D
Durandal
Guest
Original poster
Introduction
So, I'm pretty new here and not sure about how Iwaku feels about roleplaying games with mechanics. Like pen and paper style RPGs, numerically quantifying your character's capabilities and using those statistics to determine degrees of success in endeavors.
Setting Background
I'd like to run a cyberpunk campaign in a dystopian near-future some twenty or so years from now, with national governments largely rendered irrelevant, corporations having surged in to fill the power vacuum, issuing their own digital currencies, claiming their own territories and providing their own corporate policies and security forces to manage law and order within their areas of influence.
Terrible environmental and manmade disasters have changed the shape of the world, with a biological terrorist attack having unleashed a crippling manufactured disease that turns people into crazed unreasonable cannibals, and a powerful earthquake having rendered Japan unlivable, turning much of Asia and the west coast of the US into a radiation-saturated wasteland filled with dangerous mutated humans and animals.
But in the meantime, technology has continued its eternal march and things are more advanced than ever. Computers have become so small and ubiquitous that everything is connected- everything is online at all times. People experience artificial realities as much as they do actual reality, and when they go out into the latter they do so in an augmented manner with digital overlays casting their experience of the world around them in a much more palatable manner. Cars drive themselves, food and many simple objects are constructed by 3D printers, and items carried out of a store are automatically purchased by having their price deducted from the customer's corporate credit account. Cybernetic replacement limbs are available for those with crippled limbs as well as giving the blind sight and the deaf hearing, plus a wide array of augmentations to improve a person's capabilities beyond the normal human standard.
But that doesn't mean that life is grand. With the rise of corporations comes the increase in corruption, with people treated as commodities. In the greed race there is no room for mercy or ethics, and businesses compete not only through advertising and property battles but through subversive tactics as well, employing mercenaries and criminals to act as 'deniable assets' to carry out their illicit orders to further shadowy goals. That's where the players' characters come in, playing people on the fringe of civilization: either living dangerous double lives with one foot in the system and the other on the curb- or living off the grid entirely, scraping by in the shadows, in the cracks of modern society.
Mechanics
So what do I mean when I say playing with numbers? Well, the easiest way to explain is to say 'think of Dungeons & Dragons' ... only, with a lot less rules. Basically, when you create your character you'll be able to give them points in nine key Attributes that represent their core capacities, three each in physical, social, and mental. You'll also be able to give them levels in skills that represent what they know and are able to do, as well as assign them perks or weaknesses and choose their gear or augmentations, with limits based on how expensive that gear is as well as the mental and psychological impacts of those modifications.
That all sounds pretty complicated but I assure you I'll make it as simple and easily understood as possible, and during play it won't be obtrusive like DnD and other roleplaying mechanics can sometimes be. Most of it will just be used as a guideline for how effective your character's efforts are. For instance, if you write a post about popping the hood on your car and going to work trying to repair the engine, I'll look at your character sheet and find your Logic attribute and Mechanic skill as well as the tools and replacement parts your character has available and compare that to the difficulty of the project and then in my GM post I'll update you with the results, how much has been fixed, how much longer it'll take, and what new parts need to be procured, if relevant. There won't be a whole bunch of dice rolling that will slow down the game, it will all be back end stuff.
So why do it? Well for one, it gives your character a role and abilities to make him unique from everyone else's. It also sets up a bit of randomness to make actions' end results unknown, introducing risk and uncertainty into the RP which is good for something in the cyberpunk genre! There is no guarantee for a good ending in cyberpunk... player characters don't get plot armor. And that's the third benefit of having mechanics- it serves as a hedge against godmoding, completely removing the temptation to autosucceed on difficult tasks, thus ruining plot points or stealing the thunder from a teammate who should actually be getting the limelight. I'm sure we've all been in or could imagine such a situation...
Conclusion
If anyone thinks this would be fun and would like to hear more, please speak up! Like I said, I'm not sure if this kind of roleplaying is popular here so I figured I'd start off with an interest check. If anyone has any questions, please do post them here and I'd be happy to answer them. Thanks!
So, I'm pretty new here and not sure about how Iwaku feels about roleplaying games with mechanics. Like pen and paper style RPGs, numerically quantifying your character's capabilities and using those statistics to determine degrees of success in endeavors.
Setting Background
I'd like to run a cyberpunk campaign in a dystopian near-future some twenty or so years from now, with national governments largely rendered irrelevant, corporations having surged in to fill the power vacuum, issuing their own digital currencies, claiming their own territories and providing their own corporate policies and security forces to manage law and order within their areas of influence.
Terrible environmental and manmade disasters have changed the shape of the world, with a biological terrorist attack having unleashed a crippling manufactured disease that turns people into crazed unreasonable cannibals, and a powerful earthquake having rendered Japan unlivable, turning much of Asia and the west coast of the US into a radiation-saturated wasteland filled with dangerous mutated humans and animals.
But in the meantime, technology has continued its eternal march and things are more advanced than ever. Computers have become so small and ubiquitous that everything is connected- everything is online at all times. People experience artificial realities as much as they do actual reality, and when they go out into the latter they do so in an augmented manner with digital overlays casting their experience of the world around them in a much more palatable manner. Cars drive themselves, food and many simple objects are constructed by 3D printers, and items carried out of a store are automatically purchased by having their price deducted from the customer's corporate credit account. Cybernetic replacement limbs are available for those with crippled limbs as well as giving the blind sight and the deaf hearing, plus a wide array of augmentations to improve a person's capabilities beyond the normal human standard.
But that doesn't mean that life is grand. With the rise of corporations comes the increase in corruption, with people treated as commodities. In the greed race there is no room for mercy or ethics, and businesses compete not only through advertising and property battles but through subversive tactics as well, employing mercenaries and criminals to act as 'deniable assets' to carry out their illicit orders to further shadowy goals. That's where the players' characters come in, playing people on the fringe of civilization: either living dangerous double lives with one foot in the system and the other on the curb- or living off the grid entirely, scraping by in the shadows, in the cracks of modern society.
Mechanics
So what do I mean when I say playing with numbers? Well, the easiest way to explain is to say 'think of Dungeons & Dragons' ... only, with a lot less rules. Basically, when you create your character you'll be able to give them points in nine key Attributes that represent their core capacities, three each in physical, social, and mental. You'll also be able to give them levels in skills that represent what they know and are able to do, as well as assign them perks or weaknesses and choose their gear or augmentations, with limits based on how expensive that gear is as well as the mental and psychological impacts of those modifications.
That all sounds pretty complicated but I assure you I'll make it as simple and easily understood as possible, and during play it won't be obtrusive like DnD and other roleplaying mechanics can sometimes be. Most of it will just be used as a guideline for how effective your character's efforts are. For instance, if you write a post about popping the hood on your car and going to work trying to repair the engine, I'll look at your character sheet and find your Logic attribute and Mechanic skill as well as the tools and replacement parts your character has available and compare that to the difficulty of the project and then in my GM post I'll update you with the results, how much has been fixed, how much longer it'll take, and what new parts need to be procured, if relevant. There won't be a whole bunch of dice rolling that will slow down the game, it will all be back end stuff.
So why do it? Well for one, it gives your character a role and abilities to make him unique from everyone else's. It also sets up a bit of randomness to make actions' end results unknown, introducing risk and uncertainty into the RP which is good for something in the cyberpunk genre! There is no guarantee for a good ending in cyberpunk... player characters don't get plot armor. And that's the third benefit of having mechanics- it serves as a hedge against godmoding, completely removing the temptation to autosucceed on difficult tasks, thus ruining plot points or stealing the thunder from a teammate who should actually be getting the limelight. I'm sure we've all been in or could imagine such a situation...
Conclusion
If anyone thinks this would be fun and would like to hear more, please speak up! Like I said, I'm not sure if this kind of roleplaying is popular here so I figured I'd start off with an interest check. If anyone has any questions, please do post them here and I'd be happy to answer them. Thanks!