Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 11:36 am

Yes, for game balance purposes the mundanes have to be potentially equal to what is basically a (mostly) human brain running a robot and a literal wizard. But the reasons for this don't necessarily have to be that transhumanism is somehow evil. It could just be that transhumanist technology hasn't been perfected yet, so there's some tradeoffs associated with the procedures, and unless you're missing an arm anyway you might want to consider keeping your meat-limbs for some reason. It could also be that transhumanism is legitimately better at everything the original body part is actually supposed to do (i.e. arm is stronger and more dexterous) but carries some kind of social cost that makes social and/or stealthy robots sub-optimal.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 11:36 am

FrankTrollman wrote:
fuchs wrote:That all still comes back to persecuting people who try to transcend human limits.
-Username17

That was fectin, not me.

Vebyast · Post by **Vebyast** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 12:05 pm

Chamomile wrote:Yes, for game balance purposes the mundanes have to be potentially equal to what is basically a (mostly) human brain running a robot and a literal wizard.

Idea: Humans heal faster, cheaper, and better. Rebuilding a cyborg is impossible without a machine shop. Wizards that aren't willing to cast themselves dry and end up with scars have to heal the hard way. A standard human, though, can just suck down a few protein shakes for raw materials and let some nano fix them right up.

Of course, this doesn't work if you're planning on a DND-style five-minute workday, if you want a healer archetype, or if you want the entire party to be completely healed after every encounter.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 8:24 pm

Re: Cyber penalties being incompatible with Transhumanism:
IME, Cyberpunk is not exactly the same thing as Transhumanism. In a lot of Transhumanism, advances in technology are revolutionary and awesome - they tear down the existing social order and replace it with an uploaded post-scarcity society that's busy turning the planets into computing power, while people have VR-sex with simulated historical figures.
In Cyberpunk, advances in technology are revolutionary ... and things still suck. We invent nanotech, then all the designs get copyrighted and tailored nano-plagues are distributed to kill pirates. And meanwhile, cheaply made industrial nano is malfunctioning and turning the ocean into artificial lemon custard.
So TL;DR - going full-metal and having your life still suck, just in new ways - totally compatible with Cyberpunk.

That said - can we have the Stress amounts be less arbitrary and transparently "gamey" than in SR? The thing where you have a cyber-arm with a compartment, and then putting something awesome in the compartment makes the arm more alienating is BS. And so is the thing where bone-lacing has the same effects as actual cybernetics.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 11:27 pm

Idea (which I seem to recall someone mentioning before...): each enhancement has its own specifically defined downside.

K · Post by K » Tue Jul 05, 2011 12:14 am

FrankTrollman wrote:
The fact that there is genre support for the concept is just one more reason that your complaints are going to be ignored.

-Username17

There is genre support for having weak characters around to make the other characters look strong.

The question you are left with is "in a game that is supposed to center around having magic and cyberware as necessary components for defeating challenges, what possible thing could you give normal people that offsets that? What are you going to give them that offsets the combat advantage that cyber and magic are supposed to give?"

The easiest thing is just to offset magic with cyber and assume Togusa is an adept. Anything else risks Togusa getting his damned head blown off the first time anything military-grade shows up. At that point, it doesn't matter that he was sneakier because he was a normal guy, or that he had more skill points, or whatever else is being proposed.

Of course, you could just offset the importance of cyber and magic completely by find something that equals the power of cyber and magic, but for normal guys. At that point cyber and magic becomes simply flavor text and the party of all-normal guys becomes viable. For example, having cyber arms would equal out being a weight-lifter or being a troll. None would be allowed to be the better strength option.

Of course, that option just makes cyber and magic not feel special and fun.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 12:48 am

Idea: Humans heal faster, cheaper, and better. Rebuilding a cyborg is impossible without a machine shop. Wizards that aren't willing to cast themselves dry and end up with scars have to heal the hard way. A standard human, though, can just suck down a few protein shakes for raw materials and let some nano fix them right up.

I like this idea, but we could make it apply only to cyber and then find a different disadvantage for fantasy.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 1:28 am

Chamomile wrote:
Idea: Humans heal faster, cheaper, and better. Rebuilding a cyborg is impossible without a machine shop. Wizards that aren't willing to cast themselves dry and end up with scars have to heal the hard way. A standard human, though, can just suck down a few protein shakes for raw materials and let some nano fix them right up.
I like this idea, but we could make it apply only to cyber and then find a different disadvantage for fantasy.

Fanciers have to buy more expensive tech with built in Faraday cages?

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 1:45 am

K wrote: Of course, that option just makes cyber and magic not feel special and fun.

It also means there's no point in hardcoding cyber and magic into your game at all. You may as well just have an option to buy better strength and then say "the fluff behind this can be whatever you want it to be, so long as it clears with your GM." This seems self-defeating to me. Why write a cyberpunk fantasy game if cyber and fantasy aren't even in the rules? At that stage, you may as well make it a general rules-lite punk game, that can apply to steampunk or atompunk or modern fantasy as easily as it can to cyberpunk.

Antumbra · Post by **Antumbra** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 5:43 am

Transhumanity fits better than Stress. If there was to be a distinction with magic, then it could also have Parahumanity.

Especially as the setting being discussed seems to be heading towards Deus Ex 3 With Magic - where society as a whole is coping with the implications of radical human augmentation.

Oh, idea for a Magic Healing disadvantage - how about some kind of "Attunement", to both cyber and magic.

You need a Machine Shop (Portable or otherwise) to repair Cyber and a Sanctum or chug a potion or whatever to heal Magic (bringing your aura into alignment to allow your body to heal etc). The concept feels awkward, but essentially that as your Transhumanity (fine, Stress) rises it takes over your Condition Boxes starting with the bottom ones.

At the point where your Transhumanity is equal to your Health then you are basically a brain in a robot body (at the very least). When your Parahumanity equals your Health then you're practically an elemental or a Lich. As they rise past it, you gain more Condition Boxes? I think that has been stated to be a Bad Thing before.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 6:22 am

FrankTrollman wrote:[*] Africa. I would like to include all the continents. Shadowrun really dropped the ball on the Southern hemisphere.

[*] Peak Oil. Shadowrun included some talk about barrens and arcologies and stuff, but they never delved into why that happens. It happens because fuel becomes scarce, making horizontal cities unsustainable. This results in the building of higher density residential, industrial, and commercial structures (arcologies) and has people moving out of the vast sprawls made in the late 20th and early 21st centuries to populate the higher density areas. So Peak Oil was always a thing in Shadowrun, they just didn't really talk about it, and the other implications were left to just sit there.[/list]

It would be really nice if Mister Cavern could make a campaign about PCs trying to take over Equatorial Guinea or something. Ever since I read Untapped, I've felt curious about what a modern or near-future RPG could be able to do with a serious look at Africa as a setting. African oil resources have become commercially viable enough to drive all sorts of turmoil and make a number of adventurous and/or unethical people extremely rich, and post-colonial cultural landscape is both impressively diverse and rife with myriad tensions.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 10:24 am

Avoraciopoctules wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:[*] Africa. I would like to include all the continents. Shadowrun really dropped the ball on the Southern hemisphere.

[*] Peak Oil. Shadowrun included some talk about barrens and arcologies and stuff, but they never delved into why that happens. It happens because fuel becomes scarce, making horizontal cities unsustainable. This results in the building of higher density residential, industrial, and commercial structures (arcologies) and has people moving out of the vast sprawls made in the late 20th and early 21st centuries to populate the higher density areas. So Peak Oil was always a thing in Shadowrun, they just didn't really talk about it, and the other implications were left to just sit there.[/list]
It would be really nice if Mister Cavern could make a campaign about PCs trying to take over Equatorial Guinea or something. Ever since I read Untapped, I've felt curious about what a modern or near-future RPG could be able to do with a serious look at Africa as a setting. African oil resources have become commercially viable enough to drive all sorts of turmoil and make a number of adventurous and/or unethical people extremely rich, and post-colonial cultural landscape is both impressively diverse and rife with myriad tensions.

I feel that actual gameplay should be goal oriented rather than action oriented. That is, your actions should be based on pushing agendas. So having high stress can actually be a direct disadvantage in terms of giving other people political ammunition against you when you do stuff.

So laying out political things to accomplish in Africa and SE Asia seems like a pretty good idea.

Every country and major corp and international political in the world should have a short writeup.

-Username17

A Man In Black · Post by **A Man In Black** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 10:52 am

K wrote:Of course, you could just offset the importance of cyber and magic completely by find something that equals the power of cyber and magic, but for normal guys. At that point cyber and magic becomes simply flavor text and the party of all-normal guys becomes viable. For example, having cyber arms would equal out being a weight-lifter or being a troll. None would be allowed to be the better strength option.

What if high stress opens you up to a new vector of attack? If you're not a cyborg, the only hacker attack that works on you in combat is Scramble, and not Hijack Motor Controls or EMP Pulse or whatnot. If you're not magiced up, you're only susceptible to Lightning Bolt, and not Banish The Unnatural or Dominate Creature or whatever. Stress means you get a stacking penalty to resist more-complicated specialist attacks.

It satisfies the desire to make it easier to hack cyborgs, while it also gives Togusa a combat role (shooting mages and hackers in the face).

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 12:04 pm

Can stress increase your XP costs? So once you replace your arms, you can't lift weights to get stronger. Same idea with encasing your brain in a spirit: studying up is mostly going to duplicate its knowledge.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:03 pm

Stress could, for example, open up something like combat paralysis . .
Either because you are afraid because you are not enhanced to go into combat and expect to not get hurt too much or because you are so enhanced that you don't know what to do first and need ti figure out your way of action first . .
And if you replace your Arms, you can't lift weights to increase the Strength in your Arms, but if you load up on Weights on your Shoulders and do Crunches you can still spend XP to make the rest of your Meat stronger . .
Stress is SUCH a nice word for this . . none of the esoterical nonsense of 'Essence' or 'Humanity'

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 5:41 pm

Exactly. That's why I thought a penalty made sense. It's not that there's no benefit, it's just reduced.

I really like the idea of introducing new vulnerabilities in exchange for enhancements, especially if they're extensions to the base system instead of separate subsystems. That also makes it a lot easier to get newbies in slowly.
I also like a slight RPS-style wheel, because it helps push broader characters and still keep strong roles.

TheNotSoEvilNecromancer · Wed Jul 06, 2011 8:00 pm

What's the story on magic and magical species in Heartbreaker? I saw K suggest earlier that everything be some sort of technology. Are you folks going that route, the cyclical thing like in Shadowrun or just creating an alternate version of earth where magic always existed?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 2:26 pm

TheNotSoEvilNecromancer wrote:What's the story on magic and magical species in Heartbreaker? I saw K suggest earlier that everything be some sort of technology. Are you folks going that route, the cyclical thing like in Shadowrun or just creating an alternate version of earth where magic always existed?

Here's my thought: The Stars Are Right and magic shit starts happening. You don't tie it into Mayan calendars or anything, it's based on weird stellar alignments.

Anyway, the demihumans have a base form, and that is worth a certain amount of Stress. There are advancements to each one that come with additional Stress. So you can be an Elf, and have the basic Elf traits. This is worth one amount of Stress. You add colorful bug wings to that, and it is worth more Stress. You add production of anesthetic glowing dust and it is also worth more stress. Go the full Tinkerbelle and do both, and you add all the Stress costs together.

Permanent Stress is just a cap on what you can have and also a scale of limitation on stuff like healing and social restrictions and such. Temporary Stress accumulates at some rate, meaning that having more temporary buffs up reduces the amount of time you can keep that going. Also, Temporary Stress adds to Permanent Stress, meaning that people who have more enhancements or are more magical creature types cannot sustain buffs as long.

This is why you get genre tropes like Wizards making magic swords and then giving them to normal humans. Because unaugmented humans can actually use magic swords longer than wizards can.

-Username17

Dr_Noface · Post by **Dr_Noface** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 2:35 pm

I LIKE IT

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 3:40 pm

Hmm, yes, this makes for an all in one balancing mechanism for EVERYTHING . . Races, Magic, Augmentations, Drugs . .

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 5:42 pm

Cool. I have a few questions about your vision for stress:

Does stress have a cap, or just continuously scaling effects?
If it's capped, can you buy that cap higher?
If uncapped, can you buy penalties down?
If it's capped, can you put stupid buffs on unfriendlies to make their buffs fall off?
Can you deal stress damage?

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 7:45 pm

fectin wrote:Cool. I have a few questions about your vision for stress:

Here are my suggestions

Does stress have a cap, or just continuously scaling effects?

It scales continually in a sense; the more stress you have the harder it is to overcome.

If uncapped, can you buy penalties down?

Yes, by buying up willpower, charisma, etc, to offset the penalties

Can you deal stress damage?

Yes, this is (one of) the basic mechanic(s) of social combat.

Vebyast · Post by **Vebyast** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 9:12 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Permanent Stress is just a cap on what you can have and also a scale of limitation on stuff like healing and social restrictions and such. Temporary Stress accumulates at some rate, meaning that having more temporary buffs up reduces the amount of time you can keep that going. Also, Temporary Stress adds to Permanent Stress, meaning that people who have more enhancements or are more magical creature types cannot sustain buffs as long.

This sounds to me like a point-buy system where your unspent point pool is also your fatigue bar. Does that sound accurate and kind of like what you want?

K · Post by K » Fri Jul 08, 2011 12:54 am

Stahlseele wrote:Hmm, yes, this makes for an all in one balancing mechanism for EVERYTHING . . Races, Magic, Augmentations, Drugs . .

It balances having stuff, but it doesn't balance not having stuff. The normal guy, which Frank insists be a playable type, is still a normal guy if he doesn't have a magic sword or combat drugs.

If he does have these things, then he's the magic sword guy or the drug guy and therefore not different from just being magic guy or augmented guy.

I'm torn whether this makes the normal guy more like the DnD Monk or the DnD Fighter. You seem to be stuck between either the guy who is totally dependent on other characters to be good (the DnD Fighter) or potentially could be good in a super rare situation (all weapons lost in the Monk's case, and some extreme case for the normal guy where everyone else has been pushed past their limits, but he can keep mashing the A button).

In the second case, why would the normal guy be pushing himself when the rest of the party has tapped out and is not willing to continue?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 8:36 am

That is a point.
But still the unaugmented Mundane could do well as an Connectioneer/Face . .
Or maybe Medic/Tech/Science/Thief-Kinda Guy. McGyver. Batman. Rohrschach. NightOwl. Comedian. Punisher.
Yes, you could do all these things BETTER with magic or augmentation, but like this you can have your SKILLS do what they are supposed to do without having to worry about too much stress . . Make the Magic and Cyber Guys go:"Dude, that one is scary, i don't think i could have pulled of these things" because no stress is hindering you in any kind or way . .
Furthermore, in a game with magic and augmentations . . why would you limit yourself by not taking one or the other? Or maybe both? as long as you keep it to reasonable levels it can still work . .
After all, that's what cyberpunk is about, is it not? Making yourself better than nature intended for you to be?

The Gaming Den

Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker

Re: Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker

Re: Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker