Hello Folks, GURPS CYBERPUNK in the bad old days of GURPS 3e (tongue in cheek when I say that!), had a situation where it posted the dollar cost of cybernetic enhancements as well as listing a point cost. My own philosophy regarding character generation was that you paid money for equipment, points for things you started off with at character generation. I never charged a player both points and money for them to have say, cybernetic eyes. If they purchased an item and underwent surgery - risking a bad surgery roll etc - then they didn't have to also pay character points in addition to the money to have the cybernetic enhancements. At one point, I permitted the use of character point cost instead of monetary expenditure to represent the time spent finding a doctor to graft it to your body, find good equipment that wasn't as advertised, and the fact that the operation to install it was a success. Finally, I just treated cybernetic enhancements as just plain old "equipment" and let it go at that.
The odd thing is? In trying to mesh GURPS 4e with GURPS CYBERPUNK, I sought a means for calculating the character point cost for cyberlimbs etc - and even turned to my GURPS CHARACTER ASSISTANT to determine what the cyberlimb modifiers might be. Sadly? The only cybernetic's limitations/enhancements I could find in GCA - there those relating to Mind Reading ONLY. Then I thought "Well, perhaps the gadgets limitations/enhancements mmight work - until I found this... page 116, lower right - last paragraph: "In particular, the GM should never charge points for ordinary, manufactured equipment - or even for special equipment, if it is for sale - unless it happens to be signature gear (pg 85)." The paragraph continues on, and even onto the next page, in which it states on page 117: ..."anyone could buy these items, they have a cash cost, not a point cost." That seems to imply then, that with the exception of rarity or "unusual background" costs, there should be no character points associated with the actual ownership of cybernetic enhancements per se, as those are purchasable items that anyone could purchase. That leads to the next question, one that may be answered in GURPS ULTRA TECH for 4e... If GURPS 4e specifically talks about armor that is purchasable as being equivalent to DR, night vision goggles being equivalent to Infravision, etc - and those are all equipment items as opposed to advantage items... would any piece of cybernetic enhancements be treated as a form of "correctable" regards to equipment that replaces "meat"? Example: A man who has a cyberhand to replace his missing crippled hand, he takes the disdavantage "crippled" with the modifier of "correctable". If he takes bionic eyes, he must also take blind as a disadvantage with "correctable" as a modifier. Problem is? If the eyes have better capabilities than the original "Meat" version - why is not the character penalized in character points? The problem/issue with what was written in the paragraphs on page 116 & 117 is that they specifically discuss a situation regarding infravision - which is better than normal vision. The goggles can be stolen, broken, run out of power, etc. That makes them "equipment" not "character point expenses". Ah well, I think I'm going to consider the prospect of my original philosophy regarding CYBERPUNK character generation the correct one in view of all this in GURPS 4e. Equipment that you can buy is still *JUST* equipment. Unusual background costs can be for what ever the GM desires as a balancing tool, rather than a mandatory "hey, you MUST use these rules or the SJG Men in Black will appear and revoke your GM'ing license. _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
