NEW RULE: Ghost Differential.

A cyberpunk epic run by Wintermute
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Wintermute
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Post by Wintermute »

CyberPsychosis. Essence. A lot of games have covered the concept of losing your humanity as you become more of a machine. I was unsure of how, or even if I wanted, to represent this in GURPS, but I think I've found a way. The Ghost Differential.

Players will be expected to keep track of two totals, their character points, and their character points with purchased cyberware. So, if you're a 200 point character who goes out and buys wired reflexes (100 points), you now have totals of 200 and 300. 300-200=100, and that's your ghost differential. To bring your ghost differential back to 0, you must pay 100 character points for the wired reflexes.

Now, I'm not going to publish the rules on the Ghost Differential, but I will describe it. Some cultures attribute it to the loss of the soul. Scientists attribute it to any number of causes, or dismiss the concept altogether. But people who get too much cyberware, too fast, tend to be a little different. They may go a little crazy. They may find themselves having trouble interacting with other humans. They may even find they have new disadvantages. Ever seen the Simpsons episode where Bart sells his soul? It's kinda like that.
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smartmonkey
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Post by smartmonkey »

So the formula is something like (total points+points spent on cyberware)-total points = ghost differential?

See? I do teh mathzor!
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Post by Wintermute »


[quote="smartmonkey"]So the formula is something like (total points+points spent on cyberware)-total points = ghost differential?

![/quote]


Actually it's just the total point cost of any cyberware you have that you haven't paid character points for.

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Post by smartmonkey »

Oh!

Oh shit!

I get it now!

Brilliant!
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Post by Digital_Boy »

And, of course, the larger the differential, the more pronounced the effect in day to day life.

Something like "Armitage" aka Col Corto from Neuromancer? Or his psychosis was more from the aftereffects of the war?
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Post by Wintermute »

Paranoid Schizophrenia is one of the most notable effects (possibly because having a paranoid schizophrenic with wired reflexes on your hands is such a bad thing), but there are many, many others which are rumored to occur (scientists have yet to publicly acknowledge the phenomenon, except to rationalize it as faulty parts, rejection, latent psychological problems, etc).

Corto's problems are certainly similar to the symptoms some people report.
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