gomiville

What is "Basic Tech," anyway? It's one of the more nebulous skills in canon. Sometimes it's being a car mechanic, sometimes it's fixing plumbing and other times it's more electrical. Yea, I'd move it to the choice skills. Good for hydraulics, maybe.

I'd make First Aid a permanent skill. These techs are screwing with people's bodies, after all.

The rest make for good variable skills.

I might add Expert: Cyberpsychiatry, for those techs specializing in the riskier 'borgs. Not a full cyber-psychiatrist, but trained in the warning signs and possible pitfalls of cyberpsychosis.

Diagnose/Cryotank/Biology would be a good "surgical cybertech" or a cybertech specializing in medical treatment somehow. Weapon/Cyberdeck/Cyberpsych would be a FBC tech for the military or corporate forces. Same would go for Bio/Cryotank/Cyberpsych, but more for vat-grown ninja.

Maybe, then, there could be five variants of head shrinker:

1) Interview - Kind of a clumsy skill for it, but this is basic talk therapy. "Lay back on the couch and tell me about your mother" stuff. Particularly popular for "simple" therapy.

2) Expert: Medication - Currently popular drug-based treatments. Especially in CP2020, there are tons of psychoactive medications. Depressed, angry, mood swings, suicidal ideation? There's a pill for that.

3) Expert: Braindance - The most modern and up-and-coming treatment in CP2020. Why spend months talking, or pollute your body with drugs? Spend a few hours in a specialized VR and BAM!, you're cured. (Outcomes may vary, prior performance not indiction of future success, etc.)

4) Expert: Cybernetics - These folks don't care about your mother, your marriage or anything else. They focus purely on how those pieces of electronics you've implanted are driving you dangerously and violently insane.

5) Expert: Behavioral Types - The profilers. They're not particularly skilled at treating patients, but they're very good at mapping and predicting psychological behavior. Some might be good talkers and become hostage negotiator types. Others are more academic and create psych profiles for law enforcement or corporate skullduggery.

Actually, since Interview and Expert: Braindance were already in your skill package, maybe use two skills for specialization? Though I'm not sure what second skills to pair up with the above.

Or maybe allow a character to choose two of the above, creating various combinations?

Good point. But I would still include some kind of "knows cybernetics in particular" as an optional skill. Something to reflect knowledge of what different augments are and how they effect people. Like Expert: Medication knows what drugs are out there and their interactions. A skill to reflect the kind of peripheral knowledge a cyber-therapist would have to know and pick up while working.

Based on the assumption that a cyber-therapist isn't just a regular therapist, but someone with some kind of expertise that makes them a specialist in this kind of thing.

I think I can work with the #1 and #2.

 

The #3 is too far-fetched for me. Also, it threads on Psychology (therapy)'s toes. #2 does that too, but not that badly.

An alternative is, instead of Expert: Cyber-whatever, have a Psychology specialty, like Psych: Cybernetics. A school of psychology focused on the impact of artificial components on the human mind and sense of identity.

That way, it's not overlapping with Psychology, but focusing it.

I can think of two uses, before and after implantation. And maybe a third use, with full conversion 'borgs.

First, before implantation, they could be used to "predict" the humanity loss of a particular enhancement. Base the difficulty on the commonality of the device, and if the roll succeeds, the therapist can tell the player whether they will go cyberpsycho, or maybe what their EMP score will be, or something like that. Basically, roll for humanity loss before surgery, so you can decide not to. (If the player is likely to care anyway.) Maybe make the prediction variably accurate, depending on the success of the roll. The therapist could critically fail, misinterpreting the player's mental state and giving a prediction that completely inaccurate (predicting a safe EMP loss when they'll really go psychotic, or scare them with a huge EMP loss when they'll be perfectly fine).

Second, after implantation, I could see it as a modifier on therapy to regain humanity. Base difficulty on therapy type (inpatient is easiest, outpatient a little more difficult, specialist types like Swedish or Swierengen are most difficult, etc). Depending on success of roll, therapy might critically fail, be only 50% effective, 100% or maybe 150% effective.

I'm not sure of the mechanic, exactly, but I can imagine a third use, for players who go FBC, where the therapy is an ongoing maintenance thing. Keep the 'borg sane, through constant monitoring and changing electrostimulation or medication. If the therapist screws up, the borg slides into madness. Require the player to have weekly (daily?!) therapy rolls, with maybe temporary EMP loss for failures and permanent EMP loss for critical failures. Critical successes maybe regain some EMP, or "bank" some EMP against future loss.

It's pretty granular roll playing, doing all the details like that, but why else would you have such a character?

Add 1 level, if the drug wasn't tested for human use (or animal use, if you're a vet trying to apply a human medication to treat an animal).

Or, vice versa, a vet applying an animal medication to a human patient. On the sly. To avoid a police report on a gunshot wound. For an edgerunner. Oh, is that a common occurrence in your game? Golly gee.

Mental health specialist

 

...

 

Note: I'd love to have some skill alternates, especially for the Expert: Braindance. Expert: Medication?

Another place I'd put in Cybertech without the Electronics prereq, reflecting a specialist in cyberpsychosis who keeps up to date on what's on the market. Maybe Expert: Cyberpsychosis or Expert: Cybernetics?

Expert: Medication (or Pharm without Chemistry) would be another perfect one, reflecting an old-school "give 'em meds" shrink, versus a more "modern" doc who favors braindance.

Also, given the pipeline of military to edgerunner (in some settings), some kind of Expert: PTSD or other military-focused skill might be the kind of psychiatrist PCs are likely to know.

Persuasion, for testifying in court?

And I'd agree with Expert: Forensics, just because you want some kind of general forensic background, somehow.

Always good to know even if it isn't going to add much ocntent to the sourcebook. Though given the Indian diaspora - especially in the areas of the former British Empire - it shouldn't be that very difficult to find an Ajuvedic doctor.

True, but likely just in Indian neighborhoods, like a good Indian restaurant or a Kalaripayattu training school. (All of which could be interrelated, actually.)

As for traditional medcine specialist, I'm pretty sure I've heard that Arabic and Persian traditions do exist as well.

Still, the same skillset can be used to represent them.

I think I'll let that stri for a few more moments, but I think we're close to nailing that down, too

Early Arabic is closely interconnected with early Greek tradition, both of which then follow through to modern Western medicine, shedding/purging herbalist traits as it goes. Like Greek, Arabic tradition is basically standard Western tradition, at this scale.

Persian medical traditions were strongly influenced by early Ayurvedic teaching, plus a lot of cross-pollination with trade routes from China, Arabia, Greece & Rome and such. They developed a lot, but mostly in synthesis of other traditions.

When it comes to schools of thought, at this point, there's Western, Chinese and Ayurvedic, with "rediscovered" herbal/shaman/traditional medicine that's specific to a single teacher, early writer, found text, etc. The difference is that the big three have libraries of texts, going back centuries, that other traditions didn't establish, for various reasons. Not to say those three are better, per se, just that they were established within ancient (and literate) cultures that left plenty of documentation. (Also, plenty of witches/shamans/wise ones/etc were burned, forcibly converted or otherwise destroyed before establishing a long running tradition, regardless of literacy. Interestingly, within European culture, it's the Christian monastics who have left the best record of herbalism, because they wrote things down, having often learned it from local oral tradition.)

As a result, in a multicultural melting pot CP2020, I think you'll find four basic doctor types: Western, Chinese, Ayurvedic and Herbal. Western doctors probably predominate, as they do today, as the default "doctor" skill set. Chinese is widely found globally, and while Ayurvedic is pretty localized to India currently, it could explode globally, as India gains economic prominence. Herbal practitioners, like modern Wiccans, will be rediscovering lost skills or following locally maintained oral traditions. Plentiful, maybe, but specific from each other and not tied into a broader school of thought (although maybe starting to standardize with sharing of information over the 'net).

Probably rambled on, but anyway, there you go.

Personally, I would not give a Nomad herbalist the Area Knowledge (Local) skill, for riding around with the pack he has little chance to familiarize himself with a given local area - he has to rely on Survival and / or Botany skill to find his herbs. But Teaching makes a fine 10th skill for him.

Area Knowledge (Local) I envision more for a old-fashioned "static" rural healer.

I was thinking of a broad area knowledge, covering the region the pack travels through, but you're probably right. Area Knowledge is much more a local thing.

Teaching is a much better 10th skill, passing down knowledge to an apprentice, in the nomad tradition.

Traditional Medicinie Doctor*

 

Counsel or MedTech / Surgery**

Awareness/Notice

Education

Diagnose Illness: Traditional***

First Aid

Human Perception

Persuasion

Expert: Chi flow theory

 

[need about 2 more...]

 

 

* this role is intended to represent the most well-known form of traditional medicine - the Traditional Chinese Medcine. It may as well represent other Far Eastern medical tradtions (like Korean or Japanese). With little modifications, it may represent many other systems (like the traditional Arab or Iranian medicine, for example) - however, the line that separates Traditional Medicine doctors from Witch doctors / Shamans / Medicine men is the exsistence of a formalised system of medical observations and knowledge, written down and taught in an organized way.

 

** Counsel is the most common skill (most of the Traditional Medicine practicioners are, by equivalent, General Practicioners for their respective systems). However, these old and well-developed systems of medical knowledge tend to have their own surgical practices some do study - and besides, it isn't rare for a traditional doctor to be well-versed in the "modern" medicine.

 

*** It tends to be based on hands-on methods (like observation of a pulse, or tongue, or very detailed observation of one's irises) rather than samples and laboratory tests typical for modern medicine. They are effective in identyifying ilnesses and health conditions, but may be slower than "modern science"-based methods. GM's call, whether equipment bonus may be added to Diagnosis roll.

As with standard Diagnose Ilness skill, this one covers the knowledge of appropriate (in this case- traditional) remedies and drugs (including the right diet - ofeten difficult to apply in 2020...).

There are two main codified traditional medicines: Chinese and Ayurvedic (Indian). There are also strong oral traditions (with more recent written catalogs) for Native American, South American, European Herbal, African and Southeast Asian cultures (plus probably everywhere else people live).

Most of these systems are pretty holistic, compared to modern medicine, so any traditional practitioner is likely to have some understanding of diet and exercise too. The former might be an Expert skill, or something like Herbalism. The latter might be a Martial Art (Tai Chi or Yoga, maybe) or something like Athletics or Endurance. You

You could replace Chi theory with Martial Arts/Athletics/Endurance, to generalize it. And add two variable skills, with a list of Botany, Herbalism, Expert: Diet, Chemistry, Pharmaceuticals, etc.

I like your variant of Diagnose Illness too.

(My wife is getting her Masters in holistic nutrition, and has taken a couple of electives in herbalism and traditional medicine, for perspective. Also a crap ton of organic chemistry, biochem, macro/micronutrients, etc. But I've absorbed a limited background in these traditions, as a result.)

Herbalist:

 

Counsel

Awareness/Notice

Botany

Diagnose Illness

First Aid

Human Perception

Herbalism

 

Plus 3 chosen from the list below:

Survival

Teaching

Expert: Folk-lore

Area knowledge: (choose one)

Expert: Urban Agriculture

Library Search

 

I'd love to throw in one or two more skills for choice - but I'm out of ideas.

I like this model.

I see three basic types of Herbalist.

First is a "wilderness herbalist," who gathers traditional materials from nature. A Nomad herbalist is most likely this type. Survival, Area Knowledge and maybe Folk-Lore fit this type, with typical nomad pick-up skills (Rifle, Drive/Motorcycle, etc).

Second is an "urban herbalist," who grows specifically in the city. More likely the type players will deal with. Urban Agriculture, Area Knowledge and maybe Library Search fit this type, with a grab-bag of interpersonal and street skills (Persuasion, Streetwise, etc). Might have a sideline in illegal substances too (pot, khat, shrooms, etc).

The last type is a "herbalism researcher," trying to revive forgotten practices. More an academic than a practitioner, I've known a few people like this actually. These are the folks who write the books the other two types learn from. Teaching, Folk-Lore and Library Search fit this type, with academic pick-up skills (History, Language: Old/Dead Language, etc).

Herbalist:

 

Counsel

Awareness/Notice

Botany

Survival

Diagnose Illness

First Aid

Teaching

Human Perception

Herbalism

MarkC's original had a new SA (Folk Lore) and included Pharmaceuticals (without Chem prereq). Since Herbalism is a canon skill (from Ianus supplements), I've added that instead of Pharm, and replaced Folk Lore with Counsel, like a Nomad doc.

Needs a tenth skill. Not sure which way to go. Either something like Interview, as a "talk to the client and determine what they need" kind of skill (already covered by Counsel?), or some kind of wilderness skill to reflect gathering plants (besides Survival). Or maybe Biology, as further medical skill.

OK, I'm sold.

 

Which makes us done with the Ripperdoc.

 

Apart form that, it would be an interesting twist to run a "Street Doc" game, and let the players be Goody-Two-Shoes in the bad neightbourhood of the Big City Room for any number of Street Docs, a Fixer, some Nomad or Solo muscle (who can behave and bash only these heads that can't be persuaded otherwise), with supporting cast of a sympathetic Media, a Corporate (or organized crime!) philantrope, anyone who can do crazy stunts with a beat-up ambulance wagon, a Rockman fundraiser, and of course a Techie or Netrunner moonlighting as other staff...

Not really a character skill package thing, but regarding that campaign idea, I'm thinking a bad-guy funding the clinic and hiring the players as staff (doc, techie, some muscle, etc). The bad guy is either using the clinic for good PR or as cover for something nefarious (hiding drug shipments, backroom cyber-upgrades, etc). But the players can do some real good with the clinic, treating locals otherwise without medical care. But when they find out about the bad guy, do they turn a blind eye to the bad guy's badness? Or do they stand up against it? Can they continue to provide care to the locals?

That could be great, actually.

I've always seen Human Perception and Persuasion & Fast Talk as two sides of the same idea: reading and influencing fellow humans. It's not really an Awareness thing, as that's more about "spotting"* something. Human Perception is less about intelligence and awareness, and more about empathy and human connection. It could be something as "scientific" as micro-expressions, or as vague as being in tune with another's feelings.

* Like I mentioned somewhere, I've mostly switched to Interlock Unlimited at this point, and it uses three Awareness skills: Notice, Tactical and Tracking. All of which are basically about randomly spotting or deliberately searching for something in your environment. Not people.

For a Street Doc, I see that kind of human connection as being particularly important. The doc isn't insulated by a hospital or other official sanction. They aren't protected by guns and violence, like a criminal ripperdoc. Instead, they're basically exposed to threats from above and below, with their wits to protect them. Cultivating connections with the neighborhood, legitimate or illegitimate, is how they survive.

Part of that is Persuasion, which is already part of the ripperdoc package. But part of that is Human Perception. Being able to read people and their intentions is vital. Detecting lies. Determining motivations.

I'd argue these "soft skills" are important to any "white hat fixer" type. Existing in a gray area between legal and illegal, they need to rely on either stealth or empathy to survive. This kind of doctor can't really be stealthy, so empathic it is.

Simper is the "kiss up" skill. I've always thought is was too vague. It's like a combination of Social, Persuasion and Perception, but not fully defined. How do you use it? Honestly, I've never liked it.

I see where you're going with it here, though I would argue that's more a fundraiser's skill, and not the doctor themselves. If the doctor also raises money for their cause/clinic/etc, then use pickup skills. Or, the fundraiser is a different character, more like a Media or Rockerboy/girl, loaded with influencing and social skills.

Keep the skill package focused on the character's role. For example, I think Teaching is a great addition for street doc. They're there to help and improve the lives of the urban poor, marginalized and underserved. That includes running a workshop or three about safe sex, family planning and STIs, or about drug addiction, or about how to spot the signs of a heart attack or stroke, or about hygiene and environmental sickness, or about spotting when friends and family start going cyberpsycho. Teaching is perfect for that.

Why Simper for the street doc? I'd go with Human Perception. It helps empathize with the blighted, and is handy to notice when the "patient" is lying through their teeth to get drugs or set the doc up for an ambush.

Cybertech for a cyber-heavy universe (though no space for the Electronics prereq).

Social for a "GP to the stars" kind of idea. Maybe the doctor celebrities use to shop for prescription meds they're addicted to.

Streetwise for the other side, as a GP in a street clinic in a poor neighborhood.

Maybe Herbalism (from Ianus) for a naturopath?

I think it could depend on where the GP practices, or what the game universe is like. Some places might be better for bureaucracy (lots of paperwork, lots of red tape to write up scrip, etc), while others might be better for some kind of drug skill (lots of drug producer incentives, psycho-pharmacology to keep people happy, etc). The first is more of a Big Brother-style world, while the latter is more a Wage Slave-style world.

I'm sure other universe-specific skills could fit in that slot too. The other nine you laid out are about perfect for a GP, so that tenth skill could be left up to the GM, to fit the world.

This is one of those times I'd include Pharmaceuticals without Chemistry. A GP isn't going to be cooking drugs, but has to know all about what's available and their interactions. But that's not strictly canon.

Maybe, Expert: Medications?

I see your version as a "Tactical Medical Specialist," more like the pararescue troops of the US Air Force. A balance between a combat soldier and a medic, able to fight then heal, like in a rescue or extraction.

My version is more an old school medic that some national militaries would probably keep as the bulk of their medical corps.

Your package are those guys who become edgerunners after service, while mine are the guys who become ambulance paramedics.

They're not as combat oriented, because they're more an old-fashioned, Geneva Convention-style medic, protected by their Red Cross/Crescent/Crystal/etc more than a rifle. Not a combat rescue specialist, and more "Doc" that hangs out with the troops and treats their trenchfoot. Probably too risky in a CP2020 universe.

And Combat Sense, in terms of recognizing and responding to threats, is right up their alley.

An alternate military medic:

SA*

Awareness/Notice

First Aid

Cryotank

Cybertech

Electronics

Expert: NBC treatment

Athletics

Endurance

Handgun

* Probably Combat Sense, but it could be anything, really.

Focused around emergency medical treatment, from basic scrapes and bruises up through nearly fatal trauma (including the use of a medevac cryotank for shipment to a field hospital). Also able to provide field support to troops returned to combat with modern enhanced prosthetics (i.e. cybernetics) and deal with the aftermath of a nuclear, biological or chemical weapon attack. While trained with the troops and able to keep up with them in combat, a medic is traditionally not armed. However, they are trained to use a sidearm, in an emergency, to defend themselves and their patients.

Electronics could be swapped for Brawling or Melee, and Cybertech could be chipped, replaced with Diagnose Illness. Expert: NBC could even be chipped and replaced with Survival.