[OOC] Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

[Terminal]

My present idea for a character is a twitchy, anxiety-prone bean-counter who claims to have been one of the Detective's 'little helpers.' Extremely jumpy and always looking over their shoulder. Knows more than than should. Useful at times, but untrusting and obviously has a different agenda than anyone else. They will have a lot of utility oriented skills, a fast mouth, and a silver tongue (whenever they are not about to swallow it).

Character sheet pending.

[The Scotsman]

The suggestions for the character creation all seem reasonable enough, but personality and background have their places in the sort of gives precedence for who they are; a guide to follow as to their demeanor. It comes across as, "This person is generally like this." and then of course background is obvious, in that everyone has a story, some just do not share it. Granted it could be intentionally part of the design to leave those things out, I am not one for doing so. They add more to the meta, which is especially important in this game.

Granted we should have no one near suffering from cyberpsychosis, but a rehabilitating teched out fiend might be a good example for this exercise. Having had all of their kit pulled out and off them, alongside some psychiatric treatment, might make them a bit more interesting to know about than say, never mentioning any of that. Of course this is not an elaborate, detailed explanation, but enough that we know sort of the who, what, when, where, why, and how of characters in the greater plot. Relevant to this in the same vein, I believe we should include it so we can draw from all the sheets to create a list of locations, non-characters, corporations, technology, and the like which we can move into one post; a reference source so we all have a living, breathing understanding of the world.

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

I feel like if you can't explain it at the appropriate time and place and be able to justify your actions/reactions in the IC, this would be the wrong place to be writing. Show, not tell, as the say. However it's a minor if annoying point that won't tip the scales so this is just for the sake of devils advocate.

[Hekazu]

<Snipped quote by The Harbinger of Ferocity>

I feel like if you can't explain it at the appropriate time and place and be able to justify your actions/reactions in the IC, this would be the wrong place to be writing. Show, not tell, as the say. However it's a minor if annoying point that won't tip the scales so this is just for the sake of devils advocate.

@The Scotsman

Indeed, many should be more than able to know where their character is rooted and whatnot. But when we, as a group, are attempting to steer the plot, it in my opinion be quite beneficial to know where the other characters stand and where they are coming from. For example, it might be easier to suggest a course of action that would rely on another character's connections if one knew of said connections. Speaking of OOC interaction of course. I would thus place my confidence on sharing the story of the individual, at least in broad strokes, rather than to leave it fully in the dark. Personality though, those details are less important to the building of the story and and a general, almost handwavy approach would not be questioned in my book.

[The Scotsman]

That's fine by me, I won't argue it but thought I should lay down my cards first is all! :)

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

Since there is no official, shared canon or lore associated with the game as of yet, the introduction of some background and insight is, at least to my perception, essential. In large because I wish for us to conglomerate all of it and distill it into one piece of reference where we can all work from and within, essentially a paragraph at most for each thing, be it a term, location, person, corporation, and all the rest. Leaving too much ambiguous in this case with so little background I see being more of a tripping hazard than a novel plot element; my advice would be to just leave aside anything that would play one's hand and hint at any number of things instead without outright saying it.

[DJAtomika]

I want to make a cop that might've been Davidson's partner or colleague that's looking into why he's so jumpy at work.

[SleepingSilence]

I guess if we're just spitballing character ideas. One idea I was drifting toward was doing an AI, possibly doing some pretty morally black shit. Something like human trafficking. The reason is because the character is paid in some kind of rare and/or expensive medicine, that keeps a child alive. (Which happens to be someone I look after/close relationship with.)

It's quite different from the other stated professions, but pretty sure AI/smuggling fit fine within the world. I think it would be an interesting anyway. ;P

[Terminal]

While the idea is thematically apt, what possible motive could an AI have to be involved with Davidson missing? It might be better for a future character idea, but for an initial character it seems somewhat removed.

[The Scotsman]

I'm with Terminal here. I actually kinda like the character idea, quite a bit actually, but I don't see a connection to Davison or his disappearance. However, if you can think of a good tie to the plot I'd love to see your AI!

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

So on a related note, actual androids are a consistent thing of this universe? That I could see, though to what extent I ask are we comfortable with it. I imagine they vary from being frames, essentially just humanoid machines with little to no overt human qualities, to the premiere pseudohuman kinds that can pass for a person, but generally being rare. The sort of technology you only see in the highest echelons of corporate life or wealth at all, then of course the stolen and hacked versions that operate in the underground, perhaps literal and metaphorical.

[Hekazu]

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

Androids are more rare a breed than people who have gone through a full-body conversion to a cyborg, as far as I have understood. And with how rare those conversions are, androids would indeed very much be toys of the upper echelons, if not currently on the secret development stages of the top-level megacorporations. Biodroids are also an option to consider, cloned bodies with a pre-programmed cyberbrain attempting to make sense of it. For while cloning limbs is rather abundant, putting up an entire body could... prove less trivial a task.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

That is the sort of environment I pictured in the environment of the mind's eye, where the idea and execution was not out of the realm of possibility, just significantly less common, @Hekazu. It might be surprising to come across one, but not unheard of depending where one goes and who they associate with. Not so much the reality of seeing them everywhere alongside people as some other works of fiction have portrayed.

[SleepingSilence]

@Terminal@The Scotsman

Well there's always a way to find some kind of connection. Have we decided exactly why, and where he disappeared? And what caused it? (Or if he's still alive or dead?) Maybe my character isn't directly connected, but maybe I somehow saw Davidson later than any other character by happenstance. Which would provide insight about his location. Maybe the company I'm involved with had something to do with the disappearance. Whether directly or from connections with another gang that was involved/negatively effected by is actions/with his gear selling.

If every character was too closely connected, might make the world seem unnecessarily small. But I think I could think of a decent enough reason to be related, if I had a timeline of the character and how we're connecting him with all the other characters.

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

Looking at people discussing it online, because on the Wikipedia it only mentions that it does point them out but barely references them in the original book but clarifies in later material. This is how someone explained it.

"In the world of Cyberpunk 2020, in the late 80's, they discovered a neural-networking technology that allowed them to interface with human brains, as well as create artificial brains very easily. This means that all the research money went into creating those kinds of computer chips, and so the computer chips WE use, are not as developed. That's why some things, like AI, work very well in Cyberpunk 2020, and other things, like traditional computers, are very much still stuck in the 90's. Moore's Law was never a thing, and processing speed did not double every year. Instead neural nets grew every year, creating a very different computer revolution."

So if they can create artificial brains as chips more advanced than we currently have, I could only assume they'd make AI smarter/more complicated too. But yes, I agree that it would be a rarity and probably only used by the big wigs of society.

[The Scotsman]

@Terminal@The Scotsman

Well there's always a way to find some kind of connection. Have we decided exactly why, and where he disappeared? And what caused it? (Or if he's still alive or dead?) Maybe my character isn't directly connected, but maybe I somehow saw Davidson later than any other character by happenstance. Which would provide insight about his location. Maybe the company I'm involved with had something to do with the disappearance. Whether directly or from connections with another gang that was involved/negatively effected by is actions/with his gear selling.

@SleepingSilence

We certainly weren't disparaging the character (I wasn't anyway, I won't speak on Terminal's behalf as he has own opinions but it sounded like he is of the same opinion as me), just that the original premise of the AI didn't have any clear connections, close or distant, to Davison and his disappearance. Perhaps the AI and the cop ran in the same black market trading circles (albeit different products), and the AI had the connections to follow leads down? I'm just going off what I know from the CP2020 manual, and that Fixers are people who have the connections and knowledge to be able to track people or get hard-to-get items etc. Again I like the AI concept, we just wanted to make sure you had the story-relevance part too!

[SleepingSilence]

@The Scotsman Oh no, I understand what you mean. I'm perfectly willing to discuss that among everyone, along with every other character. So we all have a good idea what we're all trying to accomplish.

I know I'm a little behind on what story line and events you guys had built for this character in question, so when that is explained in greater detail with a more expansive timeline, I can make that inclusion more natural when I have the context required.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

Considering the divergence technology took in the genre, androids seem only appropriate at large, just in that tier outside of reach for the majority. As I noted before, I could easily see compromised models existing in the criminal underground, either salvaged and pieced together out of others in the vein of Frankenstein by some particularly talented deckers and techies for their gang ventures, while on the other side the wealthy elite have some here and there. Related to this, given the majority of it is focused on the people and their cybernetic enhancements that turn them from effective meat into cyborgs, I suspect most robots are primitive and simple minded. Say, vending devices more advanced than what we see today in our own, but far more crude and block-like.

[SleepingSilence]

Considering the divergence technology took in the genre, androids seem only appropriate at large, just in that tier outside of reach for the majority. As I noted before, I could easily see compromised models existing in the criminal underground, either salvaged and pieced together out of others in the vein of Frankenstein by some particularly talented deckers and techies for their gang ventures, while on the other side the wealthy elite have some here and there. Related to this, given the majority of it is focused on the people and their cybernetic enhancements that turn them from effective meat into cyborgs, I suspect most robots are primitive and simple minded. Say, vending devices more advanced than what we see today in our own, but far more crude and block-like.

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

Just from what I've read about it, it seems like the world has made artificial intelligence (and even outright human cloning) that would be impossible in this day and age. But cellphones are going to look and weigh as much as a concrete block. Least from how I'm interpreting the sources I'm reading...

In the 2nd Chromebook, it goes into the concept of full body conversions which basically replaces all the human parts with robotic ones effectively making you a robot as is. Though with the negative of "Cyberpsychosis" were you loss humanity/empathy and see people as lesser beings as a result. So I guess, simple in the way of losing the complexities of human emotions perhaps...

I tried looking for more information on cloning and AI, since I know it's there, but didn't happen to find what I needed. All I can really find is comments on its Reddit page, and articles about it.

Cyberpunk 2020 is all about the diminishing humanity of the player, as they add more and more cyberware and become more and more machine, and trying to figure out where the line between man and machine is. Even at the most machine-like, becoming a full body conversion, the player still retains their brain and brainstem, and thus a small sliver of humanity. While the Net definitely does have actual, full-fledged AI in it, AI-driven humanoid (or otherwise) bodies have never really been a big part of 2020. That's not to say it wouldn't be a possibility. It just hasn't been what the game is about.

I guess if the biggest concern is not entirely knowing the answer to the question of "How in-depth is the cloning and AI technology? If they can perfectly replicate human brains, would they be on-par with/similar to replicants?"

I won't be a prude and argue over semantics. I can always change the character to a "full-body conversion" type. If that would raise less concern, though I sort of already kind of had a mostly non-empathetic personality to begin with. So either honestly fits...

I guess the more I know about how we're setting everything up, and how a certain character connects to every player character. I'll be able to piece together a believable backstory/timeline.

[DeadDrop]

@ me when we get a CS format.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

@SleepingSilence

Neither a question nor issue of it, but my emphasis is that this should be an exception rather than a general rule in keeping with the theme we had in mind. The goal was and is to focus on the lower level individuals and activities associated alongside avoiding the issue of any form of power creep. It becomes an effort to separate and denote one from the other rather than say, "Just because it exists we are doing it."

[SleepingSilence]

@SleepingSilence
Neither a question nor issue of it, but my emphasis is that this should be an exception rather than a general rule in keeping with the theme we had in mind. The goal was and is to focus on the lower level individuals and activities associated alongside avoiding the issue of any form of power creep. It becomes an effort to separate and denote one from the other rather than say, "Just because it exists we are doing it."

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

Hopefully that general theme is made more clear and described. I know there's been a lot of discord chat and things outside these pages alone that I'm unaware of. But I certainly intended to be lower on the wheel of rank/importance. Basically a lackey forced to do dangerous and morally black work. Like I said, I'm alright with keeping the AI bodies as a rarity in the particular plot. (Have a perfect alternative anyhow.)

I'm just not 100% certain what plot has been decided on.