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Just a short little semi-ranty post tonight on the subject of cyborgs. Let me be clear in stating that I am NO fan of having cyborgs in the game. There presence requires special rules be drawn up that only apply to them and arbitrary limits on the technology they can have. If a cyborg can simply buy a blaster with the same effect as Fireball what's the point of all the training other fighters have to do? Not to mention the inherent segregation of powers by style!
However, they exist despite my dislike of them. They are canon for the RPG. Echoes of the technology appear in the games and the anime. So I can't just ignore them.
The main problem is: How do you determine what implants a given cyborg is, how they work, and what drawbacks they have if any? That's not as easy as it sounds. In the Player's Guide cyborgs start with a penalty to permanent Honor that can put them into the negatives. I'm not particularly fond of that solution and it's the chief reason I haven't gone ahead with converting the Shadowrun method of eroding humanity.
Honor is a weird stat. It is both the perception other fighters have of your honesty and reliability as well as your own sense of moral dignity. There are lots of ways of gaining or losing Honor related to shaming and simple loss of conscience. If you establish that, by default, all cybernetics drops the Honor cap (which I should point out is something that not even Ler Drit can do) you run into a problem of stereotyping the prosthesis in a way that is completely unrealistic. Is a person with a prosthetic arm more likely to develop a psychosis purely because of the artificial limb?
Once phrased in that light it seems not only ridiculous but downright cruel. Because of that reason I haven't been able to make myself finish the cyborg rules. If any stat would be penalized, besides maybe Appearance, it would be the maximum Chi cap. That at least can be justified by saying the loss of flesh reduces the avaible mass for generating energy. Of course that runs into another problem. If that is true then why wouldn't larger people have bigger Chi caps?
The search for a solution is ongoing.
----------------
Now playing: Scott C. Lee - Palace Theme
via FoxyTunes
However, they exist despite my dislike of them. They are canon for the RPG. Echoes of the technology appear in the games and the anime. So I can't just ignore them.
The main problem is: How do you determine what implants a given cyborg is, how they work, and what drawbacks they have if any? That's not as easy as it sounds. In the Player's Guide cyborgs start with a penalty to permanent Honor that can put them into the negatives. I'm not particularly fond of that solution and it's the chief reason I haven't gone ahead with converting the Shadowrun method of eroding humanity.
Honor is a weird stat. It is both the perception other fighters have of your honesty and reliability as well as your own sense of moral dignity. There are lots of ways of gaining or losing Honor related to shaming and simple loss of conscience. If you establish that, by default, all cybernetics drops the Honor cap (which I should point out is something that not even Ler Drit can do) you run into a problem of stereotyping the prosthesis in a way that is completely unrealistic. Is a person with a prosthetic arm more likely to develop a psychosis purely because of the artificial limb?
Once phrased in that light it seems not only ridiculous but downright cruel. Because of that reason I haven't been able to make myself finish the cyborg rules. If any stat would be penalized, besides maybe Appearance, it would be the maximum Chi cap. That at least can be justified by saying the loss of flesh reduces the avaible mass for generating energy. Of course that runs into another problem. If that is true then why wouldn't larger people have bigger Chi caps?
The search for a solution is ongoing.
----------------
Now playing: Scott C. Lee - Palace Theme
via FoxyTunes
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