[CyberPunk] CyberPsychosis

[NilesB]

Personally I think there needs to be a system for CyberPsychosis.

If you've never seen it try to get a hold of the AD Police (cyberpunk anime) episode entitled "The Man Who Bites His Tongue". After watching it I'm sure you can agree that getting more and more artificial parts grafted onto your body steadily decreases your sanity.

I've seen "The Man Who Bites His Tongue", and I'd say that When a man has been immobilized in a dark closet and subjected to a sustained program of emotional and sexual abuse, that is the first thing you want to look at as the source of his psychiatric problems.

 

[Victim]

Cyberpsychosis always seemed like a rather heavy handed and ineffective method of emphasizing themes of alienation.

 

[coyote6]

Mechanics wise, though, I would prefer that Humanity loss (or whatever) not be tied solely to cybernetics. I'm thinking more along the lines of Unknown Armies' madness meters, with cyber implants being substituted for supernatural encounters. This makes cybernetics one of several stressors available in the setting. Sure, substituting your arm for a machine gun is going to change your attitude and outlook and cause stress. But so does getting shot at every night, or betrayal by loved ones.

What he said. In cyberpunk fiction, there (generally) isn't something about the machinery itself that was dehumanizing; it was that the entire milieu was dehumanizing.

You can posit that the cyberware in a game, due to brain or nervous system damage, actually does bad things to one's brain (chemically, electrically, whatever), and that would be cool -- but that's not a standard trope of the fiction I've read.

I'll take issue with that statement. I have gone back to the sources, and am trying to focus on the dehumanizing effect of rapid technological advance - futureshock - that was a key element of the genre.

Yes, but IMHO, it wasn't because they stuck the rapidly advancing technological devices in their bodies. And it was more than just rapid technological advancements; it was also cultural (the corporate culture, etc.).

Have you read Market Forces? Plenty of dehumanization -- metric tons of it -- and no real cyberware, IIRC. Certainly no vatjobs or wired reflexes; but lots and lots of violence, alienation, and dehumanization.

IMO, in (most) cyberpunk fiction, the cyber doesn't cause the psychosis -- it's more like one of the symptoms. The artificial impressions one gets from extensive cyberware might certainly tend to encourage feelings of alienation and such -- but I don't think it's s as simple as, "hey, we rebuilt you, now you're crazy because of it." No, you're crazy because horrific things happened to you to maim you and it was repaired with cybernetics and gosh maybe the horrific things messed your head up too; or you were crazy and went and had chunks of your body ripped out to make yourself more dangerous; or you were in a violence-filled environment, trained to kill without remorse, and maybe that's not conducive to good mental health.

 

[HellHound]

What he said. In cyberpunk fiction, there (generally) isn't something about the machinery itself that was dehumanizing; it was that the entire milieu was dehumanizing.

And that's the main focus of this game, and my goal in these design discussions. I'm aiming for a setting that causes alienation, and mechanics that represent this, as well our fight to prevent it by forming social groupings (the new tribes).

Thanks.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I liked Market Forces...

But I still think that mechanically speaking the Grimm's Cybertales is the best fit for relative ease of use and variation. It could be adapted to have Humanity loss come from other reasons beyond cyberware.. like drugs, violent event.. {shades of the SAN loss in Chuthulu}

The second peice that would need to be added is 'Humanity Gain'... actions/things that recover lost points and thereby reduce the alienation effects. Stuff like being part of an affiliation/group, etc...

 

[Baron Opal]

One thing I always had difficulty with in Cyberpunk and Shadowrun is that you could suffer a trauma, get your arm sawn off, get a new metallic arm that replicated all of the previous limb's features even to the point of appearance. That was more damaging to your psyche than planting a bomb on a bus, detonating it as it was going over a bridge and waiting down stream to pick off the survivors with your customized rifle.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

I've seen "The Man Who Bites His Tongue", and I'd say that When a man has been immobilized in a dark closet and subjected to a sustained program of emotional and sexual abuse, that is the first thing you want to look at as the source of his psychiatric problems.

My response would be that the reason that they locked him in a dark closet and subjected him to the "programs" was because as I stated before the people around him no longer thought of him as a human. See my mannequin analogy above. A vicious cycle emerges that causes the psychosis. The "normal" people that interact with the borg reinforce the psychosis whether consciously or subconsciously.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

One thing I always had difficulty with in Cyberpunk and Shadowrun is that you could suffer a trauma, get your arm sawn off, get a new metallic arm that replicated all of the previous limb's features even to the point of appearance. That was more damaging to your psyche than planting a bomb on a bus, detonating it as it was going over a bridge and waiting down stream to pick off the survivors with your customized rifle.

Perhaps then a Humanity/Morality scale such as in Vampire and nWOD? A hierarchy of sins? Sounds good to me! If you do something below your current point in the scale you make a morality roll to see if your sense of morality drops. It becomes increasingly easier for you to justify more and more horrific actions.

 

[NilesB]

My response would be that the reason that they locked him in a dark closet and subjected him to the "programs" was because as I stated before the people around him no longer thought of him as a human.

Which says nothing about him and everything about the people around him.

 

[Kichwas]

Humanity loss through cyberware is -NOT- part of the original literary genre.

It's a game balance mechanic in the Cyberpunk RPG, that's all. It also connects in a sense to a distorted perception of the genre, but it is not generally a major aspect of the literature, nor even a minor one. It is as much a defining element of Cyberpunk as Aslon is of fantasy - it might be an isolated theme in a few works here or there, but you won't find it as something even on the radar in the larger view.


Unless your game design suffers from an inability to balance your gadgets mechanics, you don't need it.

And it's not even present in all of the RPG adaptations of the genre. Most of which are based not on the literature, but on Pondsmith's game. The few with literary inspiration separate from Pondsmith tend to not include this mechanic.


If you are going to write a Cyberpunk RPG or setting, I strongly suggest first throwing out or locking away ALL of your Cyberpunk-claiming RPG material. Next read 10-20 different novels in the genre, and an assortment of movies. Different authors for every piece if possible.

While I do not like the book, Neuromancer is a must because it shapes the views of so many fans. But Software is required because it nearly started the genre for authors. Beyond that, get at least half your literature from material written in the 90s or later, and at least one from something written before the 70s (yes, they exist, and if you can't find them you don't know your Cyberpunk).

It also helps to have one or two anime in there, a lot like getting an anime or video game can help today with connecting to younger fans of fantasy. You may not like it, but your fans are getting emerged in it and you should at least understand it.

But don't open those RPGs until your own work is at least 90% complete.

If you do RPGs, you already understand action and plot for RPGs, and other than that those books have nothing of value to give you other than a lot of preconceived genre ideas that may or may not be totally off base.