[X] My Assistant

[Turtle]

From a FAQ about Shadowrun, a quote I found while googling for the topic...

[Dashifen]

[Person 404]

I don't think SR has full-blown cyberpsychosis (at least in the way that CP2020 seemed to), but I disagree with the statement that "Cyberware doesn't have an impact on your character's personality." For one thing, I could have sworn that there's a section in the main book that states that people with very low essence become increasingly detached from the rest of humanity. Even if this isn't in canon, there's no way that something like an encephelon or even a normal simsense rig leaves your personality unchanged. The transition from having tools outside of you to having tools that are a part of you, even aside from the issue of cyberware that interfaces directly with the brain on a large scale, is huge.

Defined as random, violent behavior due to excessive cyberware, cyberpsychosis in SR seems to only take place in animals implanted with cyber. However, at least in my game, a character that's heavily cybered is much less capable of empathy than an uncybered one, and hence much more likely to resort to violence or other methods of forceful persuasion to get what they want.

EDIT: Added closing quotation mark.

[Ancient History]

What they're basically doing is moving away from Talsorian's Cyberpunk 2020.

Few of the "classic" cyberpunk writers had characters so heavily endowed with cyberware of any type, but there usually was a certain alien element to each of them.

This sort of thing was actually really picked up in anime-Bubblegum Police, I think had a few episodes, like the lady with the cyber-womb/vagina and the phantom period...

[Turtle]

I always have to think of a comment Wolf made about Kid Stealth in It's all done with mirrors

[FlakJacket]

My take on it is that's what the rules say. :)

But on a slightly more serious note, they kinda have something like that. Aside from the social penalties for having obvious and unusual cyber, if you have less than three essence IIRC, you get more penalties for interacting with people 'cause you creep them out.

What would be the benefit of ripping off the cyberpsychosis rules, from CP2020 I believe it is, having never played the game myself? From past experience and from what I've heard it generally just lead to all the cyber twinks playing chromed to the max samurai shooting anything that moves and then whining about how they're supposed to be all psychotic.

Although I suppose if you have players that can actually roleplay the situation and the whole taking away part of their humanity piece by piece then it could be interesting. Although then we're getting into Vampire territory. ;)

Edit: Damn. Really shouldn't write a reply and then leave it for twenty minutes to change the laundery before hitting submit. :)

[mckay421]

Person 404...

What you are looking for is on page 52 (second column, third paragraph) of Man & Machine: Cyberware.

"Fourth, cymermantic subjects suffer severe mental detachment, apathy and general malaise, known as chronic disassociation syndrome."

I generally try to impress on characters with more than 2 points of cyberware that their characters are less human. What does less human mean? If a cybered character started out as a pratical joker they would slowly stop as they increased the amount of cyberware they are packing. Humor, love, hate, happiness, and so forth are emotional content that IMO a cyborg would not employ. Cyborgs should be precise, calculating, and in general a machine that is capable of independent thought and action. This is why regardless of how well concealed a character's cyberware may be...IN MY GAMES...characters with five points or more of cyberware are easy to spot simply by interaction with them.

And just in case you missed it...this is simply how I run it in my games which is in NO way meant to be taken as the only way to handle it.

John A. Schmidt

[Ancient History]

I thought Kid Stealth would have a sick sense of humor,w ith or without the cyber.

I did like the bit about cybereyes and Hatchetman in Cybertechnology, though.

[Turtle]

As they so nicely said in 1st Edition Core Rules

[Ancient History]

Well, as they keep saying: it takes a certain something to get two perfectly good arms chopped off and replaced with metal.

[Turtle]

Mmmmhhh, yeah..that was Argent, wasn't she? :D

[Ancient History]

"He" and he's not the only one.

[Turtle]

[White Knight]

I think the whole point about Kid Stealth, as Ancient History said, is that he was like that anyway. It wasn't the cyberware that caused him to tell bad jokes or blow up spirit-ships, it was his personality that caused him to choose inhuman looking cyberlegs etc (and probably why he needed cyberlegs in the first place).

On the wider topic, I've always found the idea of cyberpsychosis and similar trends a bit silly. There's no real reason to think anything of the kind would happen. A fully chromed guy is likely to be more or less the same as any other. Of course, it would depend on the person's psyche and whatever caused them to require the cyberware, but by-and-large no change. Artifical limbs, peg legs, hooks and pacemakers are not noted for their psychosis-inducing properties, afterall, and cyberware is just a progression of the same principle. Cyberware is likely to be less traumatic, in fact, as it looks and acts like the original. Having talked to someone who actually had a machine attached to his central nervous system, all he noted was that he felt much closer to his computer - he felt it was part of him rather than a tool - no need to spray high-velocity lead around and certainly no loss of sense of humour.

If you want to make a dramatic point with humanity loss, well...there's nothing I can do to stop you as all my death squads are busy right now. However, if you're going to say it's realistic or should happen in some way can you explain your reasoning.

[Turtle]

[Ancient History]

Kid Stealth blew his own legs off rather than sink in the concrete shoes he was wearing. This says omething about an inidividual.

But hey, anything can make people a little crazy. Who hasn't felt just a tad detached because they have to stare at the world through glasses?

[Turtle]

[White Knight]

[Turtle]

[Ancient History]

[Artemus]

I think it is very hard to say what the human brain would act like if put in a situation where most of the body it commands is cyberware and expands the senses beyond what the human brain handles normally.
Basically in my opinion it's a matter of willpower, some people might handle the transition ok, some might be overwhelmed by the whole experience (trauma from the surgery, new abilities and social interaction). These traumas might be too much for some people and they might flip out, become depressed or even lash out with violence. So I don't think that someone becoming violent after some major cyberware surgery is too far fetched, neither is a change in a person's emotions.

[mckay421]

Realistic...

That is a word that I generally don't apply to the following...

a) games
b) discussions about magic, elves, dragons, and so forth


Personal preference...

Now that seems to me more applicable.
As for my reasoning, in regards to the point in my previous post...personal preference. I don't want characters to load up on cyberware without some sort of roleplaying hook being applied. Does that mean its right? For me...Yes.


Kid Stealth...

I like Mike Stackpole he is incredibly cool/talented and I have enjoyed talking with him in the past. My personal preference regarding Kid Stealth is that I disavow his cyberware details in Wolf & Raven. Wolf & Raven really is a fun read...I laughed a great deal!


John A. Schmidt

[Ed_209a]

My personal feeling is that by 2050 the medical and technological difficulties of cyberware implantation will at least be under control, if not mastered. The predominant side effects will be psychological.

Getting cyber gives you abilities no metahuman could ever have otherwise. It gives you new ways to sense and react, which gives you new ways to think.

I don't see how you could help but gradually see yourself different from others, as they see you different from them. Regardless of how people see you, you see yourself, you might see yourself as a monster, risking depression. You might also begin to see yourself superior to the man-on-the-street, risking sociopathy.

In any event, radical augmentation makes you into your own metatype, in a world that loves to hate metatypes different from themselves. If an Ork is feared and hated for having 20% more body mass and tusks, what would they think of 50kg or metal and electronics stapled to your body? You are an alien in a inhospitable world.

Using this model, the "cost" of cyberware should be relative to it's appearance.

For example, a natural looking cyber leg should affect you less than a boosted obvious one, which in turn would be less than a non-human leg like a "Kid Stealth" leg. A prosthetic so natural you forget it isn't real should have no emotional cost at all.

In short, the scarier or more alien you look, act or feel, the more it effects your emotional state.

Thus endeth the sermon. Amen. ;)

[snowRaven]

There is a bunch of old flavor text that states people with low essence go crazy - the adventure elven fire had one such individual, and if i remember correctly it was strongly implied in several places that an essence of 0 made people borderline crazed maniacs, devoid of emotion (not quite that bad, but still

In fact, for years my players believed that something terrible might happen to their characters if they had an essence too close to 0, and no one ever dreamed of having a character who actually had essence 0. And this was not because of a house rule, or something I specifically told them (though I didn't discourage their beliefs)

I believe it was even suggested somewhere that some people would slowly whittle away and die from having a low essence (still above 0, that is)


Personally, I think it would affect you to replace significant parts of your body with mechanics, computers and metal. 'Passive' and 'invisible' cyberware - like bonelacing, blood filters, to some degree dermal plating - would not have that much effect, but once you start adding pieces you interact with, or where you plug things into yourself (datajacks, chipjacks) - those things I believe would leave an effect on your psyche. :wobble: <-- hint

[Herald of Verjig...]

As essense approaches 0, reality changes (as far as the :cyber: is concerned). The individual knows that he has less and less in common with the average person on the street.

When essense reaches 0, death occurs except in cases where life is sustained or forced by magical causes.