I don't believe in cyberpsychosis, so much as I believe in human nature. If you suddenly have an expert system driven set of reflexes that hyperattenuate your most primitive reactions, is it so hard to believe that you'll behave oddly, since you're always restraining the urge to let go and allow your augmentations to do what they were designed to do?

Likewise, violent behavior might not increase, due to augmentations, for low-essence reasons. Have you ever seen someone who was big, bad, tough, and knew it? Imagine if your bones were harder than most structural materials, or if you could lift the average sarariman with one hand and throw them the better part of four meters? I think that you'd probably have to exert a concerted effort to not let your ego get the better of you, and resist the resultant increase in violent behavioral tendencies.

Likewise, perceptual distortion has always been a hallmark of psychotic dissociation. Characters with extensive cybersensory augmentations might start developing psychological disorders as a result of always knowing too many details about their surroundings, or having too alien a perspective on the world they experience.

Sure, cyberpsychosis might not be real in Shadowrun. I believe, however, that the psychological impact of the benefits cyberware confers on a character should be present, as a roleplaying element. I know that after a certain amount of martial arts training, there's always a part of me that's tempted to put someone into a lock or throw when they put their hand on my shoulder unbidden, or violate my personal space.

I wonder if this thread necromancy will work.

Somebody on another board suggested using the Madness Meters from Unknown Armies in Shadowrun to measure a character's sanity...and I have to admit, it sounds like an interesting idea. Installing cyberware, for example, would cause a possible hit to the Self meter, a violent firefight with nasty deaths around could cause a hit to the Violence meter, and watching a Blood Mage dredge up a Blood Spirit on the top of Aztech's pyramid in Seattle might cause a hit to the Supernatural meter.

Of course, if I understood those Madness Meters right, most people in Shadowrun, and especially PCs, would run around with a few Hardened and Failed notches in every meter.

So, does anybody here have some experience with those Madness Meters, and might have a comment on this idea?

I've used them, and I think they're a bad idea. That's mostly a gut reaction, though—I don't own any of the UA books myself, and am working off four-month-old memory here (hence the lack of explanation for why I don't think they're a good idea ).

~J

Maybe because they'd make a psychotic wreck out of PCs faster than they should, especially if the scales of what event equals what challenge on the madness meter are not adapted to the Shadowrun realities?

Anyone remembe the Master from Fallout?

make an excellent villain, an be an excellent example of the dangers of cyberpsychosis.

yes, yes, I know it was really FEV.

Cyberskulls don't do that....do they?

So, anybody else who's used the Madness Meters, or played Unknown Armies and would like to comment on that idea?

Thing is, after SR4 came out, I realized one thing...cyberpsychosis was a motif from the old 80's cyberpunk genre, where too close contact with machines and electronic was supposed to dehumanize a person, and make people jump over the edge of sanity. It was not necessarily a portrayal of a logical side-effect of lopping off a body part and replace it with electronic-driven machinery (although I believe there is a good chance for a psychosis to happen if you wake up and have an arm that can bench-press a small car, but would get ripped out of its meat-socket if you tried), it was a literary tool to get a certain message through: too close connection to tech is bad for your personal mental health.

Now not every game might want to portray it that way, and somehow I have the impression (people who've read SR4 are welcome to correct me) that the newest edition of Shadowrun doesn't want that message in their game anymore. Rather, tech is portrayed as very immersive and everyday stuff, contrary to the old tech of SR1, where only deckers made it into virtual realities, only riggers were crazy enough to meld with their vehicles, and most people had only utility cyberware for everyday life, and already felt a bit strange with that. In a game like that, cyberpsychosis would be completely out of place.

I think turtle's on to it. Cyber-psychology (although not necessarily psychosis) is a common cyberpunk theme. It usually serves as an analogy; as we become more dependant on technology, we become less aware of the human element of our lives. It symbolizes soldiers going to war and comparing it to a video game, never having to see the people they kill. It represents spending more time online discussing rpg's than hanging out with your friends playing them.

I would even go so far as to say that SR4's intention to integrate tech without that (warning?) analogy is yet another sign of the times. But I won't presume to know what the designers intentions are. I remember when it was cool to have a cell phone, because hardly anyone else did. Now they've become common and are very rapidly becoming just an anoyance to me. Same goes for a lot of tech in SR. As it becomes "no big deal, everyone has it," it's just cumbersome.

I have more, but I'm late for work.

I think the question you have to ask yourself is, what does it mean to be human?

what does it mean to be a machine?

what does it mean to be a combination of the two?


Yes. I'm watching bladerunner right now. so what.

The other movie: Innocence
The TV series: Texhnolyze
The TV series: Serial Experiments Lain
The book: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

~J

Yeah. GitS would be a lot cooler without the philosophy lessons. I like what I've seen of SAC so far.

Don't get me wrong -- I think philosophy is interesting, I've taken my share of classes on it, I've got my share of books (both Eastern and Western, Classical and modern) on it, yadda yadda. But it's not what I want out of my cartoons, y'know? When I put on Ghost in the Shell, I want asskickery, not morals.

it's not the philosophy, to me, it's the handling of the philosophy. SAC, for instance, presents certain philosophical questions, and then leaves well enough alone. GitS1 and GitS2 both present philosophical questions, and then hit you with those questions, over and over and over. it's no longer thought-provoking if it's leaving bruises on the viewers--it's pretentious.

Personally I think Cyber-psychosis and looking contact with humanity should be an RP choice, something that some characters will go through and others will not.

Likewise however, highly magical characters may also go through the same process, feeling they have less in common with the mundane population. I think that the kind of behaviour and thoughts are more due to the amount of power and new capabilities a person has over most of the population rather than just having cyberware.

I definitely don't think it should be manditory, especially since all it ends up doing is make almost cybered characters psychos and then all magic types (which never seem to attract the same kind of rules) being what players flock too in if they want to play a character with some kind of social aspect to it.

Hmmm, I'd not go so far as to say Shadowrun failed to depict how meddling in supernatural affairs can leave you twisted and torn, physically as much as mentally. Toxic magic, blood magic, insect shamen, they all have one thing in common...an alien, and lots of times hostile towards humanity, mindset caused by the kind of magic they use.

The difference is that most of those are not usable by player characters, while cyberware can be used by all sides of the equation. Arguably, shamanism and other spiritual traditions of magic are actually bringing a mage closer to certain aspects of humanity with their "get in touch with the world around you" philosophy (at least as portrayed in SR), while the hermetic mindset is that of a scientist, which might be a bit dispatched from everyday life, but not necessarily cause psychotic symptoms...and hey, any normal chemist can whistle up a quick fireball with the right equipment. At least that seems to be the message to me coming from the portrayals in the books and novels.

While they may be brought closer to some aspects of humanity, they are drawn further away from the whole. Normal people would regard magicians with as much awe and distrust as they would heavily cybered people.

And I see the toxic/blood things are more equivalent to a cybermantic subject than a mere heavily cybered individual.

Cybered people are people too, some will go a bit strange, especially if the cyber was not their idea, others will still seem a bit normal, save for being faster or always at hand with the time and the solution to a maths problem.

Especially since SR4 where they got rid of that annoying divide between natural (or magical) abilities and the equivalent cybered ones.

A cybered person with wired reflexes who has a reflex trigger would not be on edge all the time unless the reflexes are on, but adepts improved reflexes are always on, but no one has adepts always on edge, since it is assumed that it works like they have always had it.

What about an adept with killing hands? Surely the ability to do serious damage (and at higher levels death) to someone with your bare hands as an innate ability is going to have an affect on how you see yourself and your place. Would this be any different than if you got yourself cyberhands with claws? Developing/obtaining either of these abilities is probably a sign of a disturbed mind.

im of the opinion that no game should tell you how to RP your character. and every 'go crazy' mechanic i have seen is badly written one way or another.

Cyberware and bioware... what about bioware-psychosis? why do we never hear about that? they keep telling us its the machine that makes ya go crazy- but i would imagine that a new organ, or adding stuff to your brain, is going to have a much more drastic effect on brain chemistry, than plugging in a bit of chemicly neutral electronics.

look at steroids. we know that taking them produces an emotional response, roid rage. people who take em may become violent. its a drug. so what if we add a cerebral booster, mnemenic enhancer, and synaptic? all that new stuff in your brain, of course there should be an impact. and even if its grown from your own dna, thats a new level of complexity in the brain to cope with.

Personaly, if i was making a system of how ware affects a person... i would ignore essence, and look at what benefits the wre actualy gave. did it raise your stats above the racial limit? a human with an abilitty of 7 or 8+, is going to feel some real impact there. adding new senseware is going to have an effect too- an ork isnt going to be impacted by lowlight vision, nor a dwarf by thermo- the brains already wired for it. but they will feel the difference with ultrasound. and then theres extra IP. I would sugest applying the same kind of effect to an adept who exceeded the norm (more dificult for an adept to do but its still there).

that way, standard and delta have the same impact on the mind. and on how society reacts. joe average cant tell the difference in grade, but he can tell obvious crome when he sees it.