4e Cybernetic/Implant Question

[hal]

Your post makes sense.

Put another way? Let's say that you find that GURPS gave you 20 rules, of which 5 aren't needed, and 2 needed to be reshaped. That's cutting down from a solid form into something you are willing to run.

Soft form, is where you have to build things up from the bottom up. Not because GURPS didn't necessarily build what you wanted per se, but that they built the building blocks saying "ok, you can build it by route of method 1, method 2, method 3, or even method four. We've given you guidelines on creating new methods entirely, and these are the guidelines for building new methodologies.

Can you imagine what it would have been like if you had to have built 800+ spells from GURPS MAGIC one by one, all by yourself, for your own campaign? It likely would have been work in progress, and somewhere along the way, you likely would have said to yourself "Why am I building something that few, if any, will use?"

I've seen that approach with HARN MASTER MAGIC where all spells have to be created by the player and approved by the GM. Nice in theory. What happens however, when you need an NPC mage quick on the spot? ;)

Ultimately, one doesn't "tinker" with a game system unless they've tried it with the rules as written and ran into problems.

Want to have some fun? If a GM says "Build a 300 point character for a cyberpunk campaign, take Multimillionaire, and Independent income for 20 points. Try not to laugh too hard when you discover how much extra income your character gains by NOT having a job.

So, go for it - as suggested, if you're not happy with something as written, or if you find that what you want isn't there, feel free to build things as you see fit, and give it a trial run. If it works, great. if it doesn't work - well, you at least tried it.

[hal]

While I'm thinking about it?

I'd like to suggest two resources that you might find useful for your cybeprunk campaigns...

INTERFACE ZERO from RPNOW.COM. The PDF presumably is cheaper then the book, and has some really interesting "Support" rules for gang generation, mission generation, etc that you might find useful for your campaign.

I wrote this privately to another individual on the value of INTERFACE ZERO...

"After that, I'll be using the "mission" generator from Interface ZERO (really NEAT). Sample first mission generated?:

Contractor: Government
Mission: Harm or Kill someone
Urban Location: Airport/Rail hub
Non-urban location: Mansion or Resort
McGuffan: Treasure
Innocents: Artificial Intelligence or Uploaded Intelligence
Antagonist: Crime Lord
Complication: Diversion
Dramatic Conflict: Economic Harm

From that, as GM, I'd piece it together to mean that a Government Agency needs to have a man assassinated in his Mansion (I decide I don't want an urban adventure). So, perhaps the rich man is having an exhibit of his collection of artwork - lots and lots of artwork. Turns out, the man is an entertainment mogul who specializes in Virtual Reality entertainment, and has built up not only the computer structure for such virtual reality masterpieces, but has also developed low grade artificial intelligences that the world is unaware of. The players may come to interact with these artificial personalities, and when they assassinate the man, his entire VR universe will disappear as well. The economic harm would be the sudden failure of his projects worth billions, and impacts on India, England, Japan, and America's private contractors who help do the coding for the VR worlds.

Not bad for a random mission generator if you ask me. ;)"

The other item worth picking up, also from RGPNOW.COM, is

Augmented Reality The Holistic City Kit For Cyberpunk Games This product has a series of tables for generating details about buildings (how many floors, what the primary business is within the building, etc) along with descriptions for the five senses. Need an NPC quick? It can do it. I consider it well worth the money spent. Between those two items, I can now populate those regions in Night City (R Talsorian games) normally listed as "The combat zone".

Email me for more advice if you'd like it. :)