cyberpunk red has a fascinating system for cyberpsychosis, at 2 humanity you have borderline cyberpsychosis, at 1 you have borderline cyberpsychosis and at 0 you have full cyberpsychosis but are still somehow in control (kind of like main in the end, moments of lucidity in a see of psychosis), however if your humanity goes below 0 then you go full out of control and give the dm your character sheet.
well it won't let me edit my comment but at 1 you have onset cyberpsychosis not borderline again. Red also has a list of traits for what cyberpsychosis might do to you but encourages you to think of interesting ones on your own. all of this can be found on pg. 232 of the core rulebook and I highly recommend everyone to give it a read 👍
I love the idea of a beloved NPC slowly over the course of the campaign succumbing to cyberpsychosis. Or maybe they get scooped up by maelstrom and they throw a bunch of chrome on them just to see what happens.
I made an homebrew rule I call: "the line" basicly the player or npc as a "line" he doesn't cross. if the player/npc didn't cross that line sane he wont cross it during psychosis. for exemple. pairotto the chromed up ronin smokes incense during down time and never fights while smelling incense. durring psychosis a player lights up incense and pairotto comes back to his senses
I think i'm going to ask my players what their characters main goal is, what is their deepest desire... then if they go cyberpsychotic the psycho character will go after that goal with the limiters off - straight line, no consideration for the safety of others or themselves. "Arasaka Tower - all the way to the top!"
I don't really know the tablettop, but in context of 2077 there was a clear indication (in one of the sidequests) that maxtac recruits cyberpsychos. So that is on the menu of tabletop too, i imagine.
Hell yeah, great vid. The CP Red app has a prebuilt cyberpsycho NPC that I use as the character sheet for big boss cyberpsychos. I think it's pretty balanced despite being really tough.
Great vid, I especially like how you broke how the process of cyberpsychosis is individualistic. The failing ally is a great hook that I have never thought to use. If you ever make a follow-up, I hope you go into the symptoms. Just as every descent into cyberpsychosis is different, the symptoms are just as diverse. I had an NPC cyberpsycho with no visible chrome and no cyberweapons. He went too far with neural implants and skill chips. The guy was an ethical monster who saw other living people as financial resources to get harvested, but he acted normal enough to speak with him.
Great ideas how to use Cyberpsychosis, I love the idea of an ally coming back throughout the campaign worse and worse, having something like an encounter with a wandering cyberpsycho set them off.
I just made an interesting connection -- One of the things that is interesting about David Martinez is his ability to take on a huge amount of Cyberware. If your susceptibility to Cyberpsychosis is based on your humanity, which is Empathy stat * 10, then mechanically the thing allowing David to have so much capacity for chrome is his empathy. Which I think works really well from a narrative perspective too.
Old video but I still feel like sharing. I love the "left 4 dead witch" concept. A theoretocally harmless Cyberpsycho in their appartment or streets or whatever. I just recently had a player die to one because his character was very religious and could not ignore the Psycho. That concept is great for a "biting off more than they could chew" scenario for your players.
I always love the idea of exploring Cyberpsychosis as a player. I'm the type of player who has too many character concepts and too little time to play them. I feel like I'd love to make a character that as the campaign goes on, becomes slowly and slowly more decked out in chrome, and eventually goes full Cyberpsycho. I'd also love to player character with a high empathy that does that so I can really explore what it's like to fully rely on Chrome more than your own body, and I feel like that's generally what Cyberpsychosis is all about. People eventually end up relying on the Chrome more than their own Human body, just like how people addicted to Steroids end up relying on that more than their own body. I think that is an insanely GENIUS concept as a game mechanic and from a writing/narrative standpoint, and it's easily one of my favorite aspects of Cyberpunk.
I like who each type of cyberpsycho that you talk about matches with the cyberpsychos that David's crew meets throughout the series: First we have the wandering cyberpsycho in the form of the hobo that kills pillar. Then we have the shaky ally in the form of Maine, who David tries so hard to save. And for the finale, we have Final Boss Adam Smasher who is described as being a "high functioning cyberpsycho".
Got a great story in a cyberpunk westmarch server I made. Me and another player who moved in together to make rent easier to pay both got linear frames. My character was a veteran of the 4th corporate war and the other player had an ex-boosterganger fashion designer, both of us are techs. They got the vermillion frame out of black chrome and i gor a linear beta frame from the core book, and now both of us are at 2 empathy and experiencing borderline traits. Lace (the fashion designer) is experiencing flashbacks to her previous love affairs where her exes went cyberpsycho during the gang wars, meanwhile my character (who is named Solomon) is experiencing PTSD-like symptoms, shell shock, and hallucinations like corporate soldiers heads peeking around corners or rubble covering his body when there is none. The best part is that Solomon is planning on therapy, but Lace is worried about what the doctors may do to her if they find out she was a booster, but my character needs to wait a little while before he can do therapy, so he's spending his time trying to get her to come with him.
A lot of interesting stuff. I personally got an npc which is on the verge of Cyberpsycosis but at the same time he's (or it's gonna be, unluckily never used him yet xD) one of the main allies of the team, a true edgerunner who fought the war and created a group that's as well ally of the protagonists, but not on the verge. So when he's gonna freak out, a domino effect will take place. Hopefully I'll use him sooner or later xD
One thing that I like to do when a player has any kind of psychosis effect is to let them act as normal, but I roll to see if they "loose it" a bit. Even more fun if the rest dont know why Im rolling.
I think in the Cyberpunk RED book Empathy 2 is just teetering on the edge, like you may have intermittent borderline disorder that may flare up from time to time if not treated, which sounds great for roleplaying especially.
While I never played the game myself. The way I'd probably handle this is a private session where the player gets to fight off whatever fits the narrative at the time, until their character dies
I haven’t hit my players with a traumatic event yet. I haven’t felt like it was necessary. But circumstances may change! As far as therapy goes, I usually do it off-game during our downtime session. the players do side projects, hustles, and therapy.
Cyberpunk 2077 confirms that cyberpsychosis isn't really a thing, but rather that it's a common stress- and trauma-induced mental breakdown that only gets a separate label because of how dangerous a chromed up mf'er is. It's like a guy with anger issues on a bicycle vs a guy with anger issues on a ram 1500 - the former is inconvenient and can be a hazard, but the latter is a massive threat to everyone in sight
I have a character I'm writing for a potential Cyberpunk Red Campain. She is a Tech who is obsessed with cyberpsychosis. Specifically becoming cyberpsycho. She believes it's a gateway into a form of becoming something greater. As one of her past love affairs, her partner had gone psycho in front of her. She's seen what emotions it has brought, the unbridled mind and mechanical body, unleashed to its full potential. So, she is chroming up, starting with a cyberarm, pop-up h. smg and wolfers. As well as a cybereye that gives her +1 to aimed shots. All her money went to the cyberware. And I already have a few schematics for possible fabricated borgware....
You're wrong about regaining Humanity. From the Cyberpunk RED book on page 230: "Humanity cannot be fully regained without the removal of cyberware. Each piece of cyberware will decrease your maximum Humanity by 2. Each piece of borgware cyberware lowers maximum Humanity by 4 instead. Cyberware with 0 Humanity Loss on installation will not decrease your maximum Humanity."
@@mirrorXshard Correct, but far inferior in applying them. The Tech would have to spend multiple weeks for my Hardware, DownTime which you don't always have or get. And even then, in the same amount of time, you can just make money and go to therapy afterwards to slowly climb that ladder up again. Also, I am pretty sure that the Tech *has* to make the upgrades *before* chipping them into you. So once they are installed, it is better to just stick to therapy. At least I think this is how you handle it. We had the same problem two weeks ago when I cranked down on my empathy while borging up. Do you know if it can be done after installing?
@@_Woody_ true, efficiency is key. You'd probably want to pick the highest humanity loss chrome and ignore the rest, relying on therapy from there. I'm not actually sure about upgrading after the fact. I love cyberpunk red, but sometimes it's a pain to find specific information from the book alone. Thankfully, the dev's regularly answer questions in the discord.
Isn‘t a Cyberpsycho encounter quite risky? If the players kill the Psycho, could they not carry the corpse to a Ripperdoc and get the Chrome out of him? I‘m imagining something like: „I get his Sandevistan and Cybereyes, payment is the rest of his Chrome.“ Seems like free upgrades unless I missed a rule against that, still quite new to Red, got into it recently via Edgerunners and I‘m still reading through the rules.
Yes totally but the players better do it fast before maxtac gets there. Remember that gun fights are loud and the police are on their way. Also, cyberware doesn’t always survive combat. Shooting a guy with a million bullets will probably destroy his equipment
@@JonJonTheWise I‘m gonna play a melee focues solo, making targeted attacks to hurt the enemy while keeping the Cyberware in tact seems like the way to go for this approach.
not sure that I'm a huge fan of having only 47 Humanity left by the time I finish creating my character, not even having played a single session yet, when I started out with 7 EMP...
How would an extremely low empathy/humanity stat affect a person without any cybernetics? I had an idea for a villain with no cybernetics and was wondering how low empathy would effect him.
Both characters basically act the same way because they have low empathy and that means that they have difficulty interacting socially. the only difference is one is a metal killing machine, and the other is a flesh and blood sociopath
Yes that’s exactly how it works. Full borgs don’t go cyber psycho because they have accepted the fact that they are no longer human. They embrace their new form
Pondsmith likes to compare cyberpsychosis to anabolic steroids, but i see it as being more like ritalin. At first when you take it, the aches and pains your body gets from the disuse and stress your brain imposes on it are lifted and you can suddenly do things you never could. Everything is fun. Sex is better. Exercise feels rewarding. You can do so much in a day that you feel like you finally have what overachievers had that you could never dream of. Then once it's been in your system a while, the benefits go away, and your brain hyperfixates on every sensation. A pin could drop in a hallway and the sound would make your skin crawl. Being around people is like being around filthy dickheads who slobber everywhere and chew with their mouths open at 130 decibels. You see every inconsiderate and annoying habit others have and you either hate them or yourself for being so internally full of rage at people for tiny offenses. And when you start feeling like crap, you don't instantly realize what's causing it. Your recent alleviation makes you aware of how bad you were before, and you fear how bad you'll feel now if you stop taking it. I think the people of cyberpunk forgot to integrate their inventions with the feedback of the human nervous system. The brain evolved to create complex movement patterns above all else, so body parts are supposed to relay diagnostic data back to the brain for proprioception, calibration, and assessment. If you've ever heard of a phantom limb - where the brain continually pings a missing limb to respond to it in a panic and recieves no response, that's what we're talking about here. Imho what these people have is subconscious stress on their body as a result of the brain constantly taking in too little data 90% of the time, and too much the 10% of the time they're activating their implants. Their brains are in 24/7 fight or flight and they have such a strong belief that their cyberware is so important to their personal freedom that they believe it's helping them survive their mental illness. This stuff isn't replacing their minds with that of a crazed lunatic. It's putting them through constant physiological stress they have trouble noticing. When someone snaps and starts killing, they've just reached a point that they would have if they lived a life of mental illness and fear. What i don't understand is why both david and maine experienced flashbacks to past events or why maine saw dorio as a scary glitch monster invading his flashback. Almost all the cyberpsychos in the game seemed to have been set off by a traumatic trigger such as paranoid schizophrenia, forcefully being integrated into a power armor rig, or the death of the loved one.
Awesome vid, Jonjon! Quick question what should I do about a players luck? I know it sounds bad but sometimes I run a solo game with my roommate. It's mostly fast and loose with the rule of cool is king but his luck is insane. Ten criticals is a row I wish I was making it up. I know I shouldn't punish him for being lucky but It's so frustrating to have every obstacle I throw at him be trivial. I don't know if it's just my skill as a DM or what
If your players critical, then you should let them have their fun! It’s a small percentage chance and should be celebrated. Challenge your friend in aspects that their character lacks in. If they’re combat focused, then challenge them with a corporate social gathering that they need to navigate. If they are socially adept, then throw a hit squad at them. Force your player to make tough decisions that will ultimately reward them. As far as skills as a GM: this will always take time and practice. Experiment to find your style.
I've had players like that. First, remember that it isn't annoying to thr player until the player actually complains about a lack of challenge. Until then, the player is having fun, and you're doing your part well. Second, maybe make a conscious effort to call for fewer dice rolls. If dice rolls make the Persuasion skill pointless because it never fails, try to base more interactions strictly on how the player roleplays it, at least until a skill roll gets requested. This is the part that trips me up, because I call for a lot of rolls in my games, maybe too many. Side note: Many GMs go to the other extreme and base too many outcomes on strict roleplay conversations. That's an auto-win for a silver tongued player with an edgerunner who has 1s in Cool and Empathy. Too few rolls is a also a key aspect of railroading. Too few rolls can be worse too many.
I still don't understand how a player character can ever go cyberpsycho. You only lose humanity by installing new cyberware, so why not just stop buying chrome at EMP 2 or something? Unless you hate your character then I don't understand.
At character creation, installing cyberware has a fixed humanity loss cost. In campaign play, you roll for it and you can get some therapy done. So you can risk it more during the campaign in order to min/max your humanity loss
@@JonJonTheWise Ah ok that makes sense. I'm new to the pnp rules and still trying to understand the basics without ever playing haha. Really enjoying your content though, super helpful.
You can lose humanity from mental trauma. Page 231 of the core book. 1 or 2 d6 are rolled for loss in the examples there for things like witnessing a violent death or torture.
cyberpunk red has a fascinating system for cyberpsychosis, at 2 humanity you have borderline cyberpsychosis, at 1 you have borderline cyberpsychosis and at 0 you have full cyberpsychosis but are still somehow in control (kind of like main in the end, moments of lucidity in a see of psychosis), however if your humanity goes below 0 then you go full out of control and give the dm your character sheet.
well it won't let me edit my comment but at 1 you have onset cyberpsychosis not borderline again.
Red also has a list of traits for what cyberpsychosis might do to you but encourages you to think of interesting ones on your own. all of this can be found on pg. 232 of the core rulebook and I highly recommend everyone to give it a read 👍
Seeing every line begin with cyberpsychosis made me think I had cyberpsychosis for a second
*if empathy is 2 and less, not humanity. I.e. it starts way earlier.
I love the idea of a beloved NPC slowly over the course of the campaign succumbing to cyberpsychosis. Or maybe they get scooped up by maelstrom and they throw a bunch of chrome on them just to see what happens.
I made an homebrew rule I call: "the line"
basicly the player or npc as a "line" he doesn't cross. if the player/npc didn't cross that line sane he wont cross it during psychosis.
for exemple. pairotto the chromed up ronin smokes incense during down time and never fights while smelling incense. durring psychosis a player lights up incense and pairotto comes back to his senses
thats such a cool rule. it also rewards morality as all those choices you made, all those lines you crossed finnaly come back to bite you in the ass
I think i'm going to ask my players what their characters main goal is, what is their deepest desire... then if they go cyberpsychotic the psycho character will go after that goal with the limiters off - straight line, no consideration for the safety of others or themselves. "Arasaka Tower - all the way to the top!"
Petition to call cyberpunk gms punk masters 🙋♂️
I don't really know the tablettop, but in context of 2077 there was a clear indication (in one of the sidequests) that maxtac recruits cyberpsychos. So that is on the menu of tabletop too, i imagine.
They do but they have to rehabilitate them first before recruitment
Which of course is often impossible since most cyberpsycho gunmen are basically in a suicide-by-maxtac scenario. It can happen though.
Hell yeah, great vid. The CP Red app has a prebuilt cyberpsycho NPC that I use as the character sheet for big boss cyberpsychos. I think it's pretty balanced despite being really tough.
Great vid, I especially like how you broke how the process of cyberpsychosis is individualistic. The failing ally is a great hook that I have never thought to use.
If you ever make a follow-up, I hope you go into the symptoms. Just as every descent into cyberpsychosis is different, the symptoms are just as diverse.
I had an NPC cyberpsycho with no visible chrome and no cyberweapons. He went too far with neural implants and skill chips. The guy was an ethical monster who saw other living people as financial resources to get harvested, but he acted normal enough to speak with him.
That’s a scary cyber psycho!
Great ideas how to use Cyberpsychosis, I love the idea of an ally coming back throughout the campaign worse and worse, having something like an encounter with a wandering cyberpsycho set them off.
I just made an interesting connection -- One of the things that is interesting about David Martinez is his ability to take on a huge amount of Cyberware. If your susceptibility to Cyberpsychosis is based on your humanity, which is Empathy stat * 10, then mechanically the thing allowing David to have so much capacity for chrome is his empathy. Which I think works really well from a narrative perspective too.
Old video but I still feel like sharing. I love the "left 4 dead witch" concept. A theoretocally harmless Cyberpsycho in their appartment or streets or whatever. I just recently had a player die to one because his character was very religious and could not ignore the Psycho. That concept is great for a "biting off more than they could chew" scenario for your players.
I always love the idea of exploring Cyberpsychosis as a player. I'm the type of player who has too many character concepts and too little time to play them. I feel like I'd love to make a character that as the campaign goes on, becomes slowly and slowly more decked out in chrome, and eventually goes full Cyberpsycho. I'd also love to player character with a high empathy that does that so I can really explore what it's like to fully rely on Chrome more than your own body, and I feel like that's generally what Cyberpsychosis is all about.
People eventually end up relying on the Chrome more than their own Human body, just like how people addicted to Steroids end up relying on that more than their own body.
I think that is an insanely GENIUS concept as a game mechanic and from a writing/narrative standpoint, and it's easily one of my favorite aspects of Cyberpunk.
I like who each type of cyberpsycho that you talk about matches with the cyberpsychos that David's crew meets throughout the series:
First we have the wandering cyberpsycho in the form of the hobo that kills pillar.
Then we have the shaky ally in the form of Maine, who David tries so hard to save.
And for the finale, we have Final Boss Adam Smasher who is described as being a "high functioning cyberpsycho".
Got a great story in a cyberpunk westmarch server I made. Me and another player who moved in together to make rent easier to pay both got linear frames. My character was a veteran of the 4th corporate war and the other player had an ex-boosterganger fashion designer, both of us are techs. They got the vermillion frame out of black chrome and i gor a linear beta frame from the core book, and now both of us are at 2 empathy and experiencing borderline traits. Lace (the fashion designer) is experiencing flashbacks to her previous love affairs where her exes went cyberpsycho during the gang wars, meanwhile my character (who is named Solomon) is experiencing PTSD-like symptoms, shell shock, and hallucinations like corporate soldiers heads peeking around corners or rubble covering his body when there is none.
The best part is that Solomon is planning on therapy, but Lace is worried about what the doctors may do to her if they find out she was a booster, but my character needs to wait a little while before he can do therapy, so he's spending his time trying to get her to come with him.
That intro is too fucking cool haha
Special thanks to DrakenRPG for that!
Oh yeah, I remember that final boss psycho! That shit was INTENSE!
A lot of interesting stuff. I personally got an npc which is on the verge of Cyberpsycosis but at the same time he's (or it's gonna be, unluckily never used him yet xD) one of the main allies of the team, a true edgerunner who fought the war and created a group that's as well ally of the protagonists, but not on the verge. So when he's gonna freak out, a domino effect will take place. Hopefully I'll use him sooner or later xD
got yourself a new sub, great vid!
Welcome choom! Thank you
One thing that I like to do when a player has any kind of psychosis effect is to let them act as normal, but I roll to see if they "loose it" a bit. Even more fun if the rest dont know why Im rolling.
I think in the Cyberpunk RED book Empathy 2 is just teetering on the edge, like you may have intermittent borderline disorder that may flare up from time to time if not treated, which sounds great for roleplaying especially.
While I never played the game myself. The way I'd probably handle this is a private session where the player gets to fight off whatever fits the narrative at the time, until their character dies
Great video!
Can you do a talk through on how you run traumatic events and the other things that impact humanity like therapy?
I haven’t hit my players with a traumatic event yet. I haven’t felt like it was necessary. But circumstances may change! As far as therapy goes, I usually do it off-game during our downtime session. the players do side projects, hustles, and therapy.
Cyberpunk 2077 confirms that cyberpsychosis isn't really a thing, but rather that it's a common stress- and trauma-induced mental breakdown that only gets a separate label because of how dangerous a chromed up mf'er is. It's like a guy with anger issues on a bicycle vs a guy with anger issues on a ram 1500 - the former is inconvenient and can be a hazard, but the latter is a massive threat to everyone in sight
I have a character I'm writing for a potential Cyberpunk Red Campain. She is a Tech who is obsessed with cyberpsychosis. Specifically becoming cyberpsycho. She believes it's a gateway into a form of becoming something greater. As one of her past love affairs, her partner had gone psycho in front of her. She's seen what emotions it has brought, the unbridled mind and mechanical body, unleashed to its full potential. So, she is chroming up, starting with a cyberarm, pop-up h. smg and wolfers. As well as a cybereye that gives her +1 to aimed shots. All her money went to the cyberware. And I already have a few schematics for possible fabricated borgware....
Reminds me of what happened to the the Robocop knock offs in Robocop2
the first time i watched edgerunners, when i saw Pilar my first thought. "Jon Jon cameo?"
You're wrong about regaining Humanity. From the Cyberpunk RED book on page 230:
"Humanity cannot be fully regained without the removal of cyberware. Each piece of cyberware will decrease your maximum Humanity by 2. Each piece of borgware cyberware lowers maximum Humanity by 4 instead. Cyberware with 0 Humanity Loss on installation will not decrease your maximum Humanity."
Balancing on 2 Humanity right now.
Will get interesting until I can get some much needed therapy!
Don't forget tech upgrades to reduce humanity loss. Those are often just as effective.
@@mirrorXshard
Correct, but far inferior in applying them. The Tech would have to spend multiple weeks for my Hardware, DownTime which you don't always have or get. And even then, in the same amount of time, you can just make money and go to therapy afterwards to slowly climb that ladder up again.
Also, I am pretty sure that the Tech *has* to make the upgrades *before* chipping them into you. So once they are installed, it is better to just stick to therapy.
At least I think this is how you handle it. We had the same problem two weeks ago when I cranked down on my empathy while borging up.
Do you know if it can be done after installing?
@@_Woody_ true, efficiency is key. You'd probably want to pick the highest humanity loss chrome and ignore the rest, relying on therapy from there. I'm not actually sure about upgrading after the fact. I love cyberpunk red, but sometimes it's a pain to find specific information from the book alone. Thankfully, the dev's regularly answer questions in the discord.
@@mirrorXshard Yeah same! Thank you Choom. RED is a great with a far too small audience to chat to.
Isn‘t a Cyberpsycho encounter quite risky? If the players kill the Psycho, could they not carry the corpse to a Ripperdoc and get the Chrome out of him? I‘m imagining something like: „I get his Sandevistan and Cybereyes, payment is the rest of his Chrome.“ Seems like free upgrades unless I missed a rule against that, still quite new to Red, got into it recently via Edgerunners and I‘m still reading through the rules.
Yes totally but the players better do it fast before maxtac gets there. Remember that gun fights are loud and the police are on their way.
Also, cyberware doesn’t always survive combat. Shooting a guy with a million bullets will probably destroy his equipment
@@JonJonTheWise I‘m gonna play a melee focues solo, making targeted attacks to hurt the enemy while keeping the Cyberware in tact seems like the way to go for this approach.
@@GK_Lucy that'd be a pretty interesting character concept actually. A cyberpsycho hunter who only gets their implants from other cyberpsychos
Lessgoooo
why not set Cyberpsychosis at 7 while you are at it
not sure that I'm a huge fan of having only 47 Humanity left by the time I finish creating my character, not even having played a single session yet, when I started out with 7 EMP...
Cut down on the chrome, choom!
How would an extremely low empathy/humanity stat affect a person without any cybernetics? I had an idea for a villain with no cybernetics and was wondering how low empathy would effect him.
Both characters basically act the same way because they have low empathy and that means that they have difficulty interacting socially. the only difference is one is a metal killing machine, and the other is a flesh and blood sociopath
So, I have a question I've been wondering. If the more chromed up you are, the more likely you are to go cyberpsycho... how are full borgs a thing?
Yes that’s exactly how it works. Full borgs don’t go cyber psycho because they have accepted the fact that they are no longer human. They embrace their new form
Pondsmith likes to compare cyberpsychosis to anabolic steroids, but i see it as being more like ritalin.
At first when you take it, the aches and pains your body gets from the disuse and stress your brain imposes on it are lifted and you can suddenly do things you never could. Everything is fun. Sex is better. Exercise feels rewarding. You can do so much in a day that you feel like you finally have what overachievers had that you could never dream of.
Then once it's been in your system a while, the benefits go away, and your brain hyperfixates on every sensation. A pin could drop in a hallway and the sound would make your skin crawl. Being around people is like being around filthy dickheads who slobber everywhere and chew with their mouths open at 130 decibels. You see every inconsiderate and annoying habit others have and you either hate them or yourself for being so internally full of rage at people for tiny offenses.
And when you start feeling like crap, you don't instantly realize what's causing it. Your recent alleviation makes you aware of how bad you were before, and you fear how bad you'll feel now if you stop taking it.
I think the people of cyberpunk forgot to integrate their inventions with the feedback of the human nervous system. The brain evolved to create complex movement patterns above all else, so body parts are supposed to relay diagnostic data back to the brain for proprioception, calibration, and assessment. If you've ever heard of a phantom limb - where the brain continually pings a missing limb to respond to it in a panic and recieves no response, that's what we're talking about here.
Imho what these people have is subconscious stress on their body as a result of the brain constantly taking in too little data 90% of the time, and too much the 10% of the time they're activating their implants. Their brains are in 24/7 fight or flight and they have such a strong belief that their cyberware is so important to their personal freedom that they believe it's helping them survive their mental illness.
This stuff isn't replacing their minds with that of a crazed lunatic. It's putting them through constant physiological stress they have trouble noticing. When someone snaps and starts killing, they've just reached a point that they would have if they lived a life of mental illness and fear.
What i don't understand is why both david and maine experienced flashbacks to past events or why maine saw dorio as a scary glitch monster invading his flashback. Almost all the cyberpsychos in the game seemed to have been set off by a traumatic trigger such as paranoid schizophrenia, forcefully being integrated into a power armor rig, or the death of the loved one.
Awesome vid, Jonjon! Quick question what should I do about a players luck? I know it sounds bad but sometimes I run a solo game with my roommate. It's mostly fast and loose with the rule of cool is king but his luck is insane. Ten criticals is a row I wish I was making it up. I know I shouldn't punish him for being lucky but It's so frustrating to have every obstacle I throw at him be trivial. I don't know if it's just my skill as a DM or what
If your players critical, then you should let them have their fun! It’s a small percentage chance and should be celebrated. Challenge your friend in aspects that their character lacks in. If they’re combat focused, then challenge them with a corporate social gathering that they need to navigate. If they are socially adept, then throw a hit squad at them. Force your player to make tough decisions that will ultimately reward them. As far as skills as a GM: this will always take time and practice. Experiment to find your style.
I've had players like that. First, remember that it isn't annoying to thr player until the player actually complains about a lack of challenge. Until then, the player is having fun, and you're doing your part well. Second, maybe make a conscious effort to call for fewer dice rolls. If dice rolls make the Persuasion skill pointless because it never fails, try to base more interactions strictly on how the player roleplays it, at least until a skill roll gets requested. This is the part that trips me up, because I call for a lot of rolls in my games, maybe too many.
Side note: Many GMs go to the other extreme and base too many outcomes on strict roleplay conversations. That's an auto-win for a silver tongued player with an edgerunner who has 1s in Cool and Empathy. Too few rolls is a also a key aspect of railroading. Too few rolls can be worse too many.
I still don't understand how a player character can ever go cyberpsycho. You only lose humanity by installing new cyberware, so why not just stop buying chrome at EMP 2 or something? Unless you hate your character then I don't understand.
At character creation, installing cyberware has a fixed humanity loss cost. In campaign play, you roll for it and you can get some therapy done.
So you can risk it more during the campaign in order to min/max your humanity loss
@@JonJonTheWise Ah ok that makes sense. I'm new to the pnp rules and still trying to understand the basics without ever playing haha. Really enjoying your content though, super helpful.
You can lose humanity from mental trauma. Page 231 of the core book. 1 or 2 d6 are rolled for loss in the examples there for things like witnessing a violent death or torture.