encanta_anima

Yes, sad as it is, wealth and alcohol tolerance are two major factors in that equation; wealth being the most important, and alcohol tolerance for all the rest of us losers. Now, before any of you ladies jump all over me…..hmmm……let me rephrase that; before I get flamed for that statement, how many beautiful woman attach themselves to poor old guys, and how many to the rich ones?

Hunny... You need someone independent. Like me, incidentally, but you knew I was going to say that.

Has it ever struck anyone that there ARE ways to find women which do not involve getting pished? The internet? VFTE (my current relationship is a friend of a friend I made here)?

As for prostitution, let me be very clear on this: There is NOTHING romantic about it. “Pretty Woman” is a movie, and when rich guys pick up hookers only the old and senile ones may keep them around after they are done. Although when I was growing up, the police chief from our small town threw his wife out and moved his hooker girlfriend in. Many were outraged, but that was a different time so he got away with it. Eventually, she and the chief married and she became……well, maybe not a pillar of the community, but accepted by all. I just may have shot down my whole point here, oh well.

Of course there isn't. That is the providing of a service. You would not call the shop attendant's relationship to you romantic either, and if it were, that would not have anything to do with her (presumably) profession.

Perhaps for you INT would determine picking “Mr(s) Right”, but again, I know a number of smart perceptive people who constantly get into disastrous and destructive relationships.

EMP is probably more important. But INT is a better modifier than LUCK, which quite frankly has nothing to do with it.

Say you'd transfer senior officer van Atta's original figures but just replace the mod. I think it'd give a more descriptive aspect to the character creation.

As for the psrostitute thing..... Honestly, While I have had a few prostitutes (and high level escorts) as NPC's, the only time it has come up as a PC was when one of my players played a Madame for an escort service.

Strange. I would imagine it to be a fun role if you could play it simply because of the amount of provocation you could exert without having any downsides.

In Cyberpunk love or romantic entanglements come in two varieties:

1)Lifepath incidents in character creation that can serve as future adventure hooks or complications, and

 

2)Plotline situations generated during game play.

If you want to be specific about the lifepath it also affects who the character is.

Somebody who is unempathic might not know until there has been a disastrous relationship; you would be good at hide/evade if you're a chronic two-timer; if you have been sexually abused for any extended period of time you will desensitise yourself and lose EMP (leadership, human perception) but surprisingly gain seduction (of a certain kind of people).

In my world, this still boils down to INT. "Assessing situations" would probably fall under "Awareness/Notice" and would determine whether you pick Mr(s) Right when you see it.

I'm rather idealised now, and this is very difficult in play unless your players are extremely good. However, this "theme" has been played successfully in a Western setting so it can work. It also seems pointless to try to make something good out of something that in the book is horrible (insert analogy about unicorns and woodlice).

However, I'd keep Luck involved somehow. Although physical attractiveness is important (well... not that very important on a long-time bass), and emotional attractiveness (i.e. empathy) is crucial, all that is nothing if you don't have the luck to meet the right person in the right moment.

This is because your view of love is flawed.

Yes. You are fortunate if you found Mr/Mrs Right, but that does not mean you are lucky. What this is about is the intelligent assessment you make of a potential mate when facing him or her.

You will ask "What prospects do I have of standing [it]?"

If they are good you will flatter it and hope it likes you. If they are not you will still flatter it, get laid and that's it.

I would rather have an INT modifier of some sort. Relationships are, while perhaps not as straight-forward as the variable kind, still equations and it's down to you to solve it or at least simplify it.

You could also have to determine whether or not you've had bad experiences or come from a social/family background which makes you more likely to choose more or less intelligently. If you wanted to be specific about that sort of thing.

Short relationships are probably along the lines of:

1. Moderately good+ sex

2. Good eating

3. Gifts aplenty

4. Flattery

5. Spontaneousness

Thus more likely to happen at a young age, and a lot more common than long relationships

They fall on:

1. It didn't do the dishes

2. It let me sleep in the wet patch

3. There were used condoms and they were not ours

4. Constant complaints about cleaning but no effort to do anything about this.

5. Some random bad feminine thing

or whatever.

Long relationships often have something that makes all the bad things worth it. For me, this is likely intellectual exchange from someone who does not think too much unlike myself, and my suspicions is that's what is important for everyone.

This also means that it is good for INT of spouses to be matching, or at least General Education.

I could simply NOT be with someone who has never read a book. I think that someone who hasn't would also not want to be with me because my life revolves around the fact that I read. It would also be frustrating to be with someone who HAD read a lot of books but only on the topic of post-modernistic philosophy and the development of the Catholic Church in Eastern Rome before the Schism. Or with anyone who is religious.

* I wish to make the point to any real women reading this that I do not actually believe that's how it works. I had to rely on dice rolls due lack of RL experience.

Amazing. Do I seem that frightening a feminist?

If my partner succeded with a 34 roll I'd be disinclined to leave for any amount of time. At the very least I'd like to be an FB.

Speaking of which, I should probably add my sketching here...

First, roll 1d20 + EMP (+1 per every LUCK > 7, -1 per LUCK < 5).

< 12 : Bad Luck In Love.

12-16: Fast Affairs, Hot Dates. No permanent effect (however, for every 3 such events in your lifepath, add +1 to Seduction skill - you've learnt something - this is my house rule).

17+: Lucky love avvair.

 

(note - I don't like the table above, it should be changed into something ... better)

 

Bad luck in love

1. Your love’s family / friends decided you’re a wrong choice. They will do whatever is possible to break the affair.

2. Your love’s terribly ill (bioweapon, drug addiction?). You have to either struggle to help, or face the consequences (see Good&Bad: mental breakdown, or Illness / Addiction).

3. You’ve got a baby! Congratulations. Do you feel responsible?

4. The affair is a struggle, seems you’ve met Mr/Ms Wrong. It’s impossible to stay, and your love won’t let you go.

5. There’s someone else.

6. Because of your love, you’ve got involved in some shady business.

7. Your love has vanished. No trace – you don’t know even if he/she is still alive... Roll 1d10 1-2 you suspect someone (and have a good reason), 3-5 you think you know who to suspect, 6+ - completly no idea.

8. Your love has been killed. Roll 1d10: 1 – simply an accident. 2-3 some local dirt come upon him/her. 4-6 serious dirt. 7+ just a body was found, no traces.

9. Your love has committed suicide. 1-5, that was your fault, and somebody will remind you that.

10. Something was bad, really bad. And you still don’t know what it exacly was...

 

Lucky love affair

1. Get married! Now, you’re a part of your love’s family (if there is one). This gives you some responsibilities, and some benefits. Anyway, healthy family life gives you +1 to all stress – involving rolls.

2. Your love is a professional in some field. You may count on his/her help or advice.

3-4. Thanks to your love, you’ve met many interesting people, and made contacts: you may spend 40 character points on followers and allies.

5. Your love made you learn a lot. Distribute 6 skill points (but no more than 2 to single skill) at GM approval (usually social skills).

6. Thanks to your love and his/her friends, you’re now a public person. You are beeing known as a member of „right” club (or just opposite). Your Reputation is +1.

7-8. Your love’s contacts, influence, or just the fact he/she is at your side helped you recovering from some previous mishap. You may end one previous event in a way you like.

9-0. Her/his presence allows your psyche to heal itself. Restore 1d20 Humanity Loss (distribute it as you wish), or lose one addiction.

1D20+EMP is sufficient for base. No LUCK modifier.

<10 Bad relationships

11-16 Short relationships

>17 Long relationship(s)

Bad relationship:

1. Has been abused by partner

2. Partner took your assets (he/she gambled obsessively or were a thief)

3. Family issues, both ways

etc.

Short relationship, long relationships:

I will edit this bit later I think. I feel overpowered by my own views on the key to happiness but don't dislike the above definition if you keep the definition of a relationship traditional.

You are female, there are things females can get away with....... even the crazy yaoi loving broads.....

 

Personally, I have no interest in playing a gay dude....... just like I have no interest in playing a dwarf or a gnome......

 

Or a fricking Cleric.....

They stated above that you couldn't be a straight dude either though, as long as the female is played by a man?

And on the notion of romance, how common is it, in your experiences, for female characters to be prostitutes, and how do you handle this?

Cyberpunk and love are two themes that don't seem to mix. Love isn't going to get you that nice job at the Corporation, unless you love the right person, namely your manager etc.

 

Also, since most of the players are guys, falling in love with the female PC is kind of....awkward...

Why not fall in love with the male characters? The whole deal is playing a role, innit? I GM'ed a gay maneater, and I have at least a couple of femme chars who wouldn't mind playing with either or both of rockwolf's Isabel and Dominique.

The heavily Cybered contract Solo sitting in his burned out shell of a Combat Zone place, contemplating suicide, with his uber pistol in his mouth wondering why life is so horrible and why he can find no love in this wretched life!

 

Oh hun'... Encanta the Freely Distributed Open Source Slut is here for a cybered contract Solo's preferred use, for free, and it's luvin'. There's just one drawback.

I'm pretty close to a cyberpunk girl already, so I'll say what I'd do:

Sit in front of the computer talking to my geek friends about maths and programming all night, sleep all day, get up while there's still food left, unwrap my gifts, wish my relatives and close family a nice christmas and go back to my room and continue chatting to geek friends about maths and programming. Then sleep. Again.

That's pretty much how I'll spend all my holidays, actually.

But we'd have to assume the Russians who live in Cybercity are.. more recent immigrants from Russia. Otherwise we'd be speaking of 3rd generation immigrants, and they're usually pretty straight with being their own kind of fellows. And their families have probably blended with the native population.

In fact, if, as rockwolf stated, there is to be a Russian orthodox church in this neighbourhood, they will most likely have a lot of the theological ideas of Mother Land. Also, depending on from where in Eastern Europe they come, they will probably be bi- or trilingual.

High education at the very least. It's the educated people who move.

i will try but i am really buissy right now and i may not be able to get to it right now but i will say this the russian quarter is home to both a russian orthodox church and a synagogue. while various worshipers may not get along phylosophicaly and the athletic events between the two are rather harsh( yet sporting), the two will join up against any outsiders and Vor Gregor who contributes to both, will make shure that the houses of worship will remain unskathed by vandalous punker's. does anyone else have ideas on how to capture a eastern european flavor and try to hype the whole clannish hardworking harder playing nature of the inhabitants.

I do have a reasonable perspective of the Eastern Europe as it is today. Seeing as Russia is a country which seems to favour totalitarian rulers in front of softer leaders (this is actually a historical tendency dating back to the tsars - Stalin was _not_ the first tyrant they had), I would assume that the part of the city which is mainly Russian will be, if not independent of the rest of the city, then at least have at least one out-standing person, probably with a military and corporative background, who has set up rules and a way of efficiently running the city.

Eastern Europe is also poor, although they are advancing what with the joining into the European union and also building up a greater capital to invest in education. They produce lots of natural scientists, and their way of educating future scientists is highly efficient wherefore they will probably have a large percentage of very knowledgeable people. Russian schools follow a strict curriculum which progresses fast and teaches a lot of things during the basic years of education. University education is free in Russia, but Balticum, Poland and Ukraine have opened private universities which charge money for education. The Russian orthodox population of the north-west of Russia are at the moment growing rapidly hostile against free abortion, wherefore they will probably campaign a lot about this. I would be surprised if there were any abortion clinics in the area, since people with a theological conviction easily get rabid.

Making liqour out of fermented potatoes will probably be a fervent activity if there are potatoes cheaply available. This is the oldest trick in the book and is frequently practised in rural areas. By destillation it may also be made to contain a high percentage of alcohol. This is the traditional way of making vodka, I believe.

Urban Russia is populated by a small group of very rich people (these are commonly referred to as oil oligarchs or similar: they're products of rich Russians in exile who bought ALL the assets when the state collapsed in beginning of 90s), and a large majority who are all too poor. Russia has large problems with HIV, though this might not necessarily be transferred to the Cybercity blocks. There are also a lot of drugs, a lot of prostitution, and a lot of urchins, because the poor state of the nation and the bad economical prospects make children unwanted and left on their own. Also their parents may have died. Chances are that the new Russian population will grow up without grandparents in a strictly militarian-religious society to parents with lethal illnesses.

I think my name was just devised on a hunch somewhere back in 2003. But, I have devised a totally new interpretation of my nick:

I'm an internet doll, your perpetual female follower in the bitstream, charming, intelligent and entertaining (and also very, very modest - obviously). So... I'm an Anima, with AI. Therefore I'm more enjoyable than other Animae, hence "Encanta" which means "Enjoy!" (imperative verb - spanish)

encanta_anima anyday, everyday, anywhere, everywhere.

Of course, I enjoy me too.

Can you get to Leicester?

Sure I can.

If my char can be a Big Moma I have a ho to bring as well.

This topic is still marked as hot though it's not really because no one has written in it for more than six months. To this day and age I am 19 years old. I started this topic when I was 16, and it is with horror I see what kind of posts I made back then. Why did you not stop me? Why did you not tell me? Oh-the-angst... Of course, when I come grovelling again in yet another two years, I will find this embarrassing as well. Perhaps you ought to remind me.

I did get a good concept for a character that I don't know if it would fit anywhere but I'd sure like playing it, because I'm that kind of person. I recently had a financial boost (student loans), so am planning on purchasing pvc corset, suspenders, hotpants and stayups in black/blackish (preferably shiny!) colours and possibly something to cover my arms because my fingers will freeze and turn into barren clumps of frozen meat that could be hacked off otherwise. Gas masks are cheaply made available at the Swedish military surplus store.

Basically, the idea is a vixen with guts to kill, and yaketiyak, you know the type. Preferably I'd be undercover as a prostitute, but I'm unsure about the application of this part because if cyberpunks are mostly like me, my boyfriend will not be very happy at all. Especially not if I blame it on my character

I'm also in Lund which is way closer to everything than Uppsala ever was. I got Europe as my arena now. To some extent even Scotland, because my man's from there and it'd be a good way of getting out of him insisting on coming here (it's because Sweden is far superior, of course, but still..).

Is there no hero who can sweep me off my feet and drag me along to somewhere where I can be the malicious bitch every girl who knows anything about gender determined power structures in society wants to be?

Soh, I was going to ask while I was at it, what does one actually need to know before going to a cp larp?

I guess dresscode is pretty much up to the single larp event, but in general...

All people I know who larp basically do vampire or fantasy, and even so I have actual contact with only... uhm... none of them :S

I'm like, 2 years older now and it seems I've got a friend who wants to visit Norway with me so I might even want to go for real this time. Also there is no pending threat to put me in youth care anymore. You know how it is. Freedom!

What better place to share a new author than this very forum?

It was so, that when 'd just started reading cyberpunk literature, I asked at my local bookstore (Uppsala English Bookshop) if they had any cp recommendations. And they did! They recommended the Ecplise-series by John Shirley. Then for a while I was searching for these books (they're hard to get by because they were published in the 80s and didn't reach that big an audience). As it were, I never found them.

However, this summer I came by a newer, revised edition (at this very same local bookstore).

A Song Called Youth - Eclipse

A Song Called Youth - Eclipse Penumbra

A Song Called Youth - Eclipse Corona

Are three brilliant cyberpunk books set in the 2020's (fitting?) and the 2030s. It is about how the new fascist movement have started the third world war, and in particular about the conflicts in and about the resistance movement, New Resistance. You get to follow the NRs struggle to oppose and win against the bastards who are making a holocaust anew.

I also happen to have a favourite quote from the third book of this series:

Torrence held on with one hand, firing with the other.

The only thing he had was sedative gun. Shit. Like that would work fast enough.

But it did work fast. The guy was already falling.

What was the point of shooting them with sedative to save their lives if they were going to fall down lelevator shafts?

I strongly recommend this series, but it's quite rare as I've gathered, because it's published at a small label. However, if you have the money, and like reading good literature, I strongly recommend buying these books and engulifing them. It is something you will rarely regret, that much is for sure.

If someone has already read John Shirley, I of course look forward to discussing the books with them.

Well, facing it, there aren't really an astounding amount of new posts in the literature section so maybe it's just as well that some people resurrect old threads.

I still wish to promote the site http://www.infinityplus.co.uk. Everyone should put that address in their favourite links section. That's a bundle of great stories from great authors right there. Recently read everything they've got published by Jeff VanderMeer and it's not bad stuff, I tell you.

"Yes, please." She hands him her coat.

Xue looks at the upset passenger and shrugs. You see such a lot of strange people nowadays. Thinking how she's slightly out of place she enters the restaurant.

Xue gets up earlier in the morning than she usually does; there is loads of paperwork that she has previously neglected that now needs to be settled with. Presumably she will have time to drop by the reception area, of leave it to a colleague before she heads of for Drake...

The light by the desk is flickering; already time to buy new bulbs? Xue sighs and writes it down on a small note; hopefully someone will see it. She remembers to add to the note that she is going away for a while, and please take care and all of that. "Leave Qing at Aunty Jenna's if you're going away..." After some thought adding "No longer than 12 hours though, because you know how irritable she gets when she feels we're not responsible parents and all."

Clothing, needs... A quick glance in the wardrobe proves garmental assets are not as large as she'd wish them to be. Black works. She settles for black clothing, and hopefully it will not look to week-dayish. It's a very nice blouse though, she thinks and and glares defiantly in to the mirror. And no one in the world could be expecting her to wear anything but trousers when the cold is on like this.

"Hên hão." she mutters and puts on her shoes, treading off towards a new day.

why can't i be an equally good writer? *sighs*

And it's settled. People with sanity listen to Front Line Assembly. *listens to Front Line Assembly*

it's on at a good time also. summer holidays!!

the one thing i will have some serious problems with if i decide i want to check it out, is convincing my parents that it's a good idea i go off to norway, doing whatever for a few days.

And I will have to be the boring person who thinks there shouldn't be a movie made from the book. It's good literature, sure, but I like to keep written words as written, because part of the magic is spoiled when you put it on movie.

With Lord Of The Rings, I haven't really got a problem, because I don't like the books very much, but Neuromancer? There's a universe in there, which cannot be created except by a big budget and I don't think the production would get as much as it'd deserve.

In my mind, it's beautiful. As a flick? Well, it would take away the feeling with it, at least for me.