[sic] Cyber Barbarians

[Anders Larsen]

I go with set D here.

A few hundred years in the future the world are controlled by a seven big corporations. These corporations are incomprehensible complex, and no one really know who controls them, but the best guess is that it is not really humans, but intelligent computers, who makes the important decisions. The corporations are seen, by the common person, as being religions, and their central computer systems are views as gods.

Because of cybernetic implants people can be integrated into The Net to a degree so the virtual reality and the real reality seems to cross over. Especially computer savvy people can reach a state of transcendence where the two realities becomes one.

There is a few people who is not part of any of the seven corporation. On The Net some rouge AI have formed over times, which are look upon as being pagan entities, and which can give the same power on The Net as the AIs of the big corporations. People who worships these entities are called Cyber Barbarians. You will find these people at the lowest part of the cities where they fight for their right to exists, and in general are of annoyance for the people of the big corporations.

There Cyber Barbarians are what you will play in this game.


This is just some sketchy thoughts, and it may be to big to fit into four pages, but I think it is a idea  that will be fun to work with

- Anders

[Filip Luszczyk]

Yes, sounds like a cool setting concept. We'll see what will come out of it.

Also, remember to link to your main feedback thread from the main thread, for clarity (it will help me in creating a master list of participants, if it turns out feedback groups are needed).

[ja-prozac]

I want some bloody and unspeakably horrifing rituals before altars made of barely working hardware junk
in deserted postindustrial complexes.

[Anders Larsen]

I want some bloody and unspeakably horrifing rituals before altars made of barely working hardware junk
in deserted postindustrial complexes.

It is actually something like this I am thinking about.

- Anders

[Björn K. Johansson]

I like this idea a lot. I don't have a specific feedback right now other than that I like it.

//Björn

[Anders Larsen]

To make it easier to write I now call Cyber Barbarians Cyberbarians. I have some more ideas here, but unfortunately the concept just seem to expand.

The Cyberbarians

Cyberbarians are nomadic people. They sometimes lives in small clans, but you will also often find them by themselves, travelling around the rougher parts of the city. The players plays these travelling Cyberbarians. You should imagine people like Conan – strong and agile as a panther – but instead of a loincloth they wear old beat-up leatherpants and instead of a horse they ride around the city on bikes. As weapon they use swords made of crystals which can work both in the Physical world and the Virtual world and which are connected to the cybernetic hardware in their body. The most important piece of cybernetic implant the cyberbarians have is the so called "bridge". This is their connection to the Virtual world which gives them the ability to exists simultaneous in the Virtual and Physical world. The Cyberbarians  also have other implants which gives them different powers.

The milieu

The game will take place in the lower and more rougher part of the city. Even though the environment reflect the high-technological future, the living conditions are more fitting the middle ages. There is a lot of organised criminality and drugs, and biker-gangs rules the streets around the abandon industrial areas. Everyone are grouped into corporations (apart from the cyberbarians, of course), and these group are often in conflict with each other.

The Virtual World

For the people with a bridge (which are by fare the most people) the Physical world and the Virtual world seems to merge together to one. In the Virtual world there are different types of entities and creatures which lives in places corresponding to the places in the physical world. Some people can gain power from the entities (AIs) they worship and make some magical things happen in the Virtual world. Because most electronic in the Physical world is connected to the Virtual, this magic can actually have effect in the physical world. Everything which are controlled by electronics – including cybernetic implants – can be affected through the Virtual world. Because of their agreements with the pagan AIs, the cyberbarians have a lot of power in the virtual world which they wield through their implants.

The Mechanics

I am not very fare here. I think that the characters will be build around cybernetic implants, which is  the equivalent of holy gifts. The characters will have a "bridge" and a sword from the start, but apart from that the players can freely choose a number of other implants/powers they want their character to have. There should of cause be some consequences with these powers, but I am not sure what.

I also want a simple way of creating situations, but I am not sure how or to what extend. The core part of the stories in this game should be about religious conversion, so the characters should take part of the fight for the human mind which rage between the corporations and the pagan AIs.


Well, I hope that I soon will find a more clear focus in all this.

ps. because of lack of time it will be very limited how much feedback I can give other people, so don't feel too obliged to give me feedback.

- Anders

[Reprobus]

I have to realize that I no longer like the CP settings, but this one could have something in it with those biker-barbarian-hacker-crusaders.

[Vulpinoid]

I could see a hundred pages of setting source material for this alone.

Forget the game.

V

[Filip Luszczyk]

I suppose you can fit the key concepts in four pages, and still have a page or so of mechanics. The problematic thing might be the list of implants, but they could be easily covered by making them freeform traits that work the same mechanically (e.g. offer rerolls a limited number of times per session, or whatever), with some examples given.

I like the setting, anyway

[ja-prozac]

The setting is strong enough to work with minimal outlining. Write it in juicy and evocative
way and people will tell themselves the rest. Check Kumquat Tattoo, short setting but better
than hundred pages long bulky tomes. 

[xenopulse]

Yeah, not much to say on my end except that I enjoy the setting as well   And I think you can either go Filip's way and have freeform traits for cybernetics, or make a little box with eight or ten components that people can fit together at various costs.

[Anders Larsen]

Yes, the setting seems to be rather big right now, but I think it should be possible to focus it so I can squeeze the important part onto two to three pages. The problem is now, that the system I am thinking about also seems to fill a lot. So here we go: The Mechanics.


Implants

A character consists of a number of implants which corresponds to abilities or traits. Each implant have two values, one for the physical world and one for the virtual world.

An exception for this is the Bridge implant, which only one value (combine physical and virtual). The Bridge value denote the basic ability of the character (the Bridge will probably start at 6 for all characters)

Following is the other implants:

Power Sword: This is your character's fighting ability. Primarily this is, of course, sword fighting.

Natural biker: The character's ability to ride a bike.

Super strength: This implant arguments the character's strength.

Tactical instinct: A barbarian can really not be described intelligent, but they can posses a natural instinct for making good tactical decisions.

Panther agility: This implant arguments the character's agility.

Wild presence: A barbarian do not have any real social skills, but they can have this animal like charisma which some find intimidating and other find attractive.

These implants will have a physical value of 1 to 4, and a virtual value also from 1 to 4. Exactly how the start value should be I do not know yet.

The player should write a "Virtual Image" for each of the implants, which is how the implant/ability appears in the virtual world. The Virtual Image should be fancyful and fantasy like. Examples could be "Flying on the fire dragon" for a bike or "Green glowing snake tongue" for a sword.

Each implant will also start with two "special actions". These are small description of actions which this implant is tuned to enhance. For example, Special Actions for Natural Biker could be:  Mad acceleration or Jump over cars.


Scales

There are two "scales" the player have to keep track of. One is Blessings and the other is Trouble.

You can activate the virtual part of an implant by calling on a blessing from your god. It is no trouble getting the blessing – you get it when you want it. But if you have asked for too many blessings your god may begin to ask something of you. So you have to keep track of how many blessings you have asked for.

When it goes bad in a conflict you can get Trouble. This is a form of bad luck you can accumulate. When you have got a lot of Trouble you will meet some hard challenge.


Conflict resolution

First the participants decide the overall stakes of the conflict. The conflict is split into rounds, or a series of actions, which proceeds as follows:

* The participant who has the upper hand in the conflict (who initiated the conflict or won the last action) will describe what action he is taking now, and the other participant will describe how he will react. If no one has the upper hand they have to agree on how they go against each other.
* Take the number of dice equal to the value of your bridge. This is you base pool.
* If you want, and can, use an Special Action, add to the pool the number of dice equal to the physical value of the implant of which the action is related (it is important that you keep the base pool dice and the action dice separate). There can only be used one action per round.
* Both parties in the conflict roll their dice pools, and count successes (4s, 5s, and 6s are successes). The number of successes a participant get is his "success level" and the difference between the two success levels is the "margin of success".
* The one with most successes get the upper hand in that action, and narrates what effect that action has.
* The participant who lost the action should remove a number of dice from his base pool (not counting Special Action dice) equal to the margin of success.
* The loser of the action rolls the dice he has removed from his base pool. Any 1s and 2s on these dice will add one to Trouble, any 3s and 4s give a conflict wound and any 5s and 6s gives a long-term wound.
* Any of the participants who have used a Special Action should mark this Special Action; it can not be used more in this conflict (unless you call on a blessing to activate the virtual part of the implant).
* If a participant has no more dice left in the base pool he lose the whole conflict. If both participants still can (and will), continue with a new action.

After the conflict all marked Special Actions are cleared so they can be used again in the next conflict.

Blessings

During a conflict you can activate the virtual part of the implant. You can do this any time before rolling the dice. When you activate an implant there happen two things. All marked action in that implant will be cleared and the next time you use an spacial action from that implant you will both get the dice from the physical and virtual part. After activating an implant you can only use the special actions one time each (they do not stay cleared). An implant stay activated till the end of the conflict, and during this time any action taking with this implant should be described using virtual image.

There is no limit how on how many implant you can activate during a conflict.


Missing

I have not decided exactly how to use the accumulated Blessings and Trouble – but I have some ideas.

I am not sure what a wound should do.

I would like some mechanic (or just question) to create some juicy situations before play.

There should be some magic in the virtual world, you only can defend against by using the virtual part of the implants.

- Anders

[Vulpinoid]

The setting is strong enough to work with minimal outlining. Write it in juicy and evocative
way and people will tell themselves the rest. Check Kumquat Tattoo, short setting but better
than hundred pages long bulky tomes. 

Point taken.

Good evocative text can bring a lot more to light than dry descriptions of every NPC and location descriptions that detail every spot of rust and dying weed.

Keeping things minimal tends to allow much more freedom for GMs as well, rather than having players who pull out a copy of the rules and say "But that's not what's written on page 67!".

All I was trying to say is that I thought this type of setting had a lot of potential in it.

V

[Anders Larsen]

To try to get more into the feeling of the setting I have made a rough sketch (very rough) of a cyberbarian

I have thought a bit about the situation stuff. Basically there will be two kinds of achievements the character should aim for. The one is the personal achievement and the other is the religious achievement.

The personal achievement is some kind of mission or challenge the player decide. It can be something the character do for himself, for his friend or family or for his clan. It should be sufficient complicated so it will take about one session of play to resolve it. The Trouble which are generated will play into this by complicating the achievement, and the Trouble will be removed when the achievement have been resolved.

A resolved personal achievement will give some kind of advancements that can be used on the physical part of the character (Special Actions and the physical value if the implants). After the achievement have been resolved the player can make a new one.

The religious achievement is some kind of mission which is dictated by the pagan AIs (the GM). This happen when the character have accumulate sufficient Blessings. A religious achievement can ether be to convert a person to you own religion or to kill some important person of an other religion. The more Blessing which have been accelerated the harder the challenge will be, and the Blessings will first clear when the achievement have been resolved.

A resolved religious achievement will advance the virtual part of the implants.

- Anders

[Filip Luszczyk]

I like what I see so far. Evocative gonzo setting and pretty tight mechanics - looks like something I'd play

Defining the character entirely by his implants sounds like a good idea. However, the word "natural" doesn't look well in the implant list - I'd suggest making it "augmented", "enhanced" or whatever.

Wounds could work kind of like DitV Fallout - i.e. I suggest making it rather "consequences" than "injury". After the conflict the player could roll to check if consequences result in personal growth or some long-lasting penalties.