nobody else can, you're a demigod in your own eyes.
Social shunning is obvious, as well. In a CP2020 society, a metal arm
is somewhat common--you can find one or two in any crowded room. When
you have the full Omega frame on, people keep away from you--just to
be on the safe side. So now the 'borg feels like a Jew at a Nazi
convention--not very good for your state of mind.
Loss of center is more subtle. Let's take the classic example: the
cyberarm. Nice and chromed and obvious. It isn't meat, so, to some
degree, it isn't you. Imagine hearing the servos whirr as you brush
your teeth in the morning. Imagine having to remember to plug your
arm into the wall at dinner. Imagine your lover reflexively lurching
away from cold steel as you embrace. For some people, this will be
chinese water torture.
Of course, my views on this are not represented in the CP2020 humanity
rules, and I never put the rules together to model this. But if I
did, the most obvious cyber would have the most major effects, and it
would go up exponentially instead of linearly. One arm may be okay,
then a pair of legs, but everybody's going to have a point where they
wake up in the morning and just wig out.
And then the only two solutions are C-SWAT and a crane magnet.
--rR
--
Rob "ReRob" Mandeville, rem...@world.std.com
Virtual Labs, Inc., Eyrie Publications, Uninc., Computer Sports Systems
"[William] Gibson's no longer a novellist. He's a reporter"
--tded...@csc.mc.edu
Stainless Steel Rat
[megalomania and social shunning]
Again, what about the guy who really, honestly, couldn't give a rat's
(lowercase "r") ass about what anyone else thinks of him? He couldn't
care less if the average Joe think's he's a monster; it doesn't matter
to this kind of person.
Again, what about the people who are enabled by their cybernetics, those
who were born crippled or laid low by a disease? These people are not
going to instantly become social outcasts just because non-functional
parts of their bodies have been replaced with prosthetics.
In the former case, according to most mechanics, he's a prime candidate
for the looney bin *before* augmentation; in the later case they should
be *less* likely to be affected by various psychoses.
Robert> Loss of center is more subtle. Let's take the classic example:
Robert> the cyberarm. Nice and chromed and obvious. It isn't meat, so,
Robert> to some degree, it isn't you. Imagine hearing the servos whirr
Robert> as you brush your teeth in the morning.
My electric toothbrush and razor are lounder, and more annoying.
Robert> Imagine having to remember to plug your arm into the wall at
Robert> dinner.
Charging is accomplished via thermocouple drawing radiant heat from my
meat body, supported by induction charging when I'm home sleeping. I
worry more about my car's maintainance than I do about my arm's.
Robert> Imagine your lover reflexively lurching away from cold steel as
Robert> you embrace.
Nah, she's a cybernetics designer for a living, and she's been almost
constantly bugging me about getting it upgraded. Which I think I will,
'cuz she can get me a real nice discount on a top-of-the-line model.
Robert> For some people, this will be chinese water torture.
And for others it'll be a nothing.
You can't model this with game mechanics without having all kinds of
loopholes to deal with the multitude of exceptions, and then what's the
point of having the mechanic in the first place? Psychological behaviour
should be strictly a role-playing aspect of a character, not numbers on
a piece of paper.
--
Rat <rat...@ccs.neu.edu> | Caution: Happy Fun Ball may suddenly
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ratinox | accelerate to dangerous speeds.
David Summers
>In article <Summers-3005...@ethyl-the-frog.arc.nasa.gov>,
>I think the missed point is that psychological change is often induced by
>one's society. The fact that you become less and less human in
>appearance, you often begin to be treated less and less like a human.
People have been treating other people as inhuman countless different
ways over millenium. If you look at the reactions that this has caused
crazed psychosis isn't one of them. (Ironically, if you look at people
that go on top of a building with a rifle, mistreatment by society
is almost never present, there may even be a negative correlation)
Furthermore, to be consitent, you would have to impose a psychosis for
every other reason that someone might be looked down apon in a cyberpunk
society (which raises the questions again if it's really "cyber"psychosis).
Lastly, this still would only apply to cyberware you could see. You should
then not apply any penalty to any cyberware that wasn't readily apparent.
(Which is big problem with the "explinations" of cyberpsychosis, none
of them apply to all cyberware and therefore can't explain why cyberware
in general is suppose to drive you insane).
>Internally, the fact that you can simply replace parts when they are broke
>means you also subconcously treat yourself like a piece of hardware.
Why? There isn't a shread of evidence that any with an artifical part
every subconsciously treated themselves as a piece of hardware and
went insane.
--
________________________
(Disclaimer: If NASA had any postion on any of this do you
think they would have ME give it?)
David Summers - Sum...@Ethyl-the-Frog.ARC.NASA.gov
David Summers
>The megalomania is obvious, and can be most clearly seen in full
>conversion borgs. When you have a pop-up gun in your arm, you now
>have the ability to kill someone from a distance with no preparation.
>If this doesn't take you back, it should. Nobody, without
>preparation, can kill you from twenty feet away. And when you can do
>that and nobody else can, you're a demigod in your own eyes.
What's this "preperation". Most people who have handled a gun can
get it out of holster almost as fast as you can raise your arm. He
can kill you in a second. This has nothing to do with cyberware.
And even if this was true, it would ONLY apply to cyberware which
can be used to attack people.
>
>Social shunning is obvious, as well. In a CP2020 society, a metal arm
>is somewhat common--you can find one or two in any crowded room. When
>you have the full Omega frame on, people keep away from you--just to
>be on the safe side. So now the 'borg feels like a Jew at a Nazi
>convention--not very good for your state of mind.
The problem is that Jew in Nazi Germany did NOT exibit psychosis.
Societies have been shunning people (and worse) for milenia.
>
>Loss of center is more subtle. Let's take the classic example: the
>cyberarm. Nice and chromed and obvious. It isn't meat, so, to some
>degree, it isn't you. Imagine hearing the servos whirr as you brush
>your teeth in the morning. Imagine having to remember to plug your
>arm into the wall at dinner. Imagine your lover reflexively lurching
>away from cold steel as you embrace. For some people, this will be
>chinese water torture.
First of all, none of this fits the classic description of cyberware
(it's usually pictured as silent, self powered, and as good as, or
better, than the limb it replaces.) However, even if it was true,
then it would still be true that it is not worse than the artificial
limbs we have now. And even if we ignore that point, you description
of an obviously inferior situation contradicts your point about meglomania
and feeling "superior".
Stainless Steel Rat
>> Again, what about the guy who really, honestly, couldn't give a rat's
>> (lowercase "r") ass about what anyone else thinks of him? He couldn't
>> care less if the average Joe think's he's a monster; it doesn't
>> matter to this kind of person.
Jonathan> People like that probably started out with a pretty low
Jonathan> Empathy anyway.
Agreed. But...
Jonathan> After a few cyber implants he will would care even less what
Jonathan> anyone else thinks about him as he can take 'em on.
Impossible. He was already at the bottom of the scale *before* he
chromed up. He *can't* care any less about what people think about him.
And he's not going to suddenly become psycopathic just because he thinks
people don't like him. That's one of the points where the game mechanics
break.
[...]
>> Again, what about the people who are enabled by their cybernetics, [...]
Jonathan> If the cyber is obvious then they aren't going to be the
Jonathan> travelling in all that many social circles.
Not necessarilly. Depends on the technology and expense, and what the
medical insurance covers.
Jonathan> Even with needed prosthetics, a person may feel that he is
Jonathan> less human than he was before, even if he needs it to walk.
Wrong. I deal with people in similar situations, albeit indirectly.
There is nothing more dehumanizing than being confined to a bed due to
some crippling disease. Nothing. Ask any cancer or AIDS or Multiple
Sclerosis sufferer.
>> In the former case, according to most mechanics, he's a prime
>> candidate for the looney bin *before* augmentation; in the later case
>> they should be *less* likely to be affected by various psychoses.
Jonathan> Bingo. Someone who gets a pair of cyberlegs to replace ones
Jonathan> lost in an accident could get fairly lucky and not lose all
Jonathan> that much humanity or they *could* consider themselves to be
Jonathan> less human (ie. lost a fair-large ammount of humanity).
[...]
Jonathan> Congrats, your example could serve as an explanation for
Jonathan> minimum humanity lose.
Actually, it's an example of how totally bogus the whole concept is.
Jonathan> But, personal habits and friends aren't everything that goes
Jonathan> into a characters psyche.
But you just said that what people think about you is integral to
"cyberpsychosis" and thus the character's psyche...
Jonathan> What if your character subconsiously longs for a woman who is
Jonathan> repelled by his cyberarm?
What if he doesn't? Why can't he be a well-adjusted individual? Why
should some crocked game mechanic and some lousy die rolls say that
because his arm is artificial he has to turn into a raving lunatic? I
just don't buy it.
[...]
Jonathan> Psychological behavior is based on the role-playing aspect of
Jonathan> the character. Empathy/Humanity can serve as a guide on how
Jonathan> that is done, but it does not dictate a players actions
Jonathan> (except at humanity 0, but then the character is an NPC). A
Jonathan> character could easily seem perfectly normal until one day he
Jonathan> goes snap like a twig.
Then what's the point of even bothering trying to keep track of some
random numbers? You might as well roll 1d100,000 every game day and if
you roll a 1 you flip out. It's an accurate model of what you've just
described.
--
Rat <rat...@ccs.neu.edu> | Happy Fun Ball contains a liquid core,
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ratinox | which, if exposed due to rupture, should
PGP Public Key: Ask for one today! | not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.
Jonathan Dean
:>>>>> "Robert" == Robert E Mandeville <rem...@world.std.com> writes:
:
:[megalomania and social shunning]
:Again, what about the guy who really, honestly, couldn't give a rat's
:(lowercase "r") ass about what anyone else thinks of him? He couldn't
:care less if the average Joe think's he's a monster; it doesn't matter
:to this kind of person.
People like that probably started out with a pretty low Empathy anyway.
After a few cyber implants he will would care even less what anyone
else thinks about him as he can take 'em on.
Still fits the pattern that Robert pointed out, just that it started
a bit on the extreme side.
:Again, what about the people who are enabled by their cybernetics, those
:who were born crippled or laid low by a disease? These people are not
:going to instantly become social outcasts just because non-functional
:parts of their bodies have been replaced with prosthetics.
If the cyber is obvious then they aren't going to be the travelling in
all that many social circles. Even with needed prosthetics, a person
may feel that he is less human than he was before, even if he needs it
to walk.
:In the former case, according to most mechanics, he's a prime candidate
:for the looney bin *before* augmentation; in the later case they should
:be *less* likely to be affected by various psychoses.
Bingo. Someone who gets a pair of cyberlegs to replace ones lost in an
accident could get fairly lucky and not lose all that much humanity or
they *could* consider themselves to be less human (ie. lost a fair-large
ammount of humanity).
:Robert> Loss of center is more subtle. Let's take the classic example:
:Robert> the cyberarm. Nice and chromed and obvious. It isn't meat, so,
:Robert> to some degree, it isn't you. Imagine hearing the servos whirr
:Robert> as you brush your teeth in the morning.
:
:My electric toothbrush and razor are lounder, and more annoying.
:
:Robert> Imagine having to remember to plug your arm into the wall at
:Robert> dinner.
:
:Charging is accomplished via thermocouple drawing radiant heat from my
:meat body, supported by induction charging when I'm home sleeping. I
:worry more about my car's maintainance than I do about my arm's.
:
:Robert> Imagine your lover reflexively lurching away from cold steel as
:Robert> you embrace.
:
:Nah, she's a cybernetics designer for a living, and she's been almost
:constantly bugging me about getting it upgraded. Which I think I will,
:'cuz she can get me a real nice discount on a top-of-the-line model.
Congrats, your example could serve as an explanation for minimum humanity
lose. But, personal habits and friends aren't everything that goes into
a characters psyche. What if your character subconsiously longs for a
woman who is repelled by his cyberarm? There are plenty of possibilties
that could explain why a character lost more than the minimum required
for his/her cyber.
:You can't model this with game mechanics without having all kinds of
:loopholes to deal with the multitude of exceptions, and then what's the
:point of having the mechanic in the first place? Psychological behaviour
:should be strictly a role-playing aspect of a character, not numbers on
:a piece of paper.
Psychological behavior is based on the role-playing aspect of the character.
Empathy/Humanity can serve as a guide on how that is done, but it does not
dictate a players actions (except at humanity 0, but then the character is
an NPC). A character could easily seem perfectly normal until one day he
goes snap like a twig. Seems to be happing a fair ammount nowadays already.
Its very much like Sanity in Call of Cthulhu (except you don't lose Sanity
for benefitial stuff...). It is mainly a guide to what the character is
going throw. Not a rule on how to play him.
I like the alternate cyberpsychosis found in Dark Metropolis, and how you
played your character would decide which psychosis he/she would end up
with assuming the character reachis 0 Humanity.
If you believe that the characters background should be the primary factor
in determining how much a humanity is lost to cyber, then simply assign
the cost (or modify the dice) rather than let it be truly random. Be
warned however as people can abuse that sort of system ("This is the
fourth character who is dating a cybernetics engineer this week...").
Even then, the background may not cover all factors that are considered
in humanity, like the subconsious.
--
Jonathan Dean | "I say we take off; nuke the site from orbit.
jd...@psl.nmsu.edu | It's the only way to be sure."
| -- Corporal Hicks, in "Aliens"
K
rat...@ccs.neu.edu "Stainless Steel Rat" writes:
> In a world where "metal is better than meat" is the common buzz-phrase,
> chroming up is NOT going to make other consider you less "human". Then
> again, this hinges upon *YOUR* views of what other people think of you.
> Which brings me back to the cold, ruthless assassin (Major Joachim
> Stuben from Hammer's Slammers comes to mind) who couldn't care less what
> anyone thinks about him. Yet according to CP2020's mechanics, he's MORE
> likely to go psycho from cybernetic implantation. Um... excuse me?
But surely the point about your "cold, ruthless assassin" is that many people
would consider him halfway to psycho already, even before he starts cybering
up. At the very least he is a sociopath to start with, if not already a
psychopath.
I would also point out that such a character does not make a good PC - I know,
I got given two of them (not even heavily cybered) by my players when I tried
to start a Cyberpunk campaign and it proved impossible to get them into the
main PC group because they had no interest in what was going down. An assassin
is essentially a lone wolf, which only really works for solo play.
--
__ __) PGP key print:A3 A8 EA 44 83 9C 92 D5 50 80 37 5D 33 CC 62 72
(, ) /
/( ^-^
) / \_ar...@windsong.demon.co.uk (0 0)
(_/ (/ v \)
\ /
^ ^
David Summers
[I've reread this and had second thoughts about posting it, since the
tone is pretty harsh. But I really feel it cuts to a lot of the fuzzy
thinking that has been applied to cyberware.]
>People like that probably started out with a pretty low Empathy anyway.
>After a few cyber implants he will would care even less what anyone
>else thinks about him as he can take 'em on.
But why would cyber implants do this? The problem is that people
describe people who were psychologically unbalanced to begin with, have
them go insane, and then call is "cyberpsychosis".
>If the cyber is obvious then they aren't going to be the travelling in
>all that many social circles. Even with needed prosthetics, a person
>may feel that he is less human than he was before, even if he needs it
>to walk.
But that fact is that people get artificial parts _now_. And feeling
"less human" and going insane is _not_ what happens to them.
[Deletions]
>Congrats, your example could serve as an explanation for minimum
humanity
>lose.
They are an example of how cyberware doesn't make sense. (I guess it
could be said to be an example of minimum humanity loss since, the fact
that cyberware just isn't going to make you feel less human, means that
every situation is an example of minimum humanity loss.)
These "explanations" of cyberpsychosis have all the hallmarks of trying
to rationalize something that has been arbitrarily decided on. The
reasons keep changing (it's a "chemical imbalance in the brain", "it's
how people look at you", "it's the feeling that you can do whatever you
want", "it's all the electrical impulses, etc"). When the hole in the
logic of each of the reasons becomes apparent ("how can cyberware you can
see affect how people react to you") then one tries just combining them
hoping they cover each other's holes ("it's a combination of effects").
When that doesn't work (and it doesn't) then you say that examples of
where it doesn't work are exceptions ("that's a case of minimum humanity
loss") ignoring that if you really thing about it, _every_ piece of
cyberware is an example of minimum humanity loss.
>But, personal habits and friends aren't everything that goes into
>a characters psyche. What if your character subconsciously longs for a
>woman who is repelled by his cyberarm?
What if _today_ a character subconsciously longs for a woman who is
repelled by his prosthesis? Does this mean that a certain percentage of
people alive today with artificial limbs (which have been around since at
least the civil war) are going to develop "cyberpsychosis"? It doesn't
happen.
>Empathy/Humanity can serve as a guide on how that is done, but it does not
>dictate a players actions (except at humanity 0, but then the character is
>an NPC).
Which means you allow someone to roleplay his character and then suddenly
tell him that, for no good reason except game balance, he has turned into
a crazed maniac and take it away from him. I call that infringing on
roleplaying.
>If you believe that the characters background should be the primary factor
>in determining how much a humanity is lost to cyber, then simply assign
>the cost (or modify the dice) rather than let it be truly random. Be
>warned however as people can abuse that sort of system ("This is the
>fourth character who is dating a cybernetics engineer this week...").
Which is the real reason we have "cyberpsychosis". It's a case of
forcing changes in the setting to try an balance game mechanics. It
didn't have to be that way.
Kilroy
I have only one thing to add to this: Game Balance. If there was no
detriment to cyberware there would be full conversions left and right.
"What, you got $50k? Fine, we can install the new limb. Pop-up gun, not a
problem. We'll need extra to stick in the cell-phone tho'."
You can go on and on about the psychological stability of people, but for
a game where a number of the people are either death-machines or would
rather live in a digital environment you need a reason to keep some flesh.
Especially when the world likes "chrome."
Without a moral or social balance for cyberware then characters are going
to load up on toys. Some things are going to be just that; toys, but there
are going to be people with big, bad cyberware. And those people are going
to be able to justify it.
"I carry a Desert Eagle 50 with armor piercing rounds at all times, and
you're telling me that mounting a .45 in the arm is unreasonable?"
The only way you can get by with having cybernetic replacements is to have
some form of cap on what you can have. You don't like cyberpsychosis?
Fine, use the natural Body stat as the amount of cyberware the character can
have. (Cyberware can't let you get more cyberware) When your Body Index
reaches zero you die. No saves, no therapy, instant death. The metal
became too much and the system goes into critical shock with widespread
biosystem failure.
Of course you've got to be careful. Someone hits you with a nasty
bio-weapon or you get a vicious disease that lowers your body so your Index
is zero, --phffft!-- You die. Acids or other widespread body damaging
attacks like flamethrowers could also lower Body due to the extent of the
system damage.
"Sorry Mr. Death-head, but when you fell in the vat of mercury you absorbed
so much into your body that your nervous system is failing. We either have
to remove some of your neural-ware or the additional stress will kill you
within a week."
This is pretty much a conversion of the Shadowrun logic where psychological
effects of 'wares are up to the PC's.
Tom Grant
rat...@ccs.neu.edu writes:
>You can't model this with game mechanics without having all kinds of
>loopholes to deal with the multitude of exceptions, and then what's the
>point of having the mechanic in the first place? Psychological behaviour
>should be strictly a role-playing aspect of a character, not numbers on
>a piece of paper.
>
but kindof murky when it comes to how to use them as a role-playing tool.
Rat, your points are well-taken: there are all sorts of situations where
you'd imagine that cybernetics would NOT rob people of their sense of
humanity. (I'd add netrunners to the list: why does having an interface
in your head, or skill chips, make you less human? Maybe you'd feel more
human, given the expanded world in which you'd live via the Net?).
Here's where I think GURPS Cyberpunk provides a little more role-playing
assistance than CP2020. (I still like both games, however.) In GURPS,
it's easy to develop some kind of cyberpsychosis from all those
cybernetics: just purchase the right disadvantages (e.g., On the Edge,
Bloodlust, Paranoia, Delusion, etc.) and WHAMMO! you're one wacky
cybergoon. However, this is your choice to make your character this way,
and it's usually because it's consistent with the character concept. I
still maintain that GURPS gives you the chance to create PCs with the
greatest depth, and the rules for quirks, advantages, and disadvantages
enforce these role-playing elements throughout the game.
I wish there were other built-in ways to keep Solos on a short leash in
CP2020. Cyberpsychosis is a good, automatic one; there are all sorts of
other possibilities (taking their weapons away from them temporarily,
placing them in situations where gunplay could be self-defeating, etc.)
that the referee can enforce.
=================================================
"I've got to follow them. I'm their leader."
--Ledru-Rollin,
watching the mob, 1848
-------------------------------------------------
Tom Grant Senior Tech Writer
CSSD
Oracle Corporation
tgr...@us.oracle.com
415-506-8481
=================================================
Kilroy
: You can't model this with game mechanics without having all kinds of
: loopholes to deal with the multitude of exceptions, and then what's the
: point of having the mechanic in the first place? Psychological behaviour
: should be strictly a role-playing aspect of a character, not numbers on
: a piece of paper.
Exactly. Switch to Shadowrun and don't worry about it anymore. Just be
careful you don't stick more metal or synth-organic material in your body
than it can handle. ;)
Stainless Steel Rat
K> But surely the point about your "cold, ruthless assassin" is that
K> many people would consider him halfway to psycho already, even before
K> he starts cybering up. At the very least he is a sociopath to start
K> with, if not already a psychopath.
Agreed; but he's potentially sociopathic or psychopathic *BEFORE*
augmentation. And, if you look at the early examples of the supposedly
"cyberpsychotics", you'll find that in every instance they are people
who were also unbalanced to begin with. The cybernetic augmentation
isn't so much of a factor in their instability as the society around
them. Not the people, but the society those people have created. And, in
every instance you'd care to name, I can make an argument for those
people going psychotic or sociopathic, regardless of cybernetic
augmentation.
--
Rat <rat...@ccs.neu.edu> | Do not use Happy Fun Ball on concrete.
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ratinox |
Stainless Steel Rat
Kilroy> I have only one thing to add to this: Game Balance. If there
Kilroy> was no detriment to cyberware there would be full conversions
Kilroy> left and right.
Agreed; "cyberpsychosis" is an untested, last-minute addition to the
original edition of Cyberpunk. Specifically, one of the play-test groups
did a real hack-n-slash number that caught R.Tal completely off guard,
and this was just a couple of months before the release date. So,
without much time to spare, they cobbled together this "humanity loss"
mechanic, published a best-selling game, and now almost every cyber game
designer and his duck copies it, and lots of gamers think that it's
"genre". It's no more "genre" than cyberwear itself. And if you don't
think you can have "cyberpunk" without cyberwear, you haven't the first
conception of what the writing style is all about.
--
Rat <rat...@ccs.neu.edu> | Happy Fun Ball may stick to certain types
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ratinox | of skin.
Jonathan Dean
>>People like that probably started out with a pretty low Empathy anyway.
>>After a few cyber implants he will would care even less what anyone
>>else thinks about him as he can take 'em on.
>
>describe people who were psychologically unbalanced to begin with, have
>them go insane, and then call is "cyberpsychosis".
People nowadays are not getting three (or four) limbs replaced, adding
cybereyes AND neuralware. Given that most people have about a 5 empathy
it is unlikely that they will go psycho.
While we are at it, I personally don't like the idea someone who goes
cyberpsycho starts walking down the street shooting at everything in
sight. There are numerous alternatives to it. Several of these are
not particularly identifiable, or at least not something as newsworthy
as someone walking down the street shooting people.
>These "explanations" of cyberpsychosis have all the hallmarks of trying
>to rationalize something that has been arbitrarily decided on. The
>reasons keep changing (it's a "chemical imbalance in the brain", "it's
>how people look at you", "it's the feeling that you can do whatever you
>want", "it's all the electrical impulses, etc"). When the hole in the
>logic of each of the reasons becomes apparent ("how can cyberware you can
>see affect how people react to you") then one tries just combining them
>hoping they cover each other's holes ("it's a combination of effects").
>When that doesn't work (and it doesn't) then you say that examples of
>where it doesn't work are exceptions ("that's a case of minimum humanity
>loss") ignoring that if you really thing about it, _every_ piece of
>cyberware is an example of minimum humanity loss.
Who. What do you mean that _every_ piece of cyberware is an example of
minimum humanity lose? I was pointing out that the background provided
was a reasonably good explanation of someone who rolled well for humanity
lose, not that the individual cyberware is its OWN justification for
minimum humanity lose.
As far as that goes. An individual item of cyberware typically has very
little impact on a persons empathy.
You seem to be assuming that all the people on the net agree with each
others version of humanity lose and when someone pokes a hole in it we
go in a back room and decide on a new approach. Well that just isn't
the case. I have my version of what are the contributing factors to
humanity lose, and so far I haven't seen someone poke a big enough hole
in it to force me to completely abandon it.
>What if _today_ a character subconsciously longs for a woman who is
>repelled by his prosthesis? Does this mean that a certain percentage of
>people alive today with artificial limbs (which have been around since at
>least the civil war) are going to develop "cyberpsychosis"? It doesn't
>happen.
Its not likely that someone is going to start with a 2 empathy and
require multiple prosthesetics. Even if such a person were to get it,
as a part of the standard recovery process is therapy which can
drastically reduce the chances of reaching zero humanity (I don't
think its possible even with two replacement limbs).
>>Empathy/Humanity can serve as a guide on how that is done, but it does not
>>dictate a players actions (except at humanity 0, but then the character is
>>an NPC).
>
>Which means you allow someone to roleplay his character and then suddenly
>tell him that, for no good reason except game balance, he has turned into
>a crazed maniac and take it away from him. I call that infringing on
>roleplaying.
Game balance is reason enough. But you really ought to look at other
systems as well. Call of Cthulhu has Sanity which runs very much like
humanity (except you don't lose it for nice things :-). Shadowrun has
Essense. Heck, D&D has hit points. When any of these reach zero the
character is arbitrarily taken away from a player. Humanity isn't
really something new.
Personally I like humanity better that Shadowruns version of it. It
shouldn't be possible for someone to reach zero essense. All a doctor
needs to be sure is to do a quick check of what else is inside the
person to see if he is going to go over the edge. 100% guaranteed.
But Shadowrun isn't a part of this discussion, so I won't digress further.
>Which is the real reason we have "cyberpsychosis". It's a case of
>forcing changes in the setting to try an balance game mechanics. It
>didn't have to be that way.
Right now humanity works. Its justification may be a bit on the weak
side, but it still works. But, I am willing to listen if you have an
alternative to it.
--
Jonathan Dean | "Asps. Very Dangerous.
jd...@psl.nmsu.edu | You go first."
David Summers
>
>I have only one thing to add to this: Game Balance. If there was no
>detriment to cyberware there would be full conversions left and right.
The problem is that one didn't have to put hokey things into the setting
just to balance the game mechanics. There was a better way (as you
show below).
>
>The only way you can get by with having cybernetic replacements is to have
>some form of cap on what you can have. You don't like cyberpsychosis?
>Fine, use the natural Body stat as the amount of cyberware the character can
>have. (Cyberware can't let you get more cyberware) When your Body Index
>reaches zero you die. No saves, no therapy, instant death. The metal
>became too much and the system goes into critical shock with widespread
>biosystem failure.
This is reasonable and doesn't violate the experience and observations
we have already made in out current level of development. The only
problem I can see it that we know that you can put a fair amount of
stainless steel in the body without sudden death. So simple things,
like armor, shouldn't apply. Perhaps it might just be easier to roll
to see if the surgeons botch the operation. We are talking major
surgery here and in every operation there is a possibility of unforseen
complications and/or mistakes. A failure could range from permament loss
of the organ(s) being replaced/augemented to death.
Juvenal
: >But, I am willing to listen if you have an
: >alternative to it.
to bring the johnny mnemonic thing into it, how about a type of NAS that
sets in when the amount of augmentation exceeds an unkown physiological
threshold? kinda like essence, i know...but suppose the NAS doesn't kill the
character, dangle the potential for a cure as a major plot hook...just
like johnny making that one last run (talking movie here) to get his memory
back...or case agreeing to work for armitage in order to get his
decking-capability restored...the effect would be a gradual degredation
of abilities resulting in death (if a cure is not found) as opposed to
instant removal of character as per essence from SR...
what y'all think?
--
-------------------------------------------
David Chong (juv...@uclink3.berkeley.edu)
(dch...@ocf.berkeley.edu)
-------------------------------------------
This space for rent.
Jonathan Dean
>But they didnt' have to screw up the background just to balance the
>game. Even if you don't like point systems (which have no need of
>such things) you could restrict money. You could just makes sure
>you roll to see if the surgeon botched the operation (which is
>acutally realistic since it makes sense, even in the near future,
>that such complicated operations wouldn't be anymore risk free
>than they are today.) The list goes on. It only take a little
>thought (How are stats balanced? How are skills? You don't have
>"gun skill psychosis to limit skill levels).
I've seen what happens when you try to use money as a game balance.
There comes a point where the players have a "critical mass" of money
where the go from being reasonable to unreasonable. Unless you keep
the characters on the edge of absolute poverty this will probably not
be a good solution.
You can't use surgery rolls against characters at the start of the
game or you are getting into one of the problems of Space Opera (or
Traveller or sumesuch) where on a roll of a 1 the character is dead
long before it got into play. Its no fun to lose a character this
way.
Sure you can use surgery rolls as a balancing mechanic after the game
started but that is no help if one of the characters came upon a way
to really screw up game balance as the rest of the characters have
problems catching up.
>As to other games, I've played a lot of games over the years.
>At least in Shadowrun the premise is based on a mystical "life
>spirit" that fits with the premise (and hence the basic suspension
>of disbelief) that the game is based on.
I like the idea behind essense too much, but I hate its execution.
Everyone starts off exactly the same and when adding cyberware their
is either NO risk or absolute risk. Though I don't like humanity as
much, I like its execution.
I think I will comment on some of the alternatives to humanity I saw
posted on the net so far.
Humanity a la Vampire: It fits for Vampire, but I don't see it for
CP2020. It has a use for keeping players from becoming bloodthirsty
psychos, but I don't see how it would neccessarily be a control on
cyberware.
Humanity based on BODY: It has a good scientific explanation, but BODY
is already one of the most important stats. Having the limit on
cyberware be based on it only compounds the situation. At least when
it was based on Empathy a person has a reason to buy up that stat.
--
Jonathan Dean | "I perfer to leave dragonslaying to those in good
jd...@psl.nmsu.edu | standing with their gods."
John P. Raynor
: I would also point out that such a character does not make a good PC - I
: I tried to start a Cyberpunk campaign and it proved impossible to get
: them into the main PC group because they had no interest in what was
: going down. An assassin is essentially a lone wolf, which only really
: works for solo play.
Yep...I've got to agree. The "cold-blooded assassin" just doesn't work
particularly well - furthermore, they can be pretty darn boring for the
player, too. One of my "Vampire" characters had all the charm and bubbly
personality, of a "Terminator" (y'know: "And it absolutely will not stop
until you are DEAD! That's what it DOES! That's ALL it does!").
Interesting challenge, talking in a monotone, using as few words as
possible, and remaining completely expressionless for long periods of
time, but basically BORING. Yawn.
- J. Raynor
David Summers
>People nowadays are not getting three (or four) limbs replaced, adding
>cybereyes AND neuralware. Given that most people have about a 5 empathy
>it is unlikely that they will go psycho.
But what evidence is there that this would drive people insane? None
of the "explinations" hold water. There isn't even a hint of anything
like "loss of humanity" in people with artificial limbe today. Everything
we know about human physiology and psychology says it won't happen.
Basically the best you can say is that if you arbitrarily decide you
want people to psycho with cyberware, you can claim that if you
put a few more artifical parts in people than we have so far and decided
that those extra parts suddenly, for no clear reason, drastically
change how people react (and ignore the implications
that the loss of humanity says for people who have gotten as mnay
artificial parts as people do today how those rules don't jibe with
our experience) then you can say you can't absolutely prove it
couldn't happen. But I don't see the point.
>
>While we are at it, I personally don't like the idea someone who goes
>cyberpsycho starts walking down the street shooting at everything in
>sight. There are numerous alternatives to it. Several of these are
>not particularly identifiable, or at least not something as newsworthy
>as someone walking down the street shooting people.
None of the "alternaitves" I've heard have ever really addressed
the fundamental point that cyberpsychosis contradicts what we
know and have observed about human physiology and psychology.
It is just fundamentally flawed and decided that people don't
sudden go insane and kill people is not much of an improvements
(and the fact that they originially came up with that shows how
poorly thought out the whole idea was.)
>Who. What do you mean that _every_ piece of cyberware is an example of
>minimum humanity lose? I was pointing out that the background provided
>was a reasonably good explanation of someone who rolled well for humanity
>lose, not that the individual cyberware is its OWN justification for
>minimum humanity lose.
Its a pattern that I've seen in these threads. Any case where the fact
that someone going crazy is clearly absurd is called and example of
minimum loss and any example of someone who has cyberware going insane,
no matter what other causes.
>
>You seem to be assuming that all the people on the net agree with each
>others version of humanity lose and when someone pokes a hole in it we
>go in a back room and decide on a new approach. Well that just isn't
>the case.
I don't know what everyone believes. My comments are directed toward
cyberpsychosis as presented in the rpg. It's one of the most unbelievable
things I've seen in a long time.
>I have my version of what are the contributing factors to
>humanity lose, and so far I haven't seen someone poke a big enough hole
>in it to force me to completely abandon it.
Well if you are committed to keeping cyberpsychosis until someone
can absolutely prove is could never exist, more power to you. I
don't see the point. I think it would be better to just abandon
it that try and keep it afloat with patches here and there.
>>What if _today_ a character subconsciously longs for a woman who is
>>repelled by his prosthesis? Does this mean that a certain percentage of
>>people alive today with artificial limbs (which have been around since at
>>least the civil war) are going to develop "cyberpsychosis"? It doesn't
>>happen.
>
>Its not likely that someone is going to start with a 2 empathy and
>require multiple prosthesetics.
You are missing the central point. By your explination, unless you
start including humanity loss for taking the pill, your explination
is internal contridictory. This is a problem that shows up the
fundamental flaws in cyberpsychosis. Almost every explination
for why it would occur would also require humanity loss for things
that have nothing to do with cyberware. This is because what we are
talking about is nothing new or even specific to "cyberware" (and
is why our current experience does _not_ point to cyberpsychosis).
>
>Game balance is reason enough. But you really ought to look at other
>systems as well. Call of Cthulhu has Sanity which runs very much like
>humanity (except you don't lose it for nice things :-). Shadowrun has
>Essense. Heck, D&D has hit points. When any of these reach zero the
>character is arbitrarily taken away from a player. Humanity isn't
>really something new.
But they didnt' have to screw up the background just to balance the
game. Even if you don't like point systems (which have no need of
such things) you could restrict money. You could just makes sure
you roll to see if the surgeon botched the operation (which is
acutally realistic since it makes sense, even in the near future,
that such complicated operations wouldn't be anymore risk free
than they are today.) The list goes on. It only take a little
thought (How are stats balanced? How are skills? You don't have
"gun skill psychosis to limit skill levels).
As to other games, I've played a lot of games over the years.
At least in Shadowrun the premise is based on a mystical "life
spirit" that fits with the premise (and hence the basic suspension
of disbelief) that the game is based on. I agree that AD&D does
really stupid things to how reality works to balance game mechanics,
but that is hardly a reason to keep doing it (at least AD&D has
the excuse of being based on one of the first rpg's ever written).
>
>Right now humanity works. Its justification may be a bit on the weak
>side, but it still works. But, I am willing to listen if you have an
>alternative to it.
It works as a mechanic, as long as you don't mind the fact that it
makes the setting hard to believe and just "feel hokey".
Kilroy
: >some form of cap on what you can have. You don't like cyberpsychosis?
: >Fine, use the natural Body stat as the amount of cyberware the character can
: >have.
: we have already made in out current level of development. The only
: problem I can see it that we know that you can put a fair amount of
: stainless steel in the body without sudden death. So simple things,
: like armor, shouldn't apply.
I disagree. Armor sounds like one of the most *difficult* things to get
around. How does it interact with muscle tissue? How many blood vessels do
you have to sever and reattach just to armor the torso? How many joints or
overlapping plates to allow full motion?
Sorry, but I have the feeling that the arbitrary HC's for various 'wares are
just as good for Body Index as anything else, since it will all be
arbitrary. I'd just use the one that's there to keep at least a constant
between your game world and the other CP20xx games.
Perhaps it might just be easier to roll
: to see if the surgeons botch the operation. We are talking major
: surgery here and in every operation there is a possibility of unforseen
: complications and/or mistakes. A failure could range from permament loss
: of the organ(s) being replaced/augemented to death.
Sure, but I though evil GM's could call for that anyway? <g>
David P. Summers
Mandeville) wrote:
> Preparation: you have to have a gun on your person. This is
> considerably more than most people, even military personnel (not in
> wartime), have at all times. I'm not talking about a combat situation
> here, I'm talking about people who are asleep.
But in war time, when military people carry a gun all the time, they
don't exhibit anything like the kind of behaviour you describe. Even
when they are taking cities full of helpless civilians (there are
crimes commited, but that is, sadly, human nature and not psychosis).
Furthermore, a lot of cops do carry guns off duty, which means the only
time they aren't armed is at home. Furthermore, many gang members
do carry guns all the time and while they, due to their environment,
tend to have a calous disregard for human life, they don't show anything
close to what is described as "cyberpsychosis". Additionally, even if
carrying a gun 24 hours did cause the effect it still wouldn't be
a cyberware effect. In cyberpunk worlds you have a _lot_ of people
who are armed all the time (especially PC's) and to be consistent you
would have to start charging them humanity loss too.
>
> I wouldn't try this experiment myself, but just think about it. Wake
> up a police officer--rudely. If the officer is paranoid, and goes on
> the defensive, he's still not going to have a weapon in hand for at
> least two seconds.
He could easily have his weapon in his hand in less than a second. The
difference we are talking about is only a split second (and a person isn't
going to take the time to carefully reconsider his actions in a second
anyway, rash actions often take a minute and can take considerable longer).
To hing the idea that you are going to drive people into psychotic killing
machines based on this is extremely dubious.
>
> Wake up a CP2020 character with a cyberarm and a pop-up. If you have
> a pop-up, you're probably paranoid--why else would you get one? Wake
> up, pop the gun, shoot--death at twenty meters, in under a second.
> This is a capability even the best pistol-weilders don't have.
Wake up _anyone_ (especially someone who is trained to use one quikly)
and you are in trouble. It take more time to figure out what you want
to shoot at than it takes to get a gun ready.
[And it is still true that all this only applys to offensive cyberware.
Even if you did believe it, you would still have to just charage humanity
loss for offensive cyberware.]
________________________
(Disclaimer: If NASA had any position on any of this do you
think they would have ME give it?)
David Summers - Sum...@Ethyl-the-Frog.ARC.NASA.Gov
Stainless Steel Rat
Robert> I wouldn't try this experiment myself, but just think about it.
Robert> Wake up a police officer--rudely. If the officer is paranoid,
Robert> and goes on the defensive, he's still not going to have a weapon
Robert> in hand for at least two seconds.
Try that trick against a feudal-era samurai and you're going to be
dealing with several feet of tamahagane removing your limbs before you
can blink.
Would you call a master Iaijutsuka "cyberpsychotic" or even just psychotic?
T Pancoast
<rat...@ccs.neu.edu> writes:
>Try that trick against a feudal-era samurai and you're going to be
>dealing with several feet of tamahagane removing your limbs before you
>can blink.
>
>Would you call a master Iaijutsuka "cyberpsychotic" or even just
psychotic?
>
Not to his face, I wouldn't!
Robert E Mandeville
David Summers <sum...@max.arc.nasa.gov> wrote:
>In article <D9I7r...@world.std.com> rem...@world.std.com (Robert E Mandeville) writes:
>>The megalomania is obvious, and can be most clearly seen in full
>>conversion borgs. When you have a pop-up gun in your arm, you now
>>have the ability to kill someone from a distance with no preparation.
>>If this doesn't take you back, it should. Nobody, without
>>preparation, can kill you from twenty feet away. And when you can do
>>that and nobody else can, you're a demigod in your own eyes.
>
>What's this "preperation". Most people who have handled a gun can
>get it out of holster almost as fast as you can raise your arm. He
Preparation: you have to have a gun on your person. This is
considerably more than most people, even military personnel (not in
wartime), have at all times. I'm not talking about a combat situation
here, I'm talking about people who are asleep.
I wouldn't try this experiment myself, but just think about it. Wake
up a police officer--rudely. If the officer is paranoid, and goes on
the defensive, he's still not going to have a weapon in hand for at
least two seconds.
Wake up a CP2020 character with a cyberarm and a pop-up. If you have
a pop-up, you're probably paranoid--why else would you get one? Wake
up, pop the gun, shoot--death at twenty meters, in under a second.
This is a capability even the best pistol-weilders don't have.
And it may make one think twice. I know it would scare _me_ if I had
one.
David Summers
>Cash, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, is fairly
>useless as a limit on what your characters do for players who simply want to
>have heavy metal warriors as PCs - it's easy for the characters to live a
>frugal lifestyle,
This allways bothered me from roleplaying perspective (in all genres).
Players make their characters live miserable lives (denying them things
that, while they are unimportant from a game perspective, they wouldn't
be willing to do without themselves, like decent living conditions) to
get them more "stuff".
[Since this is a multi genre issue, I will also post to *.misc]
--
________________________
(Disclaimer: If NASA had any postion on any of this do you
think they would have ME give it?)
David Summers - Sum...@Ethyl-the-Frog.ARC.NASA.gov
Mr. Tines
sum...@max.arc.nasa.gov "David Summers" writes:
> >Fine, use the natural Body stat as the amount of cyberware the character can
> >have. (Cyberware can't let you get more cyberware) When your Body Index
> >reaches zero you die. No saves, no therapy, instant death. The metal
> >became too much and the system goes into critical shock with widespread
> >biosystem failure.
>
> This is reasonable and doesn't violate the experience and observations
> we have already made in out current level of development. The only
> problem I can see it that we know that you can put a fair amount of
> stainless steel in the body without sudden death. So simple things,
I am reminded at this point of the recurrent thread on rec.arts.bodyart that
gets started by "I just got a whole mess of new piercings, and I've got to fly
somewhere. Will I set off the metal detectors and get a whole load of hassle?"
Which goes to show that some people already put as much surgical stainless
steel (and other, less suitable, metals) in their bodies as they can - as well
as inking, branding, cutting and scarring - and that simply for amusement.
It also goes to indicate another possible economic limitation on excessive
metal. Cash, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, is fairly
useless as a limit on what your characters do for players who simply want to
have heavy metal warriors as PCs - it's easy for the characters to live a
frugal lifestyle, as they don't feel the cold or have the urge to party and
blow some of those hard saved Franken[*]. Impeding their ability to get to the
scene of the action with simple official hassle that makes catching a scheduled
flight nigh-impossible might be one way.
In general, there has to be some benefit to the player that is commensurate
with foregoing the cyber enhancements. For the ideal role-player, the
sense of playing a character may well suffice to more than compensate for
combat abilities and the like that aren't in character. For the more typical
player, there has to be some sharper rein, and whilst the Humanity Cost
mechanism (and its consequences such as cyberpsycho squads) is an RPG addition
to the source genre, so too is the tendancy to cyber heavily which it tries to
control. While I feel that Shadowrun's mechanism is somewhat more elegant in
that it is a plausible consequence of the underlying assumptions of its own
setting, it is inherently limited to that setting.
Considering the incentives, however, the baseline CP2020 system makes it
benficial for a character wanting to cyber heavily put a larger number of
points on a not directly combat related stat. Transferring costs from Empathy
to Body - while it may seem a plausible thing to do - will reward those who are
tough to start with with the possibility to add more cyber; not a good thing
for a mechanism intended to reduce the number of combat cyber-monsters.
[suggestion to use surgery hazards as a balancing factor snipped]
The problem with this mechanism is that - like the RQ-style experience system -
that those who roll lucky get an advantage and those that blow it are left
behind - and with only a few rolls of the dice each, there is plenty of room
for statistical quirks. How workable this is depends strongly on the player
psychologies.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6ui
iQCVAgUBL9dqcIoUd45Z7dNFAQFszAP9GijEFx10ho4r0ddE7F4C9n0HOnxhtatr
Uvg0Gn2yBkNIZ2Y4xpE7JJI4OsTc8Xp5v8SUZDgP97MWMNFXm8gHMZjtStwZvh7+
4TC76sZujIbzr5jQaCAzLq+ZUZWkpfyeCH7ckh93vddjwt+MGM+iil7ht3b816bf
qQLQbJpHpfE=
=xkZp
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
--
_______ PGP fingerprint: BC 01 55 27 B4 93 7C 9B 3C 54 D1 B7 24 8C 08 BC
/_ __(_)__ ___ ___
/ / / / _ \/ -_|_-< "So. Who is the real Mr. Tines?"
/_/ /_/_//_/\__/___/@windsong.demon.co.uk (PGP preferred on principle)
David Summers
>
>The problem with this mechanism is that - like the RQ-style experience system -
>that those who roll lucky get an advantage and those that blow it are left
>behind - and with only a few rolls of the dice each, there is plenty of room
>for statistical quirks. How workable this is depends strongly on the player
>psychologies.
It's a game philosphy question. Some people like they idea of giving
players something if they take a risk (and survive). Me, I just us
a point system.
Stephen McNeil
>ti...@windsong.demon.co.uk writes:
>>Cash, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, is fairly
>>useless as a limit on what your characters do for players who simply want to
>>have heavy metal warriors as PCs - it's easy for the characters to live a
>>frugal lifestyle,
>
>Players make their characters live miserable lives (denying them things
>that, while they are unimportant from a game perspective, they wouldn't
>be willing to do without themselves, like decent living conditions) to
>get them more "stuff".
>
>[Since this is a multi genre issue, I will also post to *.misc]
..which is where I read it, so thanks for doing so.
Yeah, this is one of those "good roleplaying" things. If players are thinking
about their characters as actual people (rather than a list of combat stats),
they won't just spend money on new bio-implants or healing potions, while
eating bread and water and living in a shack. I've played characters who were
vain or extravagant and spent lots of gold pieces/$$$/credits on expensive
clothes, gold-embroidered saddle blankets, every meal in the best places in
town with the beautiful people, penthouse suite with a view of the park, etc.
Even something as little as buying a round at the tavern and bragging to the
masses about recent heroic exploits can make the game more interesting and
help get the players into character.
If players *don't* do that, it's hard for a GM to motivate them, short of
openly bribing them with point bonuses (or whatever) for good role-playing,
which I've always found rather declasse. (Oh, I'd do it, but I'd do it in
secret.)
Stephen McNeil mcn...@chem.ubc.ca
**********************************************************************
"We're not actually from Canada. My father was just stationed here
during the Vietnam war."
Comedian John Wing
**********************************************************************
Steve's Rotating Canadian Content Sig
Eric Tolle
>At least in Shadowrun the premise is based on a mystical "life
>spirit" that fits with the premise (and hence the basic suspension
>of disbelief) that the game is based on. I agree that AD&D does
If I may jump in where wise men fear to tread....
I actually consider the Essence loss element to be quite reasonable, and
not from any mystical point of view. Any invasive surgery runs the
risk of disease and systemic shock. As well, any time you have an
object piercing the skin you have a vector for disease organisms to
penetrate. Not to mention, most cyberware has some form of neural
interface- something we have barely an idea of how to perform.
I keep having nasty scenarios of neural jacks that get dirty or cracked
in rough use, allowing bacteria to crawl down their wires directly into
the brain....
The way I see it, the more cyberware you put into the body, the less
resistance to disease you have, and the greater the chance for something
to go wrong. Thus essence loss tracks general health- at least in any
scenerio I would do....
And thinking of bugs....considerig the complexity of programming, and
the delecacy of circuitry, I'm suprised that cybernetics aren't
portrayed as spazzing out more often. Little things like a glitch in
the optical processor for an eye, or false 'clench fist' commaands.
Especially in Cyberpunk 2020, we are not talking about mature technologies.
And the joys of EMP have been _vastly_ understated IMO....
Eric Tolle unde...@mcl.ucsb.edu
Just for fun, go ask a doctor about some of the fun complications of
'minor' implants and the like....
Jeffrey J. Mancebo
give the players interesting things to do with their money!!! Lure them
into spending it. ONe of the best GM's I know of keeps her players poor
by showing them all the neat things they could buy!!!"
"How bout 'Bloodbowl' tickets, where that metalhead in your group can
go and watch the true elite bash away at each other? Or tickets to a
Rock concert? Your Decker who just can't resist the battery powered
yellow duck that rolls around going *QUACK*!" He grins. "Clothes are a
GREAT place for people to drop cash! How 'bout luminous clothing?
Harlequin outfits? Clothes that turn from opaque to trasparent at random?"
boojum the brown bunny
Kevin Mowery
: boojum grins, "This is at least 1/2 the GM's fault.. You need to
: into spending it. ONe of the best GM's I know of keeps her players poor
: by showing them all the neat things they could buy!!!"
My characters in Cyberpunk usually start out with pretty minimal
personal affects. Maybe a studio apartment and some basic stuff, and a
bit of money to buy some kibble. Then I start taking jobs (or plundering
datafortresses, whatever). I get more money.
I always manage to find something important to spend my money on,
though. Often it's hospital stays. In one instance it's been a
replacement limb for my character's Significant Other (who had a hand
unceremoniously shot off during a hunt for a cyberpsycho--yes, by me,
accidentally).
: "How bout 'Bloodbowl' tickets, where that metalhead in your group can
: go and watch the true elite bash away at each other? Or tickets to a
: Rock concert? Your Decker who just can't resist the battery powered
: yellow duck that rolls around going *QUACK*!" He grins. "Clothes are a
: GREAT place for people to drop cash! How 'bout luminous clothing?
: Harlequin outfits? Clothes that turn from opaque to trasparent at random?"
Clothes are a great place to dump a fortune, especially since the
lifetime of a really nice jacket or something seems to drop dramatically
once it's got some bulletholes, blood, maybe a gobbet of flesh, sewage, or
paint on it, or maybe just a scuff-mark.
And, if the characters are travelling (like when we played
Eurotour), it'd be remiss not to eat at fine foreign restaurants, buy
Italian suits, check out Danish hash bars, and buy souvenirs for the folks
back home.
'Course, the whole "too much money" problem can be swiftly solved
by playing a Nomad campaign... :)
--
Kevin Mowery --- kemo...@freenet.columbus.oh.us
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"This calls for a special blend of psychology and extreme violence."
--Vyvyan, "The Young Ones"
Paul Jonathan Adam
> >Cash, as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, is fairly
> >useless as a limit on what your characters do for players who simply want to
> >have heavy metal warriors as PCs - it's easy for the characters to live a
> >frugal lifestyle,
> sum...@max.arc.nasa.gov "David Summers" writes:
> This allways bothered me from roleplaying perspective (in all genres).
> Players make their characters live miserable lives (denying them things
> that, while they are unimportant from a game perspective, they wouldn't
> be willing to do without themselves, like decent living conditions) to
> get them more "stuff".
Part of it is survival. Part of it is obsession. I do think, though, that
anyone with Wired-II, combat experience, and the ability to work in the
sort of zoo your average Shadowrun team consists of, would be able to
lead a corp-security platoon with very little trouble. As for magicians,
there is no such thing as an unemployed magician. Ditto riggers...
It is a weakness of some GM's styles that people with such rare and marketable
skills find themselves scavenging in garbage cans. Okay, in some cases you
have a character background reason for it. But *all* PCs?
When we ran Harlequin, one module introduces you to a very flash restaurant
where, according to the module, "you feel out of place". Quinn walked in and
the maitre'd scurried up, saying "Miss Rodriguez, so good to see you,
the usual table? You have a companion tonight, am I correct? I particularly
reccomend the Dungeness crab tonight, the chef has excelled himself..."
Okay, she was a Coyote shaman and successful thief, so she had plenty of spare
cash. But apart from one or two really extreme weirdos, most of my PCs
have rated a decent place to sleep and good food as very high priorities.
--
When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better
or for worse, you have acted decisively.
In fact, the next move is up to him.
Paul J. Adam pa...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk
Paul Jonathan Adam
> up a police officer--rudely. If the officer is paranoid, and goes on
> the defensive, he's still not going to have a weapon in hand for at
> least two seconds.
On field exercises, if we were expecting contact while sleeping, many of
us ignored our sleeping bags (too slow to get out of) and just added as
much clothing as we could, then slept on foam roll-mats with our rifles
in our arms.
If anyone tried to take that rifle away, they were getting it in the teeth.
Exercise or not. Not psychosis: the rational fear of having to face a
sergeant-major and explain how you lost a battle rifle. And we were just
Territorial Army, not regulars.
We did get bumped one night, and I really only remember wondering "how did
I go from lying on my back to crouching behind this tree?" It really is
amazing how fast some reflexes kick in. I normally sleep like a rock: in
the field I slept so lightly I woke if people spoke my name a few yards
away, usually in the context of waking me for my turn to play sentry.
Never seems to happen anywhere else.
And as far as I know I have no cybernetic enhancements, unless contact lenses
count.
Pratt
: Right now humanity works. Its justification may be a bit on the weak
: side, but it still works. But, I am willing to listen if you have an
: alternative to it.
Check the Underground system for dealing with metagenic feedback trauma.
The rationale is almost exactly the same as Humanity, but infinitely
better executed. In fact, I like the way Underground deals with game
balance in general. Instead of keeping the characters weak so their
enemies challenge them, Underground allows the characters to be strong
and challenges them to find just who the enemy is. Much more appealing.
--
Pratt
Michael J. Montesa
I usually have my players spend a good part of their character's money in
between adventures. They have to pay up for any rent they owe, and blow
some of their cash for other expenses; food, booze, "entertainment" etc.
It usually comes out to something like 800-1000 nuyen a month (I play
SR). If they have lots of money, I sink them for more expensive stuff.
They usually need to buy new wheels (since the previous one got blown up
or lost somehow). I also make them buy new clothes since the ones they
were wearing last time are a big mess (bullet holes, blood, dirt,etc). I
also encourage them to buy expensive clothes too. The characters each
have at least one Italian or Saville Row suit.
They burn their money almost as fast as they get it, without buying too
much stuff that would be improbable. As a last resort, if they want
something really outrageous, I simply say that it's unavailable or will
take a long time to get.
Mike Montesa
Kilroy
: some of their cash for other expenses; food, booze, "entertainment" etc.
: It usually comes out to something like 800-1000 nuyen a month (I play
: SR). If they have lots of money, I sink them for more expensive stuff.
Well, Lifestyle covers food, typical expenses for entertainment (a movie or
two, some typical liqours like beer), utilities, cable, and even gasoline
for the car. Now if they wanna go to the opera, it may be covered on a high
lifestyle, and definitely on a Luxury...
: They usually need to buy new wheels (since the previous one got blown up
: or lost somehow). I also make them buy new clothes since the ones they
: were wearing last time are a big mess (bullet holes, blood, dirt,etc). I
: also encourage them to buy expensive clothes too. The characters each
: have at least one Italian or Saville Row suit.
Sure, but I tend to wear those bullet-holed clothing to the barrens. You
have no idea how much respect I get from the overcoat with the back blown
out by the rotary auto-cannon. I wouldn't fix that for anything!
Besides, dirt can be cleaned out, and only a lunatic buys white armor, so
most blood stains can be at least bleached into the background.
: They burn their money almost as fast as they get it, without buying too
: much stuff that would be improbable. As a last resort, if they want
: something really outrageous, I simply say that it's unavailable or will
: take a long time to get.
Sure, but what's improbable? We go on a run, we demand a degree of medical
fees to be promised up front. It's not that much, but normally we can heal
with magic, or just at a rediculous pace if you're a troll, so it's still
profit.
We risk our lives, get a 300kY necklace back, we expect a good fee, since
if the insurance isn't going to reclaim it, it must be stolen or so well
guarded that they don't find the 300kY worth it. The owner doesn't want to
buy a *DIFFERENT* necklace, they want *THAT* one. So of course, we expect
to be paid around 300kY for the group. It's what the insurance gave you, so
you don't lose anything, and you must think it's worth it.
Five runners getting 60k each, spending a good 25k of it just on
lifestyle, patching up selves and gear, still leaves a solid 35k just for
junk. Not to mention whatever was looted on the run. (Hey, look what I
just found in that exec's pocket secretary....)
slarty
> In article <3qqk4l$1...@hermes.louisville.edu> jlmc...@starbase.spd.louisville.edu (Kilroy) writes:
> >
> >I have only one thing to add to this: Game Balance. If there was no
> >detriment to cyberware there would be full conversions left and right.
Greetings...
Nope, Cyberpunk itself (-8 Man vs the inhuman world.
>
> The problem is that one didn't have to put hokey things into the setting
> just to balance the game mechanics. There was a better way (as you
> show below).
Well, by affecting interpersonal skills, it works fine...
Also makes sure that Razorboys have troubles sweet talking little old ladies
into giving them cookies.
> >
> >The only way you can get by with having cybernetic replacements is to have
> >some form of cap on what you can have. You don't like cyberpsychosis?
> >Fine, use the natural Body stat as the amount of cyberware the character can
> >have. (Cyberware can't let you get more cyberware) When your Body Index
Naaaaw, because then you neglect the actual prosthesis use of Cyberware...
Most of those _started_ out as things to repair/replace lost functions.
This means that someone disabled for medical reasons simply couldn't have
anything added in... Might be used to check if they survive the surgery,
but that would be about it.
Slarty
--
From: sla...@magi.com
Slartibartfast, out of Magrathea.
Slarty at 1:243/42 Fjords a specialty.
Mr. Tines
Pa...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk "Paul Jonathan Adam" writes:
[snip]
> It is a weakness of some GM's styles that people with such rare and marketable
> skills find themselves scavenging in garbage cans. Okay, in some cases you
> have a character background reason for it. But *all* PCs?
>
> When we ran Harlequin, one module introduces you to a very flash restaurant
> where, according to the module, "you feel out of place". Quinn walked in and
> the maitre'd scurried up, saying "Miss Rodriguez, so good to see you,
> the usual table? You have a companion tonight, am I correct? I particularly
> reccomend the Dungeness crab tonight, the chef has excelled himself..."
While this drifts from the original theme of some players whose habit it
is of having their characters live in a garret and stash their vast savings in
their mattress like some Victorian miser until they can afford their next visit
to the ripperdoc for another upgrade, I am in perfect agreement with you here.
One of the (many) things that made _One Stage Beyond_ essentially unusable for
my group was an episode where the characters were supposed to infiltrate a
media bash to find the chap they were after, and all the assumptions made in
the text were that the runners looked like crusties or some other form of long-
term street people, with an unfashionable amount of facial piercings
and inadequate resource to hygiene, wardrobe [have they forgotten the extremely
useful Fashion and Makeover spells?] or social skill[*] -the types whom the
bouncers would be sicced onto on sight. Any of the ex-corporate archetypes,
most bodyguards and mages, and many rockers and riggers would be quite at
home amongst the glitterati; though I am prepared to accept that almost all
deckers, and many street-* archetypes (with the notable exception of the very
urbane type of samurai like the Ork samurai archetype) are covered the module's
preconceptions.
Of course this phenomenon may be a result of observation of too many playing
groups whose characters do fit the profile, and simply reflects an assumption
of the target audience[**].
> Okay, she was a Coyote shaman and successful thief, so she had plenty of spare
> cash. But apart from one or two really extreme weirdos, most of my PCs
> have rated a decent place to sleep and good food as very high priorities.
Successful thief, successful shadowrunner - both should have money to keep
themselves in the style to which they would like to become accustomed for some
sensible interval between runs - if they don't rush to spend it all on cyber.
###
[*] I neglect in this context that this particular episode also assumed a
complete lack of tactical skill, because that was a besetting flaw of the
entire product.
[**] the bit about lack of tactical skill is redoubled here.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6ui
iQCVAgUBL9rOk4oUd45Z7dNFAQF8+QQAlemhX5Tr+A2MI9nrAIWmI12QNvutSnTR
kwnZn4QgPPj/iHM9WOSxQZsiqYrdmvYEMwvYlhJfQatU9MLtbFz070NhXev2IQ2z
/j+dbOxPov89ro3Nfo1uzKlbXQY33yLuXnDWZ0VJNeHvv91qEye+PaNVWZfuRv7i
4a3pzX8fr/c=
=I5g8
Mr. Tines
unde...@mcl.ucsb.edu "Eric Tolle" writes:
[snip]
> And thinking of bugs....considerig the complexity of programming, and
> the delecacy of circuitry, I'm suprised that cybernetics aren't
> portrayed as spazzing out more often. Little things like a glitch in
> the optical processor for an eye, or false 'clench fist' commaands.
> Especially in Cyberpunk 2020, we are not talking about mature technologies.
Just imagine - CyberWindows 2015, finally released sometime in 2020. So you
load it and after a while up pops an error stick-up
Error detected - Retry, Abort or Reformat brain?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6ui
iQCVAgUBL9rOrooUd45Z7dNFAQFILwP/Xt6Ai49pIaQxHJC3EQ+8aaLnIUIuIauQ
WuD0SNpzUWwrUFWxiFY7T/rBM24qagTR2XUP7m1rBhsDRSpopZCyNEthM5oKFLPG
EFoqW8I1IMTh6Nx22Ctl/EDRZpeqm2+rVWNpmMGpYKHa6o0m4zGyAcvMolyRTvr1
p0dp8TYtccA=
=/7Sr
Geoffrey C Grabowski
Kilroy <jlmc...@starbase.spd.louisville.edu> wrote:
> We risk our lives, get a 300kY necklace back, we expect a good fee, since
>if the insurance isn't going to reclaim it, it must be stolen or so well
> guarded that they don't find the 300kY worth it. The owner doesn't want to
>buy a *DIFFERENT* necklace, they want *THAT* one. So of course, we expect
>to be paid around 300kY for the group. It's what the insurance gave you, so
>you don't lose anything, and you must think it's worth it.
> Five runners getting 60k each, spending a good 25k of it just on
>lifestyle, patching up selves and gear, still leaves a solid 35k just for
>junk. Not to mention whatever was looted on the run. (Hey, look what I
>just found in that exec's pocket secretary....)
35kY.... That's all? Considering the 'standard' Cyberpunk (that
is, Gibsonian) preferred lifestyle and goals, which mainly seem to be
'live in a luxury hotel, travel often, take designer drugs, have sex with
anonymous whores' (to the point of Gibson bumping off all the characters
who *don't* act that way) characters in a good CP-genre game with the
Gibson style (that is, most of them) should blow through 35 grand in a
month... at most.
But the orignal thread here was why some people seem to spend
more money on their characters combat-stuff than they do on their 'life'.
Who knows? People are weird. I think everyone knows someone who neglects
their personal comfort in exchange for something. I know several people
who live in squalorous hell-holes while they purchase workstations. I
laso know of one person who sleeps in a sleeping bag in an unfurnished
apt. because they felt more comfortable that way (strange guy).
Characrters _can_ be the same way. If the player is making them this way on
purpose, fine, but if they're just doing it for the points, then make
them acutely aware of the impression they make.
Note also that in cyber games, particularly RTG's CP2020, the
characters are heartily encouraged to live like warrior monks with machine
guns (there's a whole sidebar blurb in CP2020 about how you shouldn' own
more than you can tote). Make sure the players didn't take this too much
to heart.... The RTG folksa re okay, but their grasp of the genre is a
little weak....
> Kilroy
G.
--
|Geoffrey C. Grabowski|gcg...@pitt.edu|Undergrad, U.Pittsburgh|Swing Heil!|
[O] "Told my little Pollyanna, there's a place for you and me.
[O] We'll go down to Transverse City, where Life is cheap and Death is Free"
[O]
Karl Dishaw
>
> Even something as little as buying a round at the tavern and bragging to the
> masses about recent heroic exploits can make the game more interesting and
> help get the players into character.
>
I've always had the reverse problem. *You* try coming up with a
decent market value for a tavern while the players are watching.
"Compulsive carouser" indeed....
Karl This is *not* TRW's opinion
"But I think it is not likely to be the only instance in which real
life turns out to be more complicated than what you have seen
in your book." -- Constable Moore
The Diamond Age
Neal Stephenson
David P. Summers
Mancebo) wrote:
> boojum grins, "This is at least 1/2 the GM's fault.. You need to
> give the players interesting things to do with their money!!! Lure them
> into spending it. ONe of the best GM's I know of keeps her players poor
> by showing them all the neat things they could buy!!!"
>
> "How bout 'Bloodbowl' tickets, where that metalhead in your group can
> go and watch the true elite bash away at each other? Or tickets to a
> Rock concert? Your Decker who just can't resist the battery powered
> yellow duck that rolls around going *QUACK*!" He grins. "Clothes are a
> GREAT place for people to drop cash! How 'bout luminous clothing?
> Harlequin outfits? Clothes that turn from opaque to trasparent at random?"
The problem is with players whor refuse such opportunities because they
want to get a cyber tacnuke are a sword of kill everything. I guess
it's mostly a powergaming question...
________________________
(Disclaimer: If NASA had any position on any of this do you
think they would have ME give it?)
David Summers - Sum...@Ethyl-the-Frog.ARC.NASA.Gov
Kilroy
: > just to balance the game mechanics.
: Well, by affecting interpersonal skills, it works fine...
: Also makes sure that Razorboys have troubles sweet talking little old ladies
: into giving them cookies.
But why? Why should razor-folk, with internal wires, headware memory,
internal processors, and weapon links, have trouble sweet talking old
ladies? What makes it so hard? Unless there's a blatant external chunk of
chrome (something that makes her nervous) the razors should be just as able
to sweet-talk a person as anyone else.
Course they'd probably just stick a gun in her face first....
: > >The only way you can get by with having cybernetic replacements is to have
: > >some form of cap on what you can have. You don't like cyberpsychosis?
: > >Fine, use the natural Body stat as the amount of cyberware the character can
: > >have. (Cyberware can't let you get more cyberware) When your Body Index
: Naaaaw, because then you neglect the actual prosthesis use of Cyberware...
: Most of those _started_ out as things to repair/replace lost functions.
: This means that someone disabled for medical reasons simply couldn't have
: anything added in... Might be used to check if they survive the surgery,
: but that would be about it.
No, there're a lot of people who can't get replacement organs or prosthetics
because their bodies can't handle it. "I'm sorry Mr. Flannigan, but you'd
survive the artificial heart implant surgery, but your body can't deal
with the strain from the motor. We're afraid the arteries aren't strong
enough."
"No Mrs. Watkins, but your bone structure is too weak to accept the
cyberlimb. I'm afraid you'll have to use an external strap-on model. It's
the best we can do."
Just because the prosthesis are out there doesn't mean everyone can have
one, even when they *are* prosthesis and not augmentation.
David P. Summers
> I've seen what happens when you try to use money as a game balance.
> There comes a point where the players have a "critical mass" of money
> where the go from being reasonable to unreasonable. Unless you keep
> the characters on the edge of absolute poverty this will probably not
> be a good solution.
It's whether you want to aknowledge it or not, an issue in allmost all
games. From Fantasy to SF, players with access to unlimited equipment
will be very powerful. But in any case, you don't have to resort to
cyberpsychosis just to get a game to work.
> You can't use surgery rolls against characters at the start of the
> game or you are getting into one of the problems of Space Opera (or
> Traveller or sumesuch) where on a roll of a 1 the character is dead
> long before it got into play. Its no fun to lose a character this
> way.
So why is it better to drive him/her insane with cyberpsychosis?
________________________
(Disclaimer: If NASA had any position on any of this do you
think they would have ME give it?)
David Summers - Sum...@Ethyl-the-Frog.ARC.NASA.Gov
David P. Summers
> > The problem is that one didn't have to put hokey things into the setting
> > show below).
>
The problem is that I don't think it even works adequately...
> Also makes sure that Razorboys have troubles sweet talking little old ladies
> into giving them cookies.
Why should a razor boy have anymore trouble interacting with little old ladies
than a heavily armed/amoured/noncybered individual? In fact, a little old
ladies attitude is going to depend mosty on wether the person was
protecting
her or robbing her.
Nonie Rider
I haven't used a coinage system in my fantasy campaign for six years,
because to me, lifestyles are for roleplaying, not counting pennies.
"Okay, unless you're really rich or really poor, figure your character
starts out with arms, armor, reasonable gear, and a horse. She's got
enough money for normal travel."
I like to roleplay finances rather than do math. My gaming group
works well with this--they sleep in inns, they eat a LOT, but they
don't buy a lot of glitz. The few times one of them has wanted to,
for example, buy a jeweled pendant to dedicate to the Moon, they've
asked whether they had enough money, and then scrimped on food etc.
for a while.
I mostly play Hero and Hero house variants, and I like the assumption
that Poor and Destitute are Disadvantages to be roleplayed, not
sums to add and subtract.
Me? I've run three non-standard characters under that system.
One was a Lord's daughter, a paladin-style warrior who assumed
it was her right and responsibility to wear a jeweled tabard,
buy wine rather than ale, and so on. She did this innocently,
not obnoxiously, and the other players liked it.
The other two are destitute. One, a defected Russian cyborg in
a near-future game, lives in abandoned buildings and survives
by hiring out for cheap day labor. Since another member of the
group is a Rich Girl, she's constantly frustrated by why he
won't just come live off her money, but he says, "I am not
understand capitalist money, but it is something you get for work.
I am not work for you, so I am not take your money."
The other one is a winged Scots superheroine in a near-Dark Champions
campaign. She arrived in this country broke and on the run from
accidentally killing a man; Chicago's homeless took her in and
helped her out. Even though the hero group has a base and resources,
she lives in alleys and rooftops, wearing a tattered greatcoat,
and finds a fountain to bathe in if she's going to meet the group.
Far more fun than if I tried to figure out how much loose change
any of them was carrying.
--Nonie Rider
Andy Pearlman
>The problem is with players whor refuse such opportunities because they
>want to get a cyber tacnuke are a sword of kill everything. I guess
>it's mostly a powergaming question...
Hey, it is easy to burn such characters. So they don't go. Then they hear
from the other players:"Yeah, we got to meet with Monster Jam, and it turns
out the lead singer's girlfriend is that new Immersion-D star. Yeah, *that*
one. Anyway, she's planning to do this cyber-hack-and-slash film, and it looks
we are going to be able to do consult. Shame you didn't go, but we're not
allowed to bring friends to the shoot..."
Or have their contacts complain to them, "Hey, I'm doing all these favors for
you, and you never take me out to dinner."
Etc...
Andy
--
Andy Pearlman
apea...@panix.com
Deus Ex Machina found to be Gerbil in a Wheel.
slarty
> Jeffrey J. Mancebo (boo...@netcom.com) wrote:
> My characters in Cyberpunk usually start out with pretty minimal
> personal affects. Maybe a studio apartment and some basic stuff, and a
> bit of money to buy some kibble. Then I start taking jobs (or plundering
Greetings...
I think I got you beat on that one... My latest PC is a furry receptionist
in a vanilla CP2020 game (Exotic biosculpt).
She started out with a stolen datachip, and half a bikini,
(All right, some non-weapon cyberwear implants. Communications and sensory
improvements mostly) and a severe case of amnesia.
> 'Course, the whole "too much money" problem can be swiftly solved
> by playing a Nomad campaign... :)
What an amusing coincidence.... That's what she stumbled into...
Mike Knudsen
>> boojum grins, "This is at least 1/2 the GM's fault.. You need to
>> give the players interesting things to do with their money!!! Lure them
>> into spending it. ONe of the best GM's I know of keeps her players poor
>> by showing them all the neat things they could buy!!!"
>>
>The problem is with players whor refuse such opportunities because they
>want to get a cyber tacnuke are a sword of kill everything.
Hmm.. How to part characters with thier hard earned cash? Well, if they're
even kinda legal, tax 'em into the dirt. Insane rent works well too (how
badly do they really want that safehouse). If all else fails, have 'em meet a
slick con-man. "Sure I gotta tacnuke tucked back in my apartment, but I need
the money up front ya understand...".
Not only does a good con give 'em a reason to work, but it instills a sense of
"everyone's out to screw me" in the characters that fits so nicely in a
Cyberpunk genre.
Shrew
John P. Raynor
: Note also that in cyber games, particularly RTG's CP2020, the
: characters are heartily encouraged to live like warrior monks with machine
^^^^
Gee...that sounds a bit like the "Cyberpunk/Space Opera/Lovecraftian
Horror" campaign world I've been fiddling around with for a while now.
Of course, in that campaign world, there really ARE "warrior monks with
machine guns" (well, SOMEBODY has got to deal with all the "Lovecraftian
Horror" running around), so it's no surprise...
- J. Raynor
slarty
> : > The problem is that one didn't have to put hokey things into the setting
> : > just to balance the game mechanics.
>
> : Also makes sure that Razorboys have troubles sweet talking little old ladies
> : into giving them cookies.
>
> internal processors, and weapon links, have trouble sweet talking old
> ladies? What makes it so hard? Unless there's a blatant external chunk of
> chrome (something that makes her nervous) the razors should be just as able
> to sweet-talk a person as anyone else.
> Course they'd probably just stick a gun in her face first....
Greetings...
Well, If the only tool you have is a hammer, you see all problems as a
nail.
With targetting reticles appearing on her, it's hard not to let the gun
fire when she refuses.
There's no magic here....Your firing reflex (linked to the "I is gonna kill you'
thought-pattern is picked up by sensors... From then on, any time you
think "I is gonna kill you' the thing FIRES.
But the mods you refute with can ignore the humanity losses anyways.
You can easily get those (except maybe for the cyberoptics part) for
lesss than 10HL, ie, no effective changes... (With a little luck)
To really affect your odds of talking to the little ole lady, you need
Cyberlimbs, Chainrips, Bug Eyes and steel talons coming out of your toes...
That's gonna frig the L.O.L. out of her skull.
Small mods, bring small changes... Hey, remember how your life changed
when you got a modem for your computer. Sleep patterns, commmunication
forms, speech patterns (aborted attempts at spelling out <GRIN> in voice
conversations) That's with a computer in the basement...
How would you change if it was built-into you ??
If all you had to do was think of checking your e-mail
and Presto: Power's on, and you're logged into the 'Net.
Geeze, you could send send anonymous obscene e-mail to the
teacher bporing you to death in math class.... While she's
doing it!
Why study ?? All you gotta do is consult the books, and run
the proper software to solve your math problems.
Also remembers that your personality has to change to take advantage of
those. Your reactions have to adapt. There might only be a subtle change
between walking to the nearest payphone and toggling on your implanted
cellphone, but it is different. There are changes. You're no longer the
person you were...
>
> No, there're a lot of people who can't get replacement organs or prosthetics
> because their bodies can't handle it. "I'm sorry Mr. Flannigan, but you'd
> survive the artificial heart implant surgery, but your body can't deal
Hmmm, you're right on that one.... But you'll keep the problems
related to piggybacking the 'reaction-to-cyberwear' stat to another
stat.... Especially coumpounding the munchkin problem by giving them
TWO reasons to have a high BOD...
By using EMP
1) You stay in line with the Cyberpunk genre itself.
2) You drain away from high BOD stats. (Points allocation system
being somehow preferred by munchkins over random stats...
Unless they manage to roll Max everywhere.)
3) You get a disadvantage to balance against the benefits of the implants.
Face it EVERYTHING has a downside. What else can you throw in ??
slarty
> In an arcane scroll, Alexander Williams quotes the holy scripturist
> Kevin Matsumoto, replying to the mystic words as written, saying:
>
> Which reinforces my belief that most RPG authors who include some
> kind of governing "stat" on cyberware should actually get up, go to
> a children's hospital, and schmooze with the amputees and cripples.
> Being one myself, I can talk.
> The only ones who have "problems" with prosthetics or mechanical
> augmentation are the older generations, for whom such mechanical
> devices were not part of their early social development. My father
> has a pacemaker, and its mechanical aspect bothers him, under the
> skin, etc. On the other hand, he's not tried to kill me of late, in
Greetings...
Ahhh, but this doesn't really apply.
The replacement of correctly functionning limbs with Cyberwear is far
different than the addition of prosthetics to an amputee.
One transforms one towards the machine, the other restores normal function.
Those are completly different things....
A point is that you'd feel less human with prostethics than with
the original parts... Even if you feel far better with artificial
parts than with none...
Jonathan Dean
>> I've seen what happens when you try to use money as a game balance.
>> There comes a point where the players have a "critical mass" of money
>> where the go from being reasonable to unreasonable. Unless you keep
>> the characters on the edge of absolute poverty this will probably not
>> be a good solution.
>
>It's whether you want to aknowledge it or not, an issue in allmost all
>games. From Fantasy to SF, players with access to unlimited equipment
>will be very powerful. But in any case, you don't have to resort to
>cyberpsychosis just to get a game to work.
Oh yes, I know that is a big factor and a big problem in almost any
game system. That is why almost every system has a secondary "control"
mechanism to keep people with LOTS of money from destroying a game.
For example, D&D has a level system, Shadowrun has essense, Champions
uses points. Of those that don't care, Star Wars doesn't place much
emphasis at all on equipment as it is the heros who are the stars. In
Call of Cthulhu it really doesn't matter how rich you are when a giant
slog grabs your character, you still just as dead as everybody else.
CP2020 doesn't really have any other than money and humanity to
control cyberware. Some players will have their characters lead
frugal lives just so they get get that new cybergun or something.
[There is a quite a good thread going on this tangent and what to do
about it.] Sure, in a reasonable setting, with reasonable players
money can be used as a good means of controlling outrageousness of a
party. Ral Talsorian can't assume that all players are going to be
reasonable, and/or their GMs going to limit the ammount being paid to
the party. In order to at least keep the PowerGamers in the same
ballpark as everybody else, to keep a stable reference for future
products.
If money was the only limit there would almost have to be two distict
product lines, one for the people who already have everything, and,
well, the rest of humanity.
Shadowrun is already running into this problem (I personally think it
was a mistake to introduce the Body Index as that just meant that
there was another stat to work down to zero). Do you think that a
reasonably party (much less a starting party) could walk into Bug
City, or some of the other Shadowrun modules and be expected to
survive. I don't think so.
>> You can't use surgery rolls against characters at the start of the
>> game or you are getting into one of the problems of Space Opera (or
>> Traveller or sumesuch) where on a roll of a 1 the character is dead
>> long before it got into play. Its no fun to lose a character this
>> way.
>
>So why is it better to drive him/her insane with cyberpsychosis?
I'm of the mind where something is better than nothing at all.
Fortunately, most of the people I play with are quite reasonable and I
could, theoretically, get away with dispensing the humanity system.
But, there are people I wouldn't trust without some other method of
limiting their munchanistic tendencies.
--
Jonathan Dean | "I say we take off; nuke the site from orbit.
jd...@psl.nmsu.edu | It's the only way to be sure."
| -- Corporal Hicks, in "Aliens"
David Cake
to have an RQ PC type lifestyle - he spent all his money and time on
training.
The rest of the group called him 'Stuart the Insane', because they
couldn't understand why he didn't spend his spare time and money at the
pub like the rest of them.
Cheers
David
Jonathan Dean
>I guess I have a different answer to poor/rich lifestyle questions.
>I haven't used a coinage system in my fantasy campaign for six years,
>because to me, lifestyles are for roleplaying, not counting pennies.
>
>"Okay, unless you're really rich or really poor, figure your character
>starts out with arms, armor, reasonable gear, and a horse. She's got
>enough money for normal travel."
I know what you are talking about. Been in a couple of fantasy games
where that is basically what you got (except possibly for the horse).
When we got treasure our ref would tell us how much gold we got, and
other neat stuff, like gems and other stuff. But he would mention
that we got silver and copper, but we didn't keep track of that. It
was assumed that when we where in town we would use the slush fund
to cover costs of room and board and other petty stuff. Worked out
fairly well. Our party was well off, but certainly not rich.
>I mostly play Hero and Hero house variants, and I like the assumption
>that Poor and Destitute are Disadvantages to be roleplayed, not
>sums to add and subtract.
Yep. But money doesn't play a big factor into HERO games anyway.
Anything worthwhile you paid in points, which were rarer and far
more valuable than money (too bad you couldn't just by them at
the store :-).
>Me? I've run three non-standard characters under that system.
>One was a Lord's daughter, a paladin-style warrior who assumed
>it was her right and responsibility to wear a jeweled tabard,
>buy wine rather than ale, and so on. She did this innocently,
>not obnoxiously, and the other players liked it.
Even in the game where the players were assumed to have small change,
we had one that wanted to keep track of how many copper pieces she
got. Not to go money grubbing, but so that the character can keep an
accurate track of the treasure horde she collected. I must assume
that it had something to do with the character being a copper dragon
that was polymorphed into an Elf...
>Far more fun than if I tried to figure out how much loose change
>any of them was carrying.
Went from that game (where pocket change was not counted) to one
where the ref insisted we cheep tract of how much money we had. God
that sucked. I had alot more fun when we didn't spend most of our
time pinching pennies.
But, to keep this particular subthread from being asked to move to
rec.games.frp, I would like to ask this.
If you ran a CP2020 game where you didn't have to pinch every penny
(say subtract a certain ammount at the begining of the month ala
Shadowrun lifestyle) and you wanted to extend that to character
creation. How much cyberware would you allow under "reasonable
gear?" Would this be based off of the power of the cyberware or
based off of the total cost?
--
Jonathan Dean | "I perfer to leave dragonslaying to those in good
jd...@psl.nmsu.edu | standing with their gods."
David P. Summers
> With targetting reticles appearing on her, it's hard not to let the gun
> fire when she refuses.
Why? To fire a gun in your hand all the brain has to do is send an
impulse down a nerve. To fire a cyberlinked gun, all the brain has
to do is send an impulse down a nerve. The is little difference.
[Deletions, I didn't follow a lot of it...]
> How would you change if it was built-into you ??
So things are more convenient. This drives you insane?
> Also remembers that your personality has to change to take advantage of
> those.
NO it doesn't. You can deal with such things just fine without
changing your personality. You can give someone glasses that makes
them see upside down and the brain will, after few days, start
flipping the image back around with ever changing your personality.
(If you take the glasses off, it takes a few days for the brain
to ge the image "right" again :-)
> By using EMP
> 1) You stay in line with the Cyberpunk genre itself.
Cyberpsychosis is _not_ part of the genre. Reread Gibson.
> 2) You drain away from high BOD stats. (Points allocation system
> being somehow preferred by munchkins over random stats...
> Unless they manage to roll Max everywhere.)
This is a sperarate flame, but I know a number of munchkins who
prefer random systems because they find they can always whine for
an above average character while a point system makes them start
at the same level as everyone else.
David P. Summers
> The replacement of correctly functionning limbs with Cyberwear is far
> different than the addition of prosthetics to an amputee.
> One transforms one towards the machine, the other restores normal function.
If you replace an arm with a mechanical arm that is "normal", but if that
arm happens to be strong than the original then sudden you are becoming
a "machine" and are going to go insane?????
> A point is that you'd feel less human with prostethics than with
> the original parts...
People with prostethics _don't_ fell "less human".
Craig L Wigda
David P. Summers <Sum...@Ethyl-the-Frog.arc.nasa.gov> wrote:
>In article <DA4GM...@magi.com>, sla...@infoweb.magi.com (slarty) wrote:
>> The replacement of correctly functionning limbs with Cyberwear is far
>> different than the addition of prosthetics to an amputee.
>> One transforms one towards the machine, the other restores normal function.
Correct. If I lossed an arm or leg having a cyber one would help me feel
more human (or at least help some what see my below statement about my
friend with the prosthetic leg below). Most time the person is allowed a
period of time to adjust to not having the arm or leg before they are
given a prosthetic one. In the cyber games you are having an undamaged arm
or leg remove (nothing wrong with it) and replace with one that does not
have the same fealing as your original one. The sense of touch is now gone
or different. The strenght is also diffrent, it is weaker or stronger then
your normal one. This is fine for game terms but how would you feal about
giving a hug to some one you loved with a pair of arms that have no sense
of touch in them at all (and could break their back easily).
>
>If you replace an arm with a mechanical arm that is "normal", but if that
>arm happens to be strong than the original then sudden you are becoming
>a "machine" and are going to go insane?????
Depends on how much of your body you loss and what you loss. (note: I play
just shadowrun II but thought I would throw in my two cents worth).
I would say "as you loss part of you basic five senses you would start
having problems". As your sense of touch is reduced or smell, taset, sight,
hearing you would start to suffer sensory deprevation (sp). Granted you would
have new input for hearing and sight but touch would be never be the same.
Same with semll and hearing. Yes you may be better then you were faster,
stronger, type stuff but take hearing for example. You boost your hearing,
now you can hear the music 16 appartments away not just two (unless you
turn your hearing off or reduce the input, of course then you may not
hear the guy sneaking up on you ^_-).
>
>> A point is that you'd feel less human with prostethics than with
>> the original parts...
>
>People with prostethics _don't_ fell "less human".
Question, how may people do you kknow that have prostethics ??? I know
five. All of them cope as well as they can with life but all of them have
problems and at some time or another feal less human. One of the people I
new in college had a prostethic leg (was missing the rest of the leg just
below the right knee). Now this guy went on hikes with the rest of us
(even tried water skiing with me during the summer) and was about as normal
as you could get, or so he seamed. One night after being out at the bar he
told me that life sucked due to the prostethic leg. At one time during one
of our hikes I climbed up a water fall about 100 feet (not the smartest thing
I ever did). He wished that he could have done that but he could not because
he could not feal where his right foot was. Just by my climbing that cliff
I made him feal less human, less complete of a man. Same thing at the beach
when he tried water skiing. Also several girls kind of freaked out when he
got out of the water and the prostethic leg was not there (when he had it
on I look just like a normal leg with a large ruber knee brace). The worst
was when he was with a girl and they were getting physical. He kicked here
with the prostethic leg a few times (by acident, but he could not feal that
he had kicked her). She could not stand to be in bed with he without the
prostethic leg but hated it because he could not feal anything with it and
would hurt her sometimes by hitting her or pinching her with it.
So, people that have prostethics do feel less human. Most just go through
a lot of trouble to hide it.
CLW
==============================================================================
| |
| Increase the Entropy in the Universe, Have Children. |
| |
==============================================================================
David Summers
>Oh yes, I know that is a big factor and a big problem in almost any
>game system. That is why almost every system has a secondary "control"
>mechanism to keep people with LOTS of money from destroying a game.
Cyberware is mostly just equipment you can't drop. However, I agree
that money isn't my first choice for controlling it (you have
to be careful if you want to do it that way). It's just better
than messing up your background by putting something like cyberpsychosis
into it. There are better ways. (A number of them have been proposed,
but, in more general terms, I don't believe that any game that has
to change the background just to be playable is well thought out.
After all, one doesn't have to introduce "skill psychosis" to
control skills).
>>So why is it better to drive him/her insane with cyberpsychosis?
>
>I'm of the mind where something is better than nothing at all.
>Fortunately, most of the people I play with are quite reasonable and I
>could, theoretically, get away with dispensing the humanity system.
>But, there are people I wouldn't trust without some other method of
>limiting their munchanistic tendencies.
But why does it have to be introduce dumb realistic concepts to
the background. You can just introduce the risk of surgery to
the camplaign (a very real problem).
--
________________________
(Disclaimer: If NASA had any postion on any of this do you
think they would have ME give it?)
David Summers - Sum...@Ethyl-the-Frog.ARC.NASA.gov
David Summers
>Oh yes, I know that is a big factor and a big problem in almost any
>game system. That is why almost every system has a secondary "control"
>mechanism to keep people with LOTS of money from destroying a game.
Cyberware is mostly just equipment you can't drop. However, I agree
that money isn't my first choice for controlling it (you have
to be careful if you want to do it that way). It's just better
than messing up your background by putting something like cyberpsychosis
into it. There are better ways. (A number of them have been proposed,
but, in more general terms, I don't believe that any game that has
to change the background just to be playable is well thought out.
After all, one doesn't have to introduce "skill psychosis" to
control skills).
>>So why is it better to drive him/her insane with cyberpsychosis?
>
>I'm of the mind where something is better than nothing at all.
>Fortunately, most of the people I play with are quite reasonable and I
>could, theoretically, get away with dispensing the humanity system.
>But, there are people I wouldn't trust without some other method of
>limiting their munchanistic tendencies.
But why does it have to be introduce dumb unrealistic concepts to
the background? You can just introduce the risk of surgery to
Eric Tolle
>But why does it have to be introduce dumb unrealistic concepts to
>the background? You can just introduce the risk of surgery to
>the camplaign (a very real problem).
*sigh*....unrealistic? I take it _you_ have had neural surgery?
you've had wires stuck into your nerves?
Cybertechnology involves direct interfacing with nerves and
Cyberware uses a direct neural interface, _directly_ connecting with
brain tissue. It's a technology we don't have now, and won't have
for a looong time- probably not until we start growing people with
interface capability.
You want realism? Okay. Cyberware, like prosthetics today does not
add to your reaction speed or strength- it decreases them. It is not
stronger then the human body - it is weaker. There are no cybereyes,
because you can't manufacture the neurons present in the optic nerve
all the way down to the eye itself.
And Neuralware? Get serious. The brain is allready hardwired for it's
functions, and you're not going to add new ones simply by jamming wires
in. The _only_ method I've seen for doing a possible man-machine
interface that would actually work, would involve shooting thousands
of microwires into the side of the skull, and testing them to see if
you can stimulate brain tissue in a very gross fashion. And that would
be bad news for the patient.
You want realism, have cyberware be a very bad idea, very bad for the
patients health. Force them to be on anti-rejection medication.
Are you starting to get the picture? Cyberware, like the Net, is a game
technology. It has as much to do with realistic tech as Gibson's Net.
Until somweone actually does start wandering around with neural jacks
and cybereyes, saying what it would be like is speculation.
Eric Tolle unde...@mcl.ucsb.edu
"An' then Chi...@little.com, he come scramblin outta the terminal room
screaming "The system':s crashing! The system's crashing!"
-Uncle RAMus, 'Tales for Cyberpsychotic Children'
David Summers
already said... I think this thread is about reached entropy death]
In article <3rpo6p$9...@gdwest.gd.com> clw...@gdwest.gd.com (Craig L Wigda) writes:
>In the cyber games you are having an undamaged arm
>or leg remove (nothing wrong with it) and replace with one that does not
>have the same fealing as your original one.
First of all, this is not how most cyber limbs are protrayed in the
genre. (In fact, one of the shadowrun books specifically describes
a cyber arm as feeling identical to the original). Nor does it makes
sense that a technology that can let you get sight from an electronic
eye would not be able to give you touch from a mechanical arm.
Second of all, why should a change in how your arm feels drive
you insane? It's contrary to all our experience in human
behavior and adaptability (I could cite a of example of not
only prostethesis, but also other ways in which one looses feeling in
ones but you don't go insane, but I've done that before). Vague platitudes
about "huging" aren't going to even start to justify such a dumb idea.
(and neither is a sort of "well it's because it's bad because you
loose feeling in your arm, like prosthesis, but it also better, because
you are stronger so that drives you insane")
Thrird of all, this would only apply to some cyberware. To apply
this attempted explination you would not apply humanity loss to
cyber armor, neural jacks, etc.
>I would say "as you loss part of you basic five senses you would start
>having problems".
But people have lost their senses, through a lot of different reasons,
and the effect just doesn't happen.
> As your sense of touch is reduced or smell, taset, sight,
>hearing you would start to suffer sensory deprevation (sp). Granted you would
>have new input for hearing and sight but touch would be never be the same.
Changing how you sense things is _nothing_ like sensory depravation.
It's based on a _total_ loss of _all_ input. And even then it
doesn't lead to anything like cyberpsychosis.
>Same with semll and hearing. Yes you may be better then you were faster,
>stronger, type stuff but take hearing for example. You boost your hearing,
>now you can hear the music 16 appartments away not just two (unless you
>turn your hearing off or reduce the input, of course then you may not
>hear the guy sneaking up on you ^_-).
And exactly why would this drive you insane???????
>>People with prostethics _don't_ fell "less human".
>
>Question, how may people do you kknow that have prostethics ???
There have been a lot of studies (you aren't the first one to think
of this) and cyberpsychosis just doesn't happen.
> I know
>five. All of them cope as well as they can with life but all of them have
[Stories deleted]
>So, people that have prostethics do feel less human. Most just go through
>a lot of trouble to hide it.
Ignoring the fact that I believe the literature before I believe your
anecdotal evidence in which you are clearly reading your preconceptions
into what happened, it's also true that what you describe is _not_
"loss of humanity". It is try that people with prosthetics sometimes
feel "diminished" but they don't "feel like a machine" or like they
"aren't human beings" (the people I know with prosthesis would, in
fact, find your believe that they should feel that way very insulting).
This is consistent with the fact that people who have suffered a loss
(but has no replacement) also fell this way (your story was similar
to how i've heard people talk about their wheelchairs, but those
can hardly be described as cyberware). The fact is that what we
are talking about here are psychological effect due to the trauma
of loss and not because of any "replacement"
Doctorb Science
>>Same with semll and hearing. Yes you may be better then you were faster,
>>stronger, type stuff but take hearing for example. You boost your hearing,
>>now you can hear the music 16 appartments away not just two (unless you
>And exactly why would this drive you insane???????
Well, what if they're playing that song from Air Supply over and over?
Anyway, you can picture humanity loss as a sort of error-catastrophe
thing. The human neural system is not actually *compatible* with silicon
stuff. It has to be cajoled, conned, and forced into cooperating with
it. Minor neural damage can lead to physical changes in the brain (with
which all cyberware must interface, at least indirectly). Physical
changes in the brain lead to personality change (cf. Phineas Gage).
How's that?
--
Sincerely,
Doctorb Science
(The "b" stands for "bargain"!)
P.S. I am not a crackpot.
David Summers
>Anyway, you can picture humanity loss as a sort of error-catastrophe
>thing. The human neural system is not actually *compatible* with silicon
>stuff. It has to be cajoled, conned, and forced into cooperating with
>it. Minor neural damage can lead to physical changes in the brain (with
>which all cyberware must interface, at least indirectly). Physical
>changes in the brain lead to personality change (cf. Phineas Gage).
>
>How's that?
The problems are...
1) It's already known that the human nervous system is campatible with
electrical impulses, so interfacing with silicon won't have that kind
of problem.
2) Even without #1, what you are talking about will lead to loss
of sensation and/or inability to use the cyberware. It won't
lead to insanity.
3) In any case, your explination would only apply to cyberware
affecting the nervous system (and mostly likely only the brain
directly).
Stainless Steel Rat
Doctorb> Anyway, you can picture humanity loss as a sort of
Doctorb> error-catastrophe thing. The human neural system is not
Doctorb> actually *compatible* with silicon stuff.
Since when? It's already been proven that the nervous system of humans
and animals can transmit electrical signals quite well. In fact, there's
experiementation occouring right now along those lines for dealing with
spinal injury patients.
Doctorb> It has to be cajoled, conned, and forced into cooperating with
Doctorb> it.
That's a load of bull, and the experimental evidence today proves it.
Doctorb> Minor neural damage can lead to physical changes in the brain
Doctorb> (with which all cyberware must interface, at least indirectly).
Really? So, tell me, how does the "cyberpocket" or artifical, hollow
fingertip interface with the brain? They have a humanity cost, yet they
don't have any neural connections, no more than a plastic hip does.
Doctorb> Physical changes in the brain lead to personality change (cf.
Doctorb> Phineas Gage).
Doctorb> How's that?
[...]
Doctorb> P.S. I am not a crackpot.
yahright.
--
Rat <rat...@ccs.neu.edu> | If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, get
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ratinox/ | away immediately. Seek shelter and cover
PGP Public Key: Ask for one today! | head.
Andrew O. Mellinger
shorgun shot to the chest. Well, and owl shaman NPC brought him down
to moderate which saved his butt. As he was lying in her arms (how
romantic) he said "I owe you dinner anywhere you want. Just name it."
(He also had the hots for her.) Well, a few weeks later she came back
and said whe wanted dinner in the shadow of the Acropolis. Dylan said
he had never heard of that restaraunt and she said "No, the Acropolis
in Greece you idiot." 8,000 nuyen later...
-Andrew
*-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Five time I have been with women and five time I have gotten VD" says
man in Kenya Times. "When will people learn sheep are safer and
cleaner."
GCS/S d-- H-(---) s+:+ g- p? au+(*) a- w@ v(?) C++$
U--- P? !L 3 N++ E? K++ !W M++ V -po+ Y+ t--- 5++ j
R++ G++>G' tv b++ D++ B--- e-$ u@ h-- f r++ n- y+++
Web: http://www.teleport.com/~geburah
-----------------------------------------------------------------------*
Eric Tolle
>If you ran a CP2020 game where you didn't have to pinch every penny
>(say subtract a certain ammount at the begining of the month ala
>Shadowrun lifestyle) and you wanted to extend that to character
>creation. How much cyberware would you allow under "reasonable
>gear?" Would this be based off of the power of the cyberware or
>based off of the total cost?
I would tell them "you can have as much cybergear as you want. _however_,
the more stuff you have, the deeper the hole you're going to be in, and
theworse the trouble.' A cybervet with a cyberarm, eye, smartgun link
would be appropriate, but a Fixer would bemore appropriate with a
chipjack and subtle modifications- give him a lifstyle and a SO instead.
of _course there will be people who will try to abuse this, by telling
you they should have a Dragon Full-Conversion. Give them a warning,
then sigh and let them in.
Then in the first five minutes, kill 'em.
Eric Tolle unde...@mcl.ucsb.edu
Then again, I hate full-conversions. Trying to imitate Appleseed is no
reason to start a Munchkinism race....
Mike Adshead
>Second of all, why should a change in how your arm feels drive
>you insane? It's contrary to all our experience in human
>behavior and adaptability (I could cite a of example of not
>only prostethesis, but also other ways in which one looses feeling in
>ones but you don't go insane, but I've done that before).
An important factor which everyone seems to be missing is the fact
that it's not just the subject's feelings concerning their cyberware
that can push them over the edge but also how the people around them
react to their new enhancements. If day after day you're looked upon
as a cyber-freak and frequently called the same, this will inevitably
cause you psychological damage - possibly enough to bring on
cyberpsychosis. The more obvious the differences between the borged
and the non-borged become, the less likely they are to fit in with
normal human society.
As I see it, the reason cyberoptics have such a large Humanity Loss is
not _only_ because the subject has lost a crucial part of their self,
but because others around the subject will no longer be able to feel
the same empathy with them, since eyes play a major part in reading a
persons emotional responses, etc.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Mike +Z >> Internet: mi...@jdhughes.demon.co.uk
>> Fidonet: 2:250/107.104
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
David Summers
>An important factor which everyone seems to be missing is the fact
>that it's not just the subject's feelings concerning their cyberware
>that can push them over the edge but also how the people around them
>react to their new enhancements.
We aren't missing it. We've been over it before. Nobody ever went
crazy because of what someone thought of someone or how they treated
them. This isn't new. In the over history people have been,
unfortunately, been seen as animals, demons, monsters, devils, freaks
etc. This has lead them to be enslaved, tortured, murdered,
just treated as dirt, etc. Going insane because of it just doesn't
happen.
Of course even if it wasn't just implausible, the explination still
would only cover obvious cyberware. It still wouldn't explain
humanity loss due to cyberware you can't see.
David Summers
>Sensory deprivation WILL lead to insanity.
It can lead to psychological problems but it won't lead to "insanity"
and especially it won't lead to "cyberpsychosis" (deaf, dumb, and blind
people _don't_ turn into psychotic killing machines). But this is
fairly irrelevant since changing _how_ you percive things (which
also does _not_ lead to psychosis) is not even close to being
the same a sensory drevation (which based on the total lack of
any input). Furthermore this would only affect cyberware that
replaced sense organs (ie, not hidden compartments, weapons,
neural jacks, ect.)
>And values slightly off in the ionterconnection could cause
>cheical imbalance in the neurons, leading to some rather
>interesting results...
Chemical imbalance in nerves down in you arms (for example) might
lead to shaking of the limbs or paralysis. It _won't_ lead
to psychosis. In any case, we already know you can put electrical
impulses into nerve endings without causing some mysterous (and
unexplained) "chemical imbalance" to occur.
>
>> 3) In any case, your explination would only apply to cyberware
>> affecting the nervous system (and mostly likely only the brain
>> directly).
>
>By definition ALL Cyberware affects the nervous system...
>Okay, a subdermal pouch doesn't... That's about it.
You are for getting the frivoulous (cybernetic beauty enhancements)
to the "just in case" (reinforcing or replacing bones) to the
"important in game termes" (cyberarmor) all of which have "humanity
loss". However, this is somewhat irrelevant since attaching cyberware
to your nerve endings isn't going to drive you psychotic.
slarty
> 1) It's already known that the human nervous system is campatible with
> electrical impulses, so interfacing with silicon won't have that kind
> of problem.
> 2) Even without #1, what you are talking about will lead to loss
> of sensation and/or inability to use the cyberware. It won't
> lead to insanity.
Greetings...
Sensory deprivation WILL lead to insanity.
And values slightly off in the ionterconnection could cause
cheical imbalance in the neurons, leading to some rather
interesting results...
> 3) In any case, your explination would only apply to cyberware
> affecting the nervous system (and mostly likely only the brain
> directly).
By definition ALL Cyberware affects the nervous system...
Okay, a subdermal pouch doesn't... That's about it.
Slarty
EngineerX
>shadow of the Acropolis. Dylan said he had never heard of that
>restaraunt and she said "No, the Acropolis in Greece you idiot." 8,000
>nuyen later...
NOW THAT IS STYLE!
I like it!
Stainless Steel Rat
Conrad> The amount of sensory input that creates our impression of being
Conrad> in our bodies is just too much for computers and their
Conrad> propgrammers to recreate.
Then please explain to me how your average cyberdeck is capable of
creating a full sensorium virtual reality and plugs it directly into the
brain. If a cyberdeck can do it, building the sensory spectrum up from
literally nothing, how much simpler it is to have actual kinesthetic
feedback from a prosthetic to use as a model.
--
Rat <rat...@ccs.neu.edu> |Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ratinox/|
David P. Summers
Constantine) wrote:
> yep - the sensory deprivation point is something I keep trying to hammer home
> - much to the annopyance opf peoples that say 'but the manual says they feel
> just like normal limbs!!!"
But the point I keep trying to hammer home is that what you are talking
about is _not_ sensory depravation. Sensory depravation is the the
effect of stopping _all_ sensory input. Feeling "different" (and you haven't
given any evidence that a cyberarm isn't going to feel like a normal arms in
the first place) isn't going to cause sensory depravation and it isn't
going to turn you into a psychotic killing machine.
________________________
(Disclaimer: If NASA had any position on any of this do you
think they would have ME give it?)
David Summers - Sum...@Ethyl-the-Frog.ARC.NASA.Gov
Conrad Constantine
>> The problems are...
>
>Sensory deprivation WILL lead to insanity.
>And values slightly off in the ionterconnection could cause
>cheical imbalance in the neurons, leading to some rather
>interesting results...
>
>> 3) In any case, your explination would only apply to cyberware
>> affecting the nervous system (and mostly likely only the brain
>> directly).
>
>By definition ALL Cyberware affects the nervous system...
>Okay, a subdermal pouch doesn't... That's about it.
>
> Slarty
>
- much to the annopyance opf peoples that say 'but the manual says they feel
just like normal limbs!!!"
there is NO WAY a cyberarm is ever going to feel like a normal arm - no way it
is going to mimic the sensation of several feet of temperatue/pressure
sensitive skin and the neural feedback of abpuot 20 muscles in the arm and
hand. The amount of sensory input that creates our impression of being in our
bodies is just too much for computers and their propgrammers to recreate.
this is my main gripe with full-borg copnversions. I personally believe that
they are ALL on sopme kind of drugs to take their minds off things or else
they just wig out and go spacy frpm sensory deprivation.
---
Conrad Constantine - PSYBA SOLUTIONS N.Z. ps...@iprolink.co.nz
.corrupting the populace of New Zealand even as we speak.
"Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy and socially dead."
---
Conrad Constantine
sum...@max.arc.nasa.gov (David Summers) wrote:
:In article <DAGIM...@magi.com> sla...@infoweb.magi.com (slarty) writes:
:>Sensory deprivation WILL lead to insanity.
:
:It can lead to psychological problems but it won't lead to "insanity"
:and especially it won't lead to "cyberpsychosis" (deaf, dumb, and blind
:people _don't_ turn into psychotic killing machines).
you don't understand sensory deprivation do you?
Sens-dep for cyboprs is not being able to feel your arm - having no feeling f
it being 'there' at all -p having no sensation of temperature or touch from
it.
THAT is sensory deprivation.
now even with SOME sensory feedback fro cyberlimbs, full borgs are still going
to have a lot of proplems.
:But this is
:fairly irrelevant since changing _how_ you percive things (which
:also does _not_ lead to psychosis) is not even close to being
:the same a sensory drevation (which based on the total lack of
:any input). Furthermore this would only affect cyberware that
:replaced sense organs (ie, not hidden compartments, weapons,
:neural jacks, ect.)
:
Ok - firstly - the idea of psyberpsychosis *IS* stupid.
however - the idea of EMPATHY LOSS is not.
if you have digital readouts in your eyes, and can read data directly out of a
copmputer faster than you could ever read it, and you can plug a chip in an
know a new skill, then eventually you ARE going to associate a fair deal with
digital elements as opposed to the 'analogue' people
logic is digital, emotion is analogue.
People with large amopunts of perception-changing cyberware are going to
become more and more logical/digital, and less and less emotional.
empathy is a product of emotion
empathy loss IS going to be a part of a lot of cyberware.
And while psychotic killing drives are NOT a part of this, there is goping to
be a point where you accidentally kill someone with your ridiculously strong
cyberarm - and it just won't affect you at all - the termination of this other
unit has no effect on yourself - it is not logical to bother yourelf with
their termination. <commence robot-like logical debate>
:>And values slightly off in the ionterconnection could cause
:>cheical imbalance in the neurons, leading to some rather
:>interesting results...
:
:Chemical imbalance in nerves down in you arms (for example) might
:lead to shaking of the limbs or paralysis. It _won't_ lead
:to psychosis.
but probably will lead to a lot of other problems.
The real issue here, is not the mattter of induced psychosis (which we know is
nothing more than a ridiculous anti-powergamer mechanic) but the matter of
EMPATHY LOSS.
CC
Stainless Steel Rat
Conrad> logic is digital, emotion is analogue.
Bwahaha! This one's up there with "left brained" and "right brained"
people, and "you only use about 10% of your brain's potential". This is
pure pop-psychology, totally nonfactual, completely bogus. Go take a few
logic and psychology courses sometime before you start blathering such
nonsense.
--
Rat <rat...@ccs.neu.edu> |Ingredients of Happy Fun Ball include an
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ratinox/|unknown glowing substance which fell to
PGP Public Key: Ask for one today! |Earth, presumably from outer space.
David Summers
>you don't understand sensory deprivation do you?
I had the same thought about you.... I'll try and explain it a different
way.
>Sens-dep for cyboprs is not being able to feel your arm - having no feeling f
>it being 'there' at all -p having no sensation of temperature or touch from
>it.
a) You don't go crazy from "sensory depravation" in and arm. Otherwise,
every one with prosthesis (which provide no sensory feed back at all)
would, even as we speak, be suffering "humanity loss".
b) Also, it _is_ genre that cyber arms (and limbs and everything else)
_do_ feel like normal limbs. They are _not_ "mostly numb". (and
even if they were they wouldn't drive you insane anymore than prosthetics).
c) Finally, it still remains true that, even if it wasn't absurd, your
"explination" says that, hidden compartments, contraceptive implants
(and other drug delivery devices), cyber armor, cybernetics beautity
enhancements, etc. should all have no humanity loss.
>now even with SOME sensory feedback fro cyberlimbs, full borgs are still going
>to have a lot of proplems.
(As I keep having to asked in respsonse to the unsupport assertions that
some peope keep trying to use to support cyberpsychosis)
What reason is there to believe they would? (other than the fact that
you have predicided that is how it should be).
>
>Ok - firstly - the idea of psyberpsychosis *IS* stupid.
And if people spend as much time trying to come up with new ways
to balance their games rather than just defending it, then we
would all be better off.
>
>however - the idea of EMPATHY LOSS is not.
Can you even say what "empathy" loss is?
>
>if you have digital readouts in your eyes, and can read data directly out of a
>copmputer faster than you could ever read it, and you can plug a chip in an
>know a new skill, then eventually you ARE going to associate a fair deal with
>digital elements as opposed to the 'analogue' people
Hogwash. This is like saying that learning to use heavy machinery will
cause you to "associate" more with it than with "real people", which
was a not uncommon myth about the time of the industrial revolution.
(It's interesting how much about cyberpsychosis and empathy loss isn't
really new at all, but just old myths about how new things were
going to effect people resurfacing. Basically it's all just
myth and supersition).
>
>logic is digital, emotion is analogue.
Nice slogan but it, aside from the fact that it is almost meaninless,
is highly dubious.
>
>People with large amopunts of perception-changing cyberware are going to
>become more and more logical/digital, and less and less emotional.
Like people with prothesis and other "mechanical" implancts become
more "mechanical"? Again it's interesting that this is pretty much
the same as the old myth that if a white man got a blood transfusion
from a black man you he would start becoming "like a black man".
Myth and superstition.
[more assertions of the same idea deleleted]
>:
>:Chemical imbalance in nerves down in you arms (for example) might
>:lead to shaking of the limbs or paralysis. It _won't_ lead
>:to psychosis.
>
>but probably will lead to a lot of other problems.
It might lead to phsycal problems (but even that is doubful)
--
________________________
(Disclaimer: If NASA had any postion on any of this do you
think they would have ME give it?)
David Summers - Sum...@Ethyl-the-Frog.ARC.NASA.gov
slarty
> In article <DAGIM...@magi.com>, sla...@infoweb.magi.com (slarty) wrote:
> >> The problems are...
> >
> >Sensory deprivation WILL lead to insanity.
> >Okay, a subdermal pouch doesn't... That's about it.
> yep - the sensory deprivation point is something I keep trying to hammer home
> - much to the annopyance opf peoples that say 'but the manual says they feel
> just like normal limbs!!!"
Greetings...
There is a worst point: " Cyberwear is only equipment you can't drop."
>
> there is NO WAY a cyberarm is ever going to feel like a normal arm - no way it
> is going to mimic the sensation of several feet of temperatue/pressure
> sensitive skin and the neural feedback of abpuot 20 muscles in the arm and
> hand. The amount of sensory input that creates our impression of being in our
> bodies is just too much for computers and their propgrammers to recreate.
Yes, but as you don't cut off everything, there's still some feeling
coming in... Cyber-bits are meant to offer as much actual functionality
as the original meaty-bits, but only do what they can.
>
> this is my main gripe with full-borg copnversions. I personally believe that
> they are ALL on sopme kind of drugs to take their minds off things or else
> they just wig out and go spacy frpm sensory deprivation.
Well, drugs wouldn't work too well either, but they could do damage control,
enoough of it to maintain functionality in the short term.
The problem is with more than just 'the conscious mind'...
Other parts need the sensory work-out too.
That was actually well covered by RTG. (Check the Dragoon stuff)
I do believe a few individuals would be able to cope with it...
The weird odd-ball starting with an EMP of 10 and rolling very low (-8
With some artificial sensory noise, major communication links (to avoid
getting bored out of their tin-ny mind) a few cases might be able to do it...
But you can't find them before the conversion...
I do think slightly nuts FBC's are quite an entertaining part of the
setting. Just remember to play them with with the EMP they got left. (-8
Slarty
>
>
> ---
> Conrad Constantine - PSYBA SOLUTIONS N.Z. ps...@iprolink.co.nz
> .corrupting the populace of New Zealand even as we speak.
>
> "Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy and socially dead."
> ---
--
Beatrice Dominguez-Meiers
--
******************************************************************************
Beatrice Dominguez-Meiers PO Box 20306 Albuquerque, NM 87154-0306
Phone: (505) 768-2186 (505) 881-9175 Fax: (505) 768-2324
The University of New Mexico
EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS, YOU CREATE, PROMOTE, OR ALLOW ...
******************************************************************************
Doctorb Science
>Conrad> logic is digital, emotion is analogue.
>Go take a few
>logic and psychology courses sometime before you start blathering such
>nonsense.
I think he misspelled "Logic is beautiful; emotion is sublime."
Hope this helps!
--
Sincerely,
Doctorb Science
(The "b" stands for "bargain"!)
Stainless Steel Rat
Mike> So too much psychological stress doesn't lead to a mental
Mike> breakdown...?
That's not what he wrote. Just that they don't necessarilly lead to
violently psychotic behaviour.
Mike> If you can never get close to people because of your obvious
Mike> differences,
Never underestimate the power and resilliancy of the human spirit.
"Obvious differences" haven't stopped people in the past; there's no
reason why they should in the future.
Mike> and build up normal relationships you *will* become introverted.
Introverts aren't violently psychotic.
Mike> Taken to extremes this would push people (ok, only the guys with a
Mike> low EMP) to breaking point.
Again, this does not necessarilly lead to violently psychotic behaviour.
>> Of course even if it wasn't just implausible, the explination still
>> would only cover obvious cyberware. It still wouldn't explain
>> humanity loss due to cyberware you can't see.
Mike> I agree, but I think that the more subtle cyberware should still
Mike> have a Humanity Loss albeit at reduced costs, since the subject
Mike> would still be aware of his own differences with 'normal'
Mike> unaltered humans.
That's BS and we all should know it by now. Some people really couldn't
care less about what anyone else thinks about them. These people would
be immune to the "dehumanizing" effects the game mechanics try to
foster.
Mike> I admit that there are some obvious flaws with the Cyberpunk HL
Mike> system
It's not a "system". System implies a cohesiveness, a cohesiveness which
is quite obviously lacking in the mechanic. If it were a system we
wouldn't be having this discussion.
Mike> and some of the HL costs (contraceptive implants being on), but
Mike> the general idea is still valid in my opinion.
And, based on real world hard data and evidence, it's totally bogus no
matter how many ways you try to justify it.
--
Rat <rat...@ccs.neu.edu> |Happy Fun Ball contains a liquid core,
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ratinox/|which, if exposed due to rupture, should
PGP Public Key: Ask for one today! |not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.
S.G. Hagen
that anyone who would willingly have parts of their anotomy hacked off to
be replaced with cyberware might be a little bit on the edge to begin
with. That being the case I would expect that these people would begin to
act a little weird but not psychotic. Meglomania, delusions of grandeur
and the like are the obvious choices.
They would also be a lot more fun to roleplay.
A cyborg with a Christ complex. Hello Largo.
******************************************************************************
We're here in engineering aboard the U.S.S Enterprise where we have replaced
the fine dilithium crystals they usually use with Folgers Crystals. Let's
see what happens.
******************************************************************************
Shawn Hagen
Stainless Steel Rat
Beatrice> I thought that people only used 3% of their brain.
Hmmm... maybe...
Nah, even the idiots who are inventing all kinds of rationalle to
support cyberpsychosis are using much more than that. :)
Seriously, the entire mass of your brain is used. CT scans have proven
it. All of it may not be active simultaneously, but by the time you're
two, the whole mass is being utilized.
--
Rat <rat...@ccs.neu.edu> |If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, get
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ratinox/|away immediately. Seek shelter and cover
PGP Public Key: Ask for one today! |head.
Mike Adshead
>We aren't missing it. We've been over it before. Nobody ever went
>crazy because of what someone thought of someone or how they treated
>them. This isn't new. In the over history people have been,
>unfortunately, been seen as animals, demons, monsters, devils, freaks
>etc. This has lead them to be enslaved, tortured, murdered,
>just treated as dirt, etc. Going insane because of it just doesn't
>happen.
So too much psychological stress doesn't lead to a mental
breakdown...? If you can never get close to people because of your
obvious differences, and build up normal relationships you *will*
become introverted. Taken to extremes this would push people (ok, only
the guys with a low EMP) to breaking point.
>Of course even if it wasn't just implausible, the explination still
>would only cover obvious cyberware. It still wouldn't explain
>humanity loss due to cyberware you can't see.
I agree, but I think that the more subtle cyberware should still have
a Humanity Loss albeit at reduced costs, since the subject would still
be aware of his own differences with 'normal' unaltered humans. I
admit that there are some obvious flaws with the Cyberpunk HL system
and some of the HL costs (contraceptive implants being on), but the
general idea is still valid in my opinion.
Mirage1813
>We aren't missing it. We've been over it before. Nobody ever went
>crazy because of what someone thought of someone or how they treated
>them. This isn't new. In the over history people have been,
>unfortunately, been seen as animals, demons, monsters, devils, freaks
>etc. This has lead them to be enslaved, tortured, murdered,
>just treated as dirt, etc. Going insane because of it just doesn't
>happen.
I think the problem with this thread is the concept that having a new limb
that feels and looks (maybe) like your old one will in and of itself drive
you nuts. That's just silly.
Cyberpsychosis (CP2020 version), though, may come more from the denial of
the sanctity of one's own "wholeness", if you will. "I was born with that
arm, I grew up with it, I hurt it sometimes, I learned how to write with
it, it was a PART of ME ... and now it's just meat, and here's this big
piece of metal in its place. And what's worse, it feels just like the
original. I am now part machine, but I don't FEEL any different ... gee
... I guess parts really IS parts ..."
To jump games, consider the cyberpunkish world of Underground. There's a
whole SOCIETY suffering from "cyberpsychosis", because even computers have
living human brains attached to them. People are just meat. Pop on down
to the local Tastee Ghoul if you don't believe me. There is no "sanctity
of human life". Get real. Hey, someone lopped off my leg. Oh well, pop
another one on, and replace my other one while you're at it. More profit
if I can sell it to MacRaney's ...
So the more parts that get replaced back in Cyberpunk, the worse it gets.
One eye is a little thing, but both arms and both legs? Someone who
begins to feel like a giant Lego(TM) playset would get a little loopy,
don't you think?
----------------------------
Mirag...@aol.com
<jingle> "Apply a little Acid Spit, that'll take good care of it!"