Character A Day, Day Four

Cyberpunk 2013

Of Course, It Was Just ‘Cyberpunk’ Then

I’d originally planned to do Villains & Vigilantes first edition, following in the spirit of my prior entries with another game that I played in my first few years of gaming. Unfortunately, I cannot find my copy of version 1. I suspect it, along w/Superhero 2044 and Champions 1e, was among the stuff I auctioned off at a local con when I had been unemployed for eight months and my wife was in ICU and then needed expensive therapy at home. But in the course of looking for it, I did find my copy of Cyberpunk, the first edition, and while I didn’t play it, I did review it for Gateways magazine, among my first published writing. It also probably doesn’t hurt that the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 game is getting a lot of buzz.

Trust me, not everything in this series is going to have deep personal meaning to me. However, those are what come to mind when trying to decide what to do each day. I gotta make this quick, Baby Yoda is on tonight! (“But it’s on streaming. You can watch it any time!” “Yes, but see notes in prior posts about the narrow slice of ‘me time’ between ‘dinner time’ and ‘spouse time’.”)

Annnnyhoo, Cyberpunk. This really deserves one of my traditional detailed walkthroughs, but, well, it’s gonna get the abbreviated version.

Note that this game was published in 1988, when the year 2013 was a mind-boggling quarter-century away. Sadly, we have no AI, cybernetic limbs are just barely starting to achieve nerve integration, prototype neural interfaces are limited to simple motions and are much slower than physical actions, making them wonderful for people who are have no muscular control at all, but not great for cruising through neon cyberspace stealing data.

By the way, I must detour to point out what may be the only sci-fi to accurately predict the Internet as a vital resource for information, business, and entertainment, where personal terminals in every home allowed you access to central servers processing, sharing, and storing data globally: A Logic Named Joe, published in 19-fucking-48. Cyberpunk stories of the 80s were far less accurate than it has proven to be. Read it at the preceding link. It’s short.

Role ‘Em!

First, I must choose a class, I mean, Role. Cyberpunk was a fairly typical design blending a free-form skill system with a defining “hook” that gave you some unique powers, a model White Wolf would embrace a year or two later.

I’m going with Solo, which allows me to always shoot first. Actually, I’m only half joking. I have the Combat Sense ability, which boosts my Awareness and Athletics. We haven’t actually reached skills or attributes yet. Keeping with the “style over substance” ethos, we do have some tables to define that — style, I mean. (BTW, the Cyberpunk rules build off a set of rules called Mekton, for playing anime mecha pilots of the Macross/Gundam sort.)

A few rolls later, it turns out that I favor jumpsuits, have striped hair, and a nose ring. I value a personal hero. Hm. Let’s say, some nigh-legendary killer-for-hire, whom I have never met but fanboy over obsessively. And I am silly and fluffheaded, which is exactly what an assassin who is more machine than man should be! My most valued possession is a tool — perhaps some surprisingly-useful antique lockpicks, as there’s always someone who doesn’t trust hackable modern tech to protect their home with. Despite being a fluffheaded murderer, my word is my bond.

CP is Character Points, As Well As Cyberpunk

Time to roll ’em! As compared to “Role ‘Em!”. See what I did there? Anyway, you roll either 9d10 or 30+6d10… the latter of which produces a much higher average. So that’s what I do. 66 points!

Int: 5
Reflexes: 8
Cool (Will): 7
Tech: 6
Luck: 7
Attractiveness: 6
Movement Allowance: 8 (32 meters)
Body Type: 9 (Strong)

There! Are! Three! Childhoods!

Now we have a Lifepath. This was one of the most fun parts of Mekton, the parent system, which produced delightfully angsty and dramatic anime heroes full of lost loves, mysterious enemies, and strained parental relations. Let’s see what we get here.

As you can see by carefully reading the text I’ve clipped, in the dark future of  2013, corporate greed and government lies have devalued four, making it three.

Street kid sounds like a good choice for a Solo.

Awareness +4
Brawling: +2
Athletics: +2
Infilitration: +1
Streetwise: +1

I got some training on the Street, letting me increase some skills and learn new ones:

Awareness +6
Brawling: +4
Athletics: +2
Infiltration: +3
Streetwise: +3
Martial Arts +2
Stealth +2

At this point, I am 20, and do a stint in the military, probably some corporate war in South America, where I distinguish myself as a crappy soldier in the “Sir! Yes sir!” sense, but an excellent killer.

Awareness +6
Brawling: +6
Athletics: +4
Infiltration: +3
Streetwise: +3
Martial Arts +2
Stealth +2
Rifle +2
Melee Weapons +2
Drive +2
Gamble +2

I am now 24, and somehow, made it to college. (Need 4 or less on D10, got a 4!)

Awareness +6
Brawling: +6
Athletics: +6
Infiltration: +5
Streetwise: +5
Martial Arts +4
Stealth +2
Rifle +2
Melee Weapons +4
Drive +2
Gamble +4

Lastly, I picked up some odd skills along the way. This doesn’t age me further; I’m 28.

Awareness +6
Brawling: +6
Athletics: +6
Infiltration: +5
Streetwise: +5
Martial Arts +4
Stealth +2
Rifle +2
Melee Weapons +4
Drive +2
Gamble +4
Intimidate +2
Shadowing +2
Wardrobe/Style +2
Persuasion +2

I now see which life events happened to me, one per year since turning 16. Oy.

17: Make an enemy: Female co-worker. I foiled a plan of theirs, and they will indirectly harm me when possible.
18: Got lucky! I made a connection in the mayor’s office. Okaaay.
19: Another enemy, a female corporate exec who I somehow caused to lose status. They also will try to indirectly injure me.
20: Disaster strikes! I get addicted to something, causing -1 Reflexes. Maybe I got sent to the military in lieu of prison?
21: I lost a friend, although I haven’t rolled one yet. I got them imprisoned — perhaps my military “opportunity” only happened because I also finked?
22: I lost another friend. Also sent them to prison. I’m thinking I’m gonna be calling myself… hm… Joey Q. The “Q” is for “Quisling”, but he doesn’t tell people that. Well, I got a name.
23: Made an enemy.A male government official who wanted me on his personal guard, but I turned him down.Now he screams at me when he sees me.
24; Oh for… another enemy. Someone working for me? Perhaps I was a low-ranking officer by now. It seems I left him behind in an ambush, kind of going with the whole “I’m kind of a sleaze” thing I’m building up, here.Anyway, he also likes to yell at me.
25: Out of the army, in college, and woohoo! College romance! And a happy love affair. Huh. That’s odd.
26: Guess what? Enemy! A woman who is a boostergang member, whom I also caused embarrassment. Possibly someone from my street days; she vouched for me for a job, and I blew it. Now, when she sees me, she ignores me.
27: Who had two thumbs and got lucky? This guy, right here! I found a sensei, boosting my martial arts +2.
28: More luck! A corporate exec owes me a favor.

Phew! That’s a lot of plot hooks, but the exercise did give me some sense of history and what kind of person Joey Q. is. Scummy, basically. But he might have a redemption arc.

At this point, my adjusted stats are:

Int: 5
Reflexes: 7
Cool (Will): 7
Tech: 6
Luck: 7
Attractiveness: 6
Movement Allowance: 8 (32 meters)
Body Type: 9 (Strong)

And my skills are:

Awareness +6
Brawling: +6
Athletics: +6
Infiltration: +5
Streetwise: +5
Martial Arts +6
Stealth +2
Rifle +2
Melee Weapons +4
Drive +2
Gamble +4
Intimidate +2
Shadowing +2
Wardrobe/Style +2
Persuasion +2

Yes, My CD Player!

I do not have a steady job at this time, but I start with 2000 eurodollars.

I started looking at the section on cyberware and cyberpsychosis, and it talked about how each time you add some metal to your meat, you lose Empathy. Except… empathy wasn’t listed in the stats. It’s on the character sheet, though. So I need to add a new stat, which means pulling from others. Time to adjust. (BTW, if you wonder why grandpa got murderously homicidal after he got his artificial hip and pacemaker, it was because he rolled crappy on empathy loss after adding in that cyberware!)

So, revised stats:

Int: 5
Reflexes: 6
Cool (Will): 7
Tech: 6
Luck: 6
Attractiveness: 5
Empathy, Damn It: 5
Movement Allowance: 7 (28 meters)
Body Type: 9 (Strong)

OK, time to buy some cyberware!

• Reflex Booster: 500 (2d6 humanity)
• Scratchers: 100 (2d6 humanity)
• Biomonitor 100 (1 humanity)

(Rolling, I lose 14  humanity; each 10 is -1 Empathy. So my Empathy drops to 4.)

Leaves me 1300.

• Armor Jacket: 150
• Fighting knife: 15 (cannot find a katana on the equipment lists. Lame!)
• 20-30 rifle: 200

This still leaves me some spare cash.

And so, we take our leave of Joey Q for the nonce!