CT Only: Cyborg ideas and resources

[jaz0nj4ckal]

Folks,
I have come to the point that a player wants to have some cyborg items. I want to limit them; however, when I say cyborg items - I am not talking about over the top super human items.

When I say cyborg, I am thinking more along the lines of Luke Skywalk's hand. Something that is a replacement for an limb or body part lost.

However, the latter brings me to another point. If someone loses an eye, and they replace it... I might can see the possibility of having a IR eye for night vision. But due to the latter, I need some guidance or resources to balance my game.

What have you folks done in the past with items that I have detailed? How would I handle strength with new cyborg arms? How could I handle jumping with new cyborg legs.

Thank you
JJ

 

[egor045]

Folks,
I have come to the point that a player wants to have some cyborg items. I want to limit them; however, when I say cyborg items - I am not talking about over the top super human items.

When I say cyborg, I am thinking more along the lines of Luke Skywalk's hand. Something that is a replacement for an limb or body part lost.

However, the latter brings me to another point. If someone loses an eye, and they replace it... I might can see the possibility of having a IR eye for night vision. But due to the latter, I need some guidance or resources to balance my game.

What have you folks done in the past with items that I have detailed? How would I handle strength with new cyborg arms? How could I handle jumping with new cyborg legs.

Thank you
JJ

Cyborg limbs have to attach to the body at some point. They either are grafted on to the humerus or femur, or they replace the entire bone and sit into the shoulder or hip socket (perhaps a replacement socket grafted into the scapula or pelvis). Having cyborg arms strong enough to throw an ATV won't do you much good if if they rip out of your body when you try to throw that ATV. Similarly, having legs that allow you jump 20m into the air will probably shatter your hips when you land. Any improvement in lifting or jumping strength should remain in the normal human range. That said, a cyborg hand strong enough to crush a billiard ball could be feasible - crushing a billiard ball doesn't transfer force to the rest of the body.

A night vision capable artificial eye might require a cooling system (think about how hot your phone gets when you use the video camera); you will also need to deal with a battery. Such a modification could require external changes (cooling vanes or a miniature PC fan in the temple). Alistair Reynolds' Revelation Space novels featured Conjoiners, humans who were cyborgized with neural enhancements. They ended up with distorted heads featuring cooling systems and generally looked quite inhuman. This approach could impose a negative DM on face to face encounters, particularly if these enhancements are rare. Imagine the character sneaking through the slums of Startown, followed by a gang of jeering children ...

Enhancements will also need a power source. How likely is it that they need recharging at an inopportune moment?

 

[Ulsyus]

How detailed do you want to be with this? The mechanical method is to consider power sources, TLs, the cost of similar items & how much you imagine it would cost to miniaturise.

Had you thought of simply running with the effect you wanted, charging more than the player wants (which is almost always going to be the case....) and noting it on their character sheet?

Servicing times and means is always good to work out, plus a list of the things that can cause it to malfunction or require servicing or repair, that way those sorts of things can be added to scenarios so that if they fail to manage that risk the player, who normally has an advantage gained from their enhancement, then has to deal with a handicap until the damage/problem is rectified.

 

[aramis]

A night vision capable artificial eye might require a cooling system (think about how hot your phone gets when you use the video camera); you will also need to deal with a battery.

Most of that heat is the CPU; cybereyes can go with raw parallel data (and the current gen do just that), uncooled IR-CCDs. You can make a CCD that is IR sensitve now, without it needing to be cooledThe brain may take a while to map out the 4 th color, but it will, and you don't need high draw sensors nor cpus, as the brain is capable of doing just that.

Likewise, the focus pulling can be done by the extant musclar nerves when there's no prior nerve damage. CPU requirements minimal.

 

[egor045]

Most of that heat is the CPU; cybereyes can go with raw parallel data (and the current gen do just that), uncooled IR-CCDs. You can make a CCD that is IR sensitve now, without it needing to be cooledThe brain may take a while to map out the 4 th color, but it will, and you don't need high draw sensors nor cpus, as the brain is capable of doing just that.

Likewise, the focus pulling can be done by the extant musclar nerves when there's no prior nerve damage. CPU requirements minimal.

That's a shame. I kind of liked the idea of a cooling fan stuck to the side of the head.

 

[Condottiere]

Ears, in through one, out through the other.

Or elephant cooler upgrades.

 

[whartung]

That's a shame. I kind of liked the idea of a cooling fan stuck to the side of the head.

Just bolt the heatsink to the top of your head. Go to the District, and you can find them in all sorts of fashionable colors and designs to suit your mood. Don't forget, you'll probably be going through Thermal Paste like pomade if you keep swapping it out.

That said, there's nothing more annoying and waking up finding your heatsink popped off and your arm "asleep" in thermal shutdown.

 

[coliver988]

Ears, in through one, out through the other.

Or elephant cooler upgrades.

:rofl:

I can see it now - you can tell how strong the cyber parts are based on the size of the ears. So people wanting to seem stronger have huge fake ears. Sortof like tuner cars now - lots of fake pieces out there just to look, well, whatever they think they are looking/sounding like.

 

[infojunky]

In general I have allowed replacement limbs as direct replacements of the missing limb with similar stats and performance.

The 1st character with a missing arm had a "modular" set of arms each rigged for different functions with the appropriate tools built in.

Other solutions for this quest all depended on the specific set of rules being used. Mostly in Snapshot like terms.

Wired reflexes, add a number of action points. Replacement legs lowered the movement costs.

Direct Neural Interfaces Lowered the penalty for doing multiple actions in a turn with appropriated rigged equipment.

Honestly it is more about lowering penalties on specific tasks rather than add a bunch of New capabilities has been the route I have used.

 

[ShapeShifter]

Folks,
I have come to the point that a player wants to have some cyborg items. I want to limit them; however, when I say cyborg items - I am not talking about over the top super human items.

When I say cyborg, I am thinking more along the lines of Luke Skywalk's hand. Something that is a replacement for an limb or body part lost.

However, the latter brings me to another point. If someone loses an eye, and they replace it... I might can see the possibility of having a IR eye for night vision. But due to the latter, I need some guidance or resources to balance my game.

What have you folks done in the past with items that I have detailed? How would I handle strength with new cyborg arms? How could I handle jumping with new cyborg legs.

Thank you
JJ

A player who wants to play a cyborg and who doesn't get unusual strength from the prosthetics would be disappointed, like asking to play Superman, but being told that you can't fly.

For total Seventies Awesomeness, go with The Six Million Dollar Man!
Steve Austin's bionics allowed him to do superhuman feats, but there were situations where the bionics malfunctioned or shut down. Extreme cold would cause the bionic arms/legs to get stiff and not function; radiation in space would screw up his bionic eye. The calibration of the hands, for example, would be a tricky business: if not adjusted correctly he would accidentally chop a coffee-table in half with his little finger or crush someone's hand. That would have caused some issues when pitching woo with Farrah. o:

 

[Condottiere]

 

[JFGarber]

For how it's playing out in real life, see the article below.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/m...on-genetics-medicine-brain-technology-cyborg/

 

[nobby-w]

The rule of thumb I use with psionic abilities or other powers is that if you can do something functionally equivalent with a gadget then there isn't really a balance issue. I think a cyborg ability could fairly safely follow the same guidelines. If you want your character to be a cyborg superhero, however, you have a different type of game on your hands.

For example, low-light vision can be accomplished by getting a set of night vision goggles. The only mcguffin is that it's built into the character.

An attack could do as much damage as a personal weapon without affecting balance; the same effect can be achieved by arming a character with a personal weapon. If the attack was as powerful as (say) a high level artillery spell in D&D then there might be a balance problem.

Enhanced strength or speed can be limited by the potential of damage to the real skeleton or muscles. Endurance can be limited by needing to re-fuel or recharge batteries. This might, for example, be a problem if your character was playing Marooned Alone. Perhaps the enhancements light up on scanners like a christmas tree.

If it gets damaged where do you get parts or repair services? Can it get jarred out of alignment?

Actually, the books that The Six Million Dollar Man was based on - Cyborg and Operation Nuke - go a little into things that the bionic limbs could do. For example, they had enough room for an air bottle and could paddle underwater without increasing his need for oxygen through the exertion.

 

[mike wightman]

The MgT 2e core rule book has some cyberware, as does the CSC.
Personally I used Cyberpunk for years as a guide to body part replacement with mechanicals, the description at least.

Game effects have to be very different...

Low TL body part replacement carries a penalty to rolls and stats of between -3 and -1, TL7-8 has no penalty and by the end of TL8 are superficially similar to the replaced body part.

TL9 and above is where augmentation becomes possible, with bonuses of 1-3 on stats or dice rolls possible depending on the type of augmentation and its cost.

 

[Supplement Four]

I don't know if this will help, but the old Traveller Chronicle, a fan magazine written for TNE, included articles about cyborg options and bionic implants.

 

[kilemall]

Any robot rules should be doable, requiring miniaturization tech to work in humanoid form factors.

 

[LiNeNoiSe]

I don't know if this will help, but the old Traveller Chronicle, a fan magazine written for TNE, included articles about cyborg options and bionic implants.

There's also MGT Supplement 8: Cybernetics and Techbook: Chrome by Terra/Sol Games for their Twilight Sector.

 

[LiNeNoiSe]

That would have caused some issues when pitching woo with Farrah. o:

What was it about that girl and mechanical men?

 

[ShapeShifter]

What was it about that girl and mechanical men?

:rofl:

Love that cheesy movie. It's so-bad-it's-almost-good.
Two takeaways from that movie: Blue Dreamers pills* and Keitel's neck-socket to link with his robot pal. Both perfect for Traveller!

The latter is another great idea for cyborg-adaptation. A similar concept was mandatory for all PCs in the obscure, gonzo scifi RPG Space Quest. They were jacks which allowed PCs to literally plug into ships to operate them:

Riggers are characters who have received the Rigger Operation, allowing the computers and controls for space flight mechanisms to be plugged into and controlled by their central nervous systems. This allows them to react as if the ship's elements were part of their own body.

-----
* although I'm still not sure what effect(s) they would have on PCs.

 

[Condottiere]

There's the organic option.