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Old 07-31-2013, 09:06 AM   #1
MaaDmaN
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Default Ultratech Powers (Cybernetic Mind Control)

Hello, it's been a while since I got to play GURPS for the last time, but here I am again.

I've been having some issues with powerbuilding in a High-powered (more or less street-supers level) Cyberpunk game I'm GMing right now.
The largest issue by far is with "cinematic wireless hacking" power, or actually, a set of three powers. The obvious choice for such a set of abilities is the Mind Control / Mind Reading / Mind Probe (Cybernetic only, Based on Computer Hacking) trio. The origin is not paranormal - it's a technological skill in quickly hacking stuff that is emulated by these three advantages with various modifiers that are not very important for the purpose of this question.
The issue however is that to use Mind Control and Mind Reading (and following the second with a Mind Probe) a user must see the subject. This is where it gets tricky - while I figured out that I can reverse the way Sense Based works with guidelines from Powers (p. 105), I don't actually have any clue how to treat "Wireless" to be honest.

Powers say that technological intermediary is ok. If the hacker has Telecommunication (quite a lot of them to cover everything), it still requires concentration - concentration he can't actually spare to Mind Control anything. Requiring Telecomm would also skyrocket the point cost of being able to hack stuff. These points would essentialy go to waste, as telecomm devices are ubiquitous and when someone is stripped of them it is reasonable to assume his implants are also taken care of so that he cannot contact anyone. Because of that, I assume that Accessory (Telecomm) as an implant is ok and that it works like various Telecommunication advantages or devices.

But is this actually only a part of the problem - assuming that I even waive the concentration requirement or rule that you can concentrate on something else (Mind Control / Mind Reading) while keeping the commlink up, can this be treated like a "sense"? If so, how do I price "reverse Sense Based" for this purpose, especially that the reversed version is basically a limitation? Does this waive the "must see to Control" requirement? If not, how to get rid of it or swap the "must see" to "must have wireless access or direct"?

I can't actually just rule that it's the same thing, and can't treat "Sense Based" as a limitation, because being able to MC/MR something that you can't see, but can detect and connect with is better (but not by much in my opinion). There will be many cases in which this doesn't work very well (if the wireless access to the device a hacker sees is impossible because it has it's Bluetooth and Wifi off), but more often than not, a device capable of transmitting data will be connected or the hacker will be able to plug into it.

I would appreciate any help.

The second thing is minor - I have devised a houserule that anyone with cybernetic implants must buy Unliving, modified the same way DR is for partial coverage, to somehow emulate the fact that shooting at metal limbs is not exactly the same as shooting at human limbs. I would be grateful for feedback on this stuff too if anyone has tried something similar or can see something that I haven't thought about that will make this solution a bad one.

Last edited by MaaDmaN; 07-31-2013 at 09:08 AM. Reason: Cleared out the fact that the ability is not paranormal.
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Old 07-31-2013, 11:45 AM   #2
McAllister
 
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Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Ultratech Powers (Cybernetic Mind Control)

I think you could use this modifier for your Mind Powers:

Electronic: requires high-speed wired or wireless data connection with target rather than sight (+0%)

I see this as the simplest solution. You sidestep the issue of concentration, and you rely on the ubiquity of high-speed data connections, which, given the source material, is a safe assumption. Think of it this way: you're just replacing Accessibility: line of sight (-X%) with Accessibility: data connection (-X%). They're pretty close to equivalent.

Regarding the Unliving cybernetic implants, I think it's brilliant. The only thing I can think to add is that critical hits on cybernetics are likely to disable them: maybe someone who's very familiar with that model can target its critical mechanisms to ignore the Unliving modifiers? Throwing -3 to hit on top of the penalty for targeting the cybernetics, and requiring Expert Skill (Cybernetics) at IQ+3 sounds pretty balanced to me.
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Old 08-02-2013, 04:02 AM   #3
MaaDmaN
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Default Re: Ultratech Powers (Cybernetic Mind Control)

Thanks for the answer.

I was thinking along the lines of simply devising my own modifier to exchange sight requirement for high-speed wired or wireless data connection, but I don't really think these are equal.

Mind Control, by the book, has Range (Line of Sight; Speed/Range Penalty). Changing accessibility (Requires Vision) to accessibility (Requires data connection) puts as at Range (Line of Connection?; Speed/Range Penalty).

Because you don't actually see most of stuff you want to control, removing sight requirement greatly increases the pool of subjects you can influence. On the other hand, this does not work bad because machines are not humans and are not hidden from sight when they do something (well not usually). Still, a basic Mind Control working on sight influences a smaller pool of subjects than machine Mind Contro working on data connection. While you can't see 80% of people working in your immediate surroundings and try to control any one of them, you usually can catch wireless access to about 80% of machines working in the same area in a non-safe-tech Cyberpunk TL 9 Campaign. Still, while sight cannot be reliably obscured (night vision counters darkness, you can gain access to infravision, perhaps ultravision etc.), wireles connections can be. Unlike a human being, a machine can also vanish from "wireless connection" if it knows it's being tampered with. But I think ability to "wire" into a machine circumvents that, because either way you want to be close (or not - with additional enhancements). So in sight option, you can influence a subject you see from close range. In data-connection option, you can influence a subject you either reach (touch) or any subject you know is nearby. This is why I think Mind Control with accessibility (wired or wireless connection) is more or less equal to accessibility (see or hear) - not entirely equal, but close enough. Still no idea how much it is worth though. I'm thinking along the lines of 10-20%, and that 10% difference actually matters a lot, because the ability has a lot of other modifiers.

As for criticals and additional rolls to damage cybernetics, your ideas are quite nice, but judging from experience in other campaigns I've run that had cybernetic implants - people don't usually target implants unless they have Surge attacks (which disables them on a critical anyway) or some sort of Affliction that can disable them reliably with a first hit. Otherwise, they just go for the flesh instead of steel, as that is more reliable.
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