Posts

• Oct 27, 2023

  The Great Tabletop Hackaton: Shadowrun 1st Edition Play Phase

  

  Run Summary

  After deciding on the design parameters for our Shadowrun 1st Edition Matrix run, I got my stopwatch and jumped right into it. I stopped it at the end of every node to keep a running tally of the elapsed time.

  Here’s the system map we’re using, for reference:

  

  Below is the account of events. As I mentioned before, the actual timed run was written in a brief shorthand and the account below was expanded for readability after the fact.

  Node 1 (SAN): Red-3, Trace and Dump-4.

  The Decker enters through Node 1, dialing the mainframe’s modem. Security here is unusually tight for a Shadowrun system - the target really doesn’t want anyone sticking their noses in his business.

  I hadn’t quite understood the rules here yet, thinking that you couldn’t use your Hacking Pool outside of cybercombat for anything but improvising programs.

  So our decker arrives here at Sensor range, improvises Analyze-7 with her pool, and runs that against the ICE, seeing that it’s a potentially dangerous tracer. She moves into Contact range and I roll Initiative even though we’re not in combat, just to have a sense of the flow of the action.

  She runs Sleaze against the Tracer using only the program rating, beating the ice but failing anyway because this is a Red node.

  From that point on I learn that you can use Hacking Pool dice on any Computer or program test even outside of combat, so I use some on the second attempt and pass even though that has increased difficulty. Ice supressed, we get to whisper “I’m in” into our comms.

  And here is where I realize there’s very little reason to be sparing with those pool dice, and that I can use pool dice even for tests with improvised programs. So my strategy for pretty much the rest of the run is to shout I AM SPEED and drop my entire Hacking Pool on any test that doesn’t happen during actual cybercombat.

  Total time elapsed so far: 1 turn, 13 minutes.

  Node 2 (SPU): Orange-5, Access-6

  Another beefy node, and our actual password prompt. Our Decker analyzes the Ice like before, and this fails with a tie. I rule a tie doesn’t activate the ICE. She decides not to try again and just tries Sleaze instead.

  I AM SPEED gets us through this just fine - Sleaze works against everything, but Deception would have worked here too. We can see two other nodes from this one, but not what they are. I decide to flip a coin to see where we go next, and we go right towards Node 3.

  Total time elapsed so far: 2 turns, 28 minutes.

  Node 3: SPU, Green-4, Barrier-3

  This is where I arrive at my final interpretation for improvised programs. Improvising them is part of the same action in which you run them, so while this takes only 1 action total, the pool dice you use for the script aren’t available for the test.

  Luckily Analyze’s rating doesn’t actually limit what it can discover, so we’re better off improvising an Analyze-1 script and chucking our remaining 13 pool dice into the test than going for Analyze-7 with 1 extra die. Having an actual Analyze program would be even better, but this is pretty good still.

  So our reckless Decker successfully analyzes the ICE and Sleazes past it using the same actions and approach as before. I AM SPEED wins again!

  She sees there are two connected nodes, and it’s right here that I realize she’s not actually in any danger at Sensor range and can back out after reconnoitering. So Ms. Decker moves into Sensor range of the two connected nodes in order to scout them all and see they’re an I/O Port and a Control node without any ICE in them. She then decides to move on to Node 4.

  Total time elapsed: 5 turns, 41 minutes.

  Node 4: I/O Port, Green-4.

  This node and Node 5 don’t actually have a security rating of their own, so I gave them the same rating as the SPU that was linked to them.

  We once again go with I AM SPEED, and our total of 21 dice easily takes care of the system operation needed to disable the camera. Per the rules, after either succeeding at a system operation or giving up after a number of failures, we need to roll a d6. If the result is less than or equal to the number of attempts, the system noticed something wrong and triggered an alert. We only had one attempt before succeeding, and we roll a 3, so no alert.

  Camera is off. First goal accomplished!

  Total time elapsed: 6 turns, 47 minutes.

  Node 5: Control, Green-4.

  Same deal as before, and same outcome. Alarm is off, second goal accomplished. And we took less time because I already knew what to do.

  Total time elapsed: 7 turns, 50 minutes.

  Node 6: SPU, Red-4, Killer-4.

  We still have data to steal, so we go to the only unexplored path so far and try to find data stores.

  After scouting the node, we follow your usual procedure of Improvised Analyze -> close to Contact range -> Initiative -> Sleaze, always using our whole Hacking Pool for each individual test. We suppress the ICE without issue. If you noticed how reckless we’re being, take a cookie.

  Further scouting reviews two data stores attached to this node. I flip another coin to decide where to go, and we go down to Node 8.

  Total time elapsed: 10 turns, 58 minutes.

  Node 8: Data Store, Red-4, Black Ice-5.

  Our usual Improvised Analyze routine shows us this data store is protected by Black Ice! This is scary, but is also a very promising lead.

  Disregarding the danger, our Decker goes all in and chucks her whole Hacking Pool into Sleaze again. She succeeds by exactly the needed amount and suppresses the ice.

  She then uses Browse to find any drainable accounts, because she doesn’t know the full layout of the system like we do. The operation succeeds but she doesn’t find anything. Boo!

  Remembering the actual mission, she Browses for incriminating evidence and finds it. She has enough disk space for the file, and no time pressure for the download, so we just wait a couple more turns. Third objective accomplished!

  She still wants to find that money, though, so she moves to the other data store at Node 7.

  Total time elapsed: 13 turns, 1 hour, 9 minutes.

  Node 7: Data Store, Red-4, Access-5

  Same deal as usual. Improv Analyze reveals the ICE, Sleaze gets past it, Browse confirms there’s nothing of value to the team in this node.

  Here is where I begin to notice that despite the different types of nodes and the flowery descriptions of virtual dungeons, we’ve been performing more or less the same sequence of tests in the same order, in a loop. So I guess a long enough Matrix run might seem a bit boring for the decker as well. I’m still having fun here, because lucky rolls have given me a string of successes, but I don’t feel like I’m in danger or having to make complex decisions.

  Anyway, the only unexplored node left is the CPU. A cautious decker might decide to cut their losses, perform the single remaining system operation they need, and jack out. But we’ve already established our Decker is not cautious, SHE IS SPEED!

  Total elapsed time: 14 turns, 1 hour, 20 minutes.

  Node 9: CPU, Red-5, Trace and Burn-6, Black Ice-4

  The setup is a little unusual here. This CPU has all the standard system operations available, and the Trace and Burn-6 is protecting those. It also has a link to the target’s bank account, and draining it counts as a custom system operation. There’s a piece of Black Ice protecting that operation only.

  So our Decker will have the run of the system if she neutralizes the Tracer, but to get the money she must also get past the Black Ice.

  She comes within Sensor Range, Improv-Analyzes both pieces of Ice, and sees what they’re protecting. She decides to deal with the Tracer first. I roll Initiative for everyone as she gets into Contact Range, but the ICE will only act if it activates.

  Despite the usual I AM SPEED approach giving us 19 dice to Sleaze past the Tracer, the node’s high security level prevents us from succeeding. We try again with increased difficulty, and this time a very unlucky roll gives the ice more successes, meaning it activates!

  The first thing Trace and Burn does upon activation is try to raise an Internal Alert in the system. This causes the ratings of all ICE to increase by 50%, so we’re actually dealing with Trace-and-Burn 9 now. The Black Ice also improves to Rating 6, but it remains inactive since it’s only protecting the bank account.

  We could have allocated dice from our Hacking Pool to an opposed test to “jam” the ice and prevent the alert from going through… but we already used all of them on the Sleaze attempt, and the pool hasn’t refreshed yet. This is why our Decker has been very reckless so far, as every piece of ice she faced until now could have done this on a failed test.

  On its first actual action, Trace and Burn rolls its rating to determine how long it will take to trace the Decker. We’re lucky here because this roll gets only 1 success, meaning it will take a total of 10 of the IC’s actions to do so. Once that time is up, though, her deck is toast.

  Our Decker switches to using the Attack program to destroy the Tracer before that happens. This is proper cybercombat, which works a little differently. The “to-hit” roll is an unopposed test with only with your Hacking Pool against the Node’s security. The program’s rating is your base damage if you hit, and it increases by 1 for every extra success past the minimum required to hit. Actual damage is your net successes in an opposed test of the ICE’s rating versus your damage pool.

  I end up using my entire pool in the to-hit roll, since any less than that means I won’t be beating the difficulty on average. It takes me 3 turns to destroy the Tracer this way, but since everyone acts multiple times per turn I only had 3 actions left before the trace completed. This was still somewhat repetitive since it was the same set of rolls every time, but it was also exciting since this is the first time our Decker is in any actual danger.

  With the tracer gone, she uses a system operation to cancel the alert and manages to Sleaze past the Black Ice and drain the target’s account. Bonus objective completed!

  With that done, she moves normally to the Control Modules and opens the final door, completing the mission’s objective. She then jacks out. Mission Complete!

  Total time elapsed: 19 turns, 2 hours and 4 minutes. This combat alone took 41 minutes to resolve.

  Run Analysis and Impressions

  I’m not gonna lie, I kinda feel like I completed an important life goal. I could never understand this hacking system when I was 12, but now not only did I grok it, I finished an entire Matrix run while using it. So I’m pretty happy, and I had fun.

  However, I must also conclude that all the criticisms leveled at this system are valid.

  As mentioned in the intro, we’re assuming our physical team has an easy time getting past the reception area. This would take some light roleplaying and a roll or two from our talker. That plus walking to the restricted area might take 10 minutes of real time, but it takes the decker 50 minutes to complete the goals that let them move forward from there.

  The next part of the physical mission will involve more tests and die rolls from the physical team. The Decker takes around half an hour of real time to find the electronic evidence, and it might be accurate to assume the physical team takes about the same or a little bit longer to sneak past the guards and find the physical documents. Let’s say 40 minutes for the physical team.

  Then the Decker decides to loot the server, and that takes 41 minutes. Unless the physical team is having an epic shootout at the same time as they try to leave the building, all they have to do is sit and wait. Otherwise they take maybe 10 minutes total to reach the back door and walk out.

  So a team that has a firefight on the way out might take up 90 minutes of real time, and a team that doesn’t will take perhaps 50 with their part of the mission. Our Decker is taking up at best over half and at worst over two-thirds of the session with her solo VR dungeon crawl. And this is all assuming a 100% buttery smooth session with absolutely no digressions, distractions, or rule arguments to make it longer.

  There was also a point where I kinda felt that the decking run itself was getting a little repetitive, because the “optimal” procedure to follow became obvious: Improv Analyze -> Sleaze, always dumping the entire Hacking Pool into each test. In actual cybercombat, I also ended up doing the same thing over and over until the enemy died. It was still enjoyable, but I could see it eventually overstaying its welcome even for the decker player.

  Finally, if it turns out that my rules interpretations were overly generous and this was supposed to be way harder, then all the criticisms I made become even stronger, because everything would take more time and more rolls.

• Oct 26, 2023

  The Great Tabletop Hackathon: Shadowrun 1st Edition Design Phase

  

  For this run we’ll be using the original edition of Shadowrun, published in 1989. I started with second edition, but that’s not a problem because I’m equally unfamiliar with both edition’s hacking systems!

  The writing and setting and even the rules of these two early editions give me a sort of cozy nostalgic feeling when I read them, but these days I am well aware of all their issues, mechanical and otherwise.

  Setting Overview

  The setting’s global network is called the Matrix. Hackers are called Deckers because they use cyberdecks, devices the about the size of a full 104-key keyboard that have cable jacks for connecting directly to the decker’s neural interface and to either a computer terminal or a communications line.

  Using a cyberdeck to access the Matrix takes you to the full Gibsonian VR Dungeon experience, where you zip through the infinite grid of the Matrix and then crawl through the low-poly simulated environments of a server, treating its security programs as monsters and its data as loot.

  Beneath the chrome flash, we’re dealing with classic mainframes from the Eighties. The Matrix isn’t the Internet, it’s the global phone grid. You access your target mainframe by connecting to the phone grid yourself and dialing the number of the mainframe’s modem. There are even rules for making long-distance and international calls. Mainframe numbers are usually unlisted, but can be found with diligent research by deckers or provided by whoever’s hiring them for the run.

  A cyberdeck is distinctly different from a mere “computer”, crammed full of specialized electronics that allow it to be used for operating in VR and hacking mainframes. Personal computers don’t do really do much other than letting you store and view data files, and perhaps acting as dumb terminals to mainframes.

  Cyberdecks cost a fortune! The one used by the sample starting characters in the book costs more than a sports car. The most expensive one is about twice the price of a fighter jet. And that’s just for the base hardware. If you want your deck to be truly tubular, you’re probably going to spend around twice its base price on software and optional extras. Deckers tend to be highly specialized at character creation because they need to spend most of their points on money and most of their money on a deck - there isn’t any “room” to be anything else.

  Mechanics Overview

  A mainframe is composed of a set of Nodes representing its different parts, connected by Data Lines. The end result is a lot like a dungeon with rooms and corridors.

  Each node allows users to perform a different set of System Operations related to its function. Authorized users can do this automatically. Our decker must perform a Computer skill test to beat the node’s Security Rating, a color and number combination that gives you both the difficulty of the roll and how many successes you need. If you fail at performing a system operation, you might trigger an alert.

  Deckers can also run Utility Programs, which do things not listed in the system operations menu. There are four program categories, and each has a slightly different procedure that’s some variation of rolling the program rating against the node’s security. Some programs degrade, losing effectiveness each time they’re used. This resets when the decker jacks out. Failing at using a program doesn’t raise an alert, but might trigger IC.

  The game is very concerned about how large programs are because there are rules for loading them from disk to RAM and managing your free memory. Not having enough RAM to run all you need at once is the quintessential 80s computing experience after all.

  All Computer skill tests and Utility Programs can benefit from the decker’s Hacking Pool, which is equal to the sum of their Computer Skill and Reaction attribute, modified by stuff that increases Reaction. Like other dice pools in this system, it refreshes at the start of every action. You can allocate dice from it to benefit any Computer or Program tests while in the Matrix.

  If you want to use a program you don’t have, you can improvise a single-use script version of it with your Hacking Pool. You can only improvise a degrading program once per Matrix run, but if I understand the book correctly you can improvise non-degrading programs multiple times. I’m interpreting the rules to mean that an improvised program must be used in the same action, otherwise there would be little reason to buy any programs.

  Most nodes are going to have some IC (Intrusion Countermeasures, “ice”) in them. The mere presence of IC stops deckers from performing system operations or moving past the node, and they must either destroy or fool the IC before they can do these things. Most ice only triggers when it beats you in the opposed test to fool it. If you beat it but fail to beat the node’s base security, they remain inactive and still block your progress. Subsequent attempts are harder, increasing your chances of triggering the ice. Attacking IC directly also triggers it, of course.

  White ice is completely passive. It tries to raise an alarm but you can block it with your Hacking Pool. Grey ice additionally tries to trace you or attack your deck. Black Ice attacks the decker directly, and might kill them. There’s a little bestiary of different types within each category.

  Matrix turns happen at the same speed as physical combat turns, using the same initiative rules. Both types of turn last around 3 seconds.

  Run Parameters

  In the Shadowrun 1st Edition version of our run, our decker is going to be remote, and we will assume the team discovered the mainframe’s unlisted phone number during their prep phase. I’m going to take a couple of shortcuts here because those are available to me.

  For our decker, we’ll be using the Decker Archetype from the SR1 corebook. She has Computer 6, the Fuchi-4 deck with a decent spread of mods and programs, and a hacking pool of 15. I’m going to cheat a little bit and replace her Deception 4 utility with Sleaze 4, because from what I understood of the system there is no reason to ever take Deception when you can take Sleaze instead. Let’s assume she has one run under her belt and used the payout from that to upgrade her software a bit. Even with Sleaze’s larger size she can still fit all her programs in RAM at once.

  

  For our target system, we’ll be using the one from page 55 of the Mercurial adventure. Here’s a list of the ICE present in the system:

  • Node 1: Trace and Dump-4.
  • Node 2 Access-6.
  • Node 3: Barrier-3.
  • Node 4: no ICE.
  • Node 5: no ICE.
  • Node 6: Killer-4.
  • Node 7: Access-5
  • Node 8: Black Ice-5.
  • Node 9: Trace and Burn-6, Black Ice-4.

  Node 4 will be connected to our security camera, Node 5 to the alarm and door. Node 8 will contain the evidence we seek, and the CPU at Node 9 is where we can drain their accounts because that’s how it is in the original adventure. The other data store at Node 7 has nothing of value to our runners.

• Oct 25, 2023

  The Great Tabletop Hackathon, part 00: Introduction

  

  I recently got into a forum discussion about hacking in cyberpunk tabletop RPGs, as one does. This one was mostly centered around Shadowrun, and it touched on a lot of the reasons why one might want to play without a hacker PC even when you want to feature hacking in your game. It also got a bit into edition arguments, as it often does.

  Shadowrun’s problems are more or less universal to the genre, as mentioned in the other post linked above. The first three editions go heavy into the whole Gibsonian VR Dungeon aesthetic and suffer from the classic problems from that approach. It’s also very inspired by how 80s mainframes worked, and rules aside it all made so much more sense to me once I realized that.

  The fourth has something that visually resembles Ghost in the Shell or Cyberpunk 2077, where the hacker follows along with the group and hacks a series of smaller devices using an augmented reality interface. My recollection is that this is supposed to be faster, but the discussion in question had people complaining it wasn’t.

  Cyberpunk-the-game is similar, with CP 2020 going in fully for VR dungeons, and CP RED going in for smaller localized servers that are also supposed to only take a small series of rolls to solve instead of an hours-long minigame. They’re are much less inspired by reality than Shadowrun’s (though this is of course not a knock on them, merely an observation).

  There are also more recent games that try to either capture the nostalgic feel of old-school cyberpunk or to express the same themes in a more modern way. I’m thinking of Neon City Overdrive and Hard Wired Island, respectively. I’m not very familiar with them yet but I intend to change that.

  And then you have GURPS, which has a few hacking systems of its own depending on which genre you’re talking about. The ones I’m interested in are the one from Pyramid #3/21, which emulates classic cyberdecks-and-mainframes hacking but could also work for GitS-style shenanigans, and the more streamlined one from GURPS Action.

  And I kinda want to see if they all match the memories and impressions I have of them. Let’s try them all!

  Hackathon Scenario and Rules

  Picture a team of flawed but stylish urban mercenaries composed of a hacker, a sneaky talker, and a pair of sneaky bruisers. They’re on a mission to take down a corrupt and racist businessman, and they learned a company he owns stores the sort of evidence that can’t be ignored by the government: proof of rampant embezzling and tax evasion, in both digital and hardcopy forms.

  Our mercenaries are going to infiltrate a small, single-office company, one of the many owned by the target. It does do legitimate business but also serves as a “stash” for records about the target’s illegal activities. Secret ledgers, blackmail material, and so on. Some of this lives in the company’s computer system, some of it is stored in hardcopy in a “records room” whose access is restricted to normal employees.

  Employees and other authorized personnel can wander the legitimate business area of the office freely, but the “records room” can only be accessed by a small group of people who work directly for the target and drop by occasionally to use it. There’s a back entrance with an electronic lock so that these lieutenants can get in and out outside of business hours and/or without bringing too much employee attention to themselves.

  The records room is watched by a camera and protected by an alarm that triggers if a stranger or even a normal employee tries to get close to it. There’s a small guard shift here during the day which increases at night. The guards know who the lieutenants are, and their duties involve keeping everyone else away from the room.

  The office’s computer system will be different in every game. In all of them it’s supposed to be small but with tighter than expected security, because of what it hides.

  The team’s mission is to infiltrate this office, steal all the evidence, and if possible drain the company’s accounts on the way out, because at the end of the day ya still gotta eat, chummer. Here’s how things are supposed to go, with a greater focus on the hacker’s part since this is what I’m interested in:

  First, the team enters the building disguised as a maintenance crew. We’ll assume this part succeeds, giving them limited freedom of movement inside the office.

  Next they must enter the records room. For them to be able to do this, the hacker must turn off a security camera and an alarm.

  If the previous step succeeds, the hacker must locate and steal the target data from the office’s computer system. Technically, the best strategy would be to steal the evidence first and only then drain the accounts, but our hacker will do things in the order in which they run into the corresponding locations. The lure of money is strong when the account is right there.

  Finally, the hacker must unlock the back door so the team can leave. Ideally they will do so quietly and with no one the wiser, but this could happen in the middle of a firefight. Possibly one caused by the hacker triggering an alert in the computer system.

  For each of the following systems, I’m going to stat up a hacker character and a computer system that conforms to that game’s paradigm and rules. And then I’ll roll through the target session while timing how long it takes me.

  • Shadowrun 1st Edition

  • Cyberpunk 2020

  • Shadowrun 4th Edition, 20th Anniversary.

  • Cyberpunk RED

  • Shadowrun 5th Edition.

  • Neon City Overdrive

  • Hard Wired Island

  • GURPS Action with the Pyramid #3/21 system, both in “classic” and “modern” modes.

  • GURPS Action with its own system. Not sure this can accommodate the scenario, but we’ll see.

  I’m using this particular list because those are the books I happen to own at present. I’m not sure if I want to spend money to acquire the hacking systems used in Shadowrun 2nd and 3rd Edition, though I do remember they are notably different from SR1.

  The hacker and their equipment will be at roughly starting character level for each game, possibly with a slight tweak or two, and the challenges faced should be challenging but not impossible for the hacker. Whether the target devices are separate or part of the same single “target system”, and whether the hacker is even with the physical team, will depend on the system in question.

  I have more practical experience with some of these systems than with others, but I will be studying all of them to ensure I do each run “right”. Preliminary study doesn’t count towards the timed session, but consultations that happen during the actual run do, because I’ve never been in a session where people didn’t have to consult the books for something like this.

  I’ll be writing a lot of stuff down during the actual run, but I’ll try to be as brief as possible there. It’s still going to take a bit more time than doing it verbally, but I think it evens out because there will be no table talk or extra player questions getting in the way. I’ll write wordier summaries after the run is done, and these are the ones that will see publication.

  All rolls will be made on Orokos, but I’m not going to save them and will just report the results in the article.

• Oct 25, 2023

  Let's Read Neverwinter: Evernight, part 02

  This post concerns itself with specific landmarks in Evernight. A lot of them are “coterminous” with Neverwinter landmarks, occupying the corresponding location in space and having the exact same boundaries.

  Black Mound

  The district of Black Mound is named that because of the hill that dominates it. It’s coterminous with the Protector’s Enclave in Neverwinter. The houses and manors here are larger than in the rest of Evernight, but just as dilapidated. Undead are not known for their tidiness.

  Most of the city’s relevant landmarks are here.

  House of Screams

  Located in the same spot as Neverwinter’s Hall of Justice, the House of Screams is the oldest manor in the city and the closest thing Evernight has to a courthouse or city hall.

  The Tribunal holds court in the upper levels. When it’s time to adjudicate a dispute, they slam iron portcullises over all exits until the session is done, because as mentioned in the previous post the ghouls eat the losers. They do find vampires to be a particular pain in the neck to deal with, as they can transform into mist and fly through the grates.

  The House’s wide open cellar works as an arena where citizens can work out their problems without getting the Tribunal involved. There’s usually some bored ghouls, wights and vampires hanging around hoping to watch a fight or three, and they will gladly act as witnesses to confirm that the few rules of engagement were obeyed by both parties.

  Temple of Filth

  Coterminous with the House of Knowledge in Neverweinter, the Temple of Filth used to be dedicated to Bhaal and Myrkul, ancient gods of murder and death who died during the switch-over from AD&D 1e to AD&D 2e. Now it’s dedicated to Orcus and Dorensain.

  All of the temple’s decorations, including its altar and holy symbols, are built from corpses and corpse bits. No special care is taken to preserve these bits. They’re just replaced with new ones when they rot away. Ewwww.

  The undead of Evernight sometimes ask the priests here to resolve their disputes, because they tend to demand services from both parties instead of eating one of them like the Tribunal does. The temple’s chief priest is Ursuntos, whose stats are those of an Adept of Orcus (Level 6 Controller, from the MM3). He has a bunch of ghoul and vampire underlings, and his political power in the city is second only to the Tribunal’s.

  The grounds of the Temple are considered both defiled and necrotic ground as per the DMG2. Very cursed, but surprisingly not quite as cursed as the Dread Ring, which has additional effects on top of that.

  Pool of Daylight

  Deep within the temple, behind a bunch of locked doors, traps and magical darkness areas, is a literal pool of radiance (is this a name drop?) that shines as bright as the world’s mid-day sun. Any undead entering its chamber suffers terrible pain, and touching the pool can actually destroy the weaker among them. This is here as the ultimate security measure, for the pool is said to hide an artifact at its bottom that works as a weapon of mass destruction against undead. The Temple doesn’t want anyone else getting a hold of this.

  Good thing living PCs don’t need to fear the light, huh? This could be just the thing to use against those pesky Thayans and Shadovar.

  The Graveyard

  Evernight’s Graveyard occupies the same area as the pauper section of Neverwinter’s own graveyard. Despite the name, and despite being absolutely filled with crypts and tombs and graves, from the point of view of the city’s ghouls this place is a restaurant.

  You see, when an Evernight ghoul catches a living “tourist”, they don’t eat right away. Instead, they take the paralyzed victim to a place called Lamantha’s Mortuary, where the resident necromancer will inject them with longer-term paralytics. Then the ghoul arranges for a “funeral procession” for the still-living victim, who is buried alive in the Graveyard. Only after the victim has died and “ripened” a bit does the ghoul crack open the coffin and eat.

  Corpse Market

  Coterminous with the “rich” section of Neverdeath in the world, this is exactly what it says on the tin. A market where undead merchants sell meals to undead customers who are too busy to catch their own. From preserved blood for vampires to assorted corpse bits for ghouls to necromantic supplies, you can find all of that here for affordable prices.

  This is also the place to go if you want to hire undead labor. Renting a zombie laborer costs 10gp per day and requires leaving a chunk of your flesh as collateral. The chunk is alchemically preserved, so it stays fresh and can be reattached later. While it’s missing, you lose a healing surge.

  You might also be able to hire undead guides for about 100gp per day. Some of these guides might be able to smell specific “flavors” of death from a long distance away, so they might be useful to an Uthgardt Barbarian who wants to find their tribe’s missing thunderbeast skeleton, or to PCs looking for Gauntlgrym. Undead guides charge a premium for going into particularly dangerous places, refuse to fight for their clients and might in fact run away if a fight breaks out. Other than that, though, they’re reliable as long as they’re getting paid.

  A creepy old man known as the Resurrectionist wanders the Market every day, looking for a piece of someone specific he wishes to bring back to life. He never finds the right one, so he keeps coming back to continue searching. He’s been at this long enough that most standard resurrection magic wouldn’t work any more, but the man guarantees he can bring anyone back no matter how long it’s been.

  There’s a fenced off area here that contains warehouses and some of the merchant’s residences. While anyone can walk through the market, unauthorized people caught in this area are assumed to be prowling thieves and are killed on sight.

  Dark Creeper Enclave

  This large manor close to the Graveyard is the Netherese consulate on Evernight. The Netherese pay a family of Dark Ones, the Glumguts, to mind the place. They don’t have any official authority - their job is to maintain the house, serve any actual dignitaries in the rare occasions they stay here, and receive any packages dropped off at the embassy.

  Family members like to supplement their income with the occasional spot of burglary or robbery, though they are careful to restrict their activities to the living (who can do less about it). They also only target Thayans if they can get one of them alone, to avoid reprisals.

  This is a proper gothic family too: their patriarch Blackclaw, a dark stalker (level 10 lurker), rules them through fear. The only ones who have the courage to defy him are his young cousins Thrax and Vinnia, and his son Blackcut. The trio believes they’re protected by Blackcut’s relation to his father, and free to do whatever they want. The truth is Blackclaw simply doesn’t know most of what they’ve been up to, and will be livid when he finds out. Their shenanigans have actually been quite detrimental to the family’s duties.

  Thayan Outpost

  The Thayans are based out of a warehouse near one of the city’s haunted piers in the Black Mound. They have a permanent garrison here commanded by Katrice Ansar (stats as a human hexer from the MM2, Level 7 Controller). She’s convinced they are being watched by Shadovar spies besides the obvious dark creepers, but has yet to find them.

  Near the warehouse, in an abandoned neighborhood, is an iron gate that acts as a “dusk crevice” linked to Neverdeath cemetery. It’s guarded around the clock by a unit that includes undead loyal to the Thayans.

  Locations Outside Black Mound

  There are only three of these described here.

  Lamantha’s Mortuary

  Mentioned above in the Graveyard description, this is run by a living human necromancer named Lamantha who works as a mortician and taxidermist.

  One of her main jobs is preparing mortal victims for burial in the Graveyard, which she does by injecting them with long-term paralytic drugs and dressing them up. She can also disguise undead so they look like living people through wardrobe and makeup adjustments, and she can turn bodies or bits of bodies into trophies and tools (or sporting equipment, as the book makes sure to mention).

  Since she provides valuable services, the rulers of Evernight gave Lamantha citizenship and allow her conduct her research in peace. Only the necromancer herself knows its precise nature - it’s something to do with observing the nature of growth and change among undead. Maybe she’s a necro-sociologist?

  Despite being completely amoral and quite unhinged, Lamantha is happy to receive living visitors and get the latest gossip from the middle world. PCs who are polite to her might be able to use the mortuary as a safe place to rest for a couple of days, though she will become impatient with them if they overstay their welcome.

  The Demon Pit

  Coterminous with Neverwinter’s Chasm, this opened up at the same time, though it did not disrupt “life” in the cursed undead city nearly as much as it did on the living one. Like in Neverwinter, the average civilian does not know why this rift opened up, nor what’s down there.

  Evernight’s inhabitants call their rift the Demon Pit because rumor has it that it goes all the way down to Dorensain’s kingdom in the Abyss. No one tried to explore it, but they sometimes throw living mortals into the Pit as sacrifices to Orcus and Dorensain. That’s more of a folk ritual than established Temple practice, mind you.

  Like the Temple of Filth, this area counts as both defiled and necrotic ground, and is still not as cursed as the Dread Ring.

  Castle Nowhere

  Coterminous with Castle Never. It looks much more intact and much creepier than its worldly counterpart, and not even the most ancient of Evernight’s undead citizens can tell when it was built. Like a few other places we’ve seen in previous posts, Castle Nowhere only exists sometimes, vanishing and appearing in a ten-day cycle.

  No one in Evernight knows much about what goes on inside the castle. They avoid going in because, get this, they think it’s haunted. This is hilarious, but it also makes you wonder what kind of haunting would scare an undead city.

  Some of the legends about the place say that if you’re inside the castle when it vanishes, you don’t come back when it does. Others say that the ghosts inside it feed on the hunger of others. This means they can cause the living to starve to death, but they can also cause a ghoul or vampire to become trapped in a state of eternal starvation and use them as permanent food sources. A fate worse than a second death!

  There’s a box here with a power you can add to any incorporeal undead creature to make it into a ghost of Castle Nowhere. Consume is a melee attack vs. AC that removes the target from play and inflicts 10 ongoing damage (save ends both). The target reappears adjacent to the monster when they make their save.

  Living creatures reduced to 0 HP by this reappear normally and become immune to the power for the rest of the encounter. They make death saves and can be healed as normal. Undead reduced to 0 HP do not die, and remain trapped until willingly released by the ghost, or until the ghost is destroyed.

  Impressions

  That’s a proper creepy city, yes indeed. There’s more than enough material to fuel a whole horror-themed campaign, though I suspect most typical groups who are focused on other stories wouldn’t want to linger here too long.

  Still, there are good reasons to visit the place. That artifact hidden in the Pool of Radiance would be extremely useful to wreck the Thayans, for example, and if the PCs want to follow the Shadowfell Road to their home base they would also need to start at the Thayan outpost in Evernight.

  Castle Nowhere would make an awesome dungeon, but as written there’s barely any reason for PCs to enter the place. Perhaps they could use it to lure and trap a powerful undead foe like Valindra, or maybe the quickest way to access the Tomb of the Nine is by entering Castle Nowhere and crossing to the world through a dusk crevice.

• Oct 23, 2023

  On Cyberpsychosis

  There are a number of tropes that are specific to Cyberpunk-the-game¹, but which many people end up thinking are integral to cyberpunk-the-genre. And “cyberpsychosis” is the one that annoys me the most by far.

  Cyberpsychosis is Cyberpunk’s term for the general concept that cybernetic implants make you less human. This concept made the way into the game because its author Mike Pondsmith used the AD Police anime as one of his sources of inspiration, and the anime goes heavily into it.

  You probably already know how it works in the game, but here’s a refresher: characters have an Empathy stat that determines how well they relate to other people. This gives them a Humanity score that’s equal to Empathy x 10. Each implant has a “Humanity cost” that gets deducted from that score when installed, and for every 10 points of Humanity you lose you also lose 1 Empathy. This makes it harder to succeed at social tasks. When both Humanity and Empathy reach 0, you become a “cyberpsycho” and an NPC.

  I agree with the mechanical purpose of these rules, which is to limit how much cyberware a character can have. But this is heavily entangled with the “this stuff makes you less human” story concept, from the terms used to the in-fiction justification to the setting elements built around it.

  Cyberpunk 2020 was particularly bad about this. Cyberpunk RED is much better about it due to thirty years of progress in popular thinking about mental health, but I still have issues with it.

  In Which I Talk About My Issues

  In CP RED, Humanity loss is more or less equated with psychological trauma. You can lose Humanity by experiencing traumatic events, and modifications that are purely cosmetic or therapeutic in nature don’t cost Humanity. Therapy helps you recover and restores your Humanity. And I’m happy to report it’s “merely” difficult and expensive instead of the sinister tracker-injecting conspiracy it was in CP 2020.

  However, the mechanics remain exactly the same as before for cyberware that has game benefits. The explanation given is that the act of “going beyond the human baseline” is traumatic. Cyberpsychosis is the dissociative disorder you get when you do it too much, and makes you start seeing yourself and others as collections of replaceable parts instead of living, thinking beings. You can use therapy to partially recover the Humanity lost to cyberware, but to recover those final points, you need to get rid of the implants.

  The concept of “human baseline” isn’t examined very deeply here. You know it when you see it, and your Empathy reduces when you move away from it. It’s the act of implantation that causes harm.

  This feels really backward to me, because a theme I often see in literature or media I like is that cybernetic implants are more like the scars of trauma than its cause.

  Molly Millions from Neuromancer has implanted mirrorshades because her traumatic past made her wary of opening herself up emotionally. The windows to her soul are shuttered.

  Burton and his ex-Haptic Recon buddies from The Peripheral have a number of twitchy combat implants that mostly serve as symbols for the PTSD they got from their time at war. Flynne, one of the main protagonists, has similar psychological scars from her time playing realistic military simulations for money, but she has no implants because her trauma comes through in her viewpoint narration.

  David Martinez from Edgerunners was already a reckless putz with a hero complex² before getting his first implant. Each one he has installed is either a reminder of someone he feels he failed to protect, or a reflection of his desire to be strong enough to protect those who are left.

  I’ve heard it said that someone who gets an implanted gun or blade is declaring themselves the kind of person who needs to be ready to kill someone at all times, and that erodes their humanity. But isn’t “feels the need to be ready to fight and kill at all times” a common trait to all Cyberpunk PCs, chromed or not? It’s a lot easier to find a PC with no implants than one with no weapons, armor, or combat skills.

  It doesn’t really matter whether your gun is inside your coat or inside your arm. And since I don’t think a Cyberpunk character should lose Humanity for carrying a conventional gun, they also shouldn’t lose it for carrying an implanted one³.

  What I’d Do Instead

  Like I said above, I still agree that there must be some sort of rule limiting the amount of cyberware Cyberpunk PCs can get. A lot of it gives powerful abilities and you don’t want them to be able to install the whole catalog at once. That would make the game less fun in a variety of ways.

  I want to base it on some stat other than Empathy, though, and I’m going to pick Body for that. I find it much easier to imagine that cyberware has concrete impacts on your body than on your mind.

  Under this new rule, your maximum Cyberware Capacity (CC) is your natural Body x 10. “Natural” here means the base stat value before any modifications from cyberware. Cyberware’s “humanity loss” stat now represents its “capacity cost” instead. Your current Cyberware Capacity is the cost of all your implants added together. This represents both minor health issues caused by the implant’s presence and the increased need for maintenance.

  If you exceed your maximum Cyberware Capacity, you die. The good news is there are no other game penalties until you get to that point. Note that medical exams to measure your CC values are standard pre-op procedures even at mall clinics. No ethical ripperdoc will ever agree to perform an operation that would kill the patient. Not all of them are ethical, though.

  Body-scultping (including full gender transition), medical-grade replacements, and cosmetic mods continue to have zero cost⁴. The implants involved in all of these processes are designed to be minimally invasive and to require near-zero maintenance.

  Cyberware Maintenance (Optional)

  GMs who wish to make a commentary on the cruelty of capitalism might institute this optional rule.

  When it’s in effect, you need to pay a monthly cyberware maintenance cost equal to your current CC x 10eb. This represents anything from periodic check-ups and implant cleaning to a regime of targeted immunosuppressors at the high end.

  If you skip a month, your current CC increases by 1d6. If you’re also living under harsh and unsanitary conditions during that time, such as from being lost in the desert or having to sleep in the gutter, it increases by 2d6 instead. If it goes over your maximum, you die as above. And yeah, this extra CC also increases your maintenance costs next month. Field-expedient maintenance and a Medicine roll might reduce the increase from 2d6 to 1d6, at the GM’s discretion, but there’s no reducing it to zero without making that monthly payment.

  Excess CC from neglected maintenance can be removed through treatments that cost and work the same as the psychological therapies from page 229 of the core book: 500eb (or 100eb and a DV15 Medicine roll) to restore 2d6, and 1000eb (or 500eb and a DV17 Medicine roll) to restore 4d6. These consist of extensive drug courses, therapeutic surgery, and physical rehabilitation.

  As a further optional rule, the GM could also use these stats for “tune-up” treatments to reduce Cyberware Capacity to the minimum values described in the book: 2 per piece of cyberware, 4 per piece of borgware. Gotta spend money to save money.

  What About Humanity?

  Empathy and Humanity continue to exist in a game where Cyberware Capacity rules are in play. Since we’re renaming things anyway, let’s rename Humanity to Stability because suffering from mental trauma doesn’t make you less human either.

  You can still suffer Stability and Empathy loss when you suffer actual mental trauma, as described in the CP RED core book. The same therapy options are still available and they can help you as described there. Reaching 0 EMP will cause a breakdown that will leave the character unplayable until they can recover, but this will not necessarily be violent.

  The one case where cyberware still causes Stability loss is when a victim is forcibly implanted. The Maelstrom gang in CP 2077 loves doing that to random civilians, and it definitely qualifies as a traumatic experience. In that case, recovering from the trauma follows all standard core book rules, including the one where you need to remove the offending implants for a complete recovery.

  What About Cyberpsychosis?

  Again we follow CP 2077’s example here. Cyberpsychosis is a myth, a label without any science behind it that gets thrown around by corps and media as an easy explanation for a number of tragedies. Corporate strike team shoots an activist, well, that was a cyberpsycho who had it coming.

  People can have real mental breakdowns, and these can get ugly when the victim has a predisposition towards violence and a few combat implants and/or some weapons on hand.

  However, violent breakdowns are never caused by implants. They’re always a consequence of the inherently traumatic nature of life in the shit future of Cyberpunk. I bet a lot of “cyberpsychos” turn out to have very few or even no implants. Just easy access to guns and no access to mental healthcare.

  1. The original edition was named “Cyberpunk”, and it was followed by Cyberpunk 2020 and Cyberpunk RED, with a couple of extra editions that were considered “non-canon” between those last two. If I capitalize the word I’m talking about this game line. ↩

  2. A condition also known as “Shonen Protagonist Syndrome”. ↩

  3. A game where owning a weapon brings you closer to becoming a monster is a perfectly valid concept, but if that’s what you want to play you’re better off moving away from action-oriented systems like Cyberpunk RED. I suggest Wanderhome, which does implement that very concept in one of its archetypes and is otherwise a non-violent game. ↩

  4. This also applies to stuff that has no tangible game benefits but still causes Humanity Loss in the core book, like the “sex booster” implants or the color shift cybereye option (which is purely cosmetic like shift-tacts but costs Humanity in the book). ↩

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