One of things I'd like to see with our characters is that (as has already been mentioned) we get the lifepath options per the 90s RPG so that we can create a character with a past... But in addition to that, that our past WILL come back to haunt us.
It would be good if we as players had a choice between a completely random lifepath, or that we were given a series of questions that we had to answer about our character. Or maybe a mix of the two.
Eg. We don't get to pick the economic class of our parents and how many siblings we have, but we do get to choose what we did with our lives after that.
In addition to us deciding the gender, ethnicity, accent/speech pattern (which could flavour the way our character talks), I'd like to see questions like:
• Did your parents send you to school? [y/n]
• Did you pay attention? [y/n]
• Have you killed someone yet? [y/n]
- If so, how old were you? [select from a series of brief scenarios/options, some accidents, others intentional]
• Have you worked for a Megacorp?
- If so, which one [select from a series of options, one of which might be that you took a job from a Fixer and didn't know you were doing a job for a Megacorp]
• Do you have Cyberware?
- If so, where was it installed?
• Did you ever try drugs?
• Does your character drink alcohol?
It would be good if taking drugs/alcohol had short term benefits, but at a cost. Eg, helps you to fend off psychosis from the fact that you've just killed 18 people on your last job, but you are now risking getting addicted.
I also want to see Cyberpsychosis being a very real threat to our characters. That is, the more metal we stick in our bodies, if we don't look after ourselves our bodies will reject the implants and/or we will go crazy.
• Suuuuure.... You can go to Thailand and get Cyberware installed cheaper than you can here, but are you *sure* you want to do that?
• Or, that Ripper Doc's lab is covered in grime. It's an infection waiting to happen, but so long as you survive the surgery and your body doesn't reject it, the stuff they source is solid and won't let you down. Unless the company goes bankrupt and you can't get power sources anymore, but what are the chances of that happening?...
• Or, you can go to that new clinic and it's shiny and clean, but can you trust that you're *only* getting the cyberware you want and paid for? Can you be sure that they're not installing "undocumented features" like automatic updates to a Megacorp of everything you've been doing that day, or a cortex bomb that will detonate if you ever do a job against them?
It will be interesting to see which narrative CDPR go with for our character:
• Start in a lush apartment, which we may or may not loose as the story unfolds and our character gets a harsh introduction to the realities of a Cyberpunk world
• Or, start in a dingy hovel, where you're eating kibble and struggling to get by and get to claw our way up the food chain by taking jobs to improve our circumstances
