Cyebrpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker: Supported Archetypes

[Username17]

So this is a complex enough topic that it should probably be split off into its own thread. Frank Trollman's Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker is going to have sample characters. Those sample characters are going to be considered and hacked out to form some sort of complex elemental wheel of RPS such that different character focuses will be good at different things and weak to different things. There will be more such categories than there are expected player characters in a team of Assets, meaning that the expected situation is that the group has net strengths and weaknesses.

So the first thing to do is to fill out the chart that has the 21 sample characters. We can start discussing what they do and what they should be good at once we have the list.

There are going to be 10 demihuman characters. 5 of those demihuman characters are going to buy up a bunch of mutant powers and go on a rampage with them. The other five will be close to the minimum demihuman statline and go do their own thing with either a minimal demihuman Stress or jacking up their Stress with off-label stuff like cyberware or spellcasting knowledge. There will also be 11 human characters. Characters should run the gamut between unaugmented and super augmented across cyber, magic, and hybrid setups.

Character archetypes need an evocating name and a demitype. Eventually they are going to want a gimmick description.

Note: the following list is probably too long.

Character Title	Demitype	CyberStress	MagicStress
@Man	Asura	Medium	Low
Alchemist	Dwarf	Low	Medium
Body Guard	Ogre	Low	Medium
Bounty Hunter	Human	Low	Low
Cat Burglar	Elf	Low	Low
Chameleon	Ogre	No	High
Charlatan	Human	Low	Low
Courier	Human	Medium	No
Cuisinart	Asrua	Low	High
Enchanter	Elf	No	High
Engineer	Dwarf	Medium	Low
Explorer	Deep One	No	High
Fetishist	Human	None	Low
Golem	"Human"	High	Low
Guerrilla	Human	None	None
Hacker	Human	Medium	No
Heavy	Ogre	High	Low
Juicer	Human	Low	None
Medic	Human	Low	Medium
Necromancer	Human	No	Medium
Ninja	Human	Low	Low
Observer	Deep One	Medium	Medium
Political Activist	Human	None	None
Puppeteer	Human	Medium	None
Private Investigator	Deep One	Low	Low
Reporter	Human	Low	None
Rocker	Human	Low	No
Shaman	Human	No	High
Smuggler	Human	Low	Low
Soldier	Human	Medium	None
Summoner	Human	No	Medium
Vandal	Human	Medium	Low
Wheelman	Dwarf	Low	Medium
Wizard	Human	None	High

-Username17

[Fuchs]

What about the Driver/Pilot? Is that a subtype of smuggler?

There's the Technician, could be full-cyber technician, Hacker, or a rogue magi-tech specialist.

[Chamomile]

I propose some kind of technopath. Human (light cyber, light magic). These hybrid builds usually end up underpowered in actual play, because they end up sucking less at everyone else's weaknesses, but not actually being good at things. Nonetheless, it's a character I'd want to play.

[Grek]

Obviously, there should be a Juicer, who injects himself with loads of drugs to give himself lots of power and lots of Stress while they last, without making him unusual when he isn't shooting up.

There can also be a Terrorist, who is good at shooting dudes, making IEDs, breaking and entering and making videos wherein some dude gets executed/recent disasters are blamed on whoever is on the terrorist's shit list. Ideally, the sample character for this archtype should be fighting for something that the players might seriously consider supporting themselves.

Wizard/Shaman is currently too vague. There should be about 3 characters each that are primarily magic/primarily tech, and about the same (with some overlap) for characters that have only a medium sized investment.

Our 3 dudes who are almost entirely magic should probably be a
-Diviner, who is an Asura with a Third Eye open and all sorts of spells to predict stuff, sense astral shit, look through walls and so forth.
-A Summoner, who calls in a posse of spirits to do things to people. Depending on how we do magical defenses, he might also be the goto guy for banishing spirits or breaking magical sensors as well.
-One other magical dude, who probably does something directly offensive, like fireballs.

Light magic may include a dude who is somewhat like the Juicer, except with potions and other temporary spells. It most definately includes an Illusionist who has both invisibility spells and a hologram projector.

One of our tech dudes should be an Ogre with a literal pink mohawk and enough cyberware to build a tank. He holds a gun the size of your body, has one eye replaced with a target finder and doesn't afraid of anyone(as a result of that nerve staple)

We are also probably looking to include a Rigger, a Lawyer (who does face stuff, keeps people out of jail and insures deniability for the rest of the team) and maybe a Bounty Hunter, who is specialized in taking people alive.

[violence in the media]

Do we want any archetypes of people that PCs are unlikely to be? Like the old Cop, Corporate Wage Slave, Politician, or Nomad archetypes?

Are the PCs going to have any permanent affiliations or obligations that take priority over whatever else they might be doing? e.g. The Corporate Wage Slave can be self-serving, but he still has to show up during office hours and probably answer the phone when the boss calls. A Politician type may be the target of a run, but otherwise wouldn't be participating in one.

I'm asking because I recall those types of characters more or less suffering from the Hacker situation as well. Cops and Nomads always seemed to want every other member of the team to be part of their tribe; Corporates and Politicians spent a lot of time off doing their own thing or getting contrived into firefights.

Basically, how much of a part of society are Shadowrunners going to be? Is being a DIY mercenary drifter essentially a requirement of the lifestyle?

[fectin]

Soldier.

Bounty hunting seems like it would synergize well with magic.

You probably also want to keep the number of characters down. That could lead to bloat fast, which dilutes the goodness of your books. I'd start at a half dozen characters, but keep the others around for splat.

[RiotGearEpsilon]

Terrorist.

[RadiantPhoenix]

You probably also want to keep the number of characters down. That could lead to bloat fast, which dilutes the goodness of your books. I'd start at a half dozen characters, but keep the others around for splat.

Explanation here

[sabs]

Reporter (Human, light cyber)
Political Activist (Human, unaugmented)
Con Artist (Human, light magic) This could also be done with light cyber
Private Investigator (?) Could really be cyber/magic/unaugmented
Rocker/Rapper/Live Performance Artist
Ninja I mean sure, but is that really an archtype? You could have a Ninja with magic, cyber, who specializes in various parts of the ninja tree.
Hit Man (?)
Cat Burglar (?) This your basic infiltrator?
Smuggler (?)
Shaman (?)
Wizard (?) What Kind? generalist? Combat Monster? What traditions?


I think it would be nice to have only a handful of archetypes, and then show how they can be altered with various augmentation paths.
The Cyber Private Eye vs Harry Dresden

[CatharzGodfoot]

I'm assuming that the 11 are more sample characters than archetypes.

[Username17]

One of our tech dudes should be an Ogre with a literal pink mohawk and enough cyberware to build a tank. He holds a gun the size of your body, has one eye replaced with a target finder and doesn't afraid of anyone(as a result of that nerve staple).

Good point. would suggest the Heavy. Having thought about it a bit more, the Ogre who pumps up his Ogre powers should be all Ogre Magi-like and have powers of transformation. So that would be a Chameleon, I suppose. So that's Ogres taken care of. We got:

• Heavy (Ogre, High Cyber)
• Chameleon (Ogre, High Magic)

Wizard (?) What Kind? generalist? Combat Monster? What traditions?

That is an issue. It is my intention that magic use (including the use of demihuman powers) be magical tradition dependent. And what that means is that the magic you have runs off of different skills depending on how you understand magic. If you're a Northwestern Forge Mage, you go build things to get better at Thaumaturgy, and that corresponds to you literally using your Armorer skill to power your Thaumaturgy effects. If you're an ’áńt’įįzhį, you use Forensics to do Thaumaturgy effects, so you don't use the Armorer skill at all. And if you're a caster and know some Thaumaturgy spells like Heal or Shatter, you use the appropriate skill to power that. And if you're a Dwarf and you have demihuman powers in the Thaumaturgy path, you'd still get better at that with Armorer if you understood magic through the lens of Northwestern Forge Magic, and through Forensics if you understood Magic through ’áńt’įįzhį.

What this means is that the sample characters with magic are going to be from somewhere and have a magical tradition associated with them. The Ogre Chameleon would be equipped with a default magical tradition that utilized Transmutation Magic with a skill that the character actually had. And so you're going to have a couple of characters whose purpose is to show off a bunch of spells. And they are going to be from one of the modernist traditions and from one of the retro traditions.

New England is going to do Witchcraft and Algonquian Shamanism. So you might have a Witch and an Algonquian Shaman. But more likely, you'd pick one of each from two different countries.

So honestly, the biggest question is where the "default" area is supposed to be. Probably the Eastern Seaboard regional clusterfuck sprawl would be my guess. I which case you could have the Wizard and the Shaman be from any of the nearby countries.

Obviously, there should be a Juicer, who injects himself with loads of drugs to give himself lots of power and lots of Stress while they last, without making him unusual when he isn't shooting up.

There can also be a Terrorist, who is good at shooting dudes, making IEDs, breaking and entering and making videos wherein some dude gets executed/recent disasters are blamed on whoever is on the terrorist's shit list.

Soldier.

Those are good ones. I can see the Terrorist as an unaugmented chemicals specialist. The debuff counterpart to the Juicer. The Soldier is probably best as a medium-cyber character whose cyberware overclocks - adrenal boosters and combat drugs.

So really we're looking at a continuum where the Terrorist is unaugmented, the Juicer is minimally augmented (and may actually be an Asura or something), and the Soldier is medium augmented. And all of them have Stress in reserve to pull out the stops and go into crazy town.

-Username17

[A Man In Black]

Hiro was the Deliverator.

Which incidentally, I'd love to see as a character concept.

Courier

This got mentioned in the main thread, and it's something I keep seeing in fiction. While it is kind of lazy writing to have the main character be a deliveryman who delivers a package that lands him in the middle of the plot, it's a genre tradition/cliche.

[Koumei]

Is Juicer (in the sense of a drug-fuelled short-lived supersoldier) a term that Kevin Siembieda can sue you for? Because if he can, he will.

It's not that I give a shit about his IP, but knowing how happy he is to go to court (even if it causes him to lose money and ownership of IP), it could cause grief.

I'm aware the concept is broad enough that anyone can use it. Just that specific name. And here is where someone laughs at my lack of knowledge and points out the term dates back to Prohibition and has been used by no less than seven authors since.

As for concepts, hmm. All that springs to mind is either on the list ("Oh! Someone light on magic who uses flashy stuff for trickery- oh that'd be the Con-Man") or would fall under something on the list ("The Femme Fatale! Wait, that's a Ninja or Cat Burglar").

I suppose "Spy" is too broad a term? Given it could cover characters like James Bond, Ziva David and Solid Snake, as well as Major Kusanagi and Crash Override/Zero Cool, and something else altogether if it's a magic spy.

[Username17]

Is Juicer (in the sense of a drug-fuelled short-lived supersoldier) a term that Kevin Siembieda can sue you for? Because if he can, he will.

Since "Juicer" is a word that means "person who takes performance enhancing chemicals", I doubt it.

-Username17

[sabs]

The Courier Bad Ass is a common archetype though.

Johnny Mneumonic, The Transporter.

And it's a fun one.

[Almaz]

I suppose "Spy" is too broad a term? Given it could cover characters like James Bond, Ziva David and Solid Snake, as well as Major Kusanagi and Crash Override/Zero Cool, and something else altogether if it's a magic spy.

"Spy" is a thing you do, like a fighter fights, but "Special Operations Agent" is an altogether far more specific term. So I would suggest we use special agent or secret agent to describe our James Bonds and Solid Snakes. Even those who work with the Food and Drug Administration and inspect chickens will have a similar, espionage-geared skillset, since fundamentally Chicken Inspector's job is the same as Solid Snake's, access information people don't want you to access.

And in the future, inspecting chickens for genetic modification will be serious business and agents might get shot over it.

[sabs]

You're so cute.. you think that in the Future the FDA exists?

[Username17]

So I put up a first draft list. It's over-long and doubtless a bunch of them could be improved or replaced.

-Username17

[talozin]

"Terrorist" should probably get a rename, for two important reasons:

1) Should sound like something players might want to play.
2) Should not get players in trouble if someone overhears character creation.

While "Freedom Fighter" is a little too cynical for my taste, maybe "Guerilla" or "Revolutionary"?

[Username17]

"Terrorist" should probably get a rename, for two important reasons:

1) Should sound like something players might want to play.
2) Should not get players in trouble if someone overhears character creation.

While "Freedom Fighter" is a little too cynical for my taste, maybe "Guerilla" or "Revolutionary"?

Good point.

-Username17

[sabs]

When you say Vandal, what do you mean?
Do you mean you're typical Punk Ganger? Or do you mean more Barbarian roughhouser ?

[Shatner]

Looking at Frank's table of character types I see that it does not have any strong Magic-Tech hybrid character. At best you get a couple High-Lows but that's it. Mechanically, shouldn't we carve out some conceptual space for the Medium-Medium technomancer who is covered in equal parts eldritch runes and cyber grafts.

Just spit-balling here but if we make magic the go-to source for short-range teleportation then you could have someone who 'ports around beating people up with speed enhanced reflexes like Nightcrawler be a magic-tech hybrid. Alternatively, you could have someone who is meant to some sort of defensive expert (abjurer, nullmancer, faraday-mage, whatever) who acts to thwart both magic and tech opponents while his allies do the actual ass kicking.

[Shatner]

This sort of character hybrid character, who has stress up to their eyeballs, could make for a good example of what 1) max stress does and doesn't allow, 2) what the synergies and limitations are for the setting's representation of tech and magic and 3) act as a theoretical testing ground to make sure the guy who wants to mix magical chocolate with their techno-peanut butter doesn't get a better or worse deal than any other character build.

Players are going to want to cram two opposites together in one character whether it's a good idea or not (see: Mystic Theurge, Eldritch Knight, Gish) so we'll want to anticipate this while designing the game.

[CapnTthePirateG]

We don't have any high-stress techno-guys, like a cyborg or something, do we?

[Shatner]

The Heavy is a High Tech, Low Magic cyborg-smashy character.