Strawberry-Cream

Dang, seems you got me ^^.

Are you intent on flattering me ?

Sounds like a character fitting for CP games, with a solidly worked out background. Hm, I would have liked to hear more detail about his character traits .

Besides, but don't listen, I wish I had 75 points for the attributes also <sniff>. But why am I complaining, I voted for our 61 point system also .

Well, I looked it up:

rhetoric, noun:

1. art of using words impressively

2. impressive language

For the condoms, they are used like they are supposed to be .

That in fact is the point for humanity loss.

There even was a big article in the "psychology today" about the dangers of cell phones alienating us from society.

To some this may sound exaggerated, but the article had some nice points, like you are isolated when on the cell phones by preferring the communication with someone distant to those near you.

Well... if someone is "surgically attached" to a gadget like that, he surelly has a malus if he tries to interact with me.

Once again, I have a hard time starting a conversation with all the people too busy hitting their SMs into their cell phones.

Well,

since I always translate the skills into english, I don't know the proper in-game term. Hm... rhetoric is, what Bush does when doing his state of the union address. It's the art to speak freely and convincingly... darn hard to explain for me, hehe. But you know a rhetorical question, do you? (This one was one ^^.)

The condoms? Err, they work contraceptive (I bet you knew that) and make a pretty much fun toy to play around, when trying to seduce someone. Passing a condom to the "victim" of the attempt with a smile most often works .

Isn't this in the rules forum?

No, I mean, I really find all those facts interesting (no irony - it helps getting the idea of how it works), but couldn't you translate them into some rules in the CP game mechanics after summing them up?

Thanks!

Especially to phipps providing me the knowledge I need to argue with my players .

It does not automatically have to be "to look down",

but to be unnaturally different.

My signature here springs from my own phantasy - you would not have expected that, would you? I'm mighty proud of it .

In a fantasy forum I am in, I use, beside the name of my character "... ein Mann vom unabhäng'gem Sinn, schaut zu und lacht, trotz alledem...", it is from a song about the 1848 rebellion, and approximately means "a man with an independant mind watches and laughs anyway", which I use to carricature the spirit of most of the boards administrators, moderators and "elite" members, who make a fuss about anything and tend to try to tell other people how to play and take everything too serious - you get the idea, although I am a moderator there also.

In exchange, they took away my forum rank and dubbed me "opposition". I take that as an honour .

My avatar is just that cute Leilia from record of lodoss war .

So hi again,

here I want to present another char of mine. I hope you don't mind that I stole the name from a novel, but I am quite uncreative concerning spanish names.

I do use her in our "european" games, that are the ones were we play in a more "civilized" environment, not so much cyberpunk-like, a bit more towards our contemporary reality. Nevertheless, there is a lot of action, and things are far worse than today. Well, you can use her in the standard CP world also, in the right places. Although she would not be strolling around the combat zone.

She lives in Madrid, where she posesses a bunch of satisfied clients, as she is indeed quite a talented lawyer. Her temper and curiosity, and her affection for good payment tend to get her into adventures from time to time anyway, so a friend of her sometimes takes over her business for a some days or even weeks.

In our first game, she was involved in an adventure on an island somewhere in the west indies, where a rich tycoon wanted to get legal assistance for his candidacy as governor.

Well, to get an idea if she would be able to perform well, here we go with the stats, balancing her was quite hard, as she seems to need nearly everything. We still use 61 points for freee distribution:

Attractivity: 9

Movement: 6

Coolness: 9

Empathy: 9

Luck: 3 (hehe, although we use the card system now, the stat sucks)

Intelligence: 9

Body: 6

Reflexes: 8

Tech: 2 (I love the role playing of a low tech stat - besides, the free points are nice )

Now for the skills, which may not be 100% correct, as I don't have the character sheet here. We use 40 career points and 15 hobby points now:

Lawyer +8

Wardrobe +2

Intimidation +7 (of course used in combination with legal affairs - "Now open up that door, or I'll sue you for...")

Rhetoric +3

Evaluate person +6

Show +5

Seduce +6

Education / general knowledge +4

English +3 (fun to play, I downloaded some spanish accent samples to play properly )

Awareness +4

Athletics +2

Handgun +6 (you just need it in our games)

That's it. Of course she tries to use all of her interaction skills first in the games, where she has quite good cards to be successful. She is often up for a lot of fun too, and not often not as earnest as you would expect from a lawyer. Nevertheless, she can be quite charming, turning into a fit of temper quickly.

Her equipment carried is the following:

- a handbag (stylish and expensive, of course)

- a cell phone

- a Colt 1911 with no spare clips

- a supply of condoms

- a portemonnaie

- a credit card

You got that right, no armor. And no spare ammo. Uh-oh . Well, she is not up for fighting (despite the handgun stat).

Of course, her wardrobe is upscale: A one-line grey blazer, of course with nothing underneath but a bra. A miniskirt, same grey, down half the way to the knees. Expensive sun goggles.

She has dark brown hair and eyes, the hair is about neck long. The rest of her features is explained by attractivity, no need to get your saliva dripping by going into details .

The party she stumbled across consists of an american navy pilot (indeed he resembles this guy from this judge advocate general corps series... yes, right, it is the same player as our leader from the cop team, who took a Paul Smecker role there... he always seems to need a role concept to copy <sigh>), a german mechanic and a dutch PR agent (who is quite the Nazi ^^). The conversations are fun, as we have no language that all members comprehend, and the command of the other languages are quite bad, also. The dutch and the german are able to communicate most freely.

To play her isn't that hard, it is quite funny indeed, when you get the certain mix of her character traits. You can flirt, curse around, be earnest and serious, be charming - depends on the situation. Although it does not become clear from this description, she is quite congruent in her attitudes and behaviour.

Since our party gained quite an amount of money in the first adventure, she now plans to open up a real company, perhaps together with some party members (the GM exactly planned for something like that by letting us get away with the money gain).

Well, I guess it is rather hard to make use of her for "ordinary" Cyberpunk games, but as a good NPC lawyer, the PCs could hire her, if they can afford the price (I used the corporate payment scale).

If you adjust her skills accordingly, perhaps you can use her in darker Cyberpunk games as well, most easily if you play higher level games, involving corporates, rocksters, perhaps cops and the like.

So, I hope you can make something out of her.

Post scriptum:

Here our set of skills for a lawyer:

Lawyer (since I could not get the proper translation for Jura ^^)

- wardrobe

- intimidate

- rhetoric

- interrogate

- evaluate person

- show

- persuade / fast talk

- education / general knowledge

- awareness

You know, actually,

your effect with the touch typing hit me - because it's the same with me. I learnt it, and you do feel superior, because you are able to do more. I also take the keyboard out of the hands of a slow person... <shudders>. I think I will try not to do so again!

I think any "enhancement" that gives us extra abilities, skills, or powers has an effect on us, and probably a non-positive one in regard of "ordinary" people. If I am arrogant because I am better, faster, smarter, whatever, I usually will have a harder time maik friends with "ordinary" people.

Just think of the impact, cell phones have... wuah... all those girls in the tube too busy typing their SMs, and the disregard of people posessing one towards people that don't.

That's exactly the point - almost any weapon will work, if the NPCs will start to posess a brain also.

Just handle the NPCs like you were playing them as a role. Then the challenge, the realism, and also the fun increases.

But try to be fair - NPCs more clever than a player character, using the information only the GM posesses, are not okay. Hard but fair, wasn't that mentioned in the rulebook?

Well, it's obviously hard and fair, if the NPCs posess a bit of brain too, and can use it not only to get it splattered on the wall.

Meanwhile,

we just went back to standard auto-fire rules. Although they suck .

The worst thing is, that players now calculate their average to hit roll beforehand and then only try to tell me they only shoot that amound of bullets ^_°. Of course we don't allow that, but it pretty much displays one reason why the auto-fire rules suck ass.

Dang, this stupid set of rules got me cussing all around the place... phiiiipps! Do something .

I honor your idealism in that matter,

as in fact, when I would encounter someone like this in my discussion, I would argue and discuss also, trying to convince him or at least get him to think, no matter how many people would tell me that it is futile .

You know, it's always a different thing if you are not directly involved. Obviously, I spoke from "outside" when I said I'd ignore them. What I should have said, more accurately, would have been "It would be the wisest and most energy preserving way to spare myself that futile discussion." But when directly involved, one always sees things a bit different. I would do, too.

When someone puts up something like that,

and really believes in it,

from my experience, any attempt in discussion is futile. There are virtually hundreds of political discussions with opinions like this in a good broodwar forum I know - often pages long, everyone argumenting against it, to no effect.

I think we all agree that the original rules are for game balancing.

The point now is rather to reflect whether there is real evidence, or at least some indicators, that a rule like this seems okay, or that it is just plain crap.

I say, from both points of view, the one from the game and the one from "the real world" (we don't have and exact example case to compare, that is the problem), I find the rules acceptable. Not perfect, but acceptable.

In an RPG, game balance is always more important than exact plausibility. Of course, if it is totally unplausible, one should just screw it. But as long as it is okay it should be used for the game balance.

And I do not think, Cyberpunk is all about psychology and the impact of augmentation on humanity. So far, the rules are okay to live with.

The problem is,

I don't think that discussing with a person offering something like that will help even in the slightes degree.

I suppose he won't even understand you ;(.

Them. Sure this article was no fake?

I think it is already powerful enough if gun fu was only a martial art, that could be used with a gun in a hand. Perhaps with a damage bonus for strike / cast, if you can hit someone with the weapon.

I doubt that any GM in my group would allow something like that. And if so, I would veto it, I suppose.

From what I saw here, it only looks like a PG-skill used to PG around. Without gun boni, okay, perhaps.

That does not mean we are up for no fun - we have a John Woo ambidextrous skill also (you can find it in this thread, and it is only hardly accessible).

But what I read here... well, it should be a very, very rare skill, hard to come by. And then I would use Stephane's adaption, which seems to be aiming for balancing and playability.

Sorry,

if an article like that would be offered to me as an explanation,

I would just put the person offering it on ignore. That's all no fun, it's just idiotic, insulting and racist crap talk.

NPC intelligence is a thing of its own,

as most GMs seem to treat NPCs just like cannon fodder that can't think.

As I was GM in a fantasy game, the people where really shocked when I played a powerful NPC like I would do a PC. He was able to think and evaluate a situation - they were just not used to it, and although he was slightly less powerful than the best PC, it was a real challenge for them.

The point is, most often the appropriate behaviour of NPCs not only makes games more challenging and increases the tension, but also adds to the realism.

Don't PG an NPC - but don't let him be a stupid dumbass either (unless, either of this is his role).

Well well,

in earnestness,

I don't like too flaming, and detest insults. But on the other hand, not every a bit sarcastic, ironic or even cynical post should be forbidden.

It's not much of a culture of discussion, if you have to make nice-nice all the time, and afterwards kiss and make up.

Murph, Wyrm,

may I keep some of them as pets after you're finisehd with them?

Just one thing:

Funny to see how some of you went into overdrive just for a single teasing pro-Euro statement ^^.

I generally like people . Doesn't really matter to me where they are from, so my statement included more than a slight degree of irony - especially if you consider, that I probably would not be proud to live on the continent where the "best" weapons are made.

Well well, there is a saying "Was sich neckt, das liebt sich", don't know the proper english pendant, it says something like "Wo teases each other, loves each other", I suppose something like that may be true for Americans and Europeans as well .

Also, I would not only explain it by his high "solo"-stats and skills, but of course additionally by his probable low EMP stat, low seduction and so on.

Of course, characters ought to be specialised a bit, but not so far that they are helpless without their teammates (I like when they depend on each other, though, makes much more role playing fun and is easier for the GM).

Huh,

I don't like guys who posess too many guns.

You all know the corruptive power of weapons, so vividly and greatly portrayed in LotR.

When I hear people in RL admitting, If I investigate, that they feel much more "secure" with a gun, sometimes even more "powerful", I always get a cold shudder down my spine.

Although, on the other hand, I myself feel this, even with only a paintball gun.

Luckily, the only weapons in my household are an old Wehrmacht-knife still with a Hakenkreuz on it, which belonged to my mother's father, and an elegant non-sharpened Tachi merely for decorative purpose (although, I have to confess, I sometimes play around with it).

But to be honest, I am really afraid that it is, sometimes even legally, possible to accumulate such amounts of dangerous weapons. And I doubt that self-defense or sporting can be the purposes when acquiring a hand grenade, rifle, oder SMG, or can they?