Cyborgs & Traveller

[Tucker]

How you folks handle the issue? Canon leaves little room for them, but my feeling is different. Especially after reading some of PF Hamilton's SF, I have a better feeling for how to use them in-game.

The prejudicial tx of this new Humaniti could stand, but the interesting PC/NPC types could be very interesting. A whole lotta rule-making and handwaving would be required for CT/MT/TNE, but GURPS has some decent stuff in the toolbox right off.

PC's that fail survival rolls could opt for cyborging, at great loss of MO benefits or having debts to repay like partial ownership of a starcraft.

I haven't got LBB-8, or DGP 101 Robots(or any of their Robot stuff), is there any material besides that or should I mine GURPS?

 

[savage]

Cyborgs. My favorite is shadowrun.


Savage

 

[Jame]

The "Battle Angel Alita" series presents cyborgs well and extensively, and "GURPS Robots" has a design sequence, I think.

 

[mike wightman]

T20 includes a small section on cybernetics. For CT there are articles in Journals or Traveller's Digests or Challenge magazines etc.
I'll try to dig out a few references.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

Palladium's (Ptui!) Heroes Unlimited and Rifts Sourcebook One (PTUI!!!) have a good overview of robotic/cybernetic components... I recommend it for ideas, but not exactly as a design system, as it is based only on money... the silliest thing I can remember about the books was the "explosive finger joints" and the bottweilers from Rifts...

Good for Ideas, but read it in the store instead of buying these horrible products... Mr. Siembeida is another one of these "Robot Haters" and presents the tired concept of "man making machines, Man abandons machines... Machines get sad and Lonely, and then (of course) turn homicidal" This is presented in the incredibly lame A.R.C.H.I.E. character, and to a more annoying/badly presented extent, the incalculably lame and omnipresent MECHANOIDS (ptui!)

PS: Did I mention I despise Palladium? Please Pardon the Rant...

 

[Tucker]

No, rant away. I never did cotton to Palladium much, the only stuff I liked was the Weapons, Armor, and Castles Book(s), and a few others of that sort.

I have this vision of Belters being a module of their seeker ships, sort of parking their spaceworthy borgness on the things for the Jumps, and detaching to prospect etc. I see a good number of freetrader types that have no use for dirtside having gone borg as well. Then there's mercs...

I can't see a player of mine wanting to make that sort of change willingly, but I could handle the concept IMTU.

 

[dragonhawk]

You can look at the Cyberpunk RPG for some ideas for borgs as well. There is numerous fan sites on the web for it. At least it has rules to curb the amount of cybernetics you can install.

 

[ACK!!]

Ok from the perspective of my game and IMTU only.

The Six Million Credit PC:

Cybernetics are highly looked down upon and the person could easily be refused entry on multiple planets due to any mechanical mods on their body. It is considered like carrying a concealed weapon. Basically, the person would be treated like being caught with a set of lockpicks on you or a syringe and hypodermic needles on you. It would be a good reason to lock you up and send in a head shrinker in to see you for evaluation and a one way ticket to the local mental ward. Any starport would have the facilities to detect these things and neutralize them while holding the carrier. Medical tech has progressed to the point that cybernetics for limb replacement is seen as old school and unnatural. In extreme cases, on some high law/high tech worlds, the person could easily find themselves prosecuted and the limb or whatever would be replaced with a nautral one.

 

[Tucker]

Yeh, Cyberpunk is a definite influence for my game anyway, at least the noir-esque and corporate dystopia stuff. IMTU, the Rathool subsector, is home to a vacc world Canteus, that is pretty much wholly a nod to that genre. I tended to use geneering as the edgy tech there, skin jobs and all that, which offers an alternate sort of cyborging after a fashion.

I like how Peter F Hamilton made the nanotech and cyborging part of his general setting in Reality Dysfunction, et al the Confederation. His setting has a definite appeal for modifying my TU to include even Edenist tech.

 

[mike wightman]

There are some cyborg noble patron encounters in the Knightfall supplement for MT.
The Traveller's Digests that covered body part replacement are numbers 12 to 14, although only 12 and 13 mention cybernetic/bionic replacement.
I'm sure I've seen something else as well...

 

[Straybow]

This touches some important game mechanisms.

Regeneration of tissues takes time, perhaps a long time. Cybernetic replacement is a speedy alternative. Perhaps some would even be hollow and include medical devices to allow the limb to regrow inside.

The standard is in-game healing rates. How long does it take to recover from a given wound? Healing damage in situ rarely requires the body (and whatever pharmo- nano- aides) to replace kilograms of tissue. Limb replacement would be the equivalent of healing many hundreds of points of damage.

Of course, the same applies to area damage from fire, acids, etc. The body has to generate new skin over a large area, without any skin in place as a starting point. Grafting is slow and painful. Muscle tissue lost is not replaced naturally. The immediate functional impairment of a wound (points of damage) does not reflect the severity of the tissue damage in such cases.

If healing body damage from an FGMP is a handwave, then so is limb replacement. But then healing of "trivial" bullet or hand weapon wounds should be moreso.

 

[Badbru]

Originally posted by Tucker:
How you folks handle the issue?


The prejudicial tx of this new Humaniti could stand, but the interesting PC/NPC types could be very interesting. A whole lotta rule-making and handwaving would be required for CT/MT/TNE, but GURPS has some decent stuff in the toolbox right off. I haven't got LBB-8, or DGP 101 Robots(or any of their Robot stuff), is there any material besides that or should I mine GURPS?

Two of the player's in my current campaign are playing cyborged characters. It's all quality slick ware and hi tech and they still can't access their memories of recieving it. Lucky really cause alot of it would've been painfull.

No need for "Handwaving" for /TNE there's a whole section in Fire Fusion and Steel all about cyborging and great lists of parts/systems to install. Plus Cyborgs appear in the melieu in Vampire Fleets and the challenge mag prequel.


If you can find a copy of FF&S and adapt to whatever system you're playing that could help you. I use TNE anyways so no problem for me but I also have Gurps Cybertech which has oodles of stuff for Borg building and it's Gurp's if that's what you're playing.

 

[Tucker]

There you have it, it is just possible that a bionic replacement might be cheaper or even preferable to certain parties. The military generally wants that grunt back into action, and growing a new arm takes too long(?) or maybe is too expensive for the just good enough techno pegleg.

I have little problem with replacement, it's enhancement where things get problematic for a Ref. Having a swiss-army hand is one thing, having a swiss-army hand that can crush coal into a diamond...

 

[Straybow]

Well, crushing coal into coal dust. Diamond would take an impressive heat source. Crushing is simply a matter of mechanical leverage, and you can do it with your hand and a pair of pliers.

A "street-safe" cybernetic replacement could be designed of soft materials of limited strength, such that mechanical advantage over natural flesh is negligible.

 

[Badbru]

Ahhh yes healing can be a problem. TNE has three wound levels: light wounds, under a given locations hit points
: Serious wounds, over a given locations hit points but not more than twice.
and : Critical wounds, more than twice a given hit locations hit points.

Therefor with cyborged characters (in particular slickware which incorporates alot of the original tissue/blood/bone/skin etc)
Light wounds require ordinary first aid and healing.
Serious wounds require both ordinary first aid and healing, and a successful robotics or electronics task roll. GM determine difficulty level based on tools available etc etc though no replacement parts are usually required.
Critical wounds require First aid and healing and
a difficult task electronic or robotics by a qualified cybernetics technician. In addition parts for the cybernetic component of the damaged area will have to be replaced. Usually this will be a d6 worth of bits and pieces some of which may need to be fabricated others can be bought off a shelf assuming you're near someplace that sells cyberware.

And yes with a "powerhand" if you want to let them they just might be able to crush coal into diamonds but then if it's slickware they've also just crushed all their own outer layer of skin and nerve endings which probably hurt, definately left their hand bleeding and ragged and probably results in a) that hand no longer qualifying as slickware, and b) IMTU more than likely a diffmod DM on all dexterity tasks using said hand until it heals
Yes cyborging can be exploited. It can also be balenced. Alot will depend on your players.