Hardwired für Cyberpunk2020

Im Laufe der Jahre, die ich Cyberpunk2020 spiele, bin ich immer wieder über das Quellenbuch HARDWIRED gestolpert. Blätterte es durch. Fand die Illus mäßig. Und legte es weg, da es nicht zu meiner laufenden Cyberpunk 2020 Runde in Night City passte (was vor allem daran liegt, dass es Night City bei HARDWIRED nicht gibt).

Inzwischen hatte ich Gelegenheit, den Roman HARDWIRED von Walter Jon Williams zu lesen. Und in Folge meiner Begeisterung auch gleich das HARDWIRED Buch für Cyberpunk 2020 als PDF bei Drivethru zu ziehen (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=2275&it=1 ).

Mein Fazit: HARDWIRED (Roman und Quellenbuch) ist Pflichtlektüre für CP2020 Fans. Und das liegt vor allem an folgenden Facetten:

HARDWIRED: Roman und Setting

Im Gegensatz zum sehr Achtziger-beeinflussten Cyberpunk2020 Grundsetting ist das Setting von HARDWIRED sowohl zeitloser als auch aktueller als auch “fokussierter”: Wie es sich für ein Cyberpunk-Setting gehört, ist die Welt am Arsch. Im Falle von HARDWIRED haben mächtige internationale Interessengemeinschaften den Orbit übernommen und die Erdstaaten in einem Steinbrockenkrieg faktisch entmachtet. Continue reading “Hardwired für Cyberpunk2020”

Fashion: Drugs

This drug is the future of coffee. Take it, and even not having slept for 36 hours won’t lessen your ability to function. The DARPA has funded scientists who discovered a drug that will eliminate sleepiness and keeps the drugs user alert.

orexin A is a hormone that is naturally occuring in the brain. Monkeys treated with the drug after 36 hours without sleep were as able to do awareness tests as well as monkeys who had been allowed to sleep. More about the study can be found here.

I figured that everybody would be addicted as soon as this drug hits the steets: Soldiers (for whom it has been developed), corporates, freelancers… so here are the stats (based on Ocelots Drug Lab 101)


orexin A

Drug Effects:
No need to sleepUntimed Side Effects:
Mildly Psychologically Addictive
Drug Features:
Longer DurationTimed Side Effects:
None
Totals:
Strength: +3
Difficulty: 30
Duration: Medium
(1d6x10 minutes)
Legality: Legal/Common
Drug Form: Nasal Spray Time to Effect: 10+2d10 sec
Purchase Price: 10

Designed using Night Flyer’s Drug Lab Java Calculator for Ocelot’s Drug Lab v3.0 @ www.paper-dragon.com


I had to edit some stuff. The drug is based on the effect “Increased Duration”, so please look there for overdosing rules. Purchase Price would be 0eb, but there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, so its 10eb.

The Big Book of Drugs for Cyberpunk 2020

The Big Book of DrugsTM for Cyberpunk 2020

[This article contains real and fictional drugs to be used with the Cyberpunk 2020 roleplaying game. The author does not advice condone the use of real drugs. Using drugs as a topic in a roleplaying game should used be resposibly. See the licence at the end of this article.]

The More Then Complete List of Drugs for Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0.

Hi. A friend told me to see you. I hear you need stuff, right?

Sure, yes, all right. Don’t be so shy, chombatta. Keep cool. This little thingy makes it impossible to overhear us. Relax! But then you don’t look like you are after Dowers. I guess you need Speed, Man. Am I right? I have it all. ALL. You just need to tell me what you want.

– at a corner near you.

This is the ultimate and complete “BIG BOOK OF DRUGS” based on Ocelot’s Drug Lab 101. I guess it can be used with normal Cyberpunk 2020, too. Check it out!

Your characters won’t use drugs? They read the drugs in the Cyberpunk 2020 Rulebook and said: “No way?” Shock ’em. Give your Boosters all those nice REF-boosting drugs. As NPCs they don’t really have to worry about side effects. If little 10-year-old Billy high on Lace is faster then the partys solo, your players will reconsider… Especially if little Bill is one hell of a shooter with his boosted REF…

Click here to see BIG BOOK OF DRUGS


Creative Commons License

Creative Commons-Licence

Zombie Drug

I found an article about Scopolamine on boing-boing. It’s a really scary drug, taking your free will away and allready available. Criminals love it – they can force the victim to give them all its money or use them sexually. Its also very likely to kill the user right away. That makes it instant cyberpunk 2020 game material for me. I figured I would need some hard game rules for the drug, so my first stop was Ocelots Drug Lab 101 and the wonderfully helpful Javascript Tool Night-flyer provided.

This is the result:

Scopolamine (Zombie Drug)

Drug Effects:
HypnoticUntimed Side Effects:
Death
Drug Features:
Longer DurationTimed Side Effects:
Loss of Inhibition
Memory Loss
Totals:
Strength: +5
Difficulty: 21
Duration: Long
(1d10 hours)
Legality: Type A Illegal
Drug Form: Powdered/Snorted
Time to Effect: 1d2 Min
Purchase Price: 0 (50eb)

Since Ocelots Rules are mainly aimed at creating game balancing rules, the drug ist without a purchase price – who would willingly take the drug? So I assigned a price tag of 50eb – seems reasonable to me.

[Scopolamine] is as close to pure evil as it gets, a tiny amount of the powder administered to the victim causes one of two effects, a) death, or b) complete loss of free will. Criminals are usually hoping for the latter, as it enables them to tell victims to empty their bank accounts, give away their car, perform sex acts, basically whatever the criminal dictates.

This is where Scopolamine has got its reputation as the “zombie drug”, victims appear completely sober and rational, but they’re really just automatons. (Source for the description: boing-boing)

Automatic Drug Generator

The result looks like this:

Kick-Ass

Drug Effects:
Attribute Increase: + 5 REF

Untimed Side Effects:
Slightly Physiologically Addictive
Slightly Psychologically Addictive

Drug Features:
Longer Duration

Timed Side Effects:
Bloodshot Eyes

Totals:
Strength: +5
Difficulty: 72
Duration: Long
(1d10 hours)
Legality: by Prescription Only
Drug Form: Pill/Tablet
Time to Effect: 2d6x10 min
Purchase Price: 180

Night-Flyer has a cool Javascript Drug Generator to easily create drugs using Ocelots Drug Lab 101.

Great Work, Night-Flyer!

DRUG LAB 101 – Ocelots Drug Generation Rule for Cyberpunk 2020

DRUG LAB 101, VERSION 3.0

for Cyberpunk 2020 by Gary Astleford, published with permission

LET’S JUMP RIGHT INTO IT, SHALL WE?

For lack of a better excuse, this file is a result of wanting a more detailed drug system that covers more possibilities. It’s based off of the information supplied in the CP2020 rulebook, the “Hardwired,” “When Gravity Fails,” and “Protect and Serve” supplements, and the Interface magazines (specifically Issue 3 of Volume 1). If drugs aren’t an important part of your campaign, you may want to stick with the normal rules found in the core rulebook. However, a good deal of Cyberpunk literature (Gibson, Williams, and Effinger’s stuff especially) involves the main characters and their struggles with drugs.
When creating a drug, you must ask some questions :

  1. ) What does the drug do? What benefits does the drug grant the user? Why would anyone want to take such a drug?
  2. ) What sorts of negative side effects are there? Do these effects occur after taking the drug, or when it wears off?
  3. ) How strong is the drug? Is it powerful or mild? How easy is it to overdose on this drug?
  4. ) How long do the effects last?
  5. ) Is the drug illegal, or can you buy it at any drug or liquor store?
  6. ) What form does the drug come in? Do you swallow it, snort it, or shoot it?

Continue reading “DRUG LAB 101 – Ocelots Drug Generation Rule for Cyberpunk 2020”

An old favorite rediscovered: Dan's Total System Technologies

I couldn’t find it on google at first, but now I rediscoved the link. The site is full of goodies and looks plain awful. Updated till 2004 Dan made some really cool stuff:

Snake Eye Patch
The original Snake Plissken had something happen to his left eye and consequently wore an eye patch. So you want the same look without sacrificing your depth perception. This we can do. With the Snake Eye Patch we make the fabric so you can see through it but other people can’t see through the other way.
But we don’t stop there. We also add a Times Square Plus and Targeting Scope HUD in the Patch so you’re enhanced while looking like your disabled. What about connecting it to a computer or your gun I hear you ask, well the connecting cables are part of the string that holds the patch in place so they won’t know that your enhanced.
Also available without HUD.
Cost: 1,000eb

For those who remember Snake Plissken in “Escape from New York”, he converted all the equipment from that movie to Cyberpunk 2020. He also has full borgs, cyberware, guns, huge amounts of vehicles and all kind of stuff

Wireheading, Spinrad-Style for Cyberpunk 2020

Wireheading, Spinrad-Style

Author: Lucifer
WIREHEADING – Hardware devices which link into and continually stimulate the pleasure centers of a person’s brain. Very addictive.

Technical specs:

A typical headset consists of a trode set and a breadbox, a small gadget about the size of a flattened egg, containing a battery-pack and the neuralware which provides brain stimulation.

Wireheading is strictly illegal! All prices listed here are, therefore, black-market ones. Battery-packs come in two varieties: a rechargable one, which costs 50eb and can sustain up to 72 hours of continual use before it needs tobe plugged into a 110v socket for a 12 hour recharge, or a disposable one, which costs 20eb. Direct-connect versions, called walljacks, are available for 100eb; they plug straight into a wall socket and run off house current with about the same drain as a small CD player. Trode sets are the standard ones found in CP2020, p. 68, and cost 20eb. Continue reading “Wireheading, Spinrad-Style for Cyberpunk 2020”

Chipware Loosely Based on GURPS Cyberpunk

Chipware Loosely Based on GURPS Cyberpunk

This article contains chipware (can be used with Interface plugs or a chiprack).

Author: unknown.
Presented for your approval, some variant chipware inspired by the chipware in GURPS Cyberpunk, with a dash of Ocelot’s Discount Cyber Shop thrown in for spice.

Zap Chips (Discount Chips, price varies)

A “zap” chip is an APTR or MRAM chip with a defect, usually containing one key error which causes failures during certain circumstances. Sometimes a chip with a known problem can be found at a discount (“It’s Drive +3, red-hot, but it’s got a little bug. Stay off the freeway and you’ll be fine.”). Zap chips are priced between 1/2 and 1/4 of normal chip costs. Disadvantages of a zap chip are up to the GM, but here are some suggestions: the chip fails to work in combat (“Some kind of adrenaline interference,” mutters the tech), every 1d10th skill check is automatically a fumble, the chip can never provide critical successes, the chip causes seizures on a roll of 1 on a d10 every time it is inserted, the chip causes other neuralware to fail, etc. Continue reading “Chipware Loosely Based on GURPS Cyberpunk”

Mafia Hintergrundwissen

Wer sich mit der organisierten Kriminalität befasst (s. dazu auch das Mafia Job Starter Kit), dem sei folgendes Buch ans Herz gelegt.

Roberto Saviano: “Gomorrha. Reise in das Reich der Camorra”, Carl Hanser Verlag, München. 21,50 € (Bei Amazon bestellen).

Der Autor muss seit Erscheinen unter Polizeischutz leben. Es soll SEHR realistisch sein. Ich habs eben bestellt – eine Rezi folgt.