Making Otaku useful, ...*outside* of the Matrix. Options

[Eyeless Blond]

I guess the title's self-explanatory: are there any ways that you can make a good Otaku character that isn't totally useless outside of the Matrix? I get that it's kinda the point of Otaku to be total weaklings and basically useless unless they're Matrix-hopping, but are there any ways to make them not suck quite so much in meatspace?

[BitBasher]

44 assloads of karma put into real world skills, and NOT taking the "max physical attributes of one" option! :D

[de4dmeta1]

Give them a taser. Not much else is so under-rated while still packing a nice punch.

Just my two :nuyen:

[toturi]

Use them as Faces. With Cha 8+, even normal Faces will be jealous.

[shadd4d]

They don't have enough contacts (just the 2 freebies, IIRC).

But they still have a lot of social attributes backing them up. Detective maybe?

But basically do not take the option of having only a 1 in the physical attributes. It's not worth it and then you are a one-trick pony.

Don

[toturi]

Look, it is not that much of a downside to taking 1s in physical Attributes. An otaku that gets himself shot at deserves to be flatlined.

[shadd4d]

In all honesty, tell that to black ice before you've bought the neurofilter echo. Then it does really blow to have a 1 in Body. That and gray IC make it almost important to have at least a body of 2 before having neurofilter. :dead:

But look at what you're also doing. Physical skills, e.g. combat skills will cost more from your skill points than others. So your combat skills end up low.

Don

[toturi]

Yes, but it is a damned sight easier to boost your physicals with karma from 1 to 2 than your mentals from 8 to 9. Any test needing to use Body as a TN is still 2 instead of 1. Also as having only 1 Body to resist Black IC, your best bet is not to tango with it in the first place, whether your Body is 1 or 2 is moot.

[Misfit Toy]

Design them as a real character and don't assume their little kids. I've created two non-thumb-sucking otaku and they have all turned out rather well. Nothing needs to be done except to utterly destroy the whole "they have to be children" mentality.

[Nephyte]

Except that they do essentially have to be children as they start losing their "powers" shortly after entering adulthood...

[Misfit Toy]

Not until they're 21, and all it takes is a custom edge designed with your GM to elminate that stupid aspect.

[Nephyte]

See, now your including house rules. While I agree this is an open forum to bring house rules into every rule discussion only muddles things up terribly. Many GM's including myself see a certain logic behind the limiting of Otaku.


Further, if you want to look at all from a scientifical standpoint, it is my understanding that most of our brain development happens while we are in the earlier stages of our life, and from then on, our brain fails to generate new cell growth and we degenerate. See the link?


I don't think it's stupid at all. No less stupid then limiting cyberware by Essence, and tying magic to that same essence. Every aspect of the game has several limiting factors. Karma, Nuyen, Essence, Bio-Index. Without an age limit, Otaku only have a single limit, and that is Karma.


Part of the Otaku mystique *IS* that they are Children who have a special connection to the matrix. If you don't like it, that is certainly fine, but to say it's outright stupid is rather inflamatory I think.

[Jason Farlander]

I'm going to have to go ahead and agree that eliminating the fading aspect of Otaku will demand that you insert some other limitation to their powers... else, in 10-20 years of game time, you'll start seeing Otaku whose matrix prowess exceeds that of the AIs and who can essentially choose to own the world.

[Misfit Toy]

That's a flaw in the design of the Otaku rules (and one can argue that's true of all magicians as well -- if the GM allows them in the game that long, they deserve any headaches created). And it doesnt take 10-20 years of game time... just Karma. A ten-year-old Otaku has 11 years before he starts reaching the Fading anyway, so your argument there is moot to begin with. Of course a decker, after 10-20 years of constantly earning money, improving his deck and utilities, and spending Karma on his Computer skill, has no upper range either. So what's your point here anyway?

Regardless, considering they have the only set of rules in the game in which their characters dwindle away "just because" is contrary to the very nature to the point of character advancement. If they were going to introduce them as a player character concept, they should have made the concept more solid and playable. As it stands now, they're just a different breed of poorly executed magician.

[Sir Randel]

One possible house rule limit is that past 21 an otaku can't increase his submersion grade.

[Nephyte]

[Misfit Toy]

I didn't call you stupid. I called the conclusion stupid. I apologize if you couldn't tell the difference.

And I still consider it stupid because basically what you're saying is exactly the same thing. One's ability to learn new things, process information, and grow (ie, improve mental attributes) demonstrates that the brain doesn't "stop developing" at any point whatsoever. At least not in any functional way. If it did, no one would be able to do anything after hitting 21. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. (And note that the Fading is just that... FADING. Not "no longer advancing" but "fading." They get dumber.)

The fact that there are canonical cases of old otaku and created otaku demonstrates that it's not some child growth phenomenon. It's magic, plain and simple. I know a lot of people don't like to acknowledge it, but everything about the otaku scream magician -- right down to the rules governing their abilities. They summon spirits (sprites), they cast spells (complex forms and channels), they astrally perceive and project (into the Matrix instead of the astral), they initiate and have grades (submerse), they have metamagic techniques (echoes), they're split between hermetica (cyberadepts) and shaman (technoshamans) traditions, they have a Magic Attribute (MPCP), no otaku has ever been known to be a magician (because it would be redundant), and their abilities are clearly painted in their auras. And just like adepts, they didn't start showing up until well after the Awakening. They're as alien to normal magicians as adepts almost are, but they're still magicians nonetheless whether one wants to accept it or not.

The only real difference is that they burn-out through age instead of abuse or Essence loss, and that's the main flaw in their rules design. They should have followed the magician template through entirely (and Drain would have gone a *LONG* way to making a *NOTABLE* difference between Otaku and Deckers without having to cripple the concept) instead of listening to some two-bit shadowtalk that said all otaku are children -- of course they were in the Denver sourcebook, they had only started being born a few years prior! You might as well say all elves and dwarves are forced to be children since they only started showing up in the mainstream around 2011... and were showing up as children.

Bleh. I'm going to pull out. This is all a very sour topic for me.

[Eyeless Blond]

Wow, did this get off-topic fast. For the record, I agree with Misfit Toy about Otaku being odd modern-Awakened, and that the age vs. Essence/Magic rating limit is the only real difference, but it really is irrelevant to this thread.

Anyway, I like the idea of a taser-wielding otaku. If you make it an elf you can get three points into tasers (it's a specialization of pistols, isn't it?), which works out decently. On the flip side you could go dwarf and use the 3 Str to get throwing weapons at a decent level, etc etc. I guess the big idea here is to go for a metahuman, and use the racial attribute mods to get the stats you need.

I don't like the idea of not taking advantage of the "all physical attributes at 1" rule; IMO Otaku really need all the advantages they can get in the beginning to be useful at all in the Matrix, as a decker can easily outdistance them if the Otaku isn't careful about minmaxing from the very beginning.

[Herald of Verjig...]

As a slightly different view, they are a technological entity's desire to understand magic. The severe curiosities that are known as "AIs" first created the altered neurology as an experiment to be able to meet humans directly. The next phase involved giving them levels of matrix control to match the indirect influence of deckers. The AIs used imagery based on the magic that some humans could wield outside the matrix. Simple observation showed that many humans feared an opponent using magic, so they concluded that "deckers" would fear a magic like opposition. Some were built based on the "shamen" while others were based on the "mages."
Most of these power wielding adjusted humans were also frightening to the AIs that made them. For that reason, the AIs built a fail mechanism into their abilities. Only a few exceptions were written without it, and very few ever become trusted enough to have it removed.

Now, the reason that all otaku show similar types of ability whether they are known AI builds or "Deep" builds is that logical analysis of the same problems will result in similar solutions with the variance usually depending on the presence or lack of some non-critical details.

[Kagetenshi]

If your team has a rigger, Gunnery could let you add to the firepower being brought to bear. Launch Weapons for when it hits the fan. Social skillz (yes, with a z). Biotech.

Basically, anything that isn't linked to a physical attribute.

Remember, that Body of 1 only takes ten karma to get to 3, average human.

~J

[Cain]

First of all, the "they must be children" mentality isn't strictly needed. You can have an otaku of age 14-16, who can pass for a young-ish adult. We all know teenagers who can pass as adult often enough.

Second, as Doc pointed out, if you start at age 15, you've got six years of in-game time before you have to worry about Fading. That's an awfully long time.

The third thing to do is what Torturi pointed out-- start them as Faces. Using the point system, you can buy additional contacts; similarily, you can buy them as edges. Buy up Ettiquette and Negotiation; with a Charisma of 8, you can get quite far. As time goes on, you'll want to invest in more headware (headware memory is a must) and if you can afford it, tailored cultured pheremones.

A fourth (very unusual) option is to create a troll otaku. I've never seen this done, but I've heard some people swear by it. The troll benefits offset the physical penalites, so you can choose to only spend 1 point on the physical attributes. Without running the numbers, I'd say that you'd come pretty close to an unaugmented human if you did that-- which isn't too terrible.

[snowRaven]

My 2 cents...

First of all, the human brain keeps rebuilding, recreating and rewiring it's neurons until it dies, but at no point in our lives does it do it as well or as quickly as during our growth (0 to 16ish) - after that it gradually slows down, becomes less effective at it, and starts deteriorating more quickly. This process also depends on the individual - stimulating the brain with alot of mental tasks (math and similar problemsolving especially) helps it along.

As for Otaku being magically active... Well, the rules are fairly similar, but there are a few points against it. First, Otaku-abilities can be created by AIs, with varying success. From everything written, their abilities stem from being able to rewire their brain in various ways to enable it to interact directly with the matrix. Nothing suggests that their abilities are genetical, as magic is in SR, but instead created. And, thanx to SURGE, we could in theory have a magically active Otaku - though that is mere speculation and up for interpretation.

Now, Fading isn't perfectly logical, but it does make some sense. An Otaku's brain is apparently extremely custom-wired, and would probably require constant remapping and rewiring as they expand, train and maybe even use their abilities. An older brain (see above) will start to loose it's flexibility. Also, it may have something to do with how people loose alot of the potential to believe in the unbelievable as they grow up - otaku who grow old may also loose part of that imagination which kept them flexible in the matrix. Since there ARE adult otaku who doesn't fade, it is obvious that this isn't written in stone. However, at present there seem to be only three types of otaku:
1) AI created otaku children like the Banded, who are only otaku in the system controlled by 'their' AI, who presumably fade when they grow older.
2) Deep Resonance created otaku children, who fade as they grow older.
3) AI created adult otaku who do not fade, but who were created as otaku as adults.
Of course, then we can discuss if the Deep Resonance is a magical entity(an 'avatar' awakening potentials in them matrix) or an AI but I think we can all agree that AIs are probably not magical beings, spirits or avatars, so it follows by logic that otaku probably aren't either.

[Pelaka]

I always assumed the fading was tied to SOTA... as the otaku aged their brains lost the ability to keep up with the constant software/hardware upgrades on the matrix. What I liked about this explaination is it gave otaku ways to try to get around fading:

1. Play on private systems running increasingly archaic software.
2. Plot to control software/OS upgrades to the matrix to ensure more "otaku friendly" upgrades where done. Possible wars between young otaku that want the next upgrade because it would help them vs the old otaku that don't want it because its too big a change for them to adapt to.
3. Invent either pseudo-cyberdecks or custom forms that acted as reality filters of sort... to translate the current matrix protocols into the "older versions" the otaku could understand.

Back on topic... what is preventing an otaku from becomming a kickass rigger? Even if he ran it from matrix mode in captain's chair he would still be pretty good. Especially if you gave him a fleet of robot drones and allowed him to replace the pilot software with sprites (yeah, major twisting of rules here).

I really don't see an otaku as a face. Yeah, the numbers work in this direction, but all the background for otaku emphasises how socially inept they are... to actually become an effective face would be a pretty big leap for them.

Pel.

[Kagetenshi]

There's a pretty strong argument that Otaku ability is magically connected, namely that Otaku cannot become Mages, Shamans, Adepts, or aspected versions of any of these.

There is no other group that cannot become these with one exception: those who already are. For instance, the only people who cannot be Shamans are the Adepts and Mages. The Otaku, therefore, fit in with already having a tradition and hence being unable to have another.

~J

[BitBasher]