HEX/cyberpunk characters.

[anonymouse]

HEX is technically "techno-urban" roleplaying, but traditional cyberpunk is certainly found under that umbrella. I mention HEX specifically because I don't know of anyone else working on such a game here at the Forge; and it's in Theory because, well, it's not my game and I feel silly starting a thread about it in Design.

So I started rereading Neuromancer tonight for maybe the hundredth-odd time..

In most roleplaying games - and I don't necessarily mean "how the books present starting characters", but the actual, physical game sessions themselves - the characters start out in late teens/early twenties; they've had a few odd things happen to them but it mostly winds up simply being justification/reasoning for whatever numbers make up their character.

The characters in the party are always "new". The vast majority of their life remains in front of them.

Cyberpunk main characters, on the other hand - and this is where we tie it into mechanics, and thus mention of HEX - have had their own personal Falls. Some defining tragedy which happened not a terribly long time ago from when we first find the protagonist.

The plots revolving around such a character invariably detail how they've decided to deal with that Fall: struggling to recover from it, or embracing it in a downward spiral towards an inevitable death.

So for HEX - and maybe for other cyberpunk games - it seems the only real bit of background information needed is each character's Fall, and what they're trying to do about it.

..hmm. Not sure how relavent this all is in general, but the main thing I realised when reading tonight that is glossed over in every other cyberpunk-ish game I've read is that characters are still starting out "new". They're just people. No emphasis on that Fall, that defining moment of each character's life that helps set that whole.. cyberpunk mood.

[M. J. Young]

I'm not so conversant in cyberpunk as perhaps I ought to be; but it struck me that part of your impression of "most" role playing games,

the characters start out in late teens/early twenties; they've had a few odd things happen to them but it mostly winds up simply being justification/reasoning for whatever numbers make up their character.

The characters in the party are always "new". The vast majority of their life remains in front of them.

isn't all that accurate, even in traditional games.

It is certainly true of D&D that the majority of characters start "young"; however, this was not true of magic-users, who were often (under OAD&D rules) in their thirties or possibly forties (it's been a while since I created one) when they started. Several classes tended toward mid twenties for age categories as well, although I'd still call that young.

Traveller, though, seemed from my experience to create older characters. The lifepath system meant that with each step in the process you gained more skills and assets, but you also got older. I think in a party of six we had two her were near fifty, and only one as young as his bottom twenties.

I played Gamma World, Metamorphosis Alpha, and Star Frontiers all in early editions, and although there were modules that were written with the young starting character approach, there was nothing in the rules about the age of the characters. In Gamma World in particular I remember joking that we were all older than we had a right to be in a world in which nothing was safe and we were unable to identify edible plants and food animals after being in this world our entire lives. I was in my mid twenties when I started gaming, and sometimes I imagined my characters as older, and sometimes as younger, than me.

A lot of Multiverser characters are young, but not all are--you play yourself at the age at which you start playing, and unless you bump into something strange that causes unnatural aging, that's your character's physical age thenceforth.

So I think that the "start young" idea is an illusion perpetrated by the emphasis of it in D&D.

In fairness, I don't know how WoD, Champions, or GURPS handle starting age, so this is a very unscientific response.

--M. J. Young

[anonymouse]

It's a fair cop.

To clarify and digress:

Compared to most of the Forge contributors, I'm confident I am woefully inexperienced when it comes to number of games played and systems explored. I've played a bunch of mainstream and glossy games, but not nearly enough of even those, not to mention the lesser-known stuff (as far as general gamer consciousness). So that's the point of view this is coming from.

Back on track:

Poor wording on my part. "Inexperienced" is a better choice and, even while this may be true, it's not really the main point, which is: each personal Fall is central to a cyberpunk character. This event shouldn't simply be relegated to a filler, or even a simple "plot hook". It's the current core of their personality, or a very large facet at the least.

I don't think it actually needs to be a game mechanic, but in a Simulationist game, I'm feeling it really must be given more importance and focus.

Mental ding: the cyberpunk games I've played haven't been Simulationist. Gamist in a CP setting. Okay.. well, I think the point still stands, even though I don't really have any target for it now. =/ Sigh. . .

Mostly unrelated: when I was younger, "cyberpunk" seemed an extraordinarily cool word to me. Now I just feel silly when I type it. . .

[ross_winn]

So for HEX - and maybe for other cyberpunk games - it seems the only real bit of background information needed is each character's Fall, and what they're trying to do about it.

..hmm. Not sure how relavent this all is in general, but the main thing I realised when reading tonight that is glossed over in every other cyberpunk-ish game I've read is that characters are still starting out "new". They're just people. No emphasis on that Fall, that defining moment of each character's life that helps set that whole.. cyberpunk mood.

I think a strong character generation system could be made from delineating a characters flaws.

**EDIT** Maybe even only character flaws.