Cyberpunk Sorc

[szilard]

I recently picked up Sorceror. One of my first thoughts while reading it was that it would be a great base system for a non-supernatural cyberpunk game. (I like a lot of cyberpunk fiction, but cyberpunk games have always seemed more about equipment and style than anything else.) Demons could be things like cybernetic limbs, designer drugs, nanotech thingamajigs, or whatever. They give power, but at a cost to humanity.

Stuart

[Balbinus]

I recently picked up Sorceror. One of my first thoughts while reading it was that it would be a great base system for a non-supernatural cyberpunk game. (I like a lot of cyberpunk fiction, but cyberpunk games have always seemed more about equipment and style than anything else.) Demons could be things like cybernetic limbs, designer drugs, nanotech thingamajigs, or whatever. They give power, but at a cost to humanity.

Stuart

I can easily see Sorceror working that way, gaining power through cybernetics (demons) at potential cost to your humanity.  Nice idea.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I've been over this topic before, as you might imagine. It's probably not surprising that the first edition of Cyberpunk was a major, major influence on early Sorcerer. I even scribbled up an Interlock version of the rules and tried to pitch them to R. Talsorian ~1990 or so!

The biggest issues to address, though, are whether the cyberware really has anything to do with Humanity at all, and also that Humanity in Sorcerer is not a personality-gauge in the Call of Cthulhu or Cyberpunk (the game) sense.

Best,
Ron

[Jared A. Sorensen]

The biggest issues to address, though, are whether the cyberware really has anything to do with Humanity at all, and also that Humanity in Sorcerer is not a personality-gauge in the Call of Cthulhu or Cyberpunk (the game) sense.

Somewhere on my hard drive are notes for my second Sorcerer mini-supplement. It's called "Streets of Sorcery" and is very much in the vein of the urban crime drama/cyberpunk story (they're not all that different, really). In SoS, the players are the demons. They're hired on to do shit for "not very nice" people...but they in turn have Humanity scores (usually higher than the people they work for)...

[szilard]

The biggest issues to address, though, are whether the cyberware really has anything to do with Humanity at all, and also that Humanity in Sorcerer is not a personality-gauge in the Call of Cthulhu or Cyberpunk (the game) sense.

Well, there are a few things going on here. Cyberpunk (literary-genre) themes often focus on sense of identity and loss thereof, transhumanism, and transcending the body. Societal misfits and questions of materialism vs. spirituality are also common.

It also isn't just cyberwear. There's also seriously mind-and-body-altering drug use; interaction with information on a direct level, bypassing the body and its normal senses; uploading and/or altering memories and skills; interacting with artificial personalities; etc.

I think there's a lot here that can be done. I think that Cyberpunk (the game) treated humanity in a rather unsophisticated way. In the literature, no, acquiring cyberwear and such things don't have an inverse relationship with some sort of personality/sanity points. They do, however, raise questions about the humanity of the characters in the minds of the readers.

Would this be moving a game mechanic (Humanity) into the realm of theme rather than (directly) play? Would that work? I must think on it.

Stuart

[erithromycin]

I ran a one-shot game to get used to the rules where demons were basically nanotech agents that lived in your bloodstream. Humanity was a measure of your ability to control their attempts to take over your body. Lore was a measure of your ability to bargain with these inhuman nanotech constructs. Telltales were effectively a product of the influence of your nanotech on your body - it got worse as your Humanity decreased, which may not have been fair, but I wasn't really bothered by that.

Sample character:

Handle: None

Real Name: Aurea Ehli

Description:   

You're new media scum, armed with a camera and an attitude. Journalistic ire fills your bones, and you're desperate to break a story that people care about. Unfortunately, you're also a hand-to-mouth video idiocy stringer, still trying to scrape a living on your Network Stipend and the royalties from a couple of segments from last seasons Cops In Trouble. At the moment you're trying to pick up some ready cash by hanging outside The Spiked Club in the hope that someone famous comes by. Tabloid television may suck, but it pays well.

Kicker:   
You were standing outside The Spiked Club when someone attacked Ms. Mohorovich, one of the heirs of the Hardnette Corporation.

Cover:   6   Network Stringer   

Stamina:   2   Chemically Heightened

Will:   6   User/Manipulative

Lore:   2   Apprentice
Humanity: 1

Price:   -1   Cynical [Penalty to all Interaction Checks]

Daemons:
Eyes Of The Network, Parasite
Power:   3
Lore:   2   Perception Magnification [A Zoom Lens]
         Link Unless you ask it nicely, the Network sees everything you do.
Will:      2
Need:   Recharging. You have to plug your eyes in at night.
Desire:   To get a good story for the network

WFU – CC15901, Passer
Power:      5
Lore:      4   Travel It flies!
         Perception Magnification [A Zoom Lens]
         Perception   Low-Lite
         Link What it sees, you see.
Stamina:   2
Will:   4
Need:   Constant Maintenance [It is secondhand]
Desire:      Dangerous situations.
         

Telltale:   
Your eyes have no pupils or retina, instead the bear the logo of Network News 6. Your skin is jet black, your teeth are bright white, and your hair is bright red [the corporate colours]. You've also got a silver hexagonal grid over most of your body which is WFU's antennae.

In case you're wondering, the initial Humanity roll for the Eyes of the Network wasn't great, and the one for the Camera Drone was an absolute nightmare.

- drew

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Stuart, most of what I have to say about this topic can be found in HEX: a game of techno-urban horror.

Drew, regarding the character, I'm thinkin' that the intro paragraph and the Kicker sound a lot more Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun than they do Sorcerer. I also don't get what you might by the initial Humanity rolls ... one loses 1 and only 1 point from a failed demonic-ritual Humanity check, so one such check can't be "worse" than another.

Best,
Ron

[szilard]

Hi there,

Stuart, most of what I have to say about this topic can be found in HEX: a game of techno-urban horror.

::nod::

That thread started my first day at the Forge.

The thought of Humanity as the scale of Alienation/Assimilation could, I think, work. It adds another element: too much Humanity may not be good for you, either. At low humanity you become alienated from even yourself. At high humanity you become assimilated into a crazed society. That gets to the core of the stereotypical cyberpunk character as someone who lives on the edge of society.

I guess the question then becomes whether cybertech and the like are sufficiently linked to the alienation/assimilation spectrum so as to cause that to fluctuate... and I think the answer to that should be an affirmative one.

Stuart

[Jared A. Sorensen]

In my mind, Humanity in a cyberpunk setting would be the ability to say, "No. I won't." A character without Humanity is just a consumer (of everything)...someone who questions nothing.

[Judd]

In my mind, Humanity in a cyberpunk setting would be the ability to say, "No. I won't." A character without Humanity is just a consumer (of everything)...someone who questions nothing.

That is a kick-ass definition of Humanity.

[erithromycin]

Ron,

You're right - the game dates from a time when I was trying to reconcile the unique feel of Sorceror with what I'd been doing up until then. To be honest, I failed. What I'd been aiming for was something much closer to Jared's definition, which I really like.

As for the rolls thing, you're right - It was something I thought I got, but later realised I didn't. I was under the impression that you could lose more than a point from a single Ritual roll, which meant that my earlier games were wicked deadly.

- drew