Mosca Syndrome

Okay.

Rather than have a tortured session of PCs getting to know each other, we'll just assume that you've all worked together at least a little bit.  

Will (Lord Demon), you've done some work for Porter (Eraser) off and on for a couple of months now (as I outlined in the PM I sent you).

Crazy Ivan (Bookwyrm), you hooked up with Porter shortly after you got back in town through some of the other old gangers, whom Porter has been using for muscle.  

Porter, you've been using both of these guys lately, and a couple of times the three of you have worked on some small time jobs around town together.  These jobs haven't been any great capers or anything, just little things to supplement your income from your normal rackets.  

Now, will all three of you please post a description of your characters here, so the others have an idea of what they are dealing with?  Only post those things someone would know about you from seeing you, talking to you, or briefly working with you.  Don't post any numbers or your character's life story or secret hidden weapons or whatever unless it's something he would have told or shown the others while working together.  If it's something obvious (like Ivan's whirring cyberarm), go ahead and list it.  

Don't forget about things like attitude, accents, manner of speaking or standing, whatever.

Thanks.  This will go a good ways toward helping us all imagine what people see when they look at your characters....

Okay, I just ponied exactly what Phipps means about the cannons.  My armor is still too abuseable.  Here's a mod that will change that.

There is a certain kind of soft armor called SHEER ARMOR.  It includes skinweaves and any soft, thin garment with an SP of 10 or less.  In the above list this includes KVC (which is very thin and tight-fitting) and the aptly named sheer kevlar (typically the material used in Kevlar T-shirts and such).  

Sheer armor, when worn under other armor, is treated as a separate entity from substantial (non-sheet armor).  It affects damage AFTER the multiplier.  Its SP converts the damage dealt to non-lethal stun/bruising damage which is factored in for stun saves but not death saves.  This damage stays with the character until they get a good night's (or day's) sleep.

Examples:

Joojoo has a skinweave and is wearing an SP20 nylon helmet.  He is struck in the head by a 5.56mm (26/.8) slug.  The effect roll is 7 so damage is normal.  The helmet stops all but six points of penetration.  6x.8 = 4.8, rounded up to 5.  The skinweave converts up to 12 points to stun/bruise damage, so Joojoo takes 5 points of stun damage, reduced to 3 for his BTM of -2, and then doubled (head shot) for a total of six points.  Enough to ring his bell and force a stun save, but it might have saved his life.    

Benoit has an Armorhide sport coat (SP12) with a KVC (SP8 sheer) vest on underneath (notice that he's got enough to incur the EV -2 penalty for layering this stuff).  He is cornered by the police and decides to shoot his way out.    He gets nailed with 10mm bullets (14/1) in the torso and right arm.  The torso hit is reduced to 2 points by the sport coat.  The multiplier is one, so 2 points get to the KVC vest and are easily converted to bruising damage.  The arm is not protected by the vest, so he suffers 2 points of real damage there.  His BTM reduces each attack to 1 point per location (A. Swenson rule from the main book)

In such a case as a character is ONLY wearing sheer armor, it's handled thusly:

Philodendra is wearing a form-fitting SP10 Sheer Kevlar catsuit.  She is struck in the leg by a 12 guage slug (16/1.4).   There is no substantial armor to work against the penetration, so  16x1.4=22.4 points hit, rounded up to 23.  The catsuit turns 10 points to blunt trauma, so she takes thirteen points of lethal damage and 10 points of nonlethal stun damage.  In such situations where there is split damage, the BTM is split evenly between stun and lethal, favoring the lethal.  If Philodendra's BTM is -3, one point is subtracted from the stun damage and two points from the lethal.  She takes a total of 11 points lethal and 9 points stun.  Ouch.  

In those instances where sheer armor is worn over other layers, the sheer armor works as normal SP, as it assists the thicker layer beneath in stopping the damage.

Example:

Giselle is wearing a KVC (SP8 sheer) trench coat over an SP14 Kevlar police vest.  Note that with the layering rules in place she's going to have a -2 EV for this combo (total SP is 22).  She is struck in the chest by a .44 magnum (16/1.1) slug.  The combination stops the bullet, but the trench coat now has a big bullet hole in the chest area and is down to SP7 there.

Armor piercing bullets reduce the SP effectiveness of the sheer armor to half:

Kombat Klown is wearing an SP16 medium Kevlar clown suit over his colorful Klownweave (a skinweave with the clown make-up built in--sp12 sheer).  He is nailed in his big fat jolly tummy with a .357 magnum AP bullet (14/.9).  Penetration is doubled to 28, meaning that 12 points get through the clown suit.  12x.9x.25(ap)=2.7, rounded up to 3.  The skinweave is only half effective against AP, so it could only convert 6 points to stun.  Lucky clown--he only takes three points of stun damage.

In addition, sheer armor is NEVER useful against bludgeoning attacks (fists, kicks, clubs, etc.).  A skinweave won't do jack against a baseball bat to the head.  Sheer armors are meant to be a last ditch way to save your life in the event you get shot, or to provide a defense against knife-weilding muggers and other common threats.  You'll want to wear something substantial if you find yourself facing a lot of gunfights.  

It may seem that the guns are still not terribly deadly now, but if you are stunned on the ground, it's not hard for the bad guy to come up and finish the job.  It is a little complicated, though--no doubt there.  

There.  That oughta hold you.  

For those who already submitted characters,  feel free to make changes and resubmit if this mod would have changed the way you made them.  

Again, I intend to run the game in the "literary" style, keeping all the numbers out of it whenever possible.  Therefore, it's not really imperative that the people playing know all the ins-and-outs of the system--I just put it up here in case they are interested.  I don't want to start chasing my tail trying to cover all possible bases, because that road just leads to writing your own game and I don't want to do that  

Hopefully my players will trust me to be fair about everything and enjoy it.  The system isn't terribly realistic, and rest assure that I have no compunctions about dumping realism, science, or anything else down the s---hole in the name of telling a story.

Quote (psychophipps @ Jan. 15 2002,18:25)

you want me to post the 3G3 shotgun damages as modified for CP 2020's technology?  i can also put up a pretty realistic percentage of pellets hitting at range chart.   also, what are your thoughts on blunt trauma?  these rules were designed with this effect in mind, otherwise the players are in the same boat with hand cannons being needed to hurt anyone. Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

If you have those damages handy or were planning to do it anyway, bang on, man--that would be really cool and would pretty much complete the system except for such oddballs as flechette guns and stuff!  I'm also curious to see if any of the numbers I pulled outta thin air are close!  

Hmmm....blunt trauma...I was thinking that those instances where the damage is very small (1-2 points or so) the wound can sort of be chalked up to blunt trauma caused by the force of the bullet getting through the armor without actually penetrating or perhaps penetrating but losing so much force that it can't break the skin--deep, nasty bruises (like those godawful black and yellowish ones that hurt for days), the occasional chipped bone and hematoma.  I guess a flaw there is that it's then possible to keel over and die from a bunch of nasty bruises ("I'll give you SUCH a PINCH!").

Honestly, guys, I had sort of intended to "wing it," keeping the numbers and rolling "off camera" and presenting the game in a literary manner.  If damage turns out to make more sense as a bruise, I might say something like:

"The booster's magnum tears a hole in the silence and dark of the alley.  (PC NAME HERE) flinches from a sharp, biting sensation in his lower ribcage."

In this case, the PC knows he's been hit, but as far as he knows he's still standing and in the fight so the wound can't be too bad.  When the booster-with-a-magnum issue is resolved, then he can take a look at himself (First Aid) to see how badly he is hurt, at which case I would better relate the damage and perhaps the point value (esp. if the character looking at the wound has Medical Tech):

"You pull open your trench and shirt to find the deformed slug stuck against your lowest right ribs at the center of a 4 cm, darkening bruise that reminds you of its presence every time you take a breath.  The skin isn't broken, but it's probably gonna be a painful distraction for at least couple of days (2 points damage)...If you hadn't gone with the skinweave, you'd be in really bad shape.

The only reason I got into the discussion of mechanics was to give the people building characters a fair idea of what does what for damage and what stops what so I didn't get a "Hey, wait a minute!  I got hit with a 9mm and still took damage???  That can't happen!"  in the middle of the game.  I wanted to use the 3g3 setup 'cause it looked neat and I thought the game balance would be easier to maintain.

Okay.  There has been some PM concern that the basic book is doesn't have enough choices for armor.  Rather than open the door and allow the supplements to come charging in  , I'll toss up my own list of armored garments.  We should be able to come up with just about anything based on this.  These prices/SPs/Evs override whatever is in the basic book:

Heavy Leather

The SP is 4.  The biker's choice for over a century, it's mostly available in darker colors.  A good quality basic jacket will cost you 200 bucks.  A matching vest or set of pants will run you 150.  A trenchcoat is 400.

KVC

A fabric that combines the ballistic resistance of Kevlar, Spidersilk, and similar fabrics with the shiny, fetishy look of PVC.  Available in almost any color.  The SP is 8.  It's not cheap.  A shirt or jacket will run you 300, a vest or a pair of pants will set you back 200.  A trench or a form-fitted catsuit will run you a cool 650.  Considered "Urban Flash" at the very least.

Sheer Kevlar

Light fabric with good ballistic properties.  The SP is 10.  A shirt will run you 50, a pair of blue jeans lined with the stuff or a form-fitted catsuit will cost 150.  A skimask can be had for 30eb.

Armorhide

Light leather on the outside, but bonded  with sheer Kevlar, or one of the other usual suspects, for armor.  The SP is 12.  A jacket or a pair of pants costs 250eb.  A trench will set you back 650eb.

Light Kevlar

SP 14.  The heaviest thing you can wear and still be discreet.  The typical weight of standard-issue police body  armor.  Basic styles will cost you 200 for a jacket and 150 for a vest or pair of pants.  A SWAT-style entry balaclava will cost you an even 100eb.

Medium Kevlar

Anyone who cares will know that you're wearing armor.  The SP is 16.  The EV penalty is -1.  A basic jacket costs 300, whereas a vest or pair of pants costs 225.  No commercial manufacturers are offering this type of armor in anything but the most basic and functional styles.

ArmorTrench

The edgerunner's favorite cliché.  Big and heavy and obvious.  SP18, EV -2.  Costs 800 bucks and tells the whole world that you are either looking for trouble or already in it.  Considered "Urban Flash" to those in the know.

Heavy Kevlar

The big stuff.  Everyone knows you're armored up, and you don't care--you're just worried about stopping the bullets.  SP is 20, EV is -2.  A jacket will cost you 350 and a set of pants or vest will be 250.  It's also not very stylish overall.

Door Gunner's Vest

Hope you don't plan on moving around much.  Heavy, stiff vest with little room to move.  EV is -3.  The good news is that the SP is 30, meaning it'll stop almost anything short of an armor-piercing rifle slug.

Metal Gear

Heavy articulated hard armor designed to stop small arms fire while still allowing some freedom of movement.  A suit including a sealed and filtered helmet will set you back 1350eb.  Of course, you'll look like a dork if you walk around all day in this stuff, and draw a lot of unwanted attention.  But if the op is that dangerous, it may be just what you need.  SP is 25, EV is -2

Steel Helmet

Old-time combat pot.  Very Retro.  SP10.  30eb.

Nylon Helmet

More modern military helmet.  SP20. 100eb.

Armored Motorcycle Helmet

Stylish lid for the two-wheeled set.  SP14.  400eb

This is by no means a definitive list, but is a thrown-together "available at the mall" compilation meant to provide more choice than what the basic book allows without having to say "yes" and "no" on an item-by-item basis to the things in the chromebooks.

The system in the books is such that there's little reason to fear anything smaller than a 12mm AP.  The 3g3 one seems to mesh better with the armor and damage boxes and encourage a healthier respect for the bad guys' firepower.  

I do agree that skill=shot placement and shot placement=effectiveness.  I also think that, especially when these lower-level characters are involved, street combat is too fast and chaotic to leave it to anything but chance.  After all, that's why they recommend things like instinct pointing and double taps and burst fire, isn't it?  There may be a 1 in 10 chance that the first round does lousy damage, but only a 1 in 100 that both rounds in the double tap will.  It also serves to deflate the rabid pursuit of high weapon skills---it ensures that even the baddest gunslinger won't nail 'em in the eye every time, and even the worst of the worst will occasionally make a lucky shot.  

Reminds me, though...I have to pull something outta my you-know what to cover shotguns firing shot instead of slugs.  Seems to me that they would have lousy penetration all around, but would have an after-armor modifier that is very strong at close range (a more dense grouping of pellets creating a greivous wound) but diminishes as range increases and the pattern is big enough to where many won't even hit.

Maybe for 00 buckshot a 12 on penetration and perhaps 1.8 at PB/CLOSE range, 1.4 at medium range, and .8 at long range?  The 1.8 sounds big but it would reflect the mess you become if you take a full load of buckshot in your unarmored chest.  An SP14 police vest will stop it with no trouble.

And for birdshot (yeah, I know ), perhaps a 6 on penetration with the same modifiers?  Again, it's messy enough on unarmored targets at close range but even the lightest SP will stop it.

Quote (psychophipps @ Jan. 15 2002,02:04)

actually, i'd just use 1.5 as it's pretty easy and still realistic.  the .25 damage would make AP rounds not lethal enough, actually.  if the players, let alone the Referee, can't figure out the infantry calibers x 1.5 then halving the leftovers, i'd suggest you get back to school!   i also agree with Mosca on the modifiers bit.  the .74 and such IS a bit much on the "anal retention scale".  i'd simply round to the nearest tenth for ease of use.   i'm changing the original post now with the inclusion of the AP, HP, EXP rounds from Thumperpunk. thanks for the props y'all, it means more to me than you realise! Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

Lord Demon:  You don't need to understand it fully because I'm going to handle game mechanics "behind the scenes"...I would rather you picked a weapon (if any) based on your character concept than on damage potential.  Yes, the guns are a bit more lethal under the Phipps/3g3 chart.  

psychophipps:  I see what you mean, but the specifics of the armor system I put together makes it too easy to scoff at the handguns unless the penetration is 2x.  I am more concerned with some damage getting through on armored targets.  

Assuming I understand the system correctly, here are some examples I had in mind:

10mm (14/1) vs. Unarmored Target

Non AP bullet: 14 points hit, 14 points damage taken

AP bullet (2x/.25x):  28 hit, 28x.25=7 points taken

AP bullet (1.5x/.5x):  21 hit, 21x.5=11.5 points taken

10mm (14/1) vs. Target armored to SP18

Non AP bullet:  fails to penetrate

AP bullet (2x/.25x):  28 hit, sp reduces to 10, 10x.25=2.5 damage taken

AP bullet (1.5x/.5x):  21 hit, sp reduces to 3, 3x.5=1.5 damage taken

12 gauge slug (16/1.4) vs. unarmored

Non AP slug:  16x1.4 =22.4 points taken

AP slug (2x/.25x):  32 hit, 32x1.4x.25=11.2

AP slug (1.5x/.5x):  24 hit, 24x1.4x.5=16.8

12 ga slug (16/1.4) vs. armor at sp18

Non AP slug:  fails to penetrate

AP slug (2x/.25x):  32 hit, SP reduces to 14, 14x1.4x.25=4.9

AP slug (1.5x/.5x):  24 hit, SP reduces to 6, 6x1.4x.5=4.2

5.56mm (26/.8) vs unarmored

Non AP:  26 hit, 26x.8=20.8 damage

AP (2x/.25x):  52 hit, 52x.8x.25=10.4

AP (1.5x/.5x):  39 hit. 39x.8x.5=15.6

5.56mm (26/.8) vs armor at sp18

Non AP: 26 hit, SP reduces to 8, 8x.8=6.4

AP (2x/.25x):  52 hit, SP reduces to 34, 34x.8x.25=6.4

AP (1.5x/.5x):  39 hit, SP reduces to 21, 21x.8x.5=8.4

(I intend to round up on damage results)

It looks like the biggest gaps show up on unarmored targets, where I guess I can rationalize that the bullet probably zipped right through them.  I think for my purposes I'm gonna try doubling penetration/quartering modifier.  It seems to work well enough.  I will point out that I'm gonna go ahead and roll a d10 for each bullet that hits...if the d10 is a 1, then it's a graze that does 1 point of damage.  If the d10 is a 0, then the modifier (after penetration) is DOUBLED--you hit an important spot...of course, if you don't penetrate, it does you no good...

Hey, no problem on the props.  In the unlikely event that I ever get a RL game going again, Intend to refer to your damage chart as the "Phipps Chart"....I even gave you some props in my setting notes, too....

I can PM you one in concept...don't have stats and stuff at the moment for it.  I can't dump it in here because it may figure in the online campaign I'm starting.

yeah, yeah....I just like the sound of my own voice!

I liked my idea best.    You're not taking the character away...just giving them something to worry about.

Hmmm....good point.  Okay.  Rather than reduce the armor-piercing capability, we'll quarter the damage after penetration.  They'll do less damage when they get through, but the threat will still be significant.  Seems more in line with those stories people bring up about AP rifle rounds not stopping the threat.

Which brings me to something I forgot.  For both PCs and NPCs, the first four wound boxed won't require a stun save.

Phew....that should leave us with a character ready to go.  As I said, PM them or email them to me at

syndromeda@ev1.net

Whatever you do, don't post them here for all to see.

Step Seven:  Gear Up.

Characters are going to have a total of $5000 starting cash to spend on gear and cyberware.  We are sticking to the basic book for both of them.

There are some things to keep in mind when buying gear.  A lot of this is system-oriented stuff that may affect your purchases.  Otherwise I wouldn't bother with posting it--too much worry about game mechanics will get in the way of the story.  You see, once we get this going I intend to be making the die rolls myself using your own character sheets as a guide and simply reporting what happens as it happens.  I'm going for a fairly "literary" game rather than one where there is open discussion about how things work and game mechanics--such a discussion could go on for a month in a forum like this, and that's time I'd rather spend roleplaying.  But likewise, it wouldn't be fair of me to tell you to buy things only to find out that it cripples your character concept.  So I'm going to give you an idea of how things are going to work so you can choose with a little knowledge.

GUNS:

1.  I'm gonna use Phipps' damage chart, the one he based on 3g3, as a basis for damage.

3.  Don't forget that certain guns are going to be illegal, and while they are all available to buy at the start of the game, they may be harder to find once it gets started.  

2.  At the start of the game there's just going to be two kinds of bullets available:

a.  Regular Bullet:  The standard bullet for that caliber.  The plain old bullet typically designed for use against people.  Hollowpoints, plain lead, jacket slugs, whatever.  They all fit into this category.  Simplicity is the key.  They do damage as the Phipps chart lists.

b.  Armor Piercing Bullet:  Bullet designed to penetrate armor at the expense of tissue damage.  The specific technology is unimportant to me.  Maybe it's teflon-coated, or depleted unobtanium, or whatever.  It's just designed to go through armor.  Their penetration rating is doubled on the Phipps chart (he does this with a more precisely calculated number--1.5 I think, but I wanted the AP bullets to be scarier and am willing to sacrifice a little realism for it) and the end damage to flesh is halved after all is said and done.

Whacky bullets (exploders, incendiary, dual purpose, etc.) aren't really going to be common enough in this game to bicker over.  If you run into some, I'll give a description of what it's supposed to do and worry about the mechanics on my own…

ARMOR:

1. Armor SPs are added up to find the total SP vs. an attack

2. If you only have one layer of armor (excl. Skinweave and cyberlimb armor), you only suffer that armor's EV, if any.

3. If you have more than one layer of armor (excluding Skinweave and cyberlimb armor), you suffer an additional EV based on total SP in the most armored hit location:

total SP additional EV

20-23 -2

24-27 -4

28-31 -6

32-35 -8

36+ -10

4.  EV is applied to BOTH REF and MA.

Examples:

Rufus has a REF of 8 and an MA of 7 and is wearing an SP14 vest under an SP16 armored jacket.  His total SP is 30 on his torso, but in addition to looking ridiculous he suffers a -6 penalty to REF and MA for turning himself into a Michelin-man lookalike.  This is IN ADDITION to any penalties incurred for the individual garments.  

Zoya has a skinweave and has been issued a suit of MetalGear by her boss.  Since skinweave is excluded from layering totals, she only suffers the EV penalty incurred by the heavy suit.  If she tried to wear an SP16 vest underneath it, however, she would be pretty much immobile--the total layered SP would be 41.  In addition to the regular EV she would be stuck with an additional -10.  She would be lucky just to be able to wriggle out of such a contrived set-up, let alone win a fight.

As you can see, this armor set-up rewards simplicity--perhaps a skinweave and one thick layer of armor, or maybe two light layers.   It's not perfectly realistic, but it's also really hard to abuse (and don't forget that the bad guys have to live by these rules, too).  Just keep the armor sane and it won't hurt too bad.  If you try to get too complicated and fancy, it will come around and bite you on the you-know-what.

CYBERWARE:

Cyberware is as the book states.  Easy enough.  The only catch is that the humanity costs are static instead of varied.  If the humanity costs are listed as a point value (1 point, 2 points, etc.), then that's the value they use.  If the costs are listed as a die roll, just take the number of d6 required and multiply it by 3.5.  If there is a modifier (like 1d6+1), add it.  Once you have totalled up all your humanity costs, take your LUCK, double it, and subtract that from the total cost.  Note:  The LUCK bonus cannot raise your humanity beyond its original natural level.

Example:

Gonark the Impressive has a starting humanity of 70 (EMP 7) and a LUCK of 6.  He cybers up to the tune of 45 points of humanity cost.  He doubles his LUCK and subtracts it from the cost:  

45-12=33

His total starting humanity cost is 33 points, leaving Gonark with a humanity of 37.

that's it for today...will post gear and cyber regs soon....

Step Six:  Fleshing out...

STYLE, PERSONALITY, and AFFECTATIONS

It's up to you, as long as it makes sense.  

LIFEPATH:

Not bothering with it.  Just come up with a sensible background that makes your character somewhat believable.  I'll come up with some friends, enemies and contacts for you.  If there are some contacts you really want, you can suggest them, but remember these are not intended to be terribly well-connected PCs.

Step Five: Skills (etc.)

We are not using skill packages.  Just take 60 points, minus whatever you put into your Special Ability, and distribute it to whatever skills you want, as long as you follow one of these three guidelines:

OPTION 1:"Specialist"--One skill at +6, Unlimited skills at up to +3

OPTION 2:"Diversified Specialist"--Two skills at +5, Two skills at +4, and unlimited skills up to +3

OPTION 3:"Jack of All Trades"--Unlimited skills at up to +4

A couple of things to keep in mind when buying skills--I realize that some of these are just nitpicks, but I have used them for so long that it's ingrained now:

*we're not using any skills (or special abilities, for that matter) that aren't listed on the basic CP2020 character sheet.  

*I'm moving "Pick Pocket" to be a REF-based rather than TECH-based skill

*If you choose "Play Instrument," you can choose at the start whether you want it placed under TECH, REF, or EMP to reflect the way you play the instrument.  For example, B.B. King plays with EMP.  Yngwie Malmsteen plays with REF.  The guys from Kraftwerk play with TECH.  Keep your concept in mind when choosing.

*In the interest of simplicity, Brawling, Martial Arts, Fencing, and Melee are all rolled into one skill called "Hand to Hand Combat" or HTH.  HTH reflects the sum total of your ability to hurt people with your body or with handheld weapons, and to keep from being hurt by same.  Since we are going easy on game mechanics, we are not going to dwell on certain "martial arts" and their relative strengths and weaknesses (strike bonuses, etc.).  You'll get your HTH as a damage bonus on successful attacks, even when weapons are concerned (yahoo!).  Of course, so will the bad guys.  You can call your character's style of fighting whatever you want, be it Ninjitsu, Boxing, or Clown-fu.

*I am going to be using a very simple, almost modifier-less version of combat.  About the only modifiers are going to be for called shot and blind shooting/blind strike, both of which will increase the difficulty by one level (essentially a -5)…keep this in mind when allocating points to combat skills, which will represent your character's ability to attack while moving, in bad light, moving targets, etc.  In other words, you may not need to dump as many points into those skills as you might think.

*Thrown weapons are going to be handled under the Athletics skill, even if it's some kind of "Martial Arts" weapon.

*You can add additional languages over and above the freebie points described above, but no language skill can be greater than your character's native tongue (defined as the language of the society the character GREW UP in).

Step Four:  Special Ability.

Pick a special ability.  You can have ONE at up to +5.  Alternately, you can put no points into a special ability and pick one later to develop with IP.  If you take no special ability now, there will be more points for your other skills.

Keep in mind that there is going to be a set amount of starting cash for each character, so don't worry about money when/if you choose an SA.

Step Three:  Skills (Languages)

Start with Languages.  You have your characters INT level worth of points in your native language, defined as the primary language of the area your character grew up in.  You then have your INT worth of points to spend on other languages.  You can spend that much on one other language and be perfectly billingual.  You can divide it up among several if you like.  I would suggest taking English as one of them, because this game is going to be set in a US city.

Step Two:  Stat points

you get 60 points for stats to distribute however you want.  Your character is certainly an above average specimen, but not a superhero or anything.  Keep these rules in mind when distributing points:

*No natural stat (unmodded by cyberware) can start above 10.  You can have as low as 1 if you like, just know what you are getting into if you do.

*You are going to have a set number of points for skills--there is no "pick-up skill" amount calculated from REF and INT.

*Increasing attractiveness via cosmetic surgery costs double for each point above the first you want to increase it by.  The first point will cost $600, the second $1200, the third $2400, and so on.

*We're starting out with only the gear/c-ware listed in the original book (I have the 2nd edition).  Other stuff may appear in the game, but I don't want to bother with the other supplements.  Keep this in mind when you are distributing points so you don't count on some super-gear from one of the supplements that isn't available.

*Your save is an AVERAGE of your BODY and COOL stats, not just straight BODY.  BTM is still calculated from BODY, though.  Round up if you get a value ending in a half for your SAVE.

*LUCK points can be used for a "do-over" on failed or fumbled skill or save rolls at the rate of three LUCK points per "do-over"…. LUCK points regenerate at one point per day in GAME TIME….

Okay.  This thread is for the step-by-step process of building characters.  If you have a character you already like and want to bring in, you'll need to rebuild him/her to these guidelines....

FIRST OFF, LET ME SAY:  DO NOT POST YOUR CHARACTERS HERE!  AFTER YOU FINISH THEM, PM THEM TO ME.  The whole party doesn't necessarily get to know everything about you.  The characters will know each other from somewhere and probably have worked together before, but you may have secrets you want to keep.  

Step One:  Concept.  Try to think in terms of people who are either clawing their way up or are coming down hard--falling from grace, as it were.  Survivors, to be sure, but troubled pasts are encouraged.  The typical skill level is going to +3 or +4, so it's not a high-powered game...leave the mob kingpin and deathsolo ideas in the garage.  

Roles that would work best in this game are:

Media, Techie, Medtechie, Solo

Roles that will be less appropriate but will still work are:

Nomad, Fixer, Cop, Rocker

Roles that won't fit at all and I really won't consider:

Netrunner, Corporate

"Roles" isn't really right here--the only thing in this game that determines a role is special ability.  We'll get to that later, but just so you know, you won't be obligated to stick to skill packages when you're building the character.

Hmmm....the best thing about playing a couple of points away from the edge is that almost anything can push you over.  One more implant, one dose of a drug, even a mildly traumatic experience can do it.  

One place where people have mildly traumatic experiences all the time is in their dreams.  Even better, we often don't remember the dream.  Perhaps this character has a bad dream every once in a while, and when this happens (dreams typically happen in the REM section of sleep right after you put it down or right before you get up), her humanity drops over the edge and she blacks out.  When this happens, she gets out of bed and goes out to a nearby college campus, and stalks/lures and kills a frat boy in a really messy manner.  She then comes home, cleans up, and goes to sleep again, her normal self completely unaware that she is in fact a serial killer.  

.....Perhaps this happens about once a week.  Be subtle about it.  In passing, mention a news story (make it seem like irrelevant atmosphere rather than a plot point) about fratboys turning up dead on nearby college campuses.  Have her wake up with an expensive men's sneaker (left foot) on the floor of her bedroom one day and feeling very unrested.  No idea where the shoe came from.  Then maybe a week or so later she wakes up with another left sneaker in the room.  Then another one.  Hopefully she'll think someone must be trying to mess with her head and start getting paranoid about who keeps sneaking in and leaving shoes.  

Soon, another news story breaks about the missing connection between the most recent murder victims.  In each case the left shoe was missing.  At this point either the player will figure out what is going on, or perhaps (hopefully) instead think someone is trying to frame the character for murder or is controlling her actions remotely or something like that--true paranoia.  

If the connection is never made (any player convinced that his character can operate normally at .2 EMP may not get the fact that they are doing this), you could eventually have her "wake up" in the bushes on a nearby college campus covered with blood and crouched over some hapless fratboy who's been bound and gagged with his own intestines, and a couple of C-SWAT officers with an enhanced German sheperd on the other side of the plaza trying to figure out where the screams were coming from.  She's in a tight spot:  If she leaves the fratboy, the cops will save him (modern medicine, you know) and he could indentify her and C-SWAT is after her from then on.  If she saves him, he can still identify her when the cops arrive and she'll have a hard time explaining things.  If she finishes him off before running, she'll be just as evil as her serial killer self and it'll drive the point home about playing with tiny humanity scores.  

If she gets away and figures out what is going on (Anybody have "psychology" as a skill?  Anybody?), it might be time to consider getting rid of some of that cyberware.   If she lets it continue, well, they always get caught eventually.

heh...

Lying about rolls?  Peeking at notes?  Petty retributions over game schedules?  I guess you could cheat back, leave decoy notes, whatever.....but....

....I don't know you, but it sure sounds like these people don't respect you, and are therefore not worth gaming with, hanging out with, or talking to.  As a matter of fact, if they were on fire, I wouldn't even recommend urinating on them to put them out unless there's a danger that they'll ruin your drapes.

You are wise to seek out a new game.  I don't care how bad you need a fix, no game at all would be better than that kind of treatment.

(please forgive my intrusion on your discussion, guys, but I needed to ask a question for my own game while you're on the topic!)

Say, PsychoPhipps, how do you handle AP's in your system?  Do you just double the penetration value and halve the damage modifier?  I am planning using your setup for my own online game that I'm working on here.  

Thanks,

Moc-a-Syn

PS...hope your op goes well, Thumper.  Take care.

All the crime and tension means that the cops in Cleveland play for keeps.  Strutting around with an unconcealed firearm is just asking for trouble, as is armoring up like a soldier going off to war.  They like to know who around town thinks they need to be heavily armored all the time, so they know who to look to when huge firefights start in unlikely places.  Getting caught with an automatic weapon (anything that fires more than one bullet for each pull of the trigger), an explosive device, a silencer, an armor-piercing bullet (they still call 'em "cop killers" here), or poison gas is going to get you brought up on "Intent to Commit Terrorism" charges, or "ICT"...the minimum sentence is 10 years.  Getting caught carrying an unregistered firearm, a bladed weapon with a blade longer than three inches, or a long-arm (rifles, shotguns, etc.) on your person can land you a $1000 fine and up to a year in the county jail.  Of course, none of this means you can't find any of this stuff if you know a reasonably connected fixer.  It just means that you should be doing your best not get caught with it.  Of course all these fun toys CAN be possessed with the appropriate permit.  Strangely enough, though, the permits only seem to be obtainable by the rich and powerful (and usually corporate).  Go figure.  

Drugs are legal here, providing they are properly produced by a licensed firm that pays their taxes.  The problem is that those people always make the weakest, most boring drugs.  The good stuff is as illegal as ever, and it's all over the place.  Again, don't get caught with anything you can't explain.

To top it off, all these laws can change if you find yourself on a corporate sovereign's property.  Unless you are a respected citizen of the corporation, you'll probably find that they are much stricter.

Take care, and watch your backs...

Any specific open questions about the setting, both now and once the game is underway, can be asked here.  I'll do my best to answer them (assuming your characters would have any clue what the answer is).  If I don't have an answer I'll try to make something up that makes half an ounce of sense.

...to support any real operations.  

The first population boost happened during the oil crunch when Texas, unhappy with the way things were going in the black gold market, managed to secede from the union in 2003.  It was in their state constitution all along, but nobody took it seriously.  The new Republic of Texas government was highly conservative and tied to her oil and high-tech industries as well as organized religion.  As a result, there began a mass emigration, casually referred to as "The Texodus," where a substantial number of Texans fled the new nation to live in the US.  These people were largely disenchanted with the new regime in their homeland, and some 850,000 of them alone ended up in Cleveland over the next ten years.  The people of the Texodus ranged from poor people of color who saw little hope in Texas' new government to intellectuals who, well, saw little hope in Texas' new government.  This was all fine with Texas--they didn't want people like that anyway.  With this new and varied population, the corporate ranks swelled and the city began to grow.  

It was around this time (2013) that a company called Illumina was formed by a group of scientists, bio-engineers, and ethicists.  They too took advantage of the tax breaks and influx of intellectual manpower in Cleveland and set up shop.  They had one goal:  To crack the problem of usable and reliable nanotech, and to then provide an ethical safeguard against the destructive use of such technology.  They succeeded brilliantly on the first count and handily on the second.  The islands of New Downtown were among their first acheivements.  Their bugs made possible the accelerated construction of buildings to house the city's growing population.  

Illumina was hip to the dangers of nanotech.  The pollution-eating plasmids in the water (One of Blivitron Pansolar's biggest debacles to date) were well on their way to destroying an entire ecosystem, and they were a minor nuisance compared to the potential of nanotech.  They were possessed of considerable wealth but found themselves under pressure from corporate entities to give up their secrets "for the good of the world"...The leaders of the industrialized nations of the world saw the dangers, too, and decided to make Illumina the first Corporate Sovereign, meaning a company that is a nation unto itself and is thereby entitled to the benefits thereof.  

Illumina has long since left Cleveland (though they have a consulate there as well as most major world cities), choosing instead to construct (with nanotech, of course) a large arcology community off the Western Coast of Africa (a lot of Illumina's nanites end up heading off-world, so proximity to the Equatorial "launch belt" counts).  The arcology is a series of manmade islands and gleaming jewel-like domes.  It is also very secretive and this makes it a source of great suspicion to many.  To this day, Illumina maintains a monopoly on nanite production, picking and choosing what will or will not be produced based on what they think is in the best interest of mankind.  On those unlikely occasions that some other entity seems bent on producing nanotech, Illumina responds first within legal international channels.  If this fails, well, it is said that their "dirty tricks" department is among the best.

The idea of the corporate sovereign has proven popular among the megacorps.  Most of the immediately recognizable names have obtained sovereign status.  If, for instance, you work for Laramie Tobacco, you are a citizen of Laramie Tobacco (usually in addition to, say, the US).  Your kids learn the history of tobacco in school.  You know the corporate anthem by heart.  If you are on a corporate sovereign's territory, you are living by THEIR laws, not the laws of the nation in which the the territory lies.  It can get complicated really quick, and you want to be careful about what you do and where.  Drinking a Pepsi on Coke's territory may well be a jailable crime.

While all this was going on, the Holy Wars began.  First a few flare-ups of guerilla fighting between Christian and Muslim factions in the Balkans.  Then the fighting spread, and soon the "powder keg" had blown up again.  All the warring factions had pretty much worn out their welcome with the UN, and by the time the UN got through arguing about what was to be done, it was too big for them do anything about.  The guerilla factions had teamed up with corrupt politicians and a full-scale war was in effect.  The EC stayed out of it, deciding rather to abandon Southeastern Europe in favor of shoring up the borders of nations like Germany, Austria, The Czech Republic, and Switzerland to keep the conflict (and the refugees) from spreading into Western Europe.  For almost two decades this dirty war has been raging and the nations of the world have pretended it isn't there, like some uncouth lout of an uncle that shows up for Christmas dinner full of gas and dirty jokes.  Of course, many of the defense-oriented companies of the world used it as a testing ground for some of their latest toys, gaining valuable R&D data for the future at the cost of many lives.  Even the region's most forward-thinking nations, Romania and Hungary, have fallen into chaos.  At this point the wars have stabilized, with identifiable frontlines along various mountain ranges dividing the Christain and Muslim populations.  Of course, hanging around these lines is a good way to catch a sniper's bullet, but in the last year the fighting has slacked off quite a bit.  There are a couple of UN Peacekeeper outpost "towns", manned primarily by US soldiers, along these lines.  They have so far proven ineffective at anything except getting both sides angry at the US and providing a gathering point for refugees who are sick of years of war in their homeland.

most of the massive tide of refugees, shunned by the EC, have ended up in America, most coming by converted freighter and tanker ships.  The midwest, long a destination for immigrants of Eastern European decent, has received the most.  Cleveland has taken on more than her fair share.  Many of the younger newcomers have never lived in a semi-peaceful society before and are highly undereducated.  As a result, crime is on the rise in Cleveland, and the bitterness runs strong between longtime residents and newcomers of various stripes.....

(to be continued)

Cleveland, Ohio.  2028.  "The Mistake by the Lake," they used to call her.  This was way back in the day, too--long before the city became the bloated mess you see before you now.  Word has it that almost 60 years ago the river itself caught fire from all the pollutants.  In that respect she was half a century ahead of her time.  

On the postcards she's an impressive town.  The gleaming spires of New Downtown, rooted in the huge archipelago of man-made islands, rival the skylines of all but the most extravagant sections of the coastal sprawl.  The lake around New Downtown and the Cuyahoga river, made famous for the pyrotechnics mentioned above, are a crystalline mirror thanks to the pollution-eating plasmids they dumped in the water a few years back.  Of course, the same move wiped out the area's aquatic ecosystem in one fell swoop, but the water is clean where it counts.  Go out a mile or so and you'll find the water warm where the plasmids are working their way out into the lake.  As the line grows bigger and the water deeper, they work slower and slower.  But that genie is out of the bottle, and the lake will be dead in a couple hundred years.

Of course there are a few things the postcards don't show you.  They conveniently don't show you the largely abandoned Old City District, visible to most only as a series of decaying, burnt out, or polluted buildings lining the elevated superhighway between Downtown and the 'burbs.  They don't show you the huge expanses of ultra-low income tract housing and tenement blocks built to help shelter the flood of refugees--colloquially known as "refus", as in "rhymes with refuse"--from the religious conflicts in Southeastern Europe and the Middle East.  "The Holy War," they call it.  It's been raging for almost two decades now.  They don't show you the monstrous six-pack of fission reactors, far out on an island of their own and bristling with automated defenses, that powers the whole thing and produces enough toxic waste to keep the disposal railguns in Knoxville firing a new load into deep space every day.  There's a lot they don't show you.

They say Cleveland is where you go to fall from grace.  Cleveland is the city where they found Johnny Silverhand's head.  They suspect the rest of him is around here, too, somewhere.  Cleveland is where they burned down their own  hockey arena in a riot when HyperSTAN Wolotsky got kicked off the team for vowing to break the nose of every referee in the league and endeavoring to make good on the threat.  Cleveland is where President Phipps got caught in the hot tub with no less than four exotic call girls.

It's true...hardly anyone seems to be "on top" for long here.  Everyone seems to be clawing their way up or coming down hard.

The crazy growth started when the city offered the tax breaks for corporations in the 1990s.  Most of the biggies, like Blivitron Pansolar (hydroponics and food production), Fumitsu Heavy Industries (anything from factory robots to comic books), and Omniscient Labs (computer software) bought property and set up a local office even if the population base wasn't there.....

(to be continued)

I was trying to keep it to three players or less, thinking that would make the game move a bit faster and be easier for me to keep track of.  From my original post in the "Player Roster" forum I got three responses really quick:

Bookwyrm

Rastaman

Lord Demon

I've been pretty lackadaisical about getting things started here, so I won't blame any of them if they are no longer interested.  Bookwyrm is still apparently down with it.  If anyone wants to pull out, then there will be room.

Rastaman, Lord Demon, you two out there?

Even though they've heard it before, more details are forthcoming (work is all over me at the moment).

-MS