Mental Problems, Cures? Options

[CoalHeart]

What can you do if you are subject to a powerfull mind altering situation?

Our group's decker just got deep fried by some major psychotropic black Ic (power 8 I think). And previously before that he slotted a psychotropic viriused Knowsoft rating 6. So he's freaking out like a crack addicted chicken with no head...

Violent to himself and others, thinks he's the queen of England's unborn child, doesn't want to deck anymore, and various other wacked out things. Talks to the static on the Trid Screne as if it were his dog (he never owned a dog in his life) Shouting things he shouldent at cops (aka We have guns! and drugs! Arrest us please)


The group is afraid that he may be a liability (which he already is) We're adverse to putting Two in his head because he's the Face's brother. We've tried to restrain him but he's very very skilled at escaping bonds and even locked doors (athletics 5(escape artist 8 ) and electronics and B/R in the 9 + task pool and a built in toolkit to his arm which we couldn't remove without harming him.

Currently we keep him sedated, and babysat by out Trog sammy.

We're looking for a cure? Magical technological everything possible

[BitBasher]

Have him comitted to an asylum for deprogramming and make a new character.

[Ed_209a]

Perhaps someone in the decker community could kit together some P-trope IC designed to reverse the damage?

Perhaps some sort of personafix BTL-based therapy.

[CoalHeart]

Would a PAB machine work? Mind probe magic? Alter memory? Laes? Brain sugury?


but I think an asylum might be the answer, we're trying to rescue him though. It's really hard to find a good combat decker not to mention the cost of hardware already installed in him

[TinkerGnome]

What you need to do is construct a small box, about the size of a coffin. Hook it up with air feeds and water and feeding tubes (tasteless paste, if possible). Now stuff your crazy decker into the box and bury it somewhere. Every week or so, dig it up, open the viewing port at the top and ask him, "Still crazy?" If he is, bury him for another week. Sooner or later, he'll stop ranting and raving.

[spotlite]

PAB reprogramming should work. Expensive, extreme and not perfect, but it should work.

I would do as Bit said - put him in for reprogramming and extensive therapy (the tracking down of which could easily be a run in and of itself, never mind paying for it, finding somewhere to do it on the quiet and not ask questions, just to fix him - negotiate with that bear lodge in the tribal lands. they can't do the reprogramming but they can do the therapy and aftercare.), put the character on hiatus and have the playing bring in a temporary one (which could be brought in on the runs to get treatment for the other character), which may well come to be a permanent one if the player likes it.

If the problem is that it will leave you without a decker and the player doesn't want to run another one, then use NPC deckers until the sammie with the datajack can learn to use computers and then use the old decker's deck. use general Computer test rolls until the sammie player is used to the rules or until someone dies and plays a decker as their next character.

but you might have to accept you're doing without your 'proper' decker for quite some time...!

[spotlite]

but if your problem is also that all his gear is cranial then yeah, you're probably stuck. either the whole team goes on hold till he's better (making paying for it tough) or you figure a way to get another decker when you need them.

Incidentally, if this is in-character information you're after, you're better off consulting your contacts in game. The GM may well have thought of a way round it already.

[Req]

[Siege]

Cyberarms come off with minimum fuss -- either an axe or Biotech.

Meat arms come off in the same way, depending on how much you like the person being disarmed.

As escape-artist-ish as the character may be, sans an arm and rolled in duct tape, he isn't going _anywhere_. When I say rolled, I mean wrapped in true Egyptian mummified fashion.

Since he's got a datajack, you can force-feed him simsense chips to keep him pacified and more importantly, unable to move his remaining limbs with any degree of effectiveness (RAS = +8 TNs)

As for a "fix", I would imagine if they can create cerebral boosters, they can repair or replace parts of his brain that have been torched. Like a floppy though, the information may be irretrievable when it gets run over with a truck.

The invoked memory stimulator for cyberzombies may have some benefit, in addition to p-fix chip therapy.

Good luck -- usually only samurai get broken like that.

-Siege

[TinkerGnome]

[spotlite]

Snigger, a coffin with a DINAB rating...

[Siege]

Actually, it's a valid idea: hook the person up to a self-contained apparatus that recycles body waste and force-feed simsense while necessary fluids and nutrients are piped in through an iv.

Which has a nasty potential for a torture or interrogation device.

-Siege

[CoalHeart]

Torture box that Seige is talking about
Just Quicken a force 1 Nutrition and force 1 oxygenate spell and a force 5 Agony (with lots of successes) toss them in a box. Not the 'Fast' spell because you want them to feel the endless hunger and all of the other pain :)
I'm not called Coal Heart for nothing. I play the sadistic sammy.
Interrogation (Torture) 4 ( 8 )

Secondly throwing him into a box is barely a means we want to do. The leader of the group The Face is the decker's older brother. And he's flipping out that such bad crap happened to his little bro and wants to cure him bad.

None of us can figure out possible game mechanics to fix him to be 100% agaain. Though we could go to the GM and ask for a plot like cure. Some of this stuff is helpfull we'll try a PAB I think.

[RedmondLarry]

2 nuyen worth of ammo would solve this problem.

But if you want to throw more at it, I know a Shadowrunner who has opened a psychiatrist office. Fake SIN, fake license. Only treats people who don't want their employer's to know. Cash only.

[DV8]

Alright, this might be a little out there;

I remember, a long time ago, I played this computer RPG called Bloodnet - a cyberpunk / vampire game - in which there was an NPC by the name of Cyrill Thorpe, who basically could hack other people's minds, acting like a cyberspace psychotherapist. There might be people in the Sixth World that would use the capabilities of psychotropic ICE to open up a clinic to alter brain functions through neural feedback. I don't see why not.

[BitBasher]

Or, and the way I would do it in my game is probably just never offer a way to get him back 100%. Bad things happen. Because of the emotional attachmewnt of the older brother it makes a fantastic tragic storyline where the chartacter is retired but the rest of the party (possibly including new character) looks for ways to cure him that may or may not ever materialize. There's hope, despair, and a motive for some great gaming buried there. You just cannot buy that kind of emotional impact as an older brother working to save the mind of his deranged, broken beloved little brother. That kind of trauma is fantastic for a game. It's a stepping stone to tons of good campaign ideas. That's primo character development.


Letting him fix it, and the world goes on happy...... not so much :D

But that's the way I run my games. Bad things happen to good people, good guys don't always win, and the PC's aren't always good guys in the first place. In darkness breeds emotion, and emotion breeds attachment and motive. Pain breeds character development.

This is the kind of event that I live for. Solemn visits to the crazy brother that just doesn't understand, insomniac nights blaming himself for letting it happen, and wondering if it will ever be okay. Wistfully remembering childhood memories when everything was okay yet now it may never be again. Looking out his window at a park where happy families play, something that he may never have again as he wathces slowly from the shadows of his apartment with a shot glass and a bottle of synthahol. The pangs of hope about new types of therapy only to find it won't work, or on your last run you killed the scientist with all the data... It's absolutely fantastic.

:vegm:

[CoalHeart]

BitBasher.... Well since you do paint it in that light I guess it's not such a bad thing. Maybe we'll be able to reform him just enough to not be such a liability (we'll keep the straight jackets and narcoject nearby) and to continue being the decker. He really liked the char, we really liked him. But Hey when you do stupid things like trying to hack Ares to dig up Damien Knight and the GM is nice to you. DON'T COMPLAIN!

Well anyways Thanks, we'll do what we can. Maybe we can do like Bit Basher said and come up with a series of flopped cures, each that might help a little or make it worse. G'night all.

[Bearclaw]

The Lisa Smedman book with the wolf-shifter had a psychiatrist who used mind probe to fix problems like that. If one can do it, others can.

The other for sure option is to get the local otaku to take your friend to meet their maker :) He/she can fix it.

[Gyro the Greek S...]

So...if he's the Face's brother, then why the Face got to know he's dead?
"Why, of course we put him in a facility."
Nevermind that said facility is a waste disposal facility...

[mfb]

spotlite, i haven't laughed this hard in weeks.

[phelious fogg]

Id recomend trying to get him to deep resonance.. Not only would he be able to fix him, he could make him better.. (Nothing like becoming an Otaku one morning) and it could be a really cool campaign hook. First you have to find an Otaku you can trust, then the journey via the matrix to fix him... Not to mention stuff Deep Resoance might need in the physical world to cure him.. Astral quests and strange journeys could abound..

[mfb]

holistic healing through high technology. that's definitely a new one.

[SykoBear]

Hi,

This may be metagaming, but isn't there some canon precedent about the Tibetian Monks nursing Renraku CEO Aneki's Kentucky-Fried Brain ™ back to a state where he could actually put with clothes on by himself without assistance?

Didn't it involve a pair of green gloves that Dunkie left to him? Weren't there a bunch of Tibetian monks following him around in the published adventure Brainscan?

And why do I insist on asking leading questions? :grinbig:

[DV8]