Social Software Killed the Face, Sad Face about Empathy Software Options

[Fortune]

Emotitoys: Emotitoys are sophisticated electronic toys programmed with empathy software (see p. 60) to recognize metahuman body language and facial expressions, thus giving them a limited ability to sense emotions and react appropriately, based on their purpose. Due to aggressive marketing campaigns by Aztechnology, Horizon, and other corps, emotitoys are extremely popular even among adults, with hipsters everywhere sporting emotitoys that dangle from their commlinks or climb around their clothing. Emotitoys come in a wide variety of styles, such as the gothic Grue, the cheerful Chirpichu, and the colorful Moodwyrm. Some are animatronic but nonmobile, while others are functional minidrones.

Shadowrunners have also embraced the emotitoy craze, bringing their 'friends' along to meets to get an edge during negotiations, using the toy's sensors and empathy software to get a read on the other side.

The rating of the emotitoy is the rating of its built-in empathy software.

[arathian]

Empathy Sensor Software - Just delete the last sentence of the description and it is fine.

[Fortune]

Empathy: Empathy software is designed for use with standard video/trideo cameras, carefully analyzing the behavioral patterns of the subject to ascertain mood, interest, and so on. Empathy software can be used to make a Judge Intentions Test (see p. 130, SR4) for emotional status using its rating as the dice pool. It does not detect falsehoods; that’s the realm of lie detection software. Empathy software can be discreetly used in real time during negotiations or social interactions, adding its rating as a dice pool bonus to the character’s Social skill tests.

[b1ffov3rfl0w]

Thanks.

Wow, that's insane though.

[ArkonC]

Indeed it implies the emotitoy also has a system rating and response of 6, otherwise it couldn't run the rating 6 emoware...
So as a hacker you could pick it apart and upgrade your commlink for cheap...
Or am I missing something?

[masterofm]

Step 1: Create high end toys and sell it for less then production cost

Step 2: ????????

Step 3: Profit

[Blade]

@ArkonC : I guess it's a specialized hardware intended to run empathy software and a virtual friend/pet software. The same reason why a low-CPU device with an video chip will be able to play videos as well as (if not better than) a high-CPU device without any optimized video chip.


I guess you should just remove the last sentence from the empathy software description. Everything else just support the fact that it could only be used for Judging Intentions.

[ornot]

Simply removing the last line of the empathy software description would fix the brokenness of the social dice pool mods. However, it still makes no sense that the toy costs one fifth the price of the standalone software.

Has anyone playtested any of the proposed house rules yet?

[Blade]

Oh yeah, there's that too. Good thing the emotitoy doesn't have a built-in survival knife.

[Cheops]

Oh yeah, there's that too. Good thing the emotitoy doesn't have a built-in survival knife.

Awesome.

I think that the Emotitoy is similar to how vehicle sensors work.

eg. You can take a car with Sensors 1 and put a Rating 6 component in. When you are using that component you get to use it at Rating 6 (say a Cyberware Scanner) but when you are trying to sense something with the sensors you are back to rolling 1+Perception.

[nathanross]

Indeed it implies the emotitoy also has a system rating and response of 6, otherwise it couldn't run the rating 6 emoware...
So as a hacker you could pick it apart and upgrade your commlink for cheap...
Or am I missing something?

Hey, that is something that hasn't been mentioned before: is the software rating limited by response. This is so good I completely forgot. However, most characters in my game are smart enough to upgrade response before anything else.

Has anyone playtested any of the proposed house rules yet?

Which ones? I've been playing with my houserule since I started playing SR4 (since there were no emotoys/softs then to modify the Social DP).

[ornot]

Which ones? I've been playing with my houserule since I started playing SR4 (since there were no emotoys/softs then to modify the Social DP).

I meant specifically to make emotitoys and empathy software less broken.

If you want me to be more specific, using bonus dice granted with the software as a teamwork test, and using the dice only to offset social penalties.

As for your houserule... I must have missed that one. Care to point me in the right direction?

[nathanross]

As for your houserule... I must have missed that one. Care to point me in the right direction?

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) Just erase the last line on emosofts, then the Social DP balance is preserved from BBB, but those with shit Charisma/Intuition still have some chance at Judge Intentions.

[ornot]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) Just erase the last line on emosofts, then the Social DP balance is preserved from BBB, but those with shit Charisma/Intuition still have some chance at Judge Intentions.

I saw Blade mention that. I had no idea it had come from you. That also works, although my players will complain.

[Edge2054]

I like the idea of limiting the die pool modifiers the software can provide to the rating of the sensor net they're hooked up to. Better sensors, better results from the software. Of course I'm talking about vehicle level sensor nets and I'm working under the assumption that such things couldn't be carried around in your pocket. This would allow the software to work as it does in the book but only in facilities or areas designed to implement it.

Would provide some great fluff, like interrogation rooms, security check points that feed the guards the emotion software data, etc. etc. Also runners could hack into such sensor nets in buildings to take advantage of the software themselves without having a walking 6 die pool modifier. Smaller, more portable sensors, may only have a rating of 2, thus making the software no more broken then a smart gun link.

As far as emotoys... I don't know. I guess comparing them to other drones their size and giving them a sensor net equal to that rating, and then capping emotion software at that level would work. Either way though the cost of them needs to be adjusted, the fact that they do what the software does (which is already to cheap) for even less is just retarded.

[nathanross]

I saw Blade mention that. I had no idea it had come from you. That also works, although my players will complain.

I think quite a few of us came to that conclusion independently. It really is amazing that they let that line get through. I hope they do the same thing they did to Mnemonic Enhancer in SR3 and just make the bad things go away.