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Message no. 1
From: Todd Montgomery <tmont@****.WVU.WVNET.EDU>
Subject: Essence and Behavior: A Proposal
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 93 15:40:50 CET
People with a lot of cyberware being a bit edgy, insane, crazy, etc.
has been in many of the cyberpunkish books I have read. It seems to
make a lot of sense, replace the meat with metal and the body copes as
best it can, a little chemical imbalance. Oh, the wonders of
technology.

And as Chris Siebenmann pointed out, CYBERPUNK does have
cyberpsychosis as its game balancing mechanism, as SR has essence. But
the way we, my gaming group, has always played, the more cyberware you
have, the more machine you seem to act. Now this wasn't always the
case, but it did add a good bit of color and personality to the Street
Sams. I was under the impression in SR1, way back when, that not very
many people had cyberware. CRAZY ME. I made people react to heavily
chromed individuals with suspicion, fear, and some general loathing.
This made the people with low or no cyberware become the talkers and
negotiators of the group. This seemed to work pretty well. Except for
obvious defects like the Fixer with 0.2 Essence, etc. But it was ALL
subjective. Now when SRII came out, we changed it and made cyberware
more prevalent (sp). And it seems to also be working fine. But I still
like the concept of the general public kind of uncertain about HEAVILY
chromed individuals. So in that regard I have come up with this sort
of preliminary idea. Tell me what you think, I am very open to any
comments about this.

People who have essence in the 0.9 to 0.0 range are so heavily invaded
by cyberware that they tend to have mannerisms that alarm the average
Joe on the street. To show the reaction such indivduals usually
receive, adjust the cybered individuals Social Skill T# by the amount
below.

Essence + to T# of Social Skills
6 - 1.0 +0
0.1 - 0.2 +1
0.19 - 0.1 +1 (+2 when stressed)
0.09 - 0.0 +2

By Social Skills I mean Etiquettes, Negotiation, Leadership, etc. All
the Social SKills. Individual GMs may want to work out exactly which
skills.

The penalty would not always have to be enforced. Sometimes, with a
lot of concentration, therapy, etc., a cybered person could actively
supress the mannersims. Thus lowering the penalty.

This is just a small idea at the moment. Any commenst?

-- Quiktek
tmont@****.wvu.wvnet.edu
Message no. 2
From: jlperkin@***.NCSU.EDU
Subject: Re: Essence and Behavior: A Proposal
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 93 10:11:15 EST
>
> People with a lot of cyberware being a bit edgy, insane, crazy, etc.
> has been in many of the cyberpunkish books I have read. It seems to
> make a lot of sense, replace the meat with metal and the body copes as
> best it can, a little chemical imbalance. Oh, the wonders of
> technology.
>
> And as Chris Siebenmann pointed out, CYBERPUNK does have
> cyberpsychosis as its game balancing mechanism, as SR has essence. But
> the way we, my gaming group, has always played, the more cyberware you
> have, the more machine you seem to act. Now this wasn't always the
> case, but it did add a good bit of color and personality to the Street
> Sams. I was under the impression in SR1, way back when, that not very
> many people had cyberware. CRAZY ME. I made people react to heavily
> chromed individuals with suspicion, fear, and some general loathing.
> This made the people with low or no cyberware become the talkers and
> negotiators of the group. This seemed to work pretty well. Except for
> obvious defects like the Fixer with 0.2 Essence, etc. But it was ALL
> subjective. Now when SRII came out, we changed it and made cyberware
> more prevalent (sp). And it seems to also be working fine. But I still
> like the concept of the general public kind of uncertain about HEAVILY
> chromed individuals. So in that regard I have come up with this sort
> of preliminary idea. Tell me what you think, I am very open to any
> comments about this.
>
> People who have essence in the 0.9 to 0.0 range are so heavily invaded
> by cyberware that they tend to have mannerisms that alarm the average
> Joe on the street. To show the reaction such indivduals usually
> receive, adjust the cybered individuals Social Skill T# by the amount
> below.
>
> Essence + to T# of Social Skills
> 6 - 1.0 +0
> 0.1 - 0.2 +1
> 0.19 - 0.1 +1 (+2 when stressed)
> 0.09 - 0.0 +2
>
> By Social Skills I mean Etiquettes, Negotiation, Leadership, etc. All
> the Social SKills. Individual GMs may want to work out exactly which
> skills.
>
> The penalty would not always have to be enforced. Sometimes, with a
> lot of concentration, therapy, etc., a cybered person could actively
> supress the mannersims. Thus lowering the penalty.
>
> This is just a small idea at the moment. Any commenst?
>
> -- Quiktek
> tmont@****.wvu.wvnet.edu
>

Personally, I prefer my own concept:
Essence is simply a determination of the amount of load your nervous
system can take. At 6 it can take a lot, at 0, it can't take any more
stress. Cyberware is taxing on the nervous system, but can be used
to a point without harm to the system. Somethings cause greater stress
on the system and therefore have higher essence costs.
Essence change (unlike Cyberpunk) would not change personality
at all, until the nervous system can't take the load anymore, less than
zero, where the system either shuts down entirely (death), or certain
clusters in the nervous system develop serious flaws (the brain, with
psychoses, neurosis, etc.). I have not had anyone try to go negative
yet, so I haven't had to worry about wether or not to allow people to
not simply die. I prefer this simply because it does not turn all street
samurai into talking robots, who all act the same.

Killjoy.
Message no. 3
From: Chris Siebenmann <cks@********.UTCS.TORONTO.EDU>
Subject: Re: Essence and Behavior: A Proposal
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 93 13:36:59 -0500
Quite frankly, cybered types are already hosed enough without
automatic penalties to social skills. Make it *roleplayed*; a
law-abiding citizen is not going to react well to someone with obvious
combat cyber (unless the cybergoon is trying to intimidate), but a
ganger might well be impressed. And people who were careful to
get non-visible stuff may be untouched, at least until they do
something that shows heavy reflex boosting.

- cks

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Thwap!