Game X

GURPS: Cyberpunk

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Game Concept and Pitch

First, the characters are a group, not necessarily a team. More of like a group of business partners who are in the business of working for middlemen for cash, on jobs relating to X.

X is the groups speciality, and they're good at it. Not the best, but good.

Missions will be hard but are not the spotlight. The spotlight is the human factor of being a runner and dealing with the day to day that is outside the mission. Characters must all be runners, and can only have a Patron if the entire group all buy the Patron. Though if jobs come from a Johnson, only one person has to buy the Johnson. (See below).

Background

The year is 2050, and it could be thought of as a hard scifi timeline using the Transhuman Space timeline, but with tech stalling or slowing in the late 2030's-2040's, and even though its 2050, still only having 2030-2040 tech. There is space colonization and all, but it doesn't take off as much, and the vast population live in a festering pool of suffering and annonimity because big governments are losing to the metanational corporations.

The team would be based in Minneapolis, and the big corps here are: FabCORP, Praxis, and ZetaTech.

Manufacturing, Investing/Diversification, and Medical Technology basically in that order. Their opponents are trying to always move in, as the Midwest and Canada are a big market, blah blah blah. This is the world headquarters of Zetatech, and branch sites of the others. Many other corps are in town, but these are the major players here cuz they have Enclaves and Archologies.

Back to X.

X

It would/could be whatever the group wants, its your all's speciality after all. But it should be focused and well defined, and there should be a need for it. It has to be marketable :D

A short list of X I'm thinking:

- Breaking and Entering

- Safe crackers

- Hackers (data pen and recovery)

- Couriers (data or car/truck, but high value material. Rule 1: DoOn't look at my package)

- Assault

- Heavy Assault

- Demolitions

- Personel recovery/extraction (very bounty hunterish)

Things I'm thinking would not be good for X:

-Bodyguards

-Limo or Armored Car duty (but see above)

-Bomb Disposal

-Investigation team (forensics)

-anything where jobs last longer than a week.

-Fixer/Contactman/Face/Johnson/Smuggler/etc

Its basically an all Fighter group, just change what the specialty is from Fighter. The team would want their specialty skills at 14 or higher (preferably 15), while non-specialty skills would have a max of 12. The players will have to sit down and all agree on the specialty (X), everyone must be X. IQ I'd put a cap on 12 at, and DX a cap of 14. I would come up with a list of cybernetics and bioware, well more of a set of guidelines on what can be bought and how it is built as an advantage. Characters would get all their starting money for gear, and would have the option to spend points on cash. So if the team is an assault team, their combat skills would be in the 15 max range, and their non combat skills would have a max of 12. So the group could have a driver, but by virtue of being a combat guy first, he'd have a drive of 12 max. The group could have the group talker, but he'd have a max skill of 12. Yes you will probably get swindled and worked over, that is the down side of being a runner.

The group is designed to succeed at their specialty, and struggle in the day to day stuff of being a runner. Missions will be hard but are not intended to hog the spotlight of the human drama of being a runner. The adventure is dealing with your success outside of the missions. Or dealing with your failure. Or dealing with the people that come after you, or whatever. The game will be about their lives in the downtime. Character concepts should be that they are very experienced at what they do, but events have recently put them on their own. So they may have been a corporate courier for a long time, but then they got let go, and have just recently found a like minded group of couriers to work with. So new to the street, old to their job.

Jobs

Jobs will basically be abstract, because this is not a contest of wits between you and me. I'll describe things, and you'll describe how you defeat them, and then we'll roll dice. There won't be roleplaying on a job unless you're interacting with people.

Rolls:

• Get the job: Merchant vs Johnson's Diplomacy (at 3/4 skill if he's your contact).
• Setting the price: Merchant vs Johnson's Merchant.
• Scope the Hit: Observation or Research as applicable vs Site Skill (Observation).
• Get in: Elec Op (Security) vs Site Skill (Systems).
• Do Job: as applicable job skill vs Site Skill (as applicable-usually physical or systems, but maybe staff)(may also require roleplaying)
• Get out: as applicable vs Site Skill (response or staff). (but might require combat rolling)
• Get paid: Diplomacy vs Johnson's Hidden Lore (Street) to earn bonus 100c per point he's beaten by for each team member.
• Fence if applicable: Merchant vs Fence Merchant. Get 1/2 price of item, or 100c per point he's beaten by or as applicable.

Cost of Living:

As calculated in the book, per house. Plus: 200c per month per identity. 50c per month for each communication venue. 50c per month for each contact at unreliable, 100c at somewhat, and 200c at usually or very reliable.

Pay:

• Pay for a job is its rating times (1/4 times monthly cost of living comfortable)
• This means runners need to average 4 jobs per month to pay.

Sites and Ratings:

A site will hold ratings in Observation, Systems, Physical, Staff, and Response. It will also be rated on how long it takes for secondary respons to show up (in minutes). A Johnson may or may not know each individual components rating. In general they tend to tell the overall site average rating.

• Basic Site (rating 1) Skill 8. Your average supermarket or strip mall store.
• Alpha Site (rating 2) Skill 10. Average office building in non-secure industries.
• Beta Site (rating 3) Skill 12. Average secure industiral or office building with high proprietary content.
• Delta Site (rating 4) Skill 15. Police, security, nuclear, bank, or classified site.
• Omega Site (rating 5) Skill 18. Sequestered areas and highly off limits. Groom lake, Fort Knox.
• Black Death Site (rating 6) Skill 22. Rumored to exist.

For example:

Johnson might say he has an average basic site for you, 3 day timeline, 30 minute secondary response, but with Beta systems.

XP

As starting charaters it is easy to earn XP and advance quickly.

XP is earned as follows:

• 1 XP for showing up.
• 1 XP for having printed or updated the wiki copy of your character 1 time since the last session, and having them at the current session.
• 1 XP for doing a job.
• 1 XP for engaging an NPC in conversation. (Not "I talk to the vendor and get my price", but "Hey Lou, what's the going rate on 44 half-jackets?")
• 1 XP for keeping both an up to date Journal and Character Checkbook.
• 1 XP for completing a character goal approved by Jeff.

Bonus XP: 1 per session for keeping both an up to date Journal and Character Checkbook.

The middle four options are not available once your character value is above 250.

Yes, a checkbook and journal are worth 2 points per session if kept between 100 and 250.

The checkbook and journal must meet Jeff's standards.

Character Creation