Arthur_Telluria

I'm running into more and more troubles implementing meaningful rules options for the Futurepunk setting I've written. A quick sorry up front, as most of it is still in German. It's supposed to be a game that has a higher focus on action and swift playability rather than meticulously crafted realism, but I'm running into walls here and there. I think I'm doing it wrong in some certain points of the HERO-System modification. But let me get to the point: I'm trying to build a ruleset for a setting, that's part Ghost in the Shell - Stand Alone Complex and part Transhuman Space. The basics are there, Cyberware generally comes with a -1 modifier to the points cost, since it's restrainable, needs upkeeping work, and needs to be repaired if damaged. There's also a sort of "everywhere Cyberspace", the Augmented Reality, which enables a sort of limited set of mentalist powers, and is in general built by a mental illusions - self only power. Weapons are smart, some even truly intelligent, reducing range modifiers, giving "indirect" advantages and the like. Currently there are two compounds of powers (not necessarily compound powers) that bother me a bit. First is how to build fully cyberized characters. I played around a bit with Multiform for that, but that quickly becomes so laughably cheap that a character could have several 500 pt cyberbodies for around 30 pts. Of course it could be done by just straight out building the character as a cyborg from the start, and just let a cyborg character cost a lot of points. I don't know, maybe that's the best way to go, but it seems somewhat unelegant to me. Or the cyberware is treated as equipment rather than as a power... Having a full body replacement would also require a skill / tf just to display a characters ability to cope with his new body, and on top of that, I'd make a perk "licensed cyberbody user" mandatory if the cyborg in question doesn't want to end up as a brain in a jar when the authorities find him. Another bothersome compound is "Telepresence". Or "Drone Rigging" for anyone who knows his Shadowrun. Another Mind Link: Machine, Drones are then intelligent. So far, so good, but that'd just put a Drone Rigger in the co-pilot seat. Duplication could work to some extent, but I'm not too happy with just using that. On top of all that, Cyberware should be restrainable by a "cyberware entangle power" thingy, but I'm not sure yet as to how to build that. Or how to limit the cyberware in itself for it to be meaningfully affected. Make every single piece of ware affectable by High Range Radio Perception Flash could be one thing... I'm just not sure if I'm doing this right. Or HOW to do this right. Maybe as a little thing on top of it all: I've introduced a somewhat alternative damage model: 1-2 points of BODY recieved in a fight only last until the end of the fight, representing light scratches and bruising. Also a character can't die from these wounds, but if BODY sinks below 0 from such wounds, a character is "just" knocked out. 3-4 points of BODY are light injuries, curable with a medkit and a successful paramedics roll. 5-8 points of BODY need medical care, a specialist, and probably a short stay in hospital. 9-up points are serious business and need treatment at a hospital and a longer resting period. Just to quickly illustrate where I'm trying to go with this... I'm not really trying to emulate a future reality, I'm rather trying to emulate movies / tv series / comics depicting such a thing.

Re: A multisensorical virtual reality Yes. It's due to Cyberspace being a diffrent dimension that characters - or rather their personas - can indeed have superpowers there, which isn't possible in the "real" world. I never had a chance to look at the "real" Cyber Hero, so I never had the chance to actually take bad ideas from it. FTL? No. I've not yet thought about it much, but transport in Cyberspace is a thing the personas don't have much of an influence on. If for example room A and room B of the Nihon Corporation Virtuality Headquarters are hosted on servers located in Chiba and the other in Kuala Lumpur, chances are the users won't even recognize it - though knowing that by accessing the Kuala Lumpur server you can reach the Chiba based one without much trouble would be a worthwhile information. In theory you could reason that it IS somehow FTL travel, but only in terms of meatspace. Not in terms of Cyberspace movement, and as that is where I want the focus to be, I'll not do it that way. Programs are powers. And weapons. And tools. Or rather the other way round, an attack program is an attack power with the limitation "SimNet Program". Not sure how much that limitation would be worth though. -1/2? -3/4? That's IMO the best way to go. Characters can of course then write their own programs, which is also something I have to put some thought into. Which skills to use? Computer Programming and / or Weaponsmith? And of course for the creation of programs there should be some limitations. Like that the creation of a Cyberspace program takes CPs x 2 days, and a set of specific skills, computer programming and some knowledge skills. Creation of locations in the net could then be handled with the bases perk, combined with the "cyberspace only" limitation.

In preparing a fully fledged cyberpunk campaign, I've come across the question of how to make a set of rules for Cyberspace without them being too cryptic, too complicated and fun to play with. First of all, I've taken some inspiration from the Shadowpunk conversion, and have taken up their money rule, so that my cyber heroes will get 20.000 credits for 1 character point. This is important in so far, as this money is then translated back into character points worth of cyberware and simware, the latter being "powers" in form of software for use in cyberspace. The cyberspace I have in mind is a rather non-abstract one, the best comparison being either the holodeck, Neo's Matrix or Snow Crash's Metaverse. So it looks and feels real, though its inhabitants can sport some features which wouldn't work in meatspace. So, the first step into cyberspace is a cyberbrain mind-machine interface piece of actual cyberware (the basic "mind link - machines" power with the "no range" and the "only for properly rigged machines" limiation") and a cyberdeck computer (which among other things gives the user the "extradimensional movement" power). The Cyberdeck then is where this whole "rules set" becomes interesting: The jacked in character takes his INT, EGO and DEX scores along, the other characteristics then depend on the kind of deck he's using. The standard "kid's stuff" / office machine cyberdeck gives the user STR, CON, BODY, PRE, and COM scores of 2-3 on the net. And this kind of deck should also probably give the user just half of his DEX to run the net. This would then cost about 3000-5000 creds. The next step would then be the Baseline SimDeck, which allows full DEX, but still lumbers around a score of 5-8 for the simnet-characteristics. Plus, this kind of deck can run simple software, giving the user 10 points worth of "powers" buyable as simware. A real bargain at 10.000 creds. Then there is somewhat of a jump in power, as the following step then is the advanced simdeck, which enables the netrunning character with a stable 10 for all of the simnet characteristics, and can run 15 points of software, for the price of 50.000 creds. Approaching the realm of professional workstations, the high power simdeck then gives the character 20 points to actually build a simnet persona's characteristics, alongside with 20 points of installable simware powers for the steep price of 75.000 credits. And finally on the bleeding edge the simdeck class which is illegal in many countries, the cutting edge deck, which gives the user 35 points to build his persona's characteristics with, plus 40 points of software powers. This thing then comes for a whopping 110.000 creds. I haven't yet had the chance to actually test this system, but it looks promising to me, at least on paper. Most characters in the setting will have some access to the simnet, due to the basic cyberbrain being a very widespread implant, which is something I'm implementing to negate the usual "and now the netrunner needs 2 hours of the GMs time, the rest of you commence twiddeling your thumbs and watch in awe!" problem netrunners / deckers usually pose for cyberpunk games. I'm not sure yet as how to handle skills. But as I'm taking a "matrix like" approach to the cyberspace, skills a character has in meatspace should be transferable 1:1 to cyberspace with a baseline deck. Also, skillsofts the character has running in his cyberbrain could be taken along. Just that a character in cyberspace would actually need "equipment programs" worth CPs to do stuff. For example, lockpicking works similarly in cyberspace as it does in the real world, just that you'd need a lockpick program to pull it off with. Same thing with weapons. They work the same way they do in meatspace, but you still need to actually have one. Another thing would be superpowers. A person with a non commercially available custom build (and extremely expensive) deck could up the useable CPs for "software" (and characteristics), and thus build a superpowered persona. It's just a rough sketch up till now, nothing is really final. One CP worth of simware right now translates to about 3000 credits if I'm not mistaken. So by taking the "money" out of the equation that would translate to roughly 6-7 CP in the simnet for ever 1 CP in meatspace. I've not yet come up with rules for dump shock and taking damage. I'm toying with the idea that a cyber persona doesn't have STUN, and that "killing damage" in Cyberspace translates into STUN for the character... Which even on paper sounds too complicated somehow. I want to have accessible and fun cyberspace rules. Suggestions? Ideas? Comments? Thoughts?

Re: NPC Creation Thanks for the advices. 8) That's something I can work with. Everything else will then come with experience eventually.

I'm pretty new to Hero System, and now that I'm into serious preperation of some campaigning, I've come up with the question of how to best create some nice NPCs. The campaigns I'm preparing are heroic, the PCs get the usual 75/75 treatment. So, my cyberpunk heroes should get some gang members and corporate guards to go up against. Now I've created a 25/25 skilled normal as a random gangmember, warts (disabs), full set of skills and all. As I lack the experience of running a fully fledged Hero System campaign, I'm kinda asking myself if I'm doing it right. Of course, those characters can be used properly, and are even useful outside the realm of a simple opposing force in combat situations, still I wonder wether there is a simpler way of doing this, and wether it's not going to be a bit complicated handling those characters in combat. Also I can't really measure how challenging this would be, which is really just due to lacking experience with Hero. I'd just like to prevent getting my PCs killed by a group of random thugs in the first session just because I suck at planning this through. Just as much as I'd like to prevent my PCs wading through hordes of goons without a scratch or any real feeling of threat. Any advice for a newbie? Some rules of thumb as to how many points "random goon" NPCs should have for heroic campaigns would be a nice starting point.