Cyberpunk: Cash vs. Points Implications

[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.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by jhite

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?

Points only is well suited to games where the characters get their gear from an organization, or the GM doesn't want the hassle of keeping track of money. What should happen if something removes a PCs ware is that he gets replacement gear.


[

U]Cash Only[/U]:
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)

Cash only is well suited to games where every single character is going to be getting it although this tendency can be mitigated by making EMP weapons common.

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."

The need to save up points can be avoided by letting characters take disadvantages to pay the deficit. Voila. Cyberpsychos.

[wellspring]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The need to save up points can be avoided by letting characters take disadvantages to pay the deficit. Voila. Cyberpsychos.

Well, sometimes. Don't forget disadvantages and limitations that represent post-operative therapy, training in using the new advantage, and the body acclimating to the change.

Example:

Melanie buys a Catfall upgrade. This consists of some pretty subtle work: inner-ear changes, some nanosurgical brain upgrades and improved connective tissue and cartilage. It'll take some time for her body to recover from the surgery, and also to internalize her instincts.

Catfall costs 10 points. Consider a few options:

1. NeuYou specializes in biokinetics and physical upgrades. The physical aspects of the surgery are ready on day one... but the neural upgrades aren't well integrated and take time to seat themselves. Buy Catfall as Unreliable (Activation number 5, -80%) for 2 points. The player can later come back and buy the target number up, eventually eliminating it altogether.
   
2. Olympian Biotronics has a different version of Catfall. Their approach requires a lot of hand-holding and post-operative therapy, but integrates very quickly and cleanly with the patient's brain. Buy Catfall for free (paying the cash cost, of course), paired with the disadvantage Maintenance (Weekly, 2 people, -10). You need a physical therapist and a neurologist to check and fine-tune the implant on a weekly basis while it seats itself. Buy the frequency of the office visits down as you get the points, until the advantage is completely grown in.

There are rumors of a military version, supposedly available in black clinics, that gives you instant Catfall without any post-op treatment or side effects at all! If this were really the case, it would almost certainly come with some major strings attached (Duty, for example).

There are other possibilities, of course, but I believe that this approach should be the default in most transhumanist campaigns. It's an improvement both mechanically and thematically.

[Peter Knutsen]

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.

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

Points don't work for character advancement, if you ascribe value to the character's perspective.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by wellspring

There are other possibilities, of course, but I believe that this approach should be the default in most transhumanist campaigns. It's an improvement both mechanically and thematically.

It is a nice approach. Thanks for sharing!

[Jovus]

Originally Posted by wellspring

There are other possibilities, of course, but I believe that this approach should be the default in most transhumanist campaigns. It's an improvement both mechanically and thematically.

Me-tooing, in that I think this is a very suave way to do things.

Added bonus: as GM you can rule that certain disadvantages/limitations permanently come with the territory, giving different methods different flavors.

[Lamech]

Originally Posted by wellspring

There are other possibilities, of course, but I believe that this approach should be the default in most transhumanist campaigns. It's an improvement both mechanically and thematically.

Hmm... and then if it gets stolen or damaged you can just rebuy it and start off where you were before?

[The Rampant Gamer]

Originally Posted by wellspring

There are other possibilities, of course, but I believe that this approach should be the default in most transhumanist campaigns. It's an improvement both mechanically and thematically.

Was desperately looking for a "reputation" or "+1" button to give you credit for this. It's well thought out, and lends the very kind of specificity to the advantages that most generic games avoid, lest they pollute someone else's ideas or prevent creativity. Consider this idea stolen in it's entirety.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Points only is well suited to games where the characters get their gear from an organization, or the GM doesn't want the hassle of keeping track of money.

It's also well suited to a cyborg comic book superhero, who doesn't really have cybernetics at all, only superpowers that are called "cybernetics" rather than "mutant" or whatever. The same goes for just about any other technology based superhero.

[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.