Humanity
The original RAW for Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. features the concept of Humanity Cost: the more cybernetics you have installed in your body, the lower your Humanity score gets, reflecting a descent into sociopathy and contempt for your fellow humans as you see yourself becoming something superior.
The problems I have with this concept are its ableist and anti-transhumanist connotations. Hacking your own body to better serve your needs is, by definition, cyberpunk.
There are already measures in place to ensure most people don't go full 'borg conversion, mostly to do with the price tags involved, but also public perception (while "cyberpsychosis" may not be a real thing, the uneducated masses still believe in it) and the way cops are going to treat you ("I was afraid for my life" becomes a stronger legal defense when that chromed arm may conceal rippers, a gun, or just a bone-crushing grip).
However, I'm adapting rules from the RPG Unknown Armies to better model the slow psychological degradation from trauma that cyberpunks are staring into.
As in the RAW, your Humanity is EMP x 10.
As you experience trauma (either through something your character witnesses or something they themselves do), you can become either Hardened to that stimulus or suffer a trauma reaction (fight, flight, or freeze).
There are three Gauges:
Violence. Dictates how you handle violence, whether inflicting it or suffering from it.
Self. Deals with internal conflict, especially guilt. Commit a crime, injure someone you love, lie to your best friend, etc.
Helplessness. Measures your reaction to traumatic events that you can't control.
When confronted by a shocking event that falls under a particular Gauge, you must make an Empathy check, rolling to see how resistant you are to that stimulus. The intensity of the stimulus determines the Difficulty of the test.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:39, Tue 25 May 2021.
