[I've brought this over from that other place for more varied views and general input on the concept]

I've been considering Cyberpunk gaming at length.

Including my currently on hiatus Shadowrun game. One of the things I've noticed is that despite the improvement of mechanics, and a number of other fields, there are still things which are not evenly applied. This strikes me as the overall mechanical feel for a cyberpunk game. Many of the novels express them well, but I've never seen it broken out explicitly, in an RPG.

The Three Important things are:

Talent (Or Ability), this is what the person brings innately to the table. Hardheadedness, intellect, speed--this is what the PERSON has, that makes up who they are and how they operate. This included their failings and foibles, but also is the general category we'd call "Attributes" in an RPG.


Skill (Knowledge), this is what the character has learned, or knows how to do. It is an application of this that usually gets them embroiled in what's going on. They're the best codeslinger, pilot, assassin for whatever job is coming up--even if the "best" means simply the easiest to use (expense, willingness, etc.) to do the job In essence this is an axiom for leveraging the talent, in some way or form, into interaction with the world.


The last important thing is gear. It is the lack of gear that drives some interactions, or the possesions of gear that drives others. You have knowledge of what works for you and how to make it work: It could be an interface, a memory/skill chip, a cancer gun, hover tank, or even a sleek orbital jet. It's all about what you are using--brand name chrome, how you make it work for you, and how does aquiring that gear come into play.


As I was looking at Shadowrun I wondered why some rolls were Trait+Skill, and for hacking it (IIRC not having brushed up on it recently) is deck+program. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

Shouldn't all rolls be Trait+Skill+Gear?

Wouldn't it make sense to use each aspect in play important?


What words could I use to make them more Cyberpunkish in feel for these three important things: Mettle (Trait), Chrome (Gear), Skill (Skills)? What other aspects might be important in a cyberpunk game? Contacts would be either Trait (Who you know), or Skill (how to get to know who you need to know..)

I agree that those are the trinity of CP possibilities ... and yet, I can conceive of situations where one would be emphasized over another ... and I can conceive of situations in which the minimum of the three (the weak link in the chain) is the only thing that matters.

Will adding them straight always do what you want?  If you're sufficiently talented and skilled, does that let you hack the net with an abacus?  You'd have to be awfully skilled

To be fair, I can't think of any situation in any RPG where having the right personal qualities or areas of expertise or resource can't be important. Though I think systemising it that way is very appropriate for a cyberpunk game; the approach has got a sort of cut-the-crap sparseness to it which is very appropriate for the genre.

As for Contacts, I can think of three ways to handle them:

- Go with making every roll, including Contacts, a Trait+Skill+Gear thing. Having precisely the right bribe (whether it's money, drugs, or software) can open a whole heap of doors.

- Make it a subset of Gear - it's an intangible resource, but so is software.

- Make it the fourth measure, or a meta-quantity which can be substituted for one of the others in any social situation. Characters in cyberpunk fiction tend to either be "in the loop" - in which case they know everyone who matters in their sphere of influence - or out of it, in which case they know nobody 'cause they are nobody.

Hmmm...  Maybe you could find some way to weight the three based on their position in the calculation.  For example:

X(x3) + Y(x2) + Z

Where the variables are any combination of Skill, Chrome and Mettle, to include negative modifiers as well.  So in Tony's case, the abacus would give a penalty, but since it is such old tech, you would put that in the first slot, showing how wholly overwhelmed your attempt would be because of the tech.  You could still succeed, but your other two traits would have to be pretty massive added together.

As to a good algorithm for sorting those in the slots?  That is where the tricky part comes in.

Quote from: Warthur;246140To be fair, I can't think of any situation in any RPG where having the right personal qualities or areas of expertise or resource can't be important. Though I think systemising it that way is very appropriate for a cyberpunk game; the approach has got a sort of cut-the-crap sparseness to it which is very appropriate for the genre.

I can see your point for a game, but in Neuromancer, Wintermute chose Case for his skill, but ultimately any cowboy would have likely been sufficient with the codebreaking software the mainframe provided.  Wintermute had the tools to access Neuromancer, but not the opportunity.  As long as Case (or anyone else) wasn't totally inept, the individual skill of the operator was only a slight boost to the chance of success.

Quote from: Silverlion;246111The Three Important things are:

For what it's worth, I think the three things you list are the most important things in any roleplaying game: who you are, what you know/can do, and what you have. So good on you for that.

Quote from: Silverlion;246111As I was looking at Shadowrun I wondered why some rolls were Trait+Skill, and for hacking it (IIRC not having brushed up on it recently) is deck+program. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

Well, I can't help you on decking, but all rolls in Shadowrun are just [Skill], basically. Your [Gear] modifies that skill, and your [Trait] determines how easily you can learn that skill. [New in Shadowrun 3!]

Oh. You could be talking about SR4, now that I think of it. I wouldn't know.

Quote from: Silverlion;246111Shouldn't all rolls be Trait+Skill+Gear?

Ultimately, yeah, but there are various ways to do that. It doesn't have to be, "Okay, I've got a Quickness of 4, an Edged Weapons of 3, and a rapier that gives 2, so I roll 9 dice." It can work just the way SR does, and still be realistic, depending on how you apply the numbers, and where. For instance, a Smartgun Link [Gear] doesn't give you extra dice, it lowers your target number. I find that variation interesting and useful, but others find it inconsistent and arbitrary. At that point, I think it's all subjective.

Nevermind ... I totally misunderstood someone's response, and responded to it.  Carry on ... nothing here to see!

StarSIEGE quite literally does it like that -- Stat+Skill+Gear.  

Shooting at somebody?  Reflexes bonus + Shooting Specialty + Shooting Bonus from Gun + 1d20 vs. Challenge Base + Target's Reflexes + Defense Specailty + Defense Bonus From Armor.  

Hacking?  Knowledge + Computers + Computers Bonus From Cyberdeck.  Mackin' on a hottie?  Empathy + Persuasion + Persuasion Bonus From Awesome Threads (OK, you'd have to build the Awesome threads as a Trapping or just assign a bonus, but still).  

Huh!  Whaddaya know.

An interesting note: In most traditional cyberpunk literature, at least the good shit, quite often the heros are given all the good toys up front and deprived of them as the story progresses, occasionally rapidly (think Escape from New York) and wind up having to do without.

Obviously this tends to be reversed in cyberpunk gaming, where getting good gear is seen as essential to survival, and often insanely difficult to actually do in game (exception for Shadowrun, at least in 1E, where pretty much anything in the book was available to start with.  The Street Samurai Catalog, introducing Alpha, Beta and Delta grades of cyberware, only to be gained 'in game' by, essentially, Questing for it, introduced a change. For good or Ill...)

Of course, non-linear Cyberpunk stories (William Gibson is an old standby here) tend to follow less clear 'gear paths', but often elements of a similar progression is there. Molly, for example, has to deal with being disarmed and wounded in the Crystal Palace, rather than relying on her bad ass skills that she expected to rely on.  Removal of allies is not uncommon, a sense of desperation, or the other side holding all the cards really becomes the key once equipment has been removed from the table.

But yes, the hacking chapter inexplicably, even to the diehard shadowrun fans, does break with stat-skill pairing to its own detriment.

Hi!
  I think, when simulating computer vs. computer violence. That this is an acceptable roll (Deck+Program). I mean you are not going to use a 386 with windows 3.11 to hack a Crey Super Computer with Hardened Unix. Especially if the Deck has AI subroutines and the Program is adaptive.
  Now there are a lot of things that fall under the umbrella of hacking that this roll would not be appropriate for, no? Like using a keylogger to steal someone's ID/Password. or fast talking your way into corporate HQ. But if one computer is trying to plant a trojan and the other computer is trying to stop that. Its really a test of hardware speed/efficiency and software programming, right? I mean, if you have a status bar/hour glass, there is not level of skill/knowledge/talent that will make that make that bar move faster or hour glass go away, right?
  I think the key to keeping the character as a central part of hacking, that the deck and program levels are a result of the character using a Trait+Skill roll either to con someone out of super secret hardware/software or to make it themselves, no?
  And I always thought CP was about:
1) The big guy keeping the little guy down
2) The little guy not taking it
3) Sometimes doing something bad so that someone else can experience something good...