gomiville

Also, I'd like your opinion on the payscale post.

Hmmm, well, these are all variants, to one degree or another, on Medtech, with a few crossovers to Techies (cybertechnician, etc), Netrunners (chipware programmer) and Cops (paramedics).

I'd say we start with a list of all roles we've done so far, then figure out how they relate to an existing role, and estimate payscale based on that.

For example, surgeons are at the top of of Medtechs, so they might be the same as Medtech payscale, or slightly higher. Military medics are maybe slightly lower than the canon Medtech scale. Chipware programmers are comparable to Netrunners, but maybe lower at the top end of the scale. Cybertech designers are probably better paid than regular Techies, while cybertechnicians are probably roughly the same.

Something like that. We can agree on numbers once we figure out the new roles relative to existing ones.

plus choose one:

Personal Grooming (many chemists carry a huge range of cosmetics, or cosmetic medicine products)

Accountancy (to go with your Bureaucracy)

Business sense (well, chemists' is a business, neh?)

Herbalism (for the more natural side of medicine)

First Aid (hardly their main focus, but I guess they are quite capable here, too. Given their background?).

 

I was, actually, tempted to include Graphology (doctors tend to have one awful handwriting, and actually pharmacists here were trained to decipher it. But this stopped being a problem once most of the docs were forced to use computers and printers to issue prescriptions. I guess in 2020, this is long the norm...).

 

How about that? Sure, I slapped everything that was in the general list, and looked even remotely passable... so i need your opinion.

I might drop Business Sense, and just stick with Accounting for the "running your own chemists shop" skill. Herbalism is good for the organic/natural kinds of places. I especially like Personal Grooming, because while modern pharmacies or chemists carry cosmetics, in the "every beauty has a price" vision of the future, there's probably even more cross-over between medical drugs and cosmetics. And First Aid is a good idea, though not as interesting as the others, just because we have so many other medical types so far.

I think Counsel is probably the best bet for Pharmacist. If you talk to them at length at all (generally, I'm just paying for my scrip and walking away), it's to discuss the hows and whens of taking a drug. It's a heart-to-heart kind of discussion, backed up by the technical pharmaceutical data. Sounds like Counsel to me.

These are also the people getting you pills for erectile dysfunction, creams for hemorrhoids and such. The intimate confidences implied by Counsel are also important, I think. Pharmacists keep your secrets.

Not sure about the 10th skill. I'll need to think on that.

Unrelated note: we're getting pretty specialised with our Surgeons. I think we should have a "vanilla" package, too. For those players who want to play a surgeon, but can't get their mind set on a specific sub-type...

 

Unrelated note #2: I'm getting more and more convinced to give the anathesiologist Persuasion as 3rd skill. They are the folks most often responsible for informing the patient (or next-in-kin) about prognosis. Or death. As well as asking for their permission for organ donation*. Also, it seems to me - more and more - that the anasthesilogist would be our best pick for a "general" surgeon.

I was saying earlier that we need a basic, middle of the road surgeon. I was thinking it would be the Trauma Surgeon package, but I think you're right. The Anesthesiologist might be the best option.

Plus, honestly, I think Anesthesiologist, itself, is maybe a tad too specialized for the game. Important in a real life surgery, but there aren't the rules for managing anesthesia anyway. Turn that package into the basic Surgeon, and it works best.

Unrelated: what do you think about giving the Ambulance crewman a variant SA of Authority? I.e. - like the Fireman Paramedic - handling the crowd and the accident scene?

 

I guess we should give our professions payscale references. I was never a fan of these, but if we want to be consistent with the rulebook.

Also, give a note that the Ambulance Crew (and possibly other Paramedics, too) are paid by their First Aid rating, not their Special Ability rating. Urban Survival is what they pick up in their line of work (and therefore it is special to them), not something you can rate them by. Hardly a quantifiable skill, you know (they do, however, undergo a regimen of training and certificiation and refresher curses - so their First Aid skill is pretty damn quantifiable).

Ah, that's a much better idea. Don't know why we didn't think of it sooner. Authority isn't just crowd control, but could also be used to influence a patient ("I said lie still and don't move your head!").

A bit of a weird choice but maybe Resist Torture & Drugs for both? Not reflecting any great toughness, but a knowledge of how certain drugs knock you out and how to attempt to counter them? It's weird, but I'm not sure what else either.

(Personally, I've always felt there should be a whole series of "Resist..." skills, reflecting some of the various cybernetics available. I forget which ones, but something enhances disease resistance, for example. Or only enhance drug resistance, but not torture resistance. But that's a different discussion.)

How about Leadership as 7th basic skill for a Surgeon? I mean, you have to get your surgical team work together...

(yeah, I've seen "Gods" a few weeks ago)

That's a good idea.

Maybe Human Perception for the Implantologist? Sort of a pocket version of cyberpsychology? You're working with people who could theoretically be dangerous, so knowing how to spot the signs of psychosis would be handy?

Yea, Persuasion sounds good. Sometimes you just need to talk the patient out of horribly mangling their body.

Let's go the other way around, like we did with chip programmer: what skills does a plastic surgeon need to make a new face / a prettier face / a reconstructed face after someone had suffered a really, really nasty damage to their appearance / a nice big fat pair of titties ?

First, Step 1, ability to either interpret a photo, and possibly embellish it. Maybe the surgeon is working from an old photo of the patient for reconstruction. Maybe they're using the photo of a popular actor or pop star. Or taking the photo of the patient and inflating/shrinking certain parts of the anatomy. Maybe, in CP2020 tech, turning those photos into 3D renderings to print (for a preview) or project on the patient.

For Step 2, maybe then discussing changes with the patient and recommending alterations. "You'd look great with Brad Pitt's chin, but maybe, for you, we should thin the nose a little more?"

Next Step 3, translating that image into surgical procedure. "To make your cheekbones look like *this*, I will need to cut *here*."

Finally Step 4, performing the surgery, which could be covered by the standard surgical skill set (since we're not getting particularly technical).

So, Step 1, that's some kind of art skill. Maybe Photo Manipulation (is that canon?), or Paint/Draw. This could be the work of an assistant, more artistically inclined.

Then Step 2, some kind of style skill, to recommend what might look a little better. Image & Style or Personal Grooming. Again, this could be an assistant's job. Maybe some kind of "Image Consultant" kind of role, but that's more for prettifying, rather than reconstructive surgery. For reconstruction, it would probaby just be the surgeon.

Step 3 is some kind of Expert: Plastic Surgery skill, just because I'm not sure what it would be. It's the speciality knowledge that a plastic surgeon has, bridging the gap between conventional artistry and technical surgery. Kind of like, for the chip programmer, the speciality knowledge of converting recorded data into brain impulses on the chip.

Step 3 is the real kicker. We need something for that. Although, we could use Expert, and then base any rolls for surgical success on that Expert skill. "How much do you look like your pre-accident self?" "How similar are you to your chosen pop idol?" "How many more ATTR points did you gain? (Or lose?)"

Step 4, like I said, is probably just basic surgical skill, represented by Surgery or Medtech.

That's my take.

* forgive me the idiom... basically, one mushroom - for flavour - is welcome, two of them is too much of the same, and a waste of an ingredient that is hard to come by. And not necessarily healthy when in abundance.

Maybe it's the Slavic ancestry, but I've actually heard a version of that idiom before. My wife's half-Polish and I'm a quarter Lithuanian (not to mention the various smatterings of German, Swedish and Russian in the vague region), so sayings like that have filtered into the family lexicon from some great-uncle or other.

Of course, ambulance crews don't use this skill actively - but having to deal with the really ugly side of life, they get to know it from their hobo patients.

Actually, looking at the sample uses, I think they could use it actively.

For example, imagine a little game plot of a good hearted paramedic looking for a patient who needs some followup care. It's a homeless person who needs to take some meds or something. Where do you find them? They might be in a registered shelter, an unregistered one (like in the basement of a friendly church) or under a bridge somewhere. Knowing where the homeless bed down is handy.

Or, another idea would be treating someone who just huffed drain cleaner. It's not a known drug, per se, and any regular Pharmaceuticals or Expert: Medication skill wouldn't necessarily recognize it. But a paramedic familiar with alternate ways people get high could spot it.

Those little details would make a paramedic a useful team member for gutter level adventures, besides just patching people up.

For the Plastic Surgeon, I'd maybe go with Paint/Draw (closest we have to the artistic idea), Personal Grooming (again, not ideal, but it gets to the point of making someone look good), and Composition (putting it all together, I guess, though I normally think this is writing stories/music/speeches/etc). That also combines TECH, ATTR and INT skills, though maybe something EMP related would be better than INT/Composition. Just to have the idea of what the plastic surgeon is trying to do and create.

I think we need to keep the cyber implantologist, but I don't now what to add to their package. These should be the medical professionals who handle the major cybernetic work. The cybertechs we already covered can handle the minor stuff, or assist a surgeon with bigger implantations, but you need to have a fully trained doctor handling any kind of organ transplant or cranial work, and especially for FBCs.

If anything, I'd get rid of the biotech implantologist. Implanting a new heart is the same surgery, whether its cybertech or biotech. The cybertechnician who assists the surgeon will need to know the specifics, but the "cut person open, replace organ, sew them back up and look out for complications" part is the same.

I'd argue for keeping trauma surgeons too. Just as mainline surgeons. Some kind of bog standard surgical doctor, to handle emergency trauma work, but also just basic heart surgery or something.

And maybe throw that Expert: Medication skill in there, as a pseudo-anesthesia skill.

We don't have an anesthesiologist in the skill packages, and while vital in real life, I think that skill set is outside the scope of the game.

However, you could argue that a surgeon (in place of the anesthesiologist) has to roll a successful drug roll to knock the patient out, or sufficiently numb the area, or whatever. Screw up that roll, and the patient reacts to the pain as if it's a normal injury (isn't there something about "windmilling arms" in the main rulebook?). Not conducive to delicate surgery.

Although, we don't really have proper rules for surgery, in game. There's basically just one roll, pass or fail, to determine if it worked out. So maybe this Expert skill is only useful with an expanded surgical roll play ("Ever played Operation? It's like that, but without the tweezers, board or buzzing. I'll just roll these die and tell you if you extracted the funny bone properly.").

So, we are left with Surgeon and Pharmacist.

 

For Surgeon, I'd go:

 

MedTech

Awareness

Education

Biology

Diagnose Illness

Human Perception

Persuasion

 

as mandatory.

 

Then, 3 more skills as specialist package, for a given type of surgeon.

I'm not sure what I'd replace them with, but I might remove Human Perception and Persuasion from the skill list. The character could have them in pickup skills, but talking to their patient isn't necessarily a surgeon thing. At least not when I've gone under the knife.

But, like I said, I'm not sure what I'd add in their place. Maybe Cryotank, for either organ transplant/harvesting, or working on one of those TTI meatsicles frozen at near death?

Well, such a bike is a piece of kit we'll have to describe in the equipment section of the sourcebook. I guess we should be using the Harley-Davidson Blue Knight as standard (the bike the NCPD Traffic division uses, according to Protect & Serve - it is common for emergency services in a single area to pick up the same model of a vehicle for ease of maintenance and getting better prices for a bulk order).

I agree. Go with the Blue Knight, or whatever other bike the local cops are likely to ride. Some kind of touring bike with hard case, lockable panniers and cases. Use the Hermes Courier bike's cases, as an example, with a Diff 20 lock and SP 25 protection. Secure in case of accident and keeps people from swiping the meds.

Pack a basic medical kit (bandages, tourniquet, airway management, spare gloves, etc), medscanner (+2 Diagnose), basic automedic (+1 First Aid, 3 drugs, and I've always figured it includes an AED), a limb preservation case (in case of traumatic amputation), a few pints of blood substitute (+1 stabilization rolls), and some non-canon stuff. Throw in a selection of air-hypo and slap patch trauma and pain drugs. Also include a basic road kit (flares, etc), fire extinguisher, and maybe even a pop-up shelter kind of thing to provide overhead cover in case of ever-present, likely-acid, gritty-urban-future rain.

Send 'em out in pairs, and hope they aren't ambushed by local gangers for their supplies (or kidnapped to help the gang leader's best girl deliver the heir apparent).

And "flying doctors" are, AFAIK, a long-time standard in Oz. Sure, HEMS (Helicopter Emergency Medical Service) het a better landing capability, but for the really long distances, a 'copter can't beat a plane when speed is of essence.

Also found in Alaska, doctors in STOL bush planes, serving distant communities.

Although, properly, I'd come up with a slightly different skill package to reflect a wilderness medic like this, instead of the Urban Survival medic we have here. Something more like a GP with survival skills.

Good call on the Motorcycle, though.

Great, and the "choose one" adds a little variability for circumstance. A basic ambulance medic probably has Streetwise, knowing the local flavor and who's shooting who these days. The medic serving a corporate burbclave might have Expert: Medication, knowing all the most popular party drugs and misused pharmaceuticals that the corp-brats are overdosing on right now. A fireman-type paramedic, more focused on disasters, will have Endurance to help with the extra physical strains of that job.

Good call on the various Pilot skills too. It's not within the scope of this thread, but I'd think that any TTI pilot would likely have a decent First Aid too, cross-trained as much as the medics have Pilot: AV.

Perfect.

Urban Survival

Awareness

First Aid

Diagnose Illness

Cryotank Operation

Expert: Medication (what did the OD take, etc) or Streetwise

Athletics

Brawling

Human Perception

Driving

What do you think?

Physically fit, can handle themselves on the street, and able to handle emergency medical care (including fast freezing the patient for transport).

I know standard protocol is that they don't enter a threat zone until it's secure, but plenty of ambulance crews end up dealing with pissed off gangers or the like, just while responding to regular emergency calls.

Not to mention that this is CP2020, which is more dangerous than our world anyway.

Thinking out loud, an ideal SA for paramedics would be something like a cross between Combat Sense (awareness and initiative), Streetdeal (knowledgeable of factions and risks of the Street) and Medtech (medical training).

On its own, Medtech is too "powerful" for a paramedic. It's better suited for surgeons, ER nurses, etc. And First Aid/Diagnose Illness/etc can cover all the medical skill needs.

Streetdeal would be a great SA, except its game mechanic is more about making deals. Just as they need to have First Aid, I think they'd need to have Streetwise anyway. (Plus, plenty of paramedics aren't necessarily "on the Street," like firemen paramedics or maybe the paramedics who work in corporate towers serving the executives).

Combat Sense is maybe too combat oriented, but it reflects the instincts of someone working a dangerous profession and possibly facing violent individuals.

Maybe circle back to Medtech, and just say paramedics generally have a low SA value? (And correspondingly low pay, if you link SA and income.)

With that done, and circling back to the remaining role packages:

Maybe Paramedic should have Combat Sense as their SA? They're not fighters (necessarily), but if we're not going with the Medtech SA, maybe it should be about their experience in threat zones? Whether it's combat, a burning/collapsing building, or anything else, these are people who have to be very aware of their surroundings and quick to react to danger. That sounds like Combat Sense.

If you load up their skill set with non-combat skills (except maybe Brawling), then it's clear that they're not soldiers. But they can handle themselves in the same situations.

Back to the Researcher:

 

We need either extra mainline skill, or one extra skill for each specialisation packages (Wetware would be Zoology,prehaps. But I have no idea about Hardware and Nanoware).

Maybe something like Bureaucracy or Accounting, reflecting the environment researchers and designers have to work in? To be a designer, you not only have to have the technical chops, but some ability to navigate the corporate/academic/government jungle?

That (Make APTR skill chips / MRAM skill chips) would be narrow specialization, one that would make the character unplayable - or "don't ever take" point dump skills.

I mean, how often do you make new chips in-game...?

I think it'd be more common than making new cyberware in game. Depending on the authoring tools available, I think a properly skills developer could probably make their own MRAM chips pretty easily. Maybe even compositing from other material. Imagine mixing up Wikipedia and a bunch of e-books with some CP2020 software magic to create an Expert MRAM chip.

No to mention the skillchips are just one part of the market - then there came all these biofeedback chips of Chromebooks &co.

Good point.

Okay, let's try it the other way around: what skills you you need to make a working chip?

Save for the skill to be chipped (if there's any. Adrenalin / endorphin chip doesn't need one, for example), for there is no possibility to have a chip programmer that is a master of every chippable skill. So I assume you employ external experts on the subject you work on. Say, you want to make a Karate APTR chip, you find a Karate master, put him under the proper equipment and record the moves (description of the APTR chips menitons they are recorded off actual people, who can bo of different statue and mass than you, and thus the chips need to be "trained in").

 

But that's the source of the data.

That's how I figure it works too.

You need a chipware programmer to edit the data into a sensible format. one that will be useful. One that will then sell.

Which is where I figured the specialty would come in. Editing the input data to fit the requirements of the brain would be a specialist skill. APTR chips work on different parts of the brain than MRAM skills (reflected in their game rules), so I'm assuming chip makers would likely specialize in one or the other. (Generalists might exist, but they could use their pickup skills to make up the difference.)

What 2 more skills do we need?

Braindance Editing?

Video Manipulation?

Photography&Film?

Compose?

Teaching?

Braindance Editing could probably work pretty well for APTR skills. Compose might not be a bad idea for MRAM chips. Maybe just include those two, and skip the specializations?

I know a lot of the packages recently have had "optional" sections, but this is another one, I think. For the remaining two skills, I'd go with an optional group reflecting the type of chips they design. Or, maybe to keep it simple, if we can figure out just two optional groups: REF and INT, for the two types of chips.

Still one skill short in the primary package. I like the idea of having one extra skill chooseable to represent the exact purpose (not area) of one's design (weaponary, fashion), but at this moment I can't see more options (maybe I'm just tired) apart from these two (Weaponsmith, Personal Grooming). I could add there a whole long list of Expert: Whatever skills, but that wouldn't make these viable choices for players - just point dumps.

Maybe, in this case, we leave it up to the player or GM? Because it could be anything, really. Someone who specializes in vehicle links might have Drive or Pilot as a skill. Or someone could have Disguise, reflecting a specialty in black-ops facial morphing tech.

Also, while they'd have a completely different skill package, should a chipware designer be included, in parallel to the cyber/bio/nanoware designer? Give them a skill package closer to a netrunner (Programming, Composition, Education, maybe a couple of specialist skills reflecting their genre of chips, etc).

Cyberware Maintenance Specialist

Jury Rig

Awareness

Education

Electronics

Cybertech

First Aid

Diagnose Illness

 

Wetware specialist:

Biology

Cryotank Operation

 

Hardware specialist:

Weaponsmith

Basic Tech

 

Software specialist*

Cyberdeck design

Programming

I'd leave Tattooing as a specialist skill. Maybe pair it with Personal Grooming (or Wardrobe & Style) as a "Fashionware specialist." Good for the mall clinics, installing/maintaining/updating light tattoos, tech hair, coverings, etc.

Maybe an "FBC specialist" too, with Basic Tech and Expert: Cyberpsych. Able to handle the beefier mechanics of a full 'borg, and also trained to keep and eye out for cyberpsychosis warning signs. Bit of a fluff/filler skill package, but consistent in-universe, I think.

Library Search is a good skill, in-universe. Any gear could walk into the shop, and these guys would need to figure out how to work with it.

Cyberware / Wetware / Nanoware Designer & Researcher

SA (to be determined)

Awareness

Education

First Aid

Diagnose Illness

Database Search

 

Wetware:

Biology

Wetware Design (comes from Wildside, but wasn't really described there. I belive it should be IP x2 just like Cybertech. While you don't actually repair it, gene-splicing ain't a piece of a cake either).

 

Cryotank Operation would be interesting addition here, too.

I'd include Cryotank, certainly. Bioware "tech" will need to be preserved, when not installed.

Cyberware:

Electronics

Cybertech (x2)

 

Then here it would be Basic tech, I guess...

Yep, Basic Tech. Good for meatier hydraulics, but also just basic mechanics for limbs.

Nanotech

Electronics

Nanoware Design (x2) (per analogy to Wetware Design, though it also allows you to program / set up nanotech for a specific action. Actually designing a new nanobot type is a rare thing. Improving exisitng designs for faster operation, longer lifespan, cheaper manufacturing etc is pretty common, while programming them to do new interesting things is the everyday fare).

 

No idea for the 3rd skill...

I'd recommend Programming. A poorly programed nanobot could create cancer, rather than clearing it up.

Note: I could easily add Math or Physics at least on the Cyber and Nano. But while sensible fluff-wise, it would be your classical point dump game-wise.

Hmmm... Maybe a second specialist option? Weaponsmith, Personal Grooming, etc, reflecting the type of augment the designer usually creates?

Some great flavor there, as usual. I'll be stealing a couple of those ideas.

By the way, when are you going to get back to the pre-gen series? Huh? Huh? Enquiring minds wanna know.