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[Ingo Monk]

Hi all,

Been on a chargen binge the last week or so and it got me thinking (and now I'm on a tangent it seems). 

In your games, how much cyber is 'acceptable' in social environments?  Generally low essence characters are "more machine than man" so should be role played as much, but these days a low essence rating doesn't necessarily mean lots of cyber.  On that line of thought, what if you make a character that has tons of bioware with no cyber but still as a low essence rating?  That person is all meat and no metal, so should they be role played the same as a cybered-out razor boy?  The rules say that should, but obviously we know better.  How about genetic stuff they've introduced?  It costs essence but the changes are inherent in your DNA? I know using essence to manage bioware and such makes it easier, but now I'm thinking the SR2 rules where your Body attribute governed how much bioware you could install made more sense.  And the genetech stuff, it doesn't make sense to me that genetic changes to your DNA would change your essence, since essentially what's happening is that your new cells that get produced have slightly different instructions than the cell it replaced.

/tangent

And back on topic: generally what's your opinion on how much cyber a character can have before a Johnson will look at them differently? 

Thoughts?

[Ruski]

I live in cal-free IRL, so this is how i treat bio-monsters.
like that chick with waay to much plastic surgery.
1) suspicion: what's she hiding?
what was there originally? why did it need to go away? witness protection? is that person going to sell me out to the fbi (kus thats what they do) for skipping out on import taxes for my matrix bought goods from seattle?
2) revulsion: there's something "not quite right" there.
I'm not talking about a super model with fake "bolt-on-headers" thats like 1 point of essence loss for improved performance.
after 10 passes under the knife, I don't care how awesome the scars heal... they all end up looking like frankenstin's monster.

[kv]

I agree with Ruski- and add that the more 'natural' the setting the more out of place it seems.

It might really depend on the Johnson- Mister Walters, corp wage-slave scheduled for his third Leoniziation, might feel much different about a chopped up runner than Chief Red Feather.

I try and design the NPCs as well as I do the run, so Mister Johnson's motivations and involvement in the run are a big part of why he's hiring 'unknown deniable assets' to do this job.

  - kv

[bull30548]

You called me on this in the game Kid but I noticed you mentioned Leonization.  Did you see it had a Avail. of 16F (F is for forbidden I had to look it up).  But here is a question in regards to availability.  Say if I were a red samurai  with renraku and the corp had the tech implanted in me.  Corps have the corporate property law so if UCAS says it is 12 but in CAS it is 10 (or the NAN) whose law do we follow.  It just an observation since there was a old merit called Diplomatic Immunity.  Which was that you were a corporate or goverment rep and you were immune to laws of other states.  So Availability how does it work?

Oh and that goes back to a game idea that I have been bouncing around in my mind about running a game with a dedicated group of runners that worked for one Corp.   Sort of more Mission Impossible and less Johnny Pneumonic.

So two thoughts Availability by location and an game idea that I could run on here.  Thoughts?

[Ruski]

having a corporate leash earns you a lot of build points. chalk up a half dozen "big-10" level 12 enemies, and I'm sure you could have build points for restricted gear for days.
that being said: in the alternate campaigns; you can set whatever rules you want.
all PC's start out with wired reflexes 3 deltaware and military grade armor for freebies.
as the GM you can set house rules for whatever background flavor you want.
I've played the other direction before.
making the PC's all start with the lowest resources and no equipment over availability 2 (street)
I don't see why you couldn't do tge opposite

[bull30548]

The system to use with the opposite way is SR2.  God that was an awesome system where you could start out with just a pistol and an armored jacket and survive.  The thing with SR4 is that it designed around the 200 bp system and dropping it down is tough.  Also SR4 is a lot more hazardous to your health than the SR2 (or even 3 system) was to your health.  I mean a good example is I overcasted a single spell and almost popped my brain.  Even if it wasn't overcasted I would be sitting at 8 stun.  This is a simple encounter to get used to mechanics and character builds.  This is just personal observations.

[Ruski]

that depends on your goals.
If you want to nuke the whole store, yea; you'll earn yourseld some brain damage.
but, lets say that your goal was to do 4p to one dude. (thats double my crossbow bolt damage) you should be able to soak that with a light fetish of some sort, and be able to cast it every round all day long and only end up with a minor headache at the end of the run.