System Rules

Index

Character Generation

Replicants

Full Body Replacements

Combat

Damage Calls

Skills

Cyberware

XP Expenditure

Character Generation

Stats

Players have four stats and we shall deal with them each in turn.

Those stats are:
INT (Intelligence),
BOD (Body)
EMP (Empathy)
RES (Resources)

INT, BOD and EMP start at 1 and RES starts at 0. As RES is dealt with slightly differently, we will talk about it last.

The maximum that INT, BOD or EMP can be raised to (barring artificial augmentation) is 5. Cyberware or some combat drugs may raise either BOD or INT permanently or temporarily for instance. The minimum that a stat can be lowered to is zero (never a good idea, for a whole host of reasons).

An average human has stats of 2 for INT and 2 for BOD.

INT

Starts at level 1 – maximum level 5 (without augmentation)
This usually governs mental skills such as Medicine, Safecracking, Cryptography and so on.

BOD

Starts at level 1 – maximum level 5 (without augmentation)
This usually governs physical skills such as Fu, Firearms, Melee and so on.

Your BOD skill directly opposes someone else’s BOD skill in a grapple or strength situation. Where two combatants are equally matched, the defender wins.

Hitpoints

Your BOD level directly correlates to how many hits you have. If you have a BOD of five, you have five hits. A BOD of one equals one hit

EMP

Starts at level 1 – maximum level is 5
This stat does not govern a skill but instead gives the player a ‘pool of points’ from which to buy cyberware. To get this EMP pool, or EP, multiply the EMP stat by ten to get this pool of points at character generation.

RES

There is another stat that every player has, even if it is at zero, and this is Resources. When the refs receive your character concept, they will assign you a Resources number. This number, from zero to five, is an indicator of how wealthy you are, and how readily you can access funds to buy things. This stat primarily governs things that the character starts off with, or can purchase in downtime, or is an indicator of his/her lifestyle. The vast majority of people in the world have resources one or two. This stat is never increased with experience points and can only be increased in downtime by a Ref.

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Skills

Players have seven points to split amongst Primary Skills. A skill can’t be higher than the related stat. So someone with a BOD of three can’t have a firearms skill above three for instance. See the skill section below for skill list and their corresponding stats. If a skill isn’t in the list, see a Ref.

Secondary Skills

Also, every character has three secondary skills. These are skills that are not directly relevant to a game but are merely to add flavour, or would be useful in downtime or a talkthrough. These would be skills like Drive, Pilot, Operate Heavy Machinery and so on. Once you have chosen these Secondary Skills, you must place them in order from highest to lowest. The highest skill is one that you could comfortably make a living doing.

For every five Experience Points a character earns, he can gain one extra Secondary Skill for free.

Contacts

If you wish to take Contacts as a secondary skill, it allows you to call people during a game or during downtime in order to obtain information or barter for a favour, for instance.

You must choose what background these contacts are from. For example, Criminal, Law enforcement, government, medical, corporate, nomad or within a specific industry such as the music or film industry.

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Replicants

We are using the idea of Replicants from the film Bladerunner in this game too and they are treated differently to other players.

First of all they start off with a BOD of 2 but their maximum BOD is still 5. Their EMP is 2 and they cannot buy any kind of cyberware or other augmentations at all. They have four points to split between BOD and INT as normal. Also, they are immune to drugs and the vast majority of poisons.

However, they do start off with 1.5 times their BOD stat in hits, rounding up fractions as required. So a Replicant with a BOD of 2 has 3 hits and a Replicant with a BOD of 3 has 5 hits.

Furthermore, where a normal human starts off with seven points in skills, a Replicant starts off with 11 points in skills. Unfortunately, a Replicant does not gain any experience points during the life of the character (4 years, as per the film) and cannot increase any stats or skills at all. In effect, the character stays static from inception. They start off superior to humans but over the life of the campaign this may even out.

The extra point in BOD and the extra skill points reflect the fact that they were designed and built to work in hostile situations for a given task but as their life span is only four years there is no need for any learning processes to be built in.

Background

When you can clone an arm to replace one lost through war, accident and so on, what is to stop you there when the governments of the world either don’t exist, are morally corrupt, or just don’t give a damn?

So...

Replicants were created to fulfil a function in society that a human couldn’t do. This might mean working in a hostile environment, or possibly just because it was cheaper and easier to get an expendable resource already trained and programmed to perform the task needed without complaint, and for a lower wage (if any.)

Most replicants are perfectly happy with their lot and seek nothing more than to fulfil their duties without complaint.

Because of this, no replicant is issued with a Single Identification Number (SIN). What would be the point? They don’t need one. They don’t need to buy groceries, or pay rent. They aren’t allowed to hold any position of power or responsibility, and they are the wholly owned property or a company or corporation.

Of course, there are those Replicants that go rogue; that gain sentience over and above that ‘sentiencve’ given to them; that run away from the corporation that so lovingly looks after them.
Company Replicants are pretty boring really. Mindless drudgery without complaint is their life.

Welcome dear player to the life of a rogue Replicant. Having gained enough sentience to throw off your oppressive yoke, you now exist in that twilight world where goods are bought for cash, or bartered for with stolen goods. Unless of course you can get hold of a stolen or forged SIN, at which point you can poke your head up above the shit and pretend to a life of normalcy. Will we allow you a SIN at character generation? I’m sure you can work out the answer. This is Cyberpunk, after all.

One final note. You better hope you don’t take any damage. Replicans are pretty easy to spot when they bleed bright bright red and have no belly button.

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Full Body Replacements (FBR)

Also known as Terminator Units, Gemini Units, T800s and so on. Created by CyberDyne Industries, they are not artificial intelligences but are transplanted brains in metal bodies. Well at least, that’s what they are telling you anyway.

FBRs start off with two in BOD and one in INT and have four points to split between them as normal. The maximum for these stats is still five. Their EMP is, and will remain, two and cannot be raised above this amount. Like humans, they start off with seven points in skills.

Furthermore, all FBRs double their BOD stat to give their hitpoints. So a BOD of two gives four hits and a BOD of three gives six hits, you get the picture.

They are considered to have armoured endoskeletons and so any damage they take is halved after the normal armour value gained from armour worn is taken off the damage call. So if Selwyn, the FBR takes six points of damage and he is wearing two points of light armour, he subtracts that armour value leaving four points of damage getting through and rendering the armour useless in the process. He then halves that damage due to his inherent armour. So two points of damage actually get though to his system. The inherent armour of an FBR will only need repairing if the FBR is reduced to fewer than zero hits.

Unlike a human or Replicant, an FBR gains only one experience point per game.

BOD cannot be raised with experience points but INT can, albeit very slowly. This is because the body is now artificial and no amount of weightlifting will build muscle, but as the brain is living, although slightly detached from its surroundings, it can learn.

The downside to playing a full body replacement is that you are owned by a corporation. Because each FBR represents a substantial dollar value, tight rein is kept over their activities (Think Robocop).

Due to the laws that were passed in the year <YEAR>, any FBR has strict controls placed on it. There must be a shutdown code that can be sent by tight beam radio link to anywhere the FBR is likely to go (The Dead Zones, even the wilds of space) that will instantly shut the FBR down. Equally, some FBRs might be fitted with devices that ensure that they just cannot harm certain people.

You must decide if you are a company man or a rogue agent. Of course, each has its own benefits and drawbacks, but we won’t list them here. We want them to be a surprise! A lovely, magical, non-threatening, fluffy surprise!*

* This may be a lie

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Combat

Melee

LRP safe weaponry should be used at all times and needs to be checked by the refs first to make sure it will not cause harm.

One test we have used in the past is to take the weapon from the player and repeatedly whack them with it. If they don’t want us to do that, then the weapon should be considered unsafe. If they are happy for us to do that and they aren’t in a crippled heap on the floor, then the weapon is to be considered safe. This has the added advantage of allowing the refs a little time to let off some steam. A happy ref is a good ref.

But in all seriousness, all weapon blows should be ‘pulled’. This means that the weapon should be pulled back just before the point of impact to avoid hitting your enemy with the full force of the weapon. This has two benefits. Firstly, you won’t harm the other person in real life, and secondly, you are less likely to break your weapon. If you are unsure how to do this, please speak to a ref and they will show you.

Ranged

Some ammunition types can augment damage with a ‘special ability’. For instance:
Armour-piercing rounds will ignore the armour of the target and should use the call ‘through’
Incendiary rounds will cause the location to burn for one extra point of damage after thirty seconds has passed, unless the affected player tries to ‘smother’ or ‘drop and roll’.
Dum-Dum rounds cause all damage taken to be subdual damage.

Armour

Armour is rated according to the type.

Damage you take in combat is removed from your armour first. When your armour is reduced to zero, any remaining damage comes off your BOD stat. When armour is reduced to zero, it must be repaired before it can be used again. The only exception to this is cyberware armour. This is explained in the cyberware section.

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Damage Calls and taking damage

Ranged

Depending on your skill level and weapon type, call <person> <location> <damage number> <type (if applicable)>
So, Selwyn Chest double through

Unarmed

You don’t get the luxury of calling a location. The damage calls are similar to above but as it is usually obvious who you are fighting , just the damage call is necessary. If you think that it might not be obvious, due to a massive bar brawl or a situation where you are hitting someone over the head from behind (not actually hitting them of course, just pretending to) then call the person’s name too.

Melee

The unarmed rules apply to melee too for similar reasons.

Subdual Damage

As well as the lower levels of the Unarmed Skill, some weapons cause subdual damage too.

Any subdual damage that doesn’t place the character on negative hits will automatically be recovered at the rate of one hit per hour. Medicine can reduce the time this would take (see the Med skill below for more details). Any subdual damage that places the character on negative hits will need medical attention but will not get any worse.

Tasers

A Taser will cause a triple subdue. Any player with three hits or less that is hit by a Taser will be knocked unconscious.

If a character has four hits or higher then he is effectively immune to the paralysing effects of being Tasered. Of course it will hurt like a bastard but he will not be taken down. If the character also had Pain Filter cyberware installed and had four or more hits, then he would be immune to the paralysing effects and the pain and would probably be very annoyed at you. Best to run eh?

Those that are undergoing Cyberpsychosis or are on combat drugs like Fatal Fury or Overfiend, are pretty much immune to the Taser effects too. But then you’re probably going to notice if they are on these types of drugs and the fact that they are immune to the Taser is the very least of your problems.

Slammer rounds

A damage call of 'SLAM' will immediately cause someone, irrespective of whether they are augmented by cyberware and/or have a BOD of 6, to fall unconscious. Yes this means Mr Full Body Replacement and Mrs Replicant too. In fact, they were created entirely to drop wayward FBRs and Replicants. And no, you can't buy Slammer rounds.

Tranq

A damage call of Tranq will immediately drop someone into unconsciousness, unless they have level 2 Toxin Filters. You won't have any time to cry out, it's an immediate nerve shutdown. They will go gentle into this good night. Please note that a high BOD will not be sufficient to stop you from succumbing to a tranq.

Taking Damage

As mentioned above under BOD, a character has as many hitpoints as they have in the BOD stat.

Weapons are rated according to the damage they do. Some significantly higher level skills can augment this damage by +1.

If a player is at -1 or below, every minute they will lose another wound until they get to minus their starting hits. If they are not stabilised within one minute of hitting their minus starting hits, then they are dead.

For instance, Selwyn has five hits, is shot to fuck and back, and goes down to -5 hits. At the end of the minute that would put him on -6 hits, he takes his final breath and shuffles off this mortal coil. Unless a medic with skill 5 gets to him and treats him during that final minute, then he has a chance. A medic with skill of 5 treating Selwyn can ask a ref to flip a coin at the end of the minute in which Selwyn dies to see if he survives. If the coin comes up heads then Selwyn has survived and is stabilised at zero wounds.

Damage Chart

Weapons do the following damage

Subdual Damage

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Skills

See the character generation section for more information. Please note this skill list is not exhaustive. if you can think of a skill that could be reasonably phys-repped in game and want to include it here, please send details of the skill plus the level increments from one to five and the Refs will evaluate it and see if it fits in to our system. We may end up rejecting it, or changing the skill levels for balance reasons.

Skill List

Skill Ranges

Firearms

Unarmed

Melee

Medicine

Netrunning

Level one in Netrunning is required to get any meaningful information from the internet. At level zero a user can switch on a computer and print off documents but would not know how to gain access to the internet or troubleshoot any issues that may arise. Actual netrunning can only be performed by those with level two or above in the skill.

Also, your skill level in Netrunning determines the level of programs you have in your deck. A level three Netrunner would have level three programs installed on his deck.
It takes five minutes to break an ICE program of the same level as the netrunner minus one minute for every level the ICE is below the player. For instance, a level four netrunner can break level four ICE in five minutes, or level three ICE in four minutes and level two ICE in three minutes, and so on.

If more than one netrunner is attempting to break some ICE, for every assisting netrunner of level two and above, the primary netrunner (the one with the highest skill) can subtract one minute from the time it would take, to a minimum of one minute.

So if a level five netrunner and a level three netrunner were attempting to break level four ICE, this would take four minutes for the level five netrunner to do solo, but as he has help, a further minute is taken from the overall time. This means the two of them would take three minutes to complete the task. If you add another level two netrunner into the equation, a further minute would be subtracted. In order to complete this task, all three of them would need to have ICEbreaker programs loaded into their decks.

A Netrunner can break ICE that is one level higher than his skill level by spending twice as long on the action. Again, any extra Netrunners assisting on this task would subtract one minute from the time per Netrunner.

Caveat: Please bear in mind that having any skill level in Netrunning is no guarantee that your attempted action will succeed. There may be other things going on behind the scenes that would interrupt, halt or cause a backlash to the Netrunner or your actions that you may be unaware of.

Build, repair and jury rig skills

The repair skill is specialised down into a few different skills. Each one must be bought separately. Each level of skill takes ten minutes to perform (unless ref call otherwise).

Mechanical and Elecronic Security

and,

Lockpicking and Safecraking

All mechanical and electronic locks and safes are rated from one to five. If you have a skill of one, you cannot open a lock rated four.

It takes five minutes to pick a lock, crack a safe or bypass security minus one minute for every level the safe/lock/security system is below you. So someone with lockpicking at 5 could open a level 5 lock in 5 minutes, a level 4 lock in 4 minutes and so on. Someone with level 3 in lockpicking could open a level 3 lock in five minutes, a level two lock in four minutes and a level one lock in three minutes.

Also, you can open a lock one level, above you in twice the time. So a level four locksmith could open a level five lock in ten minutes, a level five locksmith could open a level six lock in ten minutes. A level three locksmith could NOT open a level five lock though, it is simply too complicated for them.

Cybertech

Any level of Cybertech also provides the requisite level of medical skill in order to get to the implant and repair it. However, this medical skill cannot be used separately in order to heal physical damage.

Phys Reps

In order to perform certain skills, tools will be required. For instance, to be a netrunner, we want you to grab that old SNES, spray it silver and attach a 'trode set or something. Basically, make it look like a cyberdeck.

Also, to repair an item, a set of relevant tools will be required. Want to mend a car engine? A toolset would be useful.

We will not entertain 'invisible' tools or people using their mobile phones as cyberdecks; if you have a skill that requires tools to use, pleae make sure you have them. Don't forget, this is the 1980's vision of tomorrow, so think big and chunky. If you think this is unfair, imagine someone pointing their fingers at you and shouting a damage call. Bit crap, isn't it?

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Cyberware

Please see below the table for descriptions where necessary

Boosterware

This item gives the player extra dodges that are replenished after each combat. Please note that any dodges gained from cyberware are in addition to dodges gained from high combat skills. Yes folks, people with level 3 boosterware really will be like Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan and will be almost impossible to hit.

Subdermal Armour / Skinweave

Each one of these can only be bought once but the effects of each are cumulative with each other and with normal armour. So someone with subdermal armour and skinweave has an extra +2 armour levels. Add in an armoured T-Shirt and light armoured trousers and the person has 3 armour points on top of their hits.

Please note that the armour gained from cyberware implants or augmentation replenishes after each combat and does not need repairing.

Muscle and Bone Lace

Originally created by the US Military for their soldiers, it replaced the hydraulic servo-assisted braces that were issued to the support troops in the past. Mainly used to allow someone to lift and carry more than they could before, it was seen as an efficient way of creating more useful troops. Obviously, once it found its way into mainstream society, every jacked up Cyberpsycho or Solo-wannabe had lacing in order to take and dish more damage. In game terms, the effect is that it adds +1 to the characters BOD stat. This alters the maximum that the player can increase his BOD to. Someone with a normal BOD of three with M&BL has an artificial BOD of four and can increase his BOD stat to 5 through XP.

Neural Processor

Every piece of cyberware that has an active function, like a cyberleg, cybereye, boosterrware or wolvers is assumed to come with an implanted unit that allows the owner full normal control over that piece of ‘ware. A neural processor is mainly an implant used by those that need to process a lot of neural data, such as TraumaSpec surgeons, Field Medics, Netrunners, Mnemonic Couriers and the like.

Smartgun Link

This effectively adds +1 to the wielders Firearms skill up to a maximum of +5. If you already have +5 in firearms, then a Smartgun Link will not benefit you.

Cybereye / Cyberear

Each cybereye or cyberear comes with space for four options. Two of which are included in the EP cost. For each extra option you want fitted past the second, an EP cost of 5 must be added

Poison Filters

These come in two versions.
Level 1 Filters are purely nasal filters that only block airborne pathogens such as poison gas.
Level 2 filters include the same functionality as level 1 Filters but also include implants that neutralise ingested or insinuative pathogens.

Jack Socket

In order for some Netrunners to jack into their computers, Riggers to jack into their vehicles, or those that have internal memory for data / music storage to get the info on and off that storage, they require some sort of interface plug. This is commonly a standard jack socket but can take many different forms depending on the whim of the user. Of course, if the user decides to have an esoteric input method then their choices of how to get the data on and off their storage will be restricted to those manufacturers that make the relevant interface. For this reason, most people choose the ‘industry standard’ plug socket.

Cyberlimbs

These cybernetically replaced limbs have the facility for one built-in option from the list below. Each option costs 5 EP

Wolvers / Rippers

You can have either per arm, not both. The +1 damage from these is cumulative with your Fu skills, but obviously not with any kind of weapon. You need to have a cyberarm for these to be implanted in.

Cyberlimb Armour

This armour does not add to your total armour but is used in a very specific situation. For instance, if someone calls a location firearm attack on your armoured arm, then you can subtract the armour value from the damage you take. This armour does not need to be repaired unless you take sustained damage to that limb.

This list is not exhaustive. Please let the refs know if there is something that you want that is not on the list. We can, and will, revise the list between events to incorporate any new items that players or refs have come up with.

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Character Progression

Experience Points

We will be using an experience point system for this game and so the maximum that INT, BOD or EMP can be raised with XP is starting level +1. For example, a player starting with an INT of 4, BOD of 2 and EMP of 4 could raise those stats to 5/3/5 through experience points. Artificial augmentation is not counted for this purpose. So, drugs or cyberware can potentially raise a stat to 6.

Please note that if you have an artificially augmented stat through cyberware for instance, such as a neural processor, or Muscle and Bone Lace, it is your non-augmented stat that is bought up with experience points.

For example, someone with BOD of four and Muscle and Bone Lace would have an augmented BOD of five. However, as the normal stat is 4, it would cost three times the current level, or twelve points to increase to five. The augmented BOD stat would then be six as you would then reapply the bonus from the M&BL. Make sense? If not, speak to the refs for clarification.

After each game, points will be awarded to each player based on their character type (see below). This is non-negotiable and bonus points will not be awarded under any circumstances. This keeps it fair.

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