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This thread is for my general ramblings, as I'm inclined to do every so often. While I intend to keep the others mostly coherent, this one's more of a coredump.

The system's gonna be GURPS 4e. You don't need to buy the books, I should have two copies of the characters book by the time we get around to statting characters. Characters are gonna be 200 points to start off with. Beginning cyberware MUST be purchased with character points. Also, some cyberware effects are available to people without taking the cyberware... the 'ware just mimicks the natural aptitudes and abilities some people have.

Once in game, cyberware will be purchased with cash. If you're so inclined (and the background holds up), you're more than welcome to twink by statting your character to be rich, then buying the cyberware in game. Of course, surgery can take a whole lotta time, so you probably won't be involved in any of the first sessions. It's a good way to discourage twinking. :)

Finally, I've got a rough list of available cyberware. Once I get done with the history, I'll clean up the list and post it on the website.

I may purchase the GURPS character book in any case, just to have it. I do better with a system if I can sit down and -read- the fucker for a few hours in between sessions. Depends on what this paycheck on friday looks like, really.

Wealth. Characters with significant wealth will need to determine how it is kept. The stock market fluctuates, real estate can be destroyed, bank accounts get raided and the money in your matress might get stolen. This isn't to say that I plan on regulating character finances through theft, but merely that world events (and the actions of NPCs) can have dramatic impacts. On the bright side, if you're invested in Royal Dutch and the characters do something significant to help them, you may find your wealth increasing. At any rate, just something to think about.

Also, since it's such an important concept to the genre, remember to trust no one. Don't mistake a trust of the GM for a trust of the NPCs. They lie, cheat, and steal just as much as characters... maybe more! While not every plotline will be a doublecross, I'd highly recommend doing a bit of research and taking nothing at face value. Who knows, the doc that just installed those shiny new reflexes for you might've been bribed or cajoled into adding a cortex bomb while you were out.

On plagarism, stereotypes, and the myth of original creation.

In the perfect world, I would have a team of writers to come up with plots, a contract with Pixar to handle any video I mgiht need, a props department to supply me with scale buildings for combat grids, and several talented artists to come up with a score. Of course, if this were the case, we'd be playing on my private island in the Bamahas while scantily clad women (or men, or occult nazis, depending on how your tastes run) rolled our dice and refilled our drinks.

As it stands, I've got myself to write plots, a suite of pirated adobe products to handle video, a few websites to order props from, and a hard drive full of mp3s. Of course, I've also got a decent place in Encinitas and a fridge full of beer. :)

It's my intention to stimulate your senses in this game. While I certainly don't intend to belittle the storyteller narrative, I'd like to go above and beyond. It can be very cool to see what your character might see, to hear what your character might hear. Due to the constraints listed above, a good deal of this footage will be recycled from sources that DO have the proper budget. The fixer you're asked to talk to may look quite a bit like Willem Dafoe, the music might sound an awful lot like Ice Cube, and you may recognize the arcology from a special on the history channel. I want to make the game as good as possible, and in order to do so will draw from as broad of a range as I can. It may require a bit of suspension of disbelief, but I think it'll be worth it.

Separating the presented material from the source is important as well. I don't have any inclination to re-invent the wheel. The gun you're using might be out of a shadowrun book. The 'ware in your head might be out of Cyberpunk 2020. The spider tank you're piloting is probably from Ghost in the Shell. This does not mean that the entire source material exists in the game world, merely that elements of it have been lifted. This is not a bad thing, in my mind, and in fact I strongly encourage you to ask if you have something you'd like to see added. I'll be the first to admit there are people better at the genre than I, and I don't have any problem with utilizing their work.

Finally, I would like to credit original sources when possible. To that end, the following sources have been very valuable in planning the game: Gurps Cyberpunk, Transhuman Space, Cyberpunk 2020, Shadowrun, Ghost in the Shell, Akira, The Matrix, Terminator & Terminator 2, Ronin, Heat, Snowcrash, and just about everything William Gibson has ever written. I'm sure I've forgotten a ton of things, and I'm sure I'll find many more, but I'd encourage you to check out these sources if you're so inclined, and pay homage to the things that make Aleph Null possible.

Computers are a big part of the cyberpunk genre, and exploiting them tends to come up fairly regularly in game. I probably spend a majority of my waking hours sitting in front of one, and so I've learned a thing or two about them. One of my goals in modern and near-modern settings is to emphasize realism, and frankly a lot of games tend to miss the mark when it comes to computers.

If you want to have an attack program that looks like a sword and cuts through security programs based on your reflexes, I'd highly recommend finding a Shadowrun game. Hacking in my games tends to involve a lot of time spent writing code and researching exploits. To that end, I would highly recommend that the players of "hacker" characters do a little bit of research into the subject.

I won't expect players to know that sendmail operates by default on port 25, or that Dgiplus.dll can be caused to suffer a buffer overflow with a malformed jpg image. I will, however, hope that players understand some of the basic techniques involved. A computer hacking might go something like this...

GM: The Los Angeles Tyrell node's default network representation is a modernized inca pyramid, assembled from uncut slabs of opaque stone.
Player: I bounce a portscan off of it, routed through the Lucky Dragon terminal I cracked earlier.
GM: Your portscan reads most of the major ports before it's blocked. A trace program exits the pyramid, intent on discovering your location. It appears this Tyrell node is running TrendMicro Firewall v.3.6.2.
Player I wipe the logs of the lucky dragon terminal. *flips through notes* TrendMicro Firewall 3.6.2? I've got an exploit for that. I go ahead and run it through the Taiwanese SatLink.

I don't want an attack program that looks like a sword. But I want a calling card that looks like a cat with a slice of toast on its head. Let them wonder about that one.

And all of you insist he's the antichrist incarnated in feline form. :P

and he is...all that picture says to me is "hmmm...if i disguise myself as a sandwich perhaps i can get the jump on Morgan when he tries to eat me..."

Dude, you mean thats not a sandwich? Cos damn, I was gonna say, thats a good looking sandwich. Mmmm, sandwich.