Building a new cyberware package, Designing an Extreme Sports package Options

[FuelDrop]

So I was looking at the cyberware packages and it occurred to me that there's a niche that is A) something that should logically exist and B) would be useful to Shadowrunners:

Extreme Sports package.

So there are a couple of obvious ones. Bone lacing of some kind to avoid broken bones. Simrig to record the rush. maybe reaction enhancers and muscle replacement. Is there any other Cyberware that people can think of off the top of their head for a civilian extreme sport package?

[Cochise]

Well, most of the things that come to my mind in terms of "sports ware" falls into the category of Bioware but Cyberware implants that might be part of a sport package are (not necessarily all in the same package):

• Smart Articulation
• Grip Feet
• Biomonitor
• Gastric Neurostimulator
• Orientation System
• Cyberfins
• Balance Tail
• Climbing Claws

[Sendaz]

The Pete Rose Package

Math SPU so they can better go crunching the odds for betting. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[FuelDrop]

Makes sense. Would low level wired reflexes or move by wire make sense for something like this? Maybe the Reaction Booster from way of the samurai? I just figure that a lot of these sports require split second timing so anything that makes you react faster would make sense.

Internal air tank for water related sports of course.

Dermal Sheathe may be overkill, but it would reduce the risk to injury.

[Stingray]

..i think Wired Reflexes take bit large chunk of Essence to consider,i thing Wired Reflexes would be perfect for
more Rougher type of Sports like Urban Brawl etc.

[FuelDrop]

Interesting point: in universe, do people other than mages care about essence?

[Stingray]

Interesting point: in universe, do people other than mages care about essence?

..succeessful Sport Stars are also in media,intewiews etc..imagine Interwiew of Terminator..(low essence, do not care about humanity
anymore..UGH!..)

[Rotbart van Dain...]

..succeessful Sport Stars are also in media,intewiews etc..imagine Interwiew of Terminator..(low essence, do not care about humanity anymore..UGH!..)

There is no social penalty for low Essence in 4A anymore.

Interesting point: in universe, do people other than mages care about essence?

Vampires do. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

In all seriousness, it makes healing a bit slower. Then again... in 4A, it make you better. Possibly better at being horrible, but better nonetheless.

Given the the corporate culture in Shadowrun, the rat race must be extreme. Getting a lot of headware, both cyber & bio, is probably mandatory to be able to compete to advance to exec positions at all.

And bioware, for the affluent, might start quite early.

[Stingray]

There is no social penalty for low Essence in 4A anymore.

..would team put Robot-like person in iterwiew..glowing red eyes, monotone voice (0,01 Essence), more essece lost, dissonane grows, u care less about others..

[Rotbart van Dain...]

..would team put Robot-like person in iterwiew..glowing red eyes, monotone voice (0,01 Essence), more essece lost, dissonane grows, u care less about others..

dafuq?

[Stingray]

dafuq?

..exactly, player is after all face of the team, so imust public is favorable to team, someone public can
accosiate with, less cuberware, more emphatic he/she is..

[Rotbart van Dain...]

..exactly, player is after all face of the team, so imust public is favorable to team, someone public can accosiate with, less cuberware, more emphatic he/she is..

That is complete and utter nonsense.

[Stingray]

That is complete and utter nonsense.

..is it?? Would team put front of Cameras and reporters bubbly and perky blond young woman w/ less Cyberware or
Non-human sounding Cuybered -up Goon..

((pg. 70 SR4AE The re is amention of of effects of cyberware and effeccs of "Inhmanity" )
(pg..28 Augmentation , Cyberware Detachment)

[Rotbart van Dain...]

..is it?? Would team put front of Cameras and reporters bubbly and perky blond young woman w/ less Cyberware or Non-human sounding Cuybered -up Goon..

Your premises/definitions are pure and utter nonsense.

They are not even a Strawman - they are a Windmill.

Because there is no 'Non-human sounding Cuybered -up Goon'. In fact, people like Johnny Spinrad prove the total opposite:

If you have 0,01 Essence from having every piece of bioware and headware in the book, you still can be the nicest/warm/caring/charming guy or gal they ever met. With the most beautiful sparkling eyes ever and the best glittering flowing hair. (sponsored by SpIn-X)

There is no social penalty for low Essence in 4A anymore.




All the the straw(man)s you are clinging to boil down to this negative quality that is, like other mental ones like Poor Self Control, a choice:

Cyberpsychosis
Bonus: 10 BP
Only characters with an exceptionally low Essence attribute (1 or less) should be allowed this quality. Individuals suffering from this condition become detached and distanced from the world around them. They seem to experience social interactions and strong emotions one step removed and are often subject to sociopathic or psychotic impulses. A character inflicted with cyberpsychosis incurs a –2 dice pool modifier to all Social Skill Tests. Furthermore, if the test glitches, the character acts inappropriately or violently overreacts. If the test produces a critical glitch, the character suffers a psychotic break and becomes temporarily insane—immediately becoming an NPC until such time as the gamemaster deems he has received suffcient psychiatric treatment and has returned to a semblance of normalcy.

[Cochise]

There is no social penalty for low Essence in 4A anymore.

There certainly still are remnants of the idea even in SR4(A), although those lack any form of explicit link to actual mechanics.

All from page 70 concerning game concepts of Cyberware:

The more cyberware a character has installed, the more “inhuman” she becomes.

Becoming "inhuman" most definitely should trigger some kind of response within your environment and ...

Overly cybered characters tend to become a bit detached, and the empathy between them and other metahumans suffers for it.

... it would appear that whenever someone ends up in that "bit detached" state in addition to a suffering a loss of empathy (two-way thing) this indeed could be seen as the basis for "social penalties" that you just claimed not to exist in SR4(A).
But doesn't stop there either:

While some cyberware is so common that it can be implanted during lunch break at a corner bodyshop and is no longer remarkable to the general public (especially cybereyes and datajacks), heavy amounts of visible cyberware can still have a startling effect on many people.

The problem here being

• Individual gaming groups can and will have different interpretations of what consitutes "heavy" and or "visible cyberware" ... particularly when it comes to the "visible" part
• those groups can and will also have different opinions on what that feeling of startlement will cause as reactions

=> Explicit mechanics for Essence based limits in social interactions might not exist but your claim there simply is no social penalty for low Essence in SR4 doesn't quite hold up to scrutiny and you're certainly better off with agreeing to disagree on that point instead going further down that highly confrontational route you chose so far, because Stingray's defintions and premises weren't "pure and utter nonsense" just a vastly different interpretation of the material than yours where typically things only ever exist for you if they have an explicit rule mechanic attached.

**********************

Different opinions on those aspects aside I'm having other objections to certain implants - including most of the reflex stuff as well as the bone-lacing that was mentioned in the OP - in terms of commercially sold Cyberware "sports packages": the legality of included implants, target audience and desired effects overall with regards to the overall performance within the targeted sport:

• Cyberware packages - as I always understood them - are things that manufacturers sell with a target audience in mind. Under the (normal) "civilian" label - even when targeting a more "extreme" audience - I'd say anything with an F rating is pretty much out of the window. So bone lacing is actually kind of a no go on a public civilian market despite the perceived advantages for avoiding broken bones.
• Similarly R rated cyberimplants don't necessarily fit that well either. Here it largely comes down to the question of whether or not a group's view on the world would allow acquiring permits within a civilian market target audience outside heavily organized sports on the higher tiers of those sports ... individual mileage my vary there quite a lot
• Regardless of the first two points I also have this feeling that outside of highly organized / top tier sporting environments you couldn't expect to see the most invasive implants (in terms of essence) being part of package deals of cyberware because a one or two piece deal isn't much a package any more and we'd be entering other market types than "sport" with those.
• Additionally the inclusion of those top tier implants in such packages could lead to the off-game idea that someone actually tries to cheese out further cost savings on those particular implants rather than adding to the world's inner workings.

=> I certainly could see the lower tiers of cybernetic reaction / reflex enhancements in "sport packages" that primarily aim at professional sportsmen (where permits would be part of the associated biz) but not in packages aimed at the general public and certainly not the mass market ... regardless of how relevant good reflexes are within the chosen field of sport.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

There certainly still are remnants of the idea even in SR4(A), although those lack any form of explicit link to actual mechanics.

Well Yes, But Actually No - the mechanics for that idea are handled with Negative Qualities in 4E/4A.

Explicit mechanics for Essence based limits in social interactions might not exist but your claim there simply is no social penalty for low Essence in SR4 doesn't quite hold up to scrutiny[...]

The penalty is for having a specific Negative Quality, which has a low Essence as a prerequisite.

The general idea of 3E with automatic penalties went the way of the Dodo.

[...]Stingray's defintions and premises weren't "pure and utter nonsense" just a vastly different interpretation of the material than yours where typically things only ever exist for you if they have an explicit rule mechanic attached.

With claims like 'Robot-like person in iterwiew..glowing red eyes, monotone voice (0,01 Essence)' we could debate if they are a Strawman or a Windmill (that is, do people like that exist at all)... though this is just a variation of Russel's teapot - they might, and I don't care.

I certainly could see the lower tiers of cybernetic reaction / reflex enhancements in "sport packages" that primarily aim at professional sportsmen (where permits would be part of the associated biz)[...]

Though in all fairness - Urban Brawl / Combat Biking would be exactly that kind of professional sport that actually would kind of have such packages... to outfit the whole team.

And in that case, people might even want to see obvious, scary ware on their favorite butchers athletes.

[Cochise]

And now you have just confirmed my previous statement: For you things only ever exist within the game environment if an explicit rule (crunch) is attached to it. Anything that doesn't fit that bill you typically attack as "pure and utter nonsense" despite the explicit quotes from more fluff oriented elements.
So I'll reiterate on this: You're better off with agreeing to disagreeing there because you certainly won't change anyone's mind (neither mine nor Stingray's) with the still just subjective line of reasoning or your insistance that only this or that is true about SR4 ~shrug~

TL;DR: Someone on the internet has just told you: You are wrong ... and anyone with a decent enough knowledge about your personal behavioral patterns on when such a thing happens has a high probability of "knowing" where this will lead to from here on out.

Though in all fairness - Urban Brawl / Combat Biking would be exactly that kind of professional sport that actually would kind of have such packages... to outfit the whole team.

Isn't Urban Brawl exactly the kind of organized professional sport where - wait for it - licenses / permits would be part of the biz? I just wonder why I might have mentioned this ... of course that thought clearly didn't cross my mind like at all ~deeper sigh~

[Rotbart van Dain...]

For you things only ever exist within the game environment if an explicit rule (crunch) is attached to it.

You are wrong. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Mantis]

You guys ever watch athletes do interviews? They aren't exactly the warmest, most enlightening things to watch. I doubt the athlete's personality is going to matter so long as they perform as expected and win. That is what they are being paid for, not to deliver lively and exciting commentary on the match they just played. Save that for when they retire and get hired by ESPN or something.

[FuelDrop]

Why is Bone Lacing rating F? I mean, Bone Density bioware isn't restricted at all, and all the other F rated 'ware is generally stuff designed for impersonations, tailored pheromones, ect.

I can see why being able to redesign your fingerprints is rated F, but even other combat implants are only rating R (including most cyberweapons)

[Sendaz]

Wasn't always.

In 3rd you could get the plastic and aluminium versions with permits, but not Titanium.


Then in 4th all versions went full F.

Part of the logic I figured was in 3rd, the lacing increased your damage but it was still S.
You could opt to do Physical damage but the Power of the attack was halved.

In 4th they changed it so that Lacing made your Bone Laced punches/kicks automatically do Physical damage instead of Stun, though GMs of course could allow a player to 'soft hit' a target instead of killing them.

Or maybe there just isn't a good reason, its 50/50 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I always thought it should have left at R, but eh.

As for Bone Density, that was probably an oversight and should have had the same treatment or its your table and just take it down to the same as Bone Density.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Bone Density used to be geneware, too in 3E (Calcitonin) - and the weakest version of the bone augments, though pretty much undetectable.

The 4E version felt over the top... and oddly enough, it is still the best thing in 6E. In fact, given the new soak & melee damage mechanics, it is better than ever.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Bone Density used to be geneware, too in 3E (Calcitonin) - and the weakest version of the bone augments, though pretty much undetectable.

The 4E version felt over the top... and oddly enough, it is still the best thing in 6E. In fact, given the new soak & melee damage mechanics, it is better than ever.