Over in Gun of the Week, this conversation occurred between Drakensis and myself:

>>I have some recollection of a CP 2020 character using a Kang Tao Type
>>97 - a polymer one-shot priced at a mere 35eurobucks.
>>
>>Since the weapon upgrades worked on a multiplier of base cost, I then
>>paid to upgrade the reliability from Unreliable to Very Reliable, and
>>add a recoil compensator for another shot per round.
>>
>>It was a very rules lawyerly way of getting a very decent 9mm sidearm
>>for significantly less than the cost the solidly middle of the range
>>guns like the Federated Arms X-9mm.
>
>I had a player do something like that. And then chucked a smartgun link
>on it.
>
>Using the alternate cybernetics effects rules I was testing at the time,
>this ended up causing a very hilarious effect that I will discuss
>somewhere else.

Welcome to Somewhere Else.

The rules in question I was testing were for a little more of a real-world kind of effect, as I work(d) like so many people around in tech, and my tech support background got me thinking. Basically, instead of "emotional coldness and then psychosis", there were also possible issues with technical issues due to mistakes, incompatibilities, things like that. You could get glitches, system failures, and, yes, cyberpsychosis - you could even install just a little chipjack and something about it on your nervous system could make you psychotic. It was a little clunky and needed refinement, but I figured, hey, might as well try something a little different.

So as noted by Drakensis and then by me, I had a player who got one of the cheapest guns in the game, had a gunsmith work on it to make it reliable, and then, being the team gunbunny, slapped a smartgun link on it. It was supposed to be the character's second-tier hold-out, when their main hold-out wasn't available for a reason - you know, the one that's in the ankle holster in the boot for when extra shit hits the fan.

I made the rolls. "Major Malfunction" came up. But it didn't happen until they used the item, so I tucked that away for later.

Well, it being Cyberpunk 2020 and me running a very 80s inspired game (they were going up against mostly-dead-and-upgraded soldiers being run on remote by an AI, and working for an old man who ran a foundation dedicated to restoring California, at least, to a place run not by corporations and their whims but by laws and goverment), extra shit did, in fact, hit the fan.

Dr. Snow ended up with their rifle AND their pistol unusable. They pulled the "oh shit" holdout. Engaged the cyberlink.

And then all they could see was this:

...Needless to say, the phrase in the title was said, and then everyone started laughing at the sheer, absolute, utter ridiculousness of it.

They managed to live! But it was really dicey, and Dr. Snow was kind of useless until the medtech got a chance to reboot their processor and install a new cyberlink driver for the gun link.

--
Jen Dantes - Darth Mephron
Haberdasher to Androids, Dark Lady of Sith Tech Support.
"This may not be a good idea, but it's the only one I have."

LAST EDITED ON Sep-01-26 AT 11:11 AM (EDT)
 
>The rules in question I was testing were for a little more of a
>real-world kind of effect, as I work(d) like so many people around in
>tech, and my tech support background got me thinking. Basically,
>instead of "emotional coldness and then psychosis", there were also
>possible issues with technical issues due to mistakes,
>incompatibilities, things like that. You could get glitches, system
>failures, and, yes, cyberpsychosis - you could even install just a
>little chipjack and something about it on your nervous system could
>make you psychotic.

I remember toying with something like this idea, or at least wishing that it existed, but it seemed like too much work at a time when I wasn't actively engaged in a campaign, so I never went anywhere with it. Glad to see someone followed through on the concept, though! The cyberware's-consequences rules in both CP and Shadowrun always struck me as way too linear.

>an old man who ran a
>foundation dedicated to restoring California, at least, to a place run
>not by corporations and their whims but by laws and goverment

"Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice-skate uphill."
- Eric "Blade" Brooks, 1998

>Dr. Snow ended up with their rifle AND their pistol unusable. They
>pulled the "oh shit" holdout. Engaged the cyberlink.
>
>And then all they could see was this:
>
>

Would you say that Dr. Snow...

... crashed?

>They managed to live! But it was really dicey, and Dr. Snow was kind
>of useless until the medtech got a chance to reboot their processor
>and install a new cyberlink driver for the gun link.

"And this is why we don't set our HUD to maximum opacity."

"Yeah, yeah."

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I need to borrow this at some point; I'm building a (mostly) custom sci-fi TTRPG game system* and I want cyberwear malfunctions and psychosis to be more than just "reach X point, become an NPC rage-monster". Also, having to call tech support and debug your friend mid-firefight sounds hilarious.

*I'd love to find beta-testers/proofreaders for this monster sometime- not trying to bother people here, I just think you all would understand the tone I'm aiming for better than the average bear.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

>Also, having to call tech support and debug your friend
>mid-firefight sounds hilarious.

It makes me think of my favorite scene in the first live-action Transformers movie (the only one I've seen to date), in which the Special Forces guys are fighting Scorponok and (as you might expect) have zero idea WTF is going on. Their leader, played by an actor whose name I have forgotten but who was clearly cast only because Michael Biehn had inconveniently aged out of the role, is trying to call the Pentagon on a borrowed Qatari cell phone and has to get one of his guys' credit cards to put the call through. "Where's you wallet?" "Pocket!" "Which pocket?" "My back pocket!" "You got ten back pockets!" "LEFT CHEEK! LEFT CHEEK! LEFT CHEEK!"

I rarely literally laugh out loud, particularly not in public, but that scene had me cracking up right there in the theater. There was a lot wrong with that movie (particularly the audio mix, wtf), but those specops guys were brilliant. I'd happily have watched a spinoff that was just them getting dragged reluctantly into X-Files shit because of their prior experience with the giant alien robots.

--G.
"NO I don't want a premium package!"
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

One of the things I always wanted to see in games with cyberwear was some guy who went cheap, and suddenly:

"I AM 1337! GIVE ME WAREZ, DOODZ!" overloads his vision.

Peter Eng
--
And then there'd be the pop-up ads...

>One of the things I always wanted to see in games with cyberwear was
>some guy who went cheap, and suddenly:
>
>"I AM 1337! GIVE ME WAREZ, DOODZ!" overloads his vision.

That was a potential issue on the suggested list. "Sudden ads manifest in most recently added/upgraded sensory system."

No one had any taste-based upgrades. And then if that happened to someone who got a Mr. Studd... shudder

--
Jen Dantes - Darth Mephron
Haberdasher to Androids, Dark Lady of Sith Tech Support.
"This may not be a good idea, but it's the only one I have."

> you could even install just a little chipjack and something about it on your
> nervous system could make you psychotic.

I once wrote a character who had a nervous system like that. Every known neural interface material would cause cyberpsychosis at accelerated rates. He knew, so it wasn't a problem for him, but one of the other authors introduced a character who tried to install a mind control chip...

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

>> you could even install just a little chipjack and something about it on your
>> nervous system could make you psychotic.
>
>I once wrote a character who had a nervous system like that. Every
>known neural interface material would cause cyberpsychosis at
>accelerated rates. He knew, so it wasn't a problem for him, but one
>of the other authors introduced a character who tried to install a
>mind control chip...

One of the missions in that campaign had the PCs investigating an explosion in a suburb. Turned out the house had been a black clinic, someone dragged another guy there to install a bomb in his head. That little bit drove him psychotic and the surgeon hit the button.

...which, due to some previous work the guy had done with a deadman switch, set off all the dead man's grenades.

Some parts of that game went very dark, considering the 80s aesthetic I was going for.

--
Jen Dantes - Darth Mephron
Haberdasher to Androids, Dark Lady of Sith Tech Support.
"This may not be a good idea, but it's the only one I have."

I'm reminded of a somewhat similar scene in SNOW CRASH where a character is stuck in the middle of a firefight but can't shoot back because their atomic-powered minigun (named Reason, as in "Listen to Reason") needed a firmware update.