Unfamiliar with the PNP RPG this game is based off of? Let me answer your questions!

[Dr. LaBrat]

That about cover it for you, or was there something more specific you wanted to know?

that was great, i would also like to know if there is a public knowledge of who stands behind those megacorps
for example, is the CEO of arasaka a known figure or are the corps ruled by an unknown group of shareholders

also would you describe the megacorps as fundamentally evil?

 

[Sardukhar]

No, no, Wisdom, you -level- up your weapons. And get weapons more appropriate to your new level while questing. C'mon. Get with the modern gaming. FN-RAL +3 of the Tiger whups ass on a mere FN-RAL.

I read your Wall of Answer. Corrections would be rude, so I won't. Or tell you where, because fun-ny.

I notice you didn't answer any or my penetrating questions!

 

[wisdom000]

that was great, i would also like to know if there is a public knowledge of who stands behind those megacorps
for example, is the CEO of arasaka a known figure or are the corps ruled by an unknown group of shareholders

also would you describe the megacorps as fundamentally evil?

Saburo Arasaka is the CEO and founder of Arasaka. Donald Lundee si the CEO of Militech, both are pretty well known figures... Though at the end of the 4rth Corporate war, in 2027, Saburo and his son and heir Kei are both presumed dead, Arasaka Tower in Night City is nuked, and Donald Lundee is being brought up on charges of treason (not implicitly stated, but obvious if you read between the lines). So in the video game setting, which supposedly incorporates the events of the 4rth Corporate War it is unknown how things will shake out... though both corporations are still going strong if the trailer is any indication.

Megacorps are fundamentally neutral. Regardless of how evil they are, they provide an invaluable service. Biotechnica, like Monsanto, is incredibly incredibly evil in practice, however their products and advances help feed the world... as such they are almost too big, and too important to bring down. Militech and Arasaka equip the worlds militaries, and provide valuable security services. While Arasaka is often portrayed as being this ridiculous evil empire bent on world domination, the truth is that the corporation itself is actually pretty benign... in fact Militech, who are often prtrayed as the good guys, usually acts far far shadier.

A mega-corp is like any other entity, they have their pro's and cons... Take Wal-Mart for instance... They are definitely an evil mega-copr in terms of profit and practice, but they also provide goods for considerably less than specialty stores... which in tough economic times, is going to make them insanely popular. No one ever says anything good about them, but everyone shops there, because they can't afford not to. They not only dominate the retail goods market, but they are moving closer and closer to complete domination of grocery stores as well.

Is it evil, yes, but think how many people would not be able to afford televisions, or even food, if it weren't from walmart?

No, no, Wisdom, you -level- up your weapons. And get weapons more appropriate to your new level while questing. C'mon. Get with the modern gaming. FN-RAL +3 of the Tiger whups ass on a mere FN-RAL.

Please don't confuse the people sardi...

I read your Wall of Answer. Corrections would be rude, so I won't. Or tell you where, because fun-ny.

Yeah yeah yeah

I notice you didn't answer any or my penetrating questions!

The only thing your questions penetrate is my brain... and it hurts... and makes me feel dirty all over.... Don't bring me down Bruce....

 

[Sardukhar]

Part of the charm (?) in CP2020 and we hope in 2077, is that there is no great "Evil". There are no obvious villains. Megacorporations aren't really "fightable" in the usual sense. You could fire the Board of Directors and force wholesale policy changes on that corporation and if the shareholders didn't fire you in turn, that megacorp would be very different. But it wouldn't be evil either way.

And, frankly, the above wouldn't happen. The Corps are the way they are because it's the most profitable. So you don't really "fight" them - they don't have an evil agenda or a King. Even Arasaka and Lundee are perfectly replaceable.

It's quite possible, in fact, that your character in Cyberpunk will kill, maim and torture more people than Saburo Arasaka or Lundee ever did themselves, making you more "directly" evil than either of the afore-mentioned CEOs.

But hey, choomba, you do what you gotta, neh? Life on the Edge.

 

[Sunder]

Question: how many augmentations can you implement on your body before Cyberpsychosis takes hold of you?

Is there a definitive amount, an exact specification where you start losing it? Do some augmentations take more of your empathy/humanity than the others?

Finally, is the cyberpsychosis a guaranteed thing if you upgrade your body with augmentations, no matter whether you pace it out over the years or just go full body conversion within a single year?

 

[wisdom000]

Question: how many augmentations can you implement on your body before Cyberpsychosis takes hold of you?

Is there a definitive amount, an exact specification where you start losing it? Do some augmentations take more of your empathy/humanity than the others?

Finally, is the cyberpsychosis a guaranteed thing if you upgrade your body with augmentations, no matter whether you pace it out over the years or just go full body conversion within a single year?

Good questions...

There is no set number, it's different for everyone.

First everyone has a Humanity score... The humanity score is equal to your characters Empathy stat (one of 9, the other stats are INTelligence, REFlexes, COOL, ATTRactivness, BODy, Movement Allowance, TECH, and LUCK). Empathy is a measure of how well you relate to others, and the skills it adds to are all interpersonal skills... For example - Human Perception, and Persuasion, Seduction, and Perform.

Non augmented human Stats have a range from 1 to 10, with 1 being extremely handicapped and 10 being the height of human perfection.

Your Humanity score is your empathy multiplied by 10. So a character with a fairly high level of EMP, say a 9, will have 90 points of humanity. They will also be naturally adapt at relating, and being relatable, to other people. While a low EMP person, say a 3, will have a very hard time getting along with others, or even relating to them.


On the cybernetics side, most cybernetics incur some amount of humanity loss. The general rules is that the more intrusive, or inhuman the prosthetic or augmentation is, the more humanity loss it will incur. Most things have a randomizer, say for instance a Cyberarm will incur 2d6 points of humanity loss (thats 2 6-sided dice added together). But Muscle and Bone Lace, a nanotech treatment that makes you physically stronger (increases your BOD stat) only incurs a 1d6/2 humanity loss (one 6-sided die, divide the result in half). So even individual cyberentics will have wildly different effects on your humanity.

Some Cyber, usually small options, or purely cosmetic ones, such as light tattoos or getting a filter for your cyberoptic light Thermograph, will have a small but set amount of Humanity Loss... usually between .5 and 2 points.

Cyber weapons, or options that drastically change the bodies appearance, or function in a way totally alien to the human body, with incur higher humanity loss.

For something incredibly drastic, like a Full Cyborg Conversion, the humanity loss is severe.... The lowest Humanity loss available for a Borg body is 16d6.... thats for either the Alpha Class body, the most basic of bodies, or the Gemini Class, a body that appears human from the outside (your average Ghost In The Shell or Terminator type body in outward appearance).

Humanity loss can be reduced. Getting a limb covered in Realskin reduces the HL of that limb by 1d6/2 points. There is also therapy, different types with different results. Some drugs also help, as do behavorial inhibitors otherwise known as "Moddies".

For every ten points of Humanity Lost, your empathy drops 1 point. When your humanity gets below 30 (EMP of 3) you begin to suffer the effects of Cyber Psychosis. You begin to feel cold towards other people, twitchy, you have problems focusing or being patient with other people. Below 20 these effects worsen, and you find your self short tempered and unpleasant. Below 10 Humanity you become violent, antisocial, and tend to fly into violent outbursts, having episodes of rage, lashing out agsint the meat that no longer accepts you, or fails to recognize your superiority. At this point you are full on Cyberpsycho, and its only a matter of time before C-SWAT takes you out. If your EMP drops below Zero, that rage is a permanent state... you are completely out of control, a rampaging monster.

As you can see its different for everyone... some characters will never get close to cyberpsychosis, others will flip out even with very light augmentation....

 

[Sardukhar]

scandinavian clinics Err.what? What?

 

[Suhiira]

The base system, known as Interlock, is already used in a variety of games. ... Mekton (giant robots in space)...

I enjoyed Mekton.
With a little tweaking the giant robots actually made "sense".
*grins mischievously*

 

[Garrison72]

If you are a professional operator... an edgerunner if you will, either fulll time, or contracted, to a mega corp, you live as well as your pay grade allows. You are sent on ridiculously dangerous jobs, but the better you do, the more you are rewarded. Especially if you have no trouble with the moral grey area many of these jobs entail. Militech is always looking for good men and women, and if you are good enough, you will live a life measurably similar to their top level executives... of course that also means that whenever their is something holding up production, like a small third world village, or if someone is trying to defect to another company, taking their valuable trade secrets with them... it is your job to remove the problem... by any means necessary.

That about cover it for you, or was there something more specific you wanted to know?

This is my job, right here. A ruthless solo removing corporate 'road blocks', be it individuals or stealing company secrets. I just have this desire to play a really heartless fucker. Good info about the megacorps btw. I can already see the fertile lore that CDPR can turn into great stories.

 

[ad1066]

What I love most about Interlock is it's core mechanic. It is wonderfully balanced between innate ability (Stats), learned ability (Skills), and chance (the d10). Each can (theoretically) range from 1 to 10, and thus middle of the road (roughly) for each would be 5, and so the average difficulty number is set at 15.

3.0/3.5 veterans who are just now coming to Cyberpunk will look at the core mechanic and say "So, it's like Attribute Bonus + Skill Rank + a die roll, and compare to a DC. And even the DC numbers are the same. Wow, Cyberpunk is such a rip-off of D&D." But a quick look at the history of the game will tell you it's actually the other way around.

I've always hated how the d20 system is so heavily weighted towards the d20, and Attribute and Skill bonuses almost don't matter at all (until you get to high levels, where everything is flipped). d20's leveling system throws everything out of whack, whereas Interlock never has that problem, because while there is a certain amount of "use this skill and it gets better", that's not what the game is about.

-- Ben

 

[Sydanyo]

scandinavian clinics Err.what? What?

Introduction to Eurosource - the EuroTheatre Sourcebook for Cyberpunk:

There's a new Edge in town; a new style. It's smoother, more subtle, with the sheen of expensive metal and silk. It moves through the cabarets and clubs like a cyberteched shark, seeking the action, defining the fashion, choosing it's targets with precision. When it goes for the kill, a momentary fog of blood hits the water, then, once again, the smooth, remorseless waves close over the body.

What is it? It's Eurostyle. And there's only one place you can get it.

This books takes you there; across the Atlantic in streamlined, stratliner comfort, to a place known and envied by those few American Cyberpunks who can scrape enough euro to "hop the pond". New Europe - in all of it's greed and grandeur, graffiti and glory. The place that sets the pace and makes the style. And a place where a deceptive tameness hides an even more lethal ruthlessness.

Here you'll meet the elite; the rulers of the most powerful entity on Earth: the European Economic Community. You'll look into the megacorp boardrooms, the governmental sanctuaries, and the filthiest street hovels. You'll party with the Meatboys in Liverpool, dodge toxic waste and riots in Eastern Europe, face down the KGB in Leningrad, and maybe grab a few gammarays on the turbulent Greek Islands. It's a whirlwind tour of the Euro-Continent, complete with three slammin' new adventures to make sure you ain't sleepin'.

So here's your ticket, ripperboy. Grab your seat; the party's just starting. Here's Eurostyle - in your face.

Page 17:

Scandinavia

The Scandinavian Bloc is at once Europe's pusher, ally and dependant. Starved of petrochem, the Bloc (a loose federation of Sweden, Norway, Finland and the Baltic League) precariously hangs onto it's 'European' lifestyle by providing the black clinics and designed drugs forbidden by EC law. By road and rail from the Baltic League through Poland, by stealthy exec jet, in radar-invisible speedboats, they get across.

The EC is ambivalent: officially against it, unofficially cutting some slack, keeping the border guards there to make the runs hard enough to push the price above those the majority of Euros can afford. After all, mindful of it's rep, the Bloc keeps labs, drugs and wetware rigidly regulated, monitored and licensed, so the EC feels it's better not to leave the market exclusively to cheap, dangerous South American and Asian imports. Besides, the Bloc is also the unmarked bank account and secret database haven of the hemisphere, and that provides a lot of leverage. Remember, knowledge is power.

Page 36:

One of the reasons why the Euros aren't so sold on wholesale cybergrafting is that on the whole their hardware isn't up to US/Japanese standards, and the marketing is pure stone age.

But they still have access to the (incredibly expensive) black clinics of Scandinavia and Switzerland that specialize in easing the marriage of meat and metal. The e-bucks keep cyberpsychosis at bay for the elite, washed away in a steady stream of gene-tailored pseudohormones and Finnish vodka.

So...yeah! Scandinavian black clinics are where it's at!

Oh, and Finnish vodka, of course.

 

[Sardukhar]

Huh. I totally had not heard of those. At all.

You didn't mention the mechanic of how they do that, either. The to-drool-for mechanic. Very expensive though. And then there's the gene augmentation.

 

[blank_redge]

Most corporations do not claim sovereign territory, as many, especially the Japanese firms, are very nationalistic. However, they do hold massive influence across the globe. Arasaka for instance, has become the military and police, in their entirety, for Argentina.

Hm. Interesting; I hadn't thought about it until now.

After WWII, a lot of Japanese immigrants settled down in Brazil. A few generations later, you have Japanese-Brazilians, who may be bilingual or Portuguese dominant, and have a sort of hybrid culture. And Lyoto Machida, of course. =p

I'd imagine the same would be said of Argentinian Arasaka employees; employee families that have settled in for a generation or two, and now have Japanese and Argentinian roots.

 

[doomblade403x]

What I love most about Interlock is it's core mechanic. It is wonderfully balanced between innate ability (Stats), learned ability (Skills), and chance (the d10). Each can (theoretically) range from 1 to 10, and thus middle of the road (roughly) for each would be 5, and so the average difficulty number is set at 15.

3.0/3.5 veterans who are just now coming to Cyberpunk will look at the core mechanic and say "So, it's like Attribute Bonus + Skill Rank + a die roll, and compare to a DC. And even the DC numbers are the same. Wow, Cyberpunk is such a rip-off of D&D." But a quick look at the history of the game will tell you it's actually the other way around.

I've always hated how the d20 system is so heavily weighted towards the d20, and Attribute and Skill bonuses almost don't matter at all (until you get to high levels, where everything is flipped). d20's leveling system throws everything out of whack, whereas Interlock never has that problem, because while there is a certain amount of "use this skill and it gets better", that's not what the game is about.

-- Ben

EXACTLY

The first RPG I ever played was cyberpunk 2013. Then moved on to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. The problem with advanced was you really had no skills. You had a class set, one skill in the background, and that was it. Cyberpunk 2020 streamlined alot of the things in 2013 and added alot of material and every time we jumped to D&D I always thought to myself..."Wow D&D characters don't really know shit outside the things they can do in class." When Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 came out they liberally borrowed that skill system from Cyberpunk and created a skill based D20 game. And somewhere Pondsmith was laughing as he realized the brains behind D&D mimicked his system to help it change with the times.

 

[wisdom000]

Huh. I totally had not heard of those. At all.

You didn't mention the mechanic of how they do that, either. The to-drool-for mechanic. Very expensive though. And then there's the gene augmentation.

Sardi, I dig you man, but it's getting almost impossible to tell if you are being sarcastic or not anymore... I will give you the benefit of the doubt here though

Highlander quoted Eurosource, but the information is also found in the updated Eurosource Plus (a much better book, the original Eurosource is pretty much completely disregarded).

The rules mechanic from Eurosource is found on page 36, from Eurosource Plus it is found on page 138. Either way, Scandinavian treatment only works on cyber you have implanted there. It has no effect on humanity loss from cyber that was previously implanted.

Because Eurosource Plus completely replaces the original, I am going to be paraphrasing from that:

You need to book six months in advance, the therapy costs 1000eb per day plus normal operation costs, For an extra 10,000 eb they can get you in 1d6 months sooner. Therapy takes a day per Max Humanity Cost of the selected procedure.

To work out the Cost for humanity loss while having it implanted at a scandiavian treatment center, You roll the humanity loss as normal. Then you roll it a second time, subtracting the second result from the first. While its possible you may end up with Zero humanity loss, you will never end up with more humanity than when you went in. You can go for cheaper clinics, but you subtract 1 from each die on your second roll for every 100eb (round up) saved.

There are other therapies available.

On page 101 and 102 of Chrome 2 there are the (potentially) far less expensive therapy options:
Therapy Outpatient (-25% HL) .................. 1000eb/week
Inpatient (-33% HL) ..................... 5000eb/week
ICT (-50% HL) ......................... 10,000eb/week

(It's in the exotic section for some reason, though it applies to all cyber)

I took a more in-depth look at therapy with my own Electric Dreams Cybernetic Sourcebook, you can read the relevant information here....
http://datafortress2020.oliwy.net/ab/therapy.html

Although it may not be 100 percent canon, and I added my own method of therapy, the SWIERENGEN method.... by which you treat HL as having rolled minimum on all die rolls.

 

[onosendai7]

That scandinavian stuff is completly OP.
Never used it.

 

[Sardukhar]

It's a goal for later-career characters, often. And quite potent.

Yes, Wisdom, I knew all about them. Just assume I'm always taking the piss and you'll be right 9/10 times.

 

[wisdom000]

It's a goal for later-career characters, often. And quite potent.

Yes, Wisdom, I knew all about them. Just assume I'm always taking the piss and you'll be right 9/10 times.

That's what I thought....


Oh well, it let me explain how something works in the game, so cest la vie...

But I will now go back to ignoring you for the purposes of this thread..

 

[Sardukhar]

"Is there a mechanic for taking control of a corporation?"

"Can i start my own corporation?"

"Can i get IP for writing songs and playing them in-game?"

"Is there a Full Body Conversion for ROckerboys?"

 

[blank_redge]

"Is there a Full Body Conversion for ROckerboys?"

[video=youtube;3RBSkq-_St8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RBSkq-_St8[/video]