Cyberpunk: Cash vs. Points Implications

[jhite]

So, I know this question has been addressed - repeatedly - and I know that everyone has a slightly different answer as to how body mods should be bought in cyberpunk games.

My specific concern is one of consequences. What are people's takes on the different consequences of using cash, points, or both to purchase cyberware/bioware/etc?

To try to summarize what I see as the implications and raised questions of each:

Points Only:
1) Character growth is slower, since points will be divided between both "gear" and all other character developments, unless CP are awarded generously
2) What happens - or SHOULD happen - if something removes a PCs ware? For instance, if the PCs lose a combat, and the bad guys salvage their cyberlimbs rather than kill them, do the characters' point totals just plain drop? If so, is that reasonable and/or fun, in your opinions?

Cash Only:
1) Character growth has the potential to outstrip the rate of CP advancement, if characters can get their hands on the requisite cash. Fairly strong reflection of the cyberpunk genre, but has the potential for abuse, and for creating incentives to make less "punk" characters, such as a rich kid who just buys everything in the first game session. (Obviously, can be mitigated by disallowing Increased Wealth)
2) GM doesn't need to worry as much about the balance effects of stolen/damaged ware, since CP totals are fluctuating anyway.
3) Economics of body mod pricing become more sensitive, and a balance must be struck between the laws of supply and demand, and the power/utility of various mods. (This is the one that worries me most)

Points AND Cash:
1) Character advancement slowed by need to both save up points (or accept point debt) AND find the money.
2) May strain disbelief if character has one but not other, yet can't use it.
3) Seems to share economic concerns with "Cash Only."

I know I'm approaching this the long, in-depth way, but what are people's experiences, comments, and recommendations to a would-be GM new to the challenges of the genre?

Thanks!

[Anthony]

The general problem for cash vs points is that being able to buy the same thing with two different currencies, where the prices don't work out as identical, distorts character building, and if there's a conversion method (e.g. Wealth), really really distorts character building.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

You've missed option #4: Points or cash. If you provide two ways to get cyberwear, the presence of each mitigates the problems of exclusive use of the other. Got the money? No obstacles to getting the cyberwear you'd expect to be able to get. Got the points? Ditto.

And, yes, if they lose cyberwear, their point total drops, just like it'd drop if they sustained any other permanent crippling injury.

[Edman]

I'd do what I always do when it comes to actually paying points - what you've paid for, with your points, is plot-protected. If not, someone may very well steal the PCs' cyberware while they sleep if that makes sense plot-wise. However, the character who has paid points will not lose it unless he does something actively stupid and/or heroic, such as giving up his arm to pay for his niece's surgery, for instance.

[jhite]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

You've missed option #4: Points or cash. If you provide two ways to get cyberwear, the presence of each mitigates the problems of exclusive use of the other. Got the money? No obstacles to getting the cyberwear you'd expect to be able to get. Got the points? Ditto.

Well, you're right, I hadn't considered that. Let me specify that I'm concerned with in-game developments. Character generation will be strictly points, if only for sanity's sake.

If you allow Points OR Cash for enhancements acquired in-game, how would you, as a GM, justify the different methods of acquisition? What precisely is a character *doing* if s/he lacks the cash for a Reflex Booster implant for Enhanced Dodge +1, but puts up the required CP between sessions anyway? Would you simply assume that s/he found a way to pay for it? Would you require a temporary subplot dealing with incurred debt?

Even more problematic, what if a character DOES have the money to buy a body mod, but chooses to use only CP instead? For the sake of the narrative and the setting, what the hell just happened to allow that character to get a "free" piece of hardware, economically speaking?

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by jhite

If you allow Points OR Cash for enhancements acquired in-game, how would you, as a GM, justify the different methods of acquisition?

Unspecified favors owed. Sudden windfalls from work they're doing off-screen. Lucky find from an evening of dumpster diving. Maturation of investments they've had put aside but didn't specify up to this point. Charitable assistance. Bank error in your favor. Really, many things bought with CP (skills characters haven't specifically been studying for, completely novel advantages) requires some sort of rationalization along those lines.

Originally Posted by jhite

Would you require a temporary subplot dealing with incurred debt?

Require? No. But I might throw something in if I can think of something interesting.

Originally Posted by jhite

Even more problematic, what if a character DOES have the money to buy a body mod, but chooses to use only CP instead?

Let them. The above rationalizations still work.

Originally Posted by jhite

For the sake of the narrative and the setting, what the hell just happened to allow that character to get a "free" piece of hardware, economically speaking?

They're not getting it for free. They're getting it in exchange for character points. Those points are a pure game construct, so it's up to the GM and the players to decide what, if anything, they represent beyond narrative convenience and privilege which players earn to customize their characters, but it seems to me that that's a determination which needs to be made at the time, and by its very nature more or less requires retcons.

[Kromm]

FWIW, I ran a minicampaign years ago where this came up during character creation, and then a world-jumping campaign where it arose in the course of play. My general solution was this:

• Starting characters who want implants and modifications must use points. They can justify these however they like: stint in the army, good pay on past missions, dad was a surgeon, great wealth, working for the company that makes the stuff, whatever. If they want these background elements to matter going forward, then they should spend some points on suitable social traits – Allies, Contacts, Patrons, Rank, Reputation, Wealth, etc. – none of which grant any cybertech at the start of the campaign. The association between cyber-stuff bought with points and social traits bought with points is purely background material.
  
  
• Characters in play can obtain implants and modifications in two ways:
  
  
  1. They can spend money. Yes, this means that someone could drop 50 points on Filthy Rich and get a bajillion dollars worth of stuff. However, this has a few implications:
     
     
     • The money is really spent. This means less money for other gear.
       
       
     • Surgery isn't instantaneous. There's a waiting list, the procedure itself takes time, and then there's recovery time. All of this is in play, which means sitting out adventures and their rewards (which might include cybertech . . . keep reading). That's the player's decision!
       
       
     • Surgery and recovery can fail. All rolls are made in plain view. Failures don't mean money back unless the PC paid extra for insurance.
       
       
     • Rich people who expect admission to high-end clinics have to pay cost of living for their apparent Status level (e.g., Status 4 if Filthy Rich) for at least as long as they're on the waiting list, under the knife, and recovering.
     
     
  2. They can earn it. This is instead of or as well as discretionary points. In the course of their adventure, they impress someone enough to get into a testing program or special branch – whatever the adventure justifies. In this case, I waive money and cost of living, and assume that the benefactor keeps trying until the procedure works (no need for insurance). Since all the PCs get such a reward, the downtime means that nobody has to sit out anything. Players can opt out of the reward, but I don't give extra points to compensate, and when the inevitable majority who accept the reward recover, the action resumes, whatever Special Snowflake is off doing.

However the modifications are acquired, they raise point value. This is self-evident with starting points, but no less true of items bought with money or granted as rewards. Likewise, short-circuited, ripped-out, and generally messed-up implants lower point value, regardless of how they were obtained. This stuff never gets plot protection, wherever it came from.

Note as well that while cybertech always raises point value, points cannot buy cybertech in play. Or to be precise, they can't buy it at advantage prices. It's legitimate to trade points for cash, as the usual rates and with the usual excuses (lottery winnings, investments, whatever), and then use that like any other money.

All of which is a way of saying that in any kind of transhuman or posthuman setting, the notion of rigid character-point accounting and point-level parity among PCs has to go out the window. Fluidity is more realistic and truer to the source fiction. People gambling a lot of money on implants can get very powerful very quickly, but there are social ramifications (if only missed opportunities while sat in the clinic, and the need to keep up one's payments) and there's always the chance of being stuck with obsolete gear or zapped with a weapon that fries your machine parts. People who prefer to avoid that circus are giving up a quick path to power, but may well end up saving more money in the long run, and certainly won't be at the mercy of skeevy surgeons and dodgy parts.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Kromm

[*]They can earn it. This is instead of or as well as discretionary points. In the course of their adventure, they impress someone enough to get into a testing program or special branch – whatever the adventure justifies. In this case, I waive money and cost of living, and assume that the benefactor keeps trying until the procedure works (no need for insurance). Since all the PCs get such a reward, the downtime means that nobody has to sit out anything. Players can opt out of the reward, but I don't give extra points to compensate, and when the inevitable majority who accept the reward recover, the action resumes, whatever Special Snowflake is off doing.

Something I've been considering is to treat all character advancement in this way - not awarding character points at all, but instead letting players earn advantages during play. It's obvious how this could be implemented for traits like Allies, Contacts, Wealth, cyberware, gadgets, etc. It's less clear how to let players develop purely mental traits (Combat Reflexes, removing existing disadvantages, etc). Skills would of course use the normal training time rules, so this method may need more downtime between adventures than stories with primarily cp-based improvement.

[wellspring]

Originally Posted by Kromm

People gambling a lot of money on implants can get very powerful very quickly, but there are social ramifications (if only missed opportunities while sat in the clinic, and the need to keep up one's payments) and there's always the chance of being stuck with obsolete gear or zapped with a weapon that fries your machine parts. People who prefer to avoid that circus are giving up a quick path to power, but may well end up saving more money in the long run, and certainly won't be at the mercy of skeevy surgeons and dodgy parts.

I use a formalized system based on this.

It's a two-part system. Upgrades that come from technology have to be bought with money (or social currency like favors). You use that to get the plot point lined up: allocate hardware/bioware, technicians, buy consumables like nanobots/pharmaceuticals, etc.

However, you also have to pay in points. When you first get the implant, you buy related disadvantages and limitations equal to the cost of the implant. Then, you buy off those disadvantages with points.

Certain disadvantages (e.g. Temporary Disadvantage: electrical, for cyberware) can never be bought off. But most reflect temporary, post-operative advantages that with treatment eventually go away. Addiction, Dependency and Maintenance are good examples. Psychological disadvantages like bloodthirsty or confused might reflect neurological imbalances that eventually get resolved. Limitations on the advantages are nice because they reflect gradually acquiring an ability that you eventually internalize. There's no end of options here. Of course, the costs might be social instead (Debt if your treatment required financing, Duty if it cost favors to get).

This has several beneficial effects on the game.

1. Players have an incentive to buy up things that reflect natural growth rather than bio-enhancement, because such things don't usually come with strings attached.
   
2. It lets me have several variations on the same Advantage with differing benefits and costs, letting players pick their poison and adding flavor to the bio-enhancement.
   
3. They get to buy on the installment plan. A player who loads up on upgrades too fast gets what they paid for, plus a host of medical disadvantages that only fade over time (realistic, if the side effects interact with one another). This fits the thematic cyberpunk theme of power with a price.
   
4. Most such disadvantages can be bought off slowly, by raising control numbers, for example. Or reducing the Maintenance requirements incrementally.

Of course, it means you have to feed players points at a rate commensurate with smooth operation of the game. But it does keep things even, and players who load up on too many disadvantages have an in-game rationale for why they can't buy more until they've paid down some of what they've already acquired (your metabolism is overloaded with all the tinkering you've done!)

My one recommendation here is to write out the Advantage and the commensurate limitations/disadvantages as a single power. Have a low initial point cost, and then show precisely what each installment of points buys you. Do this in advance. You don't want arguments later. And you, the GM should have final say on the structure of the power's levels. What you want are limitations and disadvantages that the player has a strong incentive to buy off. "Desirable disadvantages" need not apply, except perhaps as permanent features of the power.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Kromm

• Starting characters who want implants and modifications must use points. They can justify these however they like: stint in the army, good pay on past missions, dad was a surgeon, great wealth, working for the company that makes the stuff, whatever.

I generally do things just like you said, but wanted to emphasize this point. Justification should be, IMO, completely separate from points. Just like if you start with a bunch of points in Karate, you're free to say that you've trained since childhood, or you survived the intense training of the cult of the Barehanded Death, or you've been bestowed with the skill by the spirit of a 16th century Tibetan monk, or had the training downloaded directly to your brain, or whatever.