That Cyberpunk Je Ne Sais Quoi

I was reading through the latest draft of "Kill, Cyborgs! Kill!" the Cyberpunk adventure I'm working on, and there is something missing, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Mechanically, I'm happy with the system, the overall structure, and the story are pretty good.  So what's missing?

Then my long overdue Amazon order came in, including William Gibson's "Neuromancer". A few chapter's in it hit me. KCK doesn't have that Cyberpunk bite.

The Horror genre plays with your emotions, eliciting uneasiness, foreboding, and fear. Good Cyberpunk stories do something similar. It's not quite techno-horror. It's something more subtle, pushing just beyond what we consider to be a healthy relationship with Technology, presenting portraits that leave a gurgling uneasiness in the pit of our bellies:

• A tough Street Samurai with surgically implanted mirrorshades, ostensibly so that she can see in the dark, but more importantly, they keep anyone from looking into her eyes. Because if anyone did look into her eyes, if they saw what she feels in the depths of her soul, it would all be over...
• An ex-hacker, more at home in cyberspace than in reality, but chemically neutered so that he can no longer log in, leaving him in permanent exile.
• A small-time shoplifter who finds meaning in life though competitive video games and through love. Ultimately he chooses the former over the latter and ends up with nothing.
• A dolphin, made hyper-intelligent and fixed up with hi-tech scanning gear for the war. Now that it's over, he sits in dirty tank, doing illegal scanning work to pay for his drug habit.
• Gang of street kids whose tech-worship to more and more bizarre, inhuman body modifications, pushing them more and more to the edge of society.
• A mysterious criminal, apparently ex-special forces, one of the few survivors of a well known suicide mission. Now he is anonymous, his face a mask of generic plastic surgery, his intentions inscrutable.
• A teenage girl, obsessed with becoming the next reality star, she'll sink to any depth to earn the credits for the tech she'll need to realize that dream. But the deeper she sinks, the greater the chance she'll be lost forever... 
• A man who has himself cloned as a female. He raises her as a daughter, then they become lovers. Nuff said. 
• A crime lord well over 200 years old. Preserved by technology, but neutered by age. Inhumanly cunning, inhumanly uncaring for anything except well tailored vintage replica suits.

Such Pathos, such Unease, such borderline plausibility, such Truth! I frickin' love Cyberpunk! Now, back to the writing table...

Unarmed Combat for "Kill, Cyborgs! Kill!"

Okay, let's tackle this little topic.  I need an unarmed combat system for Kill, Cyborgs Kill!, the cyber-horror adventure I'm working on. Here are some of the desired attributes of said system:

• It's a Cyberpunk game so it needs to include lots of bitchin' martial arts
• BUT 2010 martial arts, not 1980's
• AND it's a horror game so I want to keep the combat simple so as not to break the mood
• AND DnD Compatible
• AND needs to work with the skill system

Techniques

There are several unarmed combat techniques characters can use:

• Punch: 1d4 damage
• Kick: 1d6 damage
• Grapple: hold your opponent, restraining him from using large weapons, moving.
• Escape Grapple: escape a grapple
• Throw(only from grapple): 1d8 damage, opponent is prone, still grappled
• Choke Hold(only from grapple): puts opponent to sleep. Each additional round the choke is held, must save or die
• Joint Lock(only from grapple): 1d8 dmg
• Neck Lock(only from grapple): paralyzed. Fort save or die.
• Eye Gouge: blindness till end of combat. Fort save or permanent.
• Groin Shot: stunned till end of combat. Fort save or permanent damage.

Skills

The skill check is done as an Opposed Skill Check(see Skills section), with the attacker and his opponent each rolling and comparing their rolls.

Example: The ninja attempts to punch Detective Hobbs. The ninja rolls 1d20+DEX bonus+Ninjitsu skill vs. the Detective’s 1d20+DEX+Brawling skill.

Example: Detective Hobbs attempts to grapple a junkie, who has no relevant skill. The Detective rolls 1d20+DEX bonus+Brawling skill vs. the Junkie’s 1d20+DEX.

Death & Dismemberment Chart for Unarmed Combat

This is a different chart for non-lethal damage such as from punches, kicks, throws, and joint locks(if a PC punches with brass-knuckles, throws an opponent's onto a concrete floor, or curb-stomps a prone opponent’s head then that is normal armed damage and should use the normal chart.) Upon taking unarmed damage which leaves a character with 0 or fewer HP, roll 1d10 + the number of negative hitpoints the character has.

• 1-6 Lightly Stunned: character misses next turn
• 7-14 Stunned: character is not killed, but is useless for the rest of the combat
• 15+ Killed: blunt force trauma, internal bleeding, etc.

Cyber-Mods for Kill, Cyborgs! Kill!

 Oh, boy. You know when you've put a lot of time into a project and you just need like a few good hours of no distractions to go over everything and you'll have a completed first draft? And those few good hours just aren't happening? (I haven't had time to blog lately, much less edit/complete an adventure module)

Anyway, that's sort of where I'm at with KCK. But I still haven't stat-ed up the PC cybermods, so let's make it happen. The system, is old school DnD, with slight modifications for a Cyberpunk setting.

Note that this is a first draft, so ideas are welcome.

• Reflex Boost
• Dex is increased by 1d6+3 points for 5 minutes. Cannot be used again until character has rested for at least 1 hour.
• Side Effect: whenever characters smells a strong smell they make a willpower save. Failure means that they will do their best to ingest the source of the smell as fast as possible(gaining the Dex bonus until it is ingested). If they are restrained and cannot ingest the object, they will fall into a severe lethargy, being unable to do anything for 4d6 hours.
• Neural Augmentation

• Int is increased by 1d6+3 points, permanently.
• Side Effect: character has difficulty relating to people. Cha is reduced by the same amount.
• Pain Editor
• Cannot feel pain at all. If incapacitated, due to injury, make an additional Fortitude save. Success means character is not incapacitated.
• Olfactory Boost
• Character has an excellent sense of smell and gets a +2 bonus to not be surprised, as well as a bonus to tracking and other relevant skill checks.
• Powerful smells require a fortitude save to prevent dizziness, vomiting, difficulty breathing, etc.
• Microwaver Implant
• Short range ray mounted in chest.
• 1d6 burn damage. Roll 1d6 for each piecor of electronic equipment(including cyberware) to see how it malfunctions
• 1-3 no effect
• 4- don't work for 1d10 rounds
• 5- activates erratically
• 6- completely fried
• Micro Missile Launcher
• Mounted in shoulder. Cavity opens and a missile missile protrudes and fires, guided by eye movement tracking.
• Holds a single missile. +4 to hit. 1d8 damage per HD of target.
• Reloaded manually
  
  
• Backscatter X-Ray Eye
• 10m range. Spot hidden weapons, cyber-mods, etc. See what's on the other side of thing walls.
• +4 Bonus to search for hidden objects.
• -1 to initiative due to tendency for eyes to wander
• DataTerm Link
• Port in back of neck. Neural computer interface.
• +4 to hacking checks and other complex computer interactions.
• Internal disk for storing downloaded data.
• Sub-Dermal Micro-Recorder
• Audio recorder implant.
• Electromagnetic cloaking fools metal detectors.
• Contraceptive Implant
• Activated/Deactivated via voice recognition of pre-programmed keywords(have fun choosing your own!)
• Storage Space
• A small compartment, opened and closed via voice recognition of the pass-code. What does it contain?

Simple Cyberpunk Skills

So, after deciding to make the Cyberpunk adventure I'm writing DnD-compatible, I started thinking about how to do the skill system. PCs will probably want investigative skills, technological skills, etc. One option is to adapt the Stars Without Number skill system, but I'm not entirely happy with it and anyway I would have to adapt it a bit. So here's a draft of a simple, flexible, skill system for DnD-based Cyberpunk adventures.

Skills

Rather than giving a complete list of skills, I've decided to just give examples, loosely categorized. It seems to me that this gives the skills a more organic feel and greater flexibility.  In fact, there is certainly overlap between the tasks that a skill covers. There are no skill descriptions. Rather the DM should rule whether a skill applies to a specific situation.  Skills are distributed on a scale of 0-10:

• Language Skills
• English, Japanese...
• Academic Skills(learned in University, private Corporate academy, etc...)
• Architecture, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Literature, Medical Doctor, Nano-Tech, Nursing, Theology...
• Career Skills(learned on the job)
• Infantry Soldier, Jewellery Thief, Naval Mechanic, Police Detective...
• Technical Skills(learned in practice)
• Drive Automobile, Guitar, Gunsmith, Hacker, Pilot Fixed-Wing...
• Physical Skills
• Acrobatics, Distance Running, Swimming...
• Martial Skills
• Fencing, Handgun, Karate, Filipino Knife Fighting, Rifle, SMG…
• Other Skills
• Etiquette, Fashionable Dress, Gambling, Oratory, Interrogate, Resist Torture...

Using Skills

Skill checks are d20 based, modified by the relevant ability score bonus and and the relevant skill level. The DM should rule what ability score/skills are relevant for a given task. The roll is made vs. a target value. Rolls less than or equal to the target values are considered successful, with natural 20’s always denoting success and natural 1’s always denoting failure . Target values are generally:

• 5 easy task.  Generally doesn't require a roll
• 10 somewhat challenging task
• 15 moderately challenging task
• 20 moderately challenging skilled task
• 25 difficult skilled task
• 30 nearly impossible task

Example: Detective Hobbs uses is searching a crime scene for clues. The Target Value for him to find the 3 hairs under the recliner is 15. So he will need to roll 15 or more on 1d20+INT bonus+his Police Detective skill.

Example: Hacker Damien is trying to hack into a Megacorp's top secret accounts. There's tons of security, so he'll need to roll a 30 on a 1d20+INT bonus+his Hacker skill--not very likely! If he rolls a 25, then he'll get the data, but be detected. He kidnapped a corporate officer and has his passwords, so the GM ruled that this reduces the target value by 5. If he breaks-in and tries from the man's office then this will reduce them by an additional 10.

Opposed Skill Checks

Some skill checks are against another character’s skill. As such, the target value is whatever that character’s skill roll is.

Example: upon questioning a junkie who was at the scene of the crime, the man flicks out a switchblade and attempts to stab Detective Hobbs. The junkie rolls 1d20+DEX Modifier+ Knife Fighting skill vs. Hobbs’ 1d20+DEX Modifier+Karate skill(Karate being a martial art which practices weapon defence.)

Example: Detective Hobbs is interrogating the junkie he brought in for useful information. The junkie has no skill to resist interrogation, so Hobbs will roll 1d20+CHA bonus+Police Detective skill vs. the Junkie’s 1d20+CHA bonus.

Missile Attacks

Missile weapons are made against a character’s AC(using ascending AC). Note that the DEX bonus doesn't apply if a character is just standing there, unaware they are being targeted. Also note that the degree to which the character is concealed can raise AC by between 1 and 4 points.


Example: As a suspect charges him with a Monokatana, Detective Hobbs draws and fires his sidearm. He rolls 1d20+DEX bonus+Pistol skill vs AC 10+DEX bonus.

Cyberpunk Death & Dismemberment Table

Well, I've been making slow but steady progress on Kill, Cyborgs! Kill!  I was originally going to make it for Cyberpunk 2020, but then I decided to make it DnD-like, albeit with a Cyberpunk-twist. The reason for this choice was twofold:

1. To emphasize the Horror element, I wanted to tone-down the high degree of tactics you get in CP2020
2. Really you can adapt it fairly easily to CP2020, so I'd rather write it up with a system that more people are familiar with

In any case, as a Cyberpunk game, it needs to have limb-loss(so they can be replaced with cyberlimbs) and a somewhat more modern look at medicine.  So I believe this calls for yet another custom Death and Dismemberment table:

The Table

Upon taking damage which leaves a character with 0 or fewer HP, roll a d10 + the number of negative hitpoints the character has.

• 1-2 A Flesh Wound: No major damage, but you now have a bitchin' scar: changes your CHA by 1d3-2(within range of 3-18)
• 3-4 Stunned: character is not killed, but is useless for the rest of the combat
• 5-6 Hit an Artery: Unconscious. Lose 1 HP per rounds until first aid is applied. Dies if bleeding brings HP to -10
• 7-9 Internal Bleeding: Unconscious. At the end of each turn make a Fortitude Save or die, until emergency surgery is performed
• 10-12 Maiming Locational Hit: see sub-table
• 13-14 Killed Instantly
• 15+ Horrific Demise: somebody get a mop

Maiming Locational Hit Sub-Table

Roll to see which limb is destroyed/paralysed/severed/napalmed etc.

1. Toe
2. Foot-Also see Hit an Artery 
3. Leg-Also see Hit an Artery
4. Finger
5. Hand-Also see Hit an Artery
6. Arm-Also see Hit an Artery
7. Nose-Also see Stunned
8. Ear-Also see Stunned
9. Eye-Also see Stunned
10. Both Eyes-Also see Stunned

Kill, Cyborgs! Kill!

So I started working on a little adventure titled "Kill, Cyborgs! Kill!" to be played over 1 or 2 sessions.  It's a Mystery/Horror setup in a Cyberpunk setting, based around some of my previous posts on Mystery Design and Running Horror Games.  Sort of a personal experiment, of sorts, to see how those ideas work for me in-practice.

Anyway, I'll playtest it once I have a working draft and then add it to my list of Downloadable Gaming Resources, which seems to be getting more and more biased towards Cyberpunk 2020.

In the meantime, I'm having a lot of fun writing this...