I am experimenting again with connections, this time to try to move the focus away from the gear.
SOFTWIRED
CREATING YOUR CYBERPUNKS
You are street level cyberpunks, note your pronouns alongside your street name and style,
then distribute 3 points between your skill sets:
- MEAT: anything you do with your meat body.
- CYBER: anything you do in cyberspace or while playing with technology.
- PUNK: when your attitude, creativity or streetwise matter.
Instead of a inventory you get connections.
Distribute 8 slots between your three types of connections, these are the maximum number of connections you can have of each types.
- Smart links: gear only matter if you are connected to it.
- Matrix links: connections to data feed and to programs that you run in the matrix.
- Friend lists: connection with other people, each list refer to a specialized online community.
You character start with 3 connections of your choice.
When you try to do something roll 2d6 + MEAT, CYBER or PUNK.
Add one for each connections that apply to the situation.
If the total is equal or greater than the action’s Difficulty Score (DS) it is successful.
If the task is important or dangerous, a miss reduce your COOL by the margin of failure.
DS are 8 (moderate), 10 (challenging) or 12 (hard), 14 (over the edge).
For each connection that exceeds it max subtract 1 from rolls of the appropriate attribute.
Your character start with 10 points of COOL. If your cool reach 0 you break under the pressure and fuck up the scene or the mission objective. During missions you can chose to sacrifice yourself instead, if so your character is retired from the game but the mission objective succeed. Character retired from the game are killed, captured or traced & burned.
Too many smart links hinder MEAT rolls, too many matrix links hinder CYBER rolls and too many friends lists hinder your PUNK rolls.
Your character start with 10 points of COOL. If your cool reach 0 you break under the pressure and fuck up the scene or the mission objective. During missions you can chose to sacrifice yourself instead, if so your character is retired from the game but the mission objective succeed. Character retired from the game are killed, captured or traced & burned.
A character with 0 cool that fucked up can't make tests until they regain some cool.
You can regain your COOL by:
- Accomplishing a mission objective (d6)
- Consuming cooling drugs (d6 by dose) (each dose disable a connection for d6 hours)
- Getting a pep talk from a PC that include a personal confession (d6)
- Being intimate with someone (d6)
- Having positive sex (2d6)
- Partying for the night (2d6)
- Sleeping the night (d6)
MISSIONS
Mission should have between 2 to 6 objective, each with their own DC.
Failing or fucking up a mission objective raise the next objective DC by 2 points.
A mission can have secret objectives that the group can discover by doing some legwork or investigation. Some objectives can also open routes towards optional secondary objectives.
The last (or central) mission objective determine if the mission succeed or fail.
The GM should clearly present the mission objectives to the group (using a points crawl map or a flow chart is a good idea). The GM should also clearly present the mission's stakes, what will happen if the mission succeed and what will happen if the mission fail. It is important that the players know what is at stake.
A successful mission award to the group 1 CRED by objectives. CRED are a group resource, it can be spent by group members to buy stuff or to boost rolls made between missions, each point of CRED spent count as a point of connection. Rolls made in between missions can be about influencing and changing the setting at a street level.
ADVANCEMENT
Level up at the end of a mission.
Level up at the end of a mission.
- Add 1 point to one of your MEAT, CYBER or PUNK attributes.
- Raise your COOL by one OR gain a new connection slot.
