Cyberpsychosis and you: how should it be implemented?

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This therapy idea, even if expensive, would motivate people to grind their cyberware up to ridiculous level.
Mmm... if I recall in the PnP, it's not so much that therapy was expensive, but lengthly. And time-consuming.

THAT's the mechanic that keeps people in check from just grinding out full 'borg conversions. It SHOULD take a long time to amass a lot of cyber.
 
Heh. Ah, Johnny, waaay too late for that in this setting. PnPers, as you probably know, tend to be natural system abusers. They give you all these stats and stuff..it's hard not to do some basic math. Especially in a game where a .22 can kill you as an advanced character.

So you get the High Emp character. And you get him some orbital cyberware. And you have it put in at an expensive European clinic. And he before he has it put in, he has his body altered with gene therapy to allow even more hilarious boosts.

And I allow it, if they can afford it. Why not? 2020 is a really brutal world. You can do ALL that, walk into the boardroom to meet your new boss and just..die. Maybe a killswitch.

MAYbe that nametag they made you put on carries a localized retrovirus. MAYbe when you walked in the building the Runner they hired out of Malaysia because he's jacked up on illegal life-shortening neural drugs you can't even FIND in North America, maybe that Runner overran your skillsofts, your HUD, your interface plug and now HE walks YOU.

So get geared up, kids. It's the Dark Future - you're gonna need it.
 
Talk to any well-adjusted amputee, and there is a huge-arse well of simmering what-the-f*ck-is-wrong-with-me below the surface. And those are the ones who have dealt with their demons for years and come out largely victorious.

Many lose. The suicide rate among amputees is incredibly high. And it's not a binary situation, either. Depressive symptoms are so common in those who have had amputations that more serious amputees are on the borderline of a diagnosis of depression that are not. In those who lost a limb in violent circumstances, there is a drastic incidence of PTSD, higher than that in returned soldiers from actual high-contact combat deployments. And this drastic increase in incidence is common to every subgroup tested so far.

It's not just trauma. Amputees are often suffering other problems, either induced or exacerbated by their loss of limb. Anger issues are common, An inability to interact socially is common.

Almost none of these issues are rectified by the provision of an artificial limb. When the user is sufficiently proficient that they can start to take part in something like their normal lifestyle, they tend to be less likely to develop severe psychological problems, but this does little to change the likelihood of developing the minor problems that characterise their life. Even in people who have been fitted with the absolute top-of-the-range equipment, that matches or exceeds human performance in every tested field, end up suffering for having lost a limb in the first place.

This isn't an 'average' either. Governments spend sh*tloads on tracking the recovery of people they spend hundred of thousands of dollars of leg to, to see whether it's worth it. And while it's much better psychologically than having low-quality product that seriously inhibits your life, there are no cases, literally none, in the data I've been able to see of individuals who have been assessed as being as mentally stable and healthy as before their limb loss.

Now what's REALLY interesting is that this does not just apply to serious amputations, like hands, feet, arms, and legs. Any amputation of an entire body part has similar consequences. Yes, more drastic amputations carry larger effects, and yes, amputations that impair activity carry the secondary packages of life-fucking that losing your lifestyle brings. But even losing toes or parts of fingers to frostbite or diabetes, something only you will ever see and that a prosthetic can cover functionally identically and visually indistinguishably, carries some of these same psychological issues. The suicide rate in those who have lost toes is lower than those who have lost legs, yes, but still significantly higher than the population as a whole.

And then there's amputation of sexual features, which compounds all of these effects drastically and adds the third layer of sexual identity to the mix of serious issues.

Now what that tells me is that there's a fundamental component of the whole and complete human body that we need to feel whole as a person. Identity is at the crux of so much of our psychological health. A strong and well-rounded sense of self makes for an extremely robust person. An ill-founded self-identity, an overly-focused one, or one that balances itself on factors that person can't control, is not. But I would suggests that individuals also draw a far greater amount of their indenity from their humanity. Their physical form and its limits. This we never acknowledge because, hell, when do we need to? We KNOW we're human. But because this is such a fundamental concept to our sense of self, and because it is so very robust, when it IS challenged and it DOES crack, then there can be horrendous personal consequences.

And this is in people we see now, where deliberate amputation is a serious mental illness, and prosthetics are not so powerful as to dehumanise.

Imagine a world where a man can strip away every part of himself and become more than anyone else around him, or indeed EVERYONE else around him.

One man goes to work in a mine, and does the labour of three other men, feeling greater than any other their and praised for his efforts. But then he gets home, and spends a half-hour in the shower, just staring at the cold metal myoelectric interface pinning the metal to himself.

Imagine the prostitute, now that aesthetic augmentation is easy. She is better-treated than all the others, and has survived where many others either die, or lose their edge and are sold to darker purpose. She will never have to worry about STDs, which have killed and disfigured many of her friends. But even though none of them own their own bodies, at least some day the others may have their back. Her body has been sold long ago, piece by piece on the surgeon's table. It is difficult enough to convince former sex slaves that they are more than a pretty toy to be f*cked. How much harder to persuade someone for whom this is physiologically true?

Then there's the super-merc, augmented to the bleeding edge of human capacity, and more dangerous than an entire district police force. He's better at his job than anyone else, and has survived what nobody else has, with the vast fortune to go along with it. He has felt the terror of seeing his first augged combatant as a normal man, felt the satisfaction of finally turning the tables with wetware of his own, and finally the sense of power that comes with full augmentation and being a modern day God of War. He is more physically powerful than any human in history; so much so that he has to retard his reflexes and strength by orders of magnitude just to keep those around him safe on the streets. But for all that power, it's a different story as he wakes up in the morning, in that slow semi-dream state. As systems come online and lockdowns lift, but before they rule it safe to respond. Memories of his early life, of childhood sports and fighting with brothers, but before the memory of so many white, clinical hallways and 'now count backwards from ten, please.' When for a second nerve triggers fire down all the old pathways, but before the myoelectric interfaces are able to respond.

For those brief seconds there is the terrifying awareness that, for all his miraculous technology, he is a severed head lying on a bed, without the lungs to scream.

Systems detect full consciousness and un-safe themselves, and he bolts upright, chemical dispensers releasing mild sedatives in response to the stress. He's made it through, again. Like so many other days. And he'll make it through tomorrow, and the next, and the next. Until one day, when the thought of waking up like this every day for the rest of his life is too much, and he makes sure he never has to wake up again.
 
ChaosWolf1982;4333 For those brief seconds there is the terrifying awareness that said:
That's...horrible. Great, but horrible. Either stop writing now or write until you have a book. I could go either way with it.

Very...visceral look into cyberpsychosis.
 
Chaoswolf , you sir are a master at describing the downward spiral into cyberpyschosis

As much as I would LOVE to take credit for it all to myself, I actually got it from a friend of mine, during a discussion on 4-chan about CP2020 - it was his rebuttal to a guy who claimed, now get this, that cyberpsychosis didn't make sense because the person might've lost their real parts but the cybernetic replacements did just as good so it was really like nothing was lost at all.

After my friend served up the above verbal assault, the guy wisely shut up and left the thread.
 
Empathy 3: Emotionless and cold.
Empathy 2: Chilly, forbidding and distinctly unpleasant to others.
Empathy 1: Violent, sociopathic and vicious. Must fight against violent, murderous urges.
Empathy 0: Game over.
I like you version C.Macleod ...

The above actually isn't "my version", but the set of Cyberpunk 2020 rules on empathy as they are stated in the core rulebook. That's not to say Projekt RED won't change that system, but the way it's designed, it should be relatively easy to handle.
 
Heh. Ah, Johnny, waaay too late for that in this setting. PnPers, as you probably know, tend to be natural system abusers. They give you all these stats and stuff..it's hard not to do some basic math. Especially in a game where a .22 can kill you as an advanced character.

So you get the High Emp character. And you get him some orbital cyberware. And you have it put in at an expensive European clinic. And he before he has it put in, he has his body altered with gene therapy to allow even more hilarious boosts.

And I allow it, if they can afford it. Why not? 2020 is a really brutal world. You can do ALL that, walk into the boardroom to meet your new boss and just..die. Maybe a killswitch.

MAYbe that nametag they made you put on carries a localized retrovirus. MAYbe when you walked in the building the Runner they hired out of Malaysia because he's jacked up on illegal life-shortening neural drugs you can't even FIND in North America, maybe that Runner overran your skillsofts, your HUD, your interface plug and now HE walks YOU.

So get geared up, kids. It's the Dark Future - you're gonna need it.

I have no problem with changing your entire body and getting your mind sick near the cyber psychosis. My problem is to see a mechanic that allow you to become a full android and act like a human, even if it is a bit anti-social human. Cyberware MUST have a price, and I'm not talking about money. The player must have to think if he really wants that, he needs to be affraid of the consequences. If not, you will mischaracterize the atmosphere of Cyberpunk.

Some player wants to instal a lot of cyberware and still play a romance like in a Bioware game? Be my guest. Just tell him to not complain if he wake up at morning and find his girlfriend spread all over the room. Or if his girlfriend dump him because she is starting to feel him distant and becoming affraid of him.

Boosting your cyberware to a ridiculous level would also take away the challenge on the game. Imagine a player's character that haven't lost his mind yet killing cyber psychos or even entire psycho squads like they were flies? Where is the danger enviroment of Cyberpunk in that?

I will give you a well know and recent example: Skyrim. Now I'm sure that most of people in this forum has played and liked it. In general the game is great but it have a big problem imho. If you raise the 3 crafting skills (alchemy, smithing and enchanting) to 100, you become a god. You can kill ancient dragons (while playing in the hardest difficulty) with a single blow of your sword just because you geared up for it. You can also become the mightiest warrior, the most talented thief, the wisest archmage and the most deadly assassin, being the leader of 4 completely different orders (with different views) all in a single playthrough, with the same character, with all skills on 100 because there's no cap to spend the points.

Now tell me: in the game above, why would someone want to play it for a second time, starting a new character if in the end he would become exactly the same thing of his previous character? Once I finish the Cyberpunk game playing a cold-blood Solo, I want to play, lets say for example, a Fixer that use more his influence than brute strength and have a completely new gameplay experience. I don't want my Fixer to have the same amount of cyberware than my Solo and still solve problems with conversation. It makes no sense.
 
Whoops. I posted this in my Cybernetics thread, but I meant to post it here...

Anyway, this is my take on cyberpsychosis, from my Electric Dreams Cybernetic gear book on my site:

"Maintaining a healthy state of mind is critical when one begins implanting cyberentics into their body. The intrusion of the metal into the flesh has been proven to have an impact on ones sense of self and ones ability to relate to his own humanity, as well as the humanity of those around him. No one is exactly sure what causes Cyberpsychosis, it was once believed that it was just a symptom of another mental illness, like schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder. However more recently scientists and researchers have come to the theory that Cyberpsychosis is its own classification of neurological disorder. The cause is unknown exactly, but generally believed to be caused by a mix of feelings of alienation, superiority, or even inferiority after cybernetic installation, and the eletrical overstimulation of the cerebrum from new sources. Too many impulses confuse the brain, overloading synapses. This is especially dangerous when dealing with cybernetic functions that don't occur naturally, such as cyberweapons, or dermal viewscreens, additional limbs, etc... and not as big a threat from cyber which simply replaces natural biological function, such as artificial organs, basic cyberlimbs, etc... Basically the brain and nervous system become confused by the new information, usually in the form of painful spasms. Adding this type of physiological trauma to a person who is having feelings of alienation and anxiety is a powderkeg which results in a paranoid and violent state similiar to rabies, though much more intense. Because the afflicted is in severe pain due to the nervous and cortical system overload, it is believed by some that the Cyber psychotic rage is not only a means of lashing out at percieved threats, but also a subconscious suicide attempt."
 
Go ask some biologists that study humans and the nervous system, or check an undergraduate or higher level Human Anatomy and Physiology textbook Wisdom000. Once again, the brain cannot feel pain, there are no pain receptor nerves in the brain. I would look up a reference but I don't want to dig the textbook out right now.
 
Nowhere in that post do i ever say the brain feels pain. The afflicted feels pain due to his nervous and cortical system being overloaded, causing intense spasms.
 
I'm sold on the wireframe. Suddenly you think and see like a machine. it would really give you a sense of how hard it is. if you could take time out of the game and recover, like therapy but also meaning you miss missions and lose earnings it would give you that horrible choice of 'do i fix this or go with it?'. i worry that wireframe might mean targeting became easier and it would become a tool to beat the game. nah, go with wireframe, it also says something about Neo :)

Conversation being altered would also work nicely. The main issue here, as a game designer, is how one would come back from it without restarting the game. Drugs maybe? which could lead to a nice addiction to make the play even more difficult.

i understand animating everything different would be hell to make happen but the idea of NPCs becoming monsters and combative (when they actually are not) is genius. hell to make happen as i say.

Cyberpsychosis is important though, it was a big part of my GMing. Too easy to become a metal god otherwise.
 
One GM I encountered helped rein-in his players' tendency to do stuff like keep their cyberware-loaded characters' sensory and reflex systems cranked up, by nearly having one of them gun down a pack of kids when a stray baseball flew his way and set off his proximity alerts.
 
Well, I think a good way to simulate cyberpsychosis is to take a page from Justice League Doom. Replace all of the characters with something that looks hosttile, including animations, strip the world down to wire frame, now you see the world as hostile and just different forms of data. Then throw in voices so your ability to judge the situation in rational manner is compromised. These are a few ideas.

I would not add this as it would require some development into it and I don't think it is needed. At the same I would love your brain to trick you that NPCs are attacking you - something like in the inception. And only from time to time. And voices in your head - a lot of them - shouts etc.

And also apart from that u should also sometimes loose control over your character. U would have only the vission and the character should start slaughtering any nearby people... But u should also regain the control over the character after sometime.

And even at control when speaking to people u should occasionally say something u did not want, shout etc.

Definitely a drastically different playthrough/reactions if you hit cyber-psychosis. A great example of just how different things can be would be the reactions and options an extremely low INT player would get while playing Fallout 1 and 2.

Please no - look at the girl in the trailer - she looks perfectly normal - so until u start to behave like cybermaniac they should ingore u.
 
One GM I encountered helped rein-in his players' tendency to do stuff like keep their cyberware-loaded characters' sensory and reflex systems cranked up, by nearly having one of them gun down a pack of kids when a stray baseball flew his way and set off his proximity alerts.

this is genius. exactly the kind of thing a drone, which is basically what one becomes, would do.
 
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