How should I handle a .1 essence charactor? Options

[fatal2ty]

I have a player whos running with a sammie thats got .1 essence remaining, the way I understand it is that he would be prone to losing sanity. I'm trying to decide what the best way to handle it would be, some of the ideas I've come up with are as follows:

1 - rolls below threshold may still result in a success, but what happens isn't what the player said he'd do
i.e Player wants to intimidate by holding a gun to someones head, rolls 1 less than the target, Players charactor shoots target instead

2 - at random I steal an initiative pass and decide what the charactor does myself or tell the player the current pass's action has to be a less than sane option

3 - give minus dice modifiers to rolls that would be considered a sane choice

how do you handle insanity, I havn't really found any rules on it so I guess its expected to be houseruled

[Moon-Hawk]

I havn't really found any rules on it so I guess its expected to be houseruled

The first part is definitely true. Not so sure about the second part.

There aren't any rules for it, so unless this is something you've discussed with the player before he made his character (which you obviously didn't, since you don't know how you're going to handle it) the player is going to (rightly) feel as though you're picking on them and throwing surprise made-up rules at them.

There are some bits of fluff here and there talking about how highly augmented people have some issues, but there's nothing that says they must, and this is really something that should be left up to the whim of the individual player. I mean, as a GM you're welcome to introduce rules for cyberpsychosis and anything else into your game, but if you're going to do that it should be before chargen, and the players should know what they're getting in to.

[Teulisch]

actually, the 'losing sanity from low essence' thing is a separate negative quality, listed in augmentation.

by the standard rules in SR4, there are no penalties for having a low essence, other than the low essence itself. taking control away from the player would be a bad thing, and very much a house rule that people can get upset about.

'insanity' is a very broad term. too broad to have a mechanic- you need to narrow down your definition first.

[DireRadiant]

First of all, it isn't any part of the game that low essence equates to bad psychological effects, at least not until you go negative or cybermantic. However, it certainly can be fun. If I were to house rule I might simply ask for Negative qualities given to the PC for free (no bonus BP) at a rate close to 5BP of negative qualities per lost essence.

But what's I'd do first is simply give the PC more cyberware.

[Drogos]

how do you handle insanity, I havn't really found any rules on it so I guess its expected to be houseruled

You could always hand them notes with ideas on it that seem ludicrous, but would actually work. If he starts to try them, make them work for a time...then make them progressively stranger and stranger mixing in various degrees of success. Finally, make the ideas completely off the wall for no apparent reason nor rhyme behind them, but he does it cause the notes you gave him were right before. But that's juts one way to get a player to play up an insanity who needs some help getting there. If s/he is a good roleplayer, encourage them to play insane.

As for low essence = insanity, I have never seen that anywhere (that I recall). All my sams tend to end up low essence and are a little sociopathic by nature, but that may just be me. I know they seem more inhumane than most...but that's the chrome and all.

[mfb]

check Augmentation, page 21. there's a sidebar dealing specifically with this concept. basically, you suffer -2 to social tests, and if you glitch on a social test, you often react violently. what you've outlined above might be a workable alternative to simply turning the character into an NPC (which is what the book says happens when cyberpsychosis gets too bad), but i would have most of the actions you force the character to take be more violent than what he otherwise would have done.

[paws2sky]

Personally, I don't buy into the whole "low essence = insane" thing just because its a staple of the genre.

If the player wanted to play a character that was crazy, that's a different matter.

A lot of times, a character's attributes and skills reflect their degree of sanity, insanity, etc. A Charisma 1 Street Sam with minimal social skills, for instance, might be cold, disassociative, or paranoid. You could also have them take negative qualities to reflect their mental issues.

[Ed_209a]

Going into sudden psychotic rages could be due to bad cyberware. There is precedent for brain trauma causing violent outbursts.

A gradual, intentional development of socipathic tendencies is due to seeing everyone else in the world as being less important than you and your plans.

Power changes the way you look at others. When you tower over others, there is a lot of pressure to look at them as ants. Treat them like ants. They can become less important in your eyes. Less _real_. You may or may not bow to this pressure, but the pressure is still there.

This power can come from influence, like a corp executive, but also from special abilities, like from implants or magic.

Why _should_ you wait in line to pay for your soycaf, when you can boost, pop spurs and turn the stuffer shack into a meatmarket?

Why should you bother talking to that flatline in the club when you can make her yours with just one spell?

[BRodda]

I have a player whos running with a sammie thats got .1 essence remaining, the way I understand it is that he would be prone to losing sanity. I'm trying to decide what the best way to handle it would be, some of the ideas I've come up with are as follows:

1 - rolls below threshold may still result in a success, but what happens isn't what the player said he'd do
i.e Player wants to intimidate by holding a gun to someones head, rolls 1 less than the target, Players charactor shoots target instead

2 - at random I steal an initiative pass and decide what the charactor does myself or tell the player the current pass's action has to be a less than sane option

3 - give minus dice modifiers to rolls that would be considered a sane choice

how do you handle insanity, I havn't really found any rules on it so I guess its expected to be houseruled

In our games they are just less creative and able to enjoy things. We have had games with people that low essence wise and while they might be able to play a song flawlessly, they can't write one to save their life. Every time we went out to eat the description of their meal was broken down to its chemical composition and trace elements. The GM might say that the sun feels warm on our skin and there are birds chirping in the trees the low essence guy got detailed report of the ambiant solar energy, air quality levels and the fact that local ambient wildlife sounds had been edited out by his cyberear.

In short, low essence guys in our game tended to go nuts, but it wasn't because the rules said so.

[KCKitsune]

I say it's unfair to punish the Sammy for being at .1 Essence because you're telling your players (not directly mind you): "Listen up, I want everybody to play Awakened characters! If you don't then you'll get punished!"

I think the penalty comes when the sammy has to be healed magically.

[imperialus]

As someone who has played multiple low essence characters I have to say I'd be rather ticked if my GM started randomly usurping initiative passes and have me gleefully shoot into a crowd or something equally 'crazy'.

like Ed_209a said I picture low essence characters developing a number of mental disorders as time goes on, particularly things like narcissism, manic depression, alcoholism/addiction, mild schizophrenia ect. While all these are mental disorders all but the most extreme examples of each are manageable, and certainly not justification to take control of a PC and force him to do something the player wouldn't want to.

If a player wants to roleplay a mental disorder, fine. If the character has had 90% of his body replaced with obvious cyberlimbs and other stuff that makes him obviously 'not quite human' anymore I'd go so far as to encourage him to RP a mental disorder but it's also entirely possible that the player feels his character is stable enough that he can deal with having an essence of .5 or .1 or .01 or point .001 or whatever.

[KCKitsune]

like Ed_209a said I picture low essence characters developing a number of mental disorders as time goes on, particularly things like narcissism, manic depression, alcoholism/addiction, mild schizophrenia ect. While all these are mental disorders all but the most extreme examples of each are manageable, and certainly not justification to take control of a PC and force him to do something the player wouldn't want to.

If a player wants to roleplay a mental disorder, fine. If the character has had 90% of his body replaced with obvious cyberlimbs and other stuff that makes him obviously 'not quite human' anymore I'd go so far as to encourage him to RP a mental disorder but it's also entirely possible that the player feels his character is stable enough that he can deal with having an essence of .5 or .1 or .01 or point .001 or whatever.

Exactly! The player is the one who should roleplay ANY derangements! If you take the Cyber psychosis flaw, THEN the GM is in his rights to have the player act a little crazy... if the player isn't doing it. Now if the player doesn't take that flaw, then he is just a person who's had to replace a lot of his body to compete in the Shadows. Besides, in 2070, cyberlimbs have enough sensors that can replicate the feel of a flesh and blood body part.

What about the Sammy who has NO cyberlimbs? I make my sammies to have no cyberlimbs. Does he develop the "detachment" that a normal sammy feels? He feels the sun and the wind on his body as much as anyone else and when he wants to relax he can turn off his 'ware. Now for his vulnerability in a firefight... Bone Density level 3 plus good body armor (form fitting & lined coat) make resisting damage a LOT easier. 12 ballistic armor plus 8 body dice makes my sammy feel pretty safe. This is at chargen.

Do I have the extra boxes of health on the Status Monitor... no, but I prefer that I try not to take damage in the first place.

*Question: Does anyone have an idea if you can have a character deliberately decrease the resolution of cybereyes and decrease the sensitivity of cyberears to "human" levels? The reason I ask this is because part of the detachment is because you're seeing to world through trid cameras and not flesh and blood eyes.

[mfb]

I say it's unfair to punish the Sammy for being at .1 Essence because you're telling your players (not directly mind you): "Listen up, I want everybody to play Awakened characters! If you don't then you'll get punished!"

i've actually always wanted to see magic become an alienating force as one becomes more adept at using it. the idea would be that delving into knowledge that originates from other realities imparts changes on the mind that learns it; moreover, in order to learn the deeper mysteries, one must necessarily adopt alien paradigms. sorta like how your accent changes if you spend time in other regions, only the 'accents' you pick up from learning magic are things like paranoid schizophrenia.

[KCKitsune]

i've actually always wanted to see magic become an alienating force as one becomes more adept at using it. the idea would be that delving into knowledge that originates from other realities imparts changes on the mind that learns it; moreover, in order to learn the deeper mysteries, one must necessarily adopt alien paradigms. sorta like how your accent changes if you spend time in other regions, only the 'accents' you pick up from learning magic are things like paranoid schizophrenia.

That's being unfair to the Awakened character. Some people are just VERY well adjusted. Kinda like the Profilers who have to get into the head of a Mass Murderer to solve a crime and then can "turn off" that part of their brain when they go home. It may also be a good deal of Psychiatric help.

[Stahlseele]

if somebody willingly replaces 90% of his body with metal he probably wasn't all that right in the head to begin with . .
But who's to say that that isn't actually helping him with the low essence? if he was crazy to begin with, he'd probably adapt much better than any "sane"(mind the "") person would to having their limbs chopped of and replaced . .
but yeah, i, as the combat monster cyber/bio tank troll agree that characters with low essence are not being treated fair, if the GM decides to make them go crazy because of that . .
i'd sooner have the mage go crazy because he can see things that are not there(astral/ghosts)

[Moon-Hawk]

i've actually always wanted to see magic become an alienating force as one becomes more adept at using it. the idea would be that delving into knowledge that originates from other realities imparts changes on the mind that learns it; moreover, in order to learn the deeper mysteries, one must necessarily adopt alien paradigms. sorta like how your accent changes if you spend time in other regions, only the 'accents' you pick up from learning magic are things like paranoid schizophrenia.

How about: Accept a mental flaw as an initiation ordeal?

[EATERoftheDEAD]

I always think of characters that far down the path as kind of like Michael Jackson. Creepy. Really creepy. There is nothing that says they have to be crazy but he shows what can happen to a person who has too much surgery and body alterations. No changes to the rules but some flavor for roleplaying purposes.

[Larme]

While low essence doesn't automatically make you crazy, it is not hard to imagine Cyberpsychosis ocurring in someone with less than 1 essence. While having cyberware doesn't automatically lower your sanity, being a superhuman metal monster surrounded by soft, inferior squishies might send certain people off the deep end.

On an interesting note, I first thought that cyberpsychosis would be a fun flaw for a crazy cyberjocky. Then I saw the rules, how critically glitching a social test actually takes the character out of your control until he gets psychological help (like that's real common in the Barrens), and I was like 'wtf no!' It's silly if you expect everyone with cyberpsychosis to either be very smooth with most social skills -- sure, it could happen, but it's not going to be the norm. But then I looked at it some more, and I'm cool with it again. Because of the -2 penalty, and the -1 for defaulting, someone with no charisma or social skills with cyberpsychosis would have 0 dice in every social test, which is an automatic failure. That means it's only your cyberpsychos with a small shred of social acumen who are going to go nuts. Those with good social skills will be fine, and those with no social skills will be fine, but those with mediocre social skills will suffer a psychotic break several times a day... Though the person with no dice needs to watch out for positive modifiers that would give him just one or two dice (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

As far as the OP goes, I think that it's totally within the GM's rights to have a player develop cyberpsychosis, but only if they deserve it. A samurai with less than 1 essence who acts like a murdering, sadistic psychopath is very likely to become a murdering, sadistic psychopath thanks to the mental stress of being a metal wolf surrounded by fleshy sheep. Though I would give the character hints that they seem to be losing control, and allow them to take steps to counter the slide into insanity. They could go to a psychologist, or go see a street shaman who takes them on a metaplanar quest for inner peace, or something. But a <1 essence sammy who doesn't adhere to some kind of code to retain his humanity will inevitably lose it. That's why the call them samurai -- they follow their own twisted Street Bushido. If they didn't, they'd go skating right off the deep end and into a shallow grave most likely.

[KCKitsune]

if somebody willingly replaces 90% of his body with metal he probably wasn't all that right in the head to begin with . .
But who's to say that that isn't actually helping him with the low essence? if he was crazy to begin with, he'd probably adapt much better than any "sane"(mind the "") person would to having their limbs chopped of and replaced . .
but yeah, i, as the combat monster cyber/bio tank troll agree that characters with low essence are not being treated fair, if the GM decides to make them go crazy because of that . .
i'd sooner have the mage go crazy because he can see things that are not there(astral/ghosts)

Well my sammy has the following 'ware:

wired reflexes 2, Radar 4, Ultrasound, Commlink, Datajack
cybereyes cyberears, Attention Coprocess & Bone Density (all at Rating 3)
Muscle Toner and Augmentation (rating 2 for both)

As you can see from about, most of my sammy is flesh... just augmented flesh... with a really low Essence (0.15) and not a single Cyberlimb

[Adarael]

As a reference point. cyberpsychosis as a concept was a Cyberpunk (and later CP2020) concept that just seemed to get adopted by everybody. Which is funny because it's a game balance mechanism - but shadowrun already has a mechanism, in the form of essence.

I don't buy for a minute that cyberpsychosis is plausible. Not for one second. I can accept that massive amounts of cyberware are alienating, but they're owhere near as alienating as being a career criminal who kills people for money. And I don't see why 'alienating' automatically means 'you react violently'.

[WearzManySkins]

If you as the GM did not look over the character sheet before the character began play....or did not mention that you were going to apply some "house rules" just for him/her...WRONG!!!

Take this a learning experience, do not apply some "house rules" just go with it, but next time, go thru the character sheet carefully, and explain "Before" character begins play any "House Rules"

WMS

[Ryu]

Adarael, you want to use [ and ] instead of < and >.

[Spike]

As a reference point. cyberpsychosis as a concept was a Cyberpunk (and later CP2020) concept that just seemed to get adopted by everybody. Which is funny because it's a game balance mechanism - but shadowrun already has a mechanism, in the form of essence.

Actually, I've read at least on Sci-Fi short story dating from the late sixties featuring a mild mannered engineer getting a 'total body replacement' that turns him into an inhuman killer as he fails to cope with being superhuman, yet inferior....

Cyberpsychosis if you will.

Not that I agree with it, one of the advantages of Cyberpunk fandom was the vast array of interesting stuff that was on the internet at one point... to include a look at cyberpsychosis from the point of view of body modders (peircing and tattoo fetishists...)

[mfb]

How about: Accept a mental flaw as an initiation ordeal?

your ideas are intriguing to me, and i wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[paws2sky]

How about: Accept a mental flaw as an initiation ordeal?

your ideas are intriguing to me, and i wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Where do I sign up?