Emergency eye flechette launchers, magneto palm climbers, gunlinks… a variety of abilities I had wanted to spice up combat for my players was there, hidden in a vast array of Cyberware! It's then that I realized: that cyberware was core to CWN and essentially mandatory to access combat options.
My mind went to Sindome as I thought of 'stiff combat'. Sindome has a *lot* of issues. One of the most pervasive is how stagnant combat is. It's been cracked. People overall know what to prioritise to get the most mechanical benefit out of it and a character with just a month of UE over another should have no trouble defeat their opposition. For a game about Cyberpunk, there's a hard barrier to the seedy underbelly of shadow operations, determined purely on how long you've been around.
With that lengthy prelude out of the way: how do I propose this is rectified?
- For starters: increase UE gain. I know, this sounds crazy, but trust me it'll make more sense by the end. It's too slow and requires far too much real-time dedication to even start being mildly competent.
- Make Cybernetics and Nanos far more easily accessible. Why'll become a lot clearer in the next point.
- Introduce a lengthy period of Cybernetic and Nanogenic adaptation. This is the big one. Most RPI's are balanced by perma death. Characters can develop a lot faster because when they die, they die. There's typically no second chances. This is what allows them to let characters develop more fluidly. Since the 'adaptation' period is core to this concept, I'll develop further after the list (please read to completion before you settle on a thought!)
- This one'll take a while, but: more cybernetics and nanogenic. A lot more. Cyberware and Nanoware would become the new 'core' of combat, combat abilities, and overall combat strength.
So, 'adaptation'? Currently, there is a short period in which your body needs to adapt to the introduction of ware. However, if cyberware and nanoware were changed to be vastly more important to combat then a period in which the cyberware/nanoware give next to no bonuses/weaker versions of their abilities and over a few IRL months would slowly build up as your body 'adapts' then this could replicate to an extent the 'balance' that exists in true permadeath MUDs. You die, you get cloned, not only do you lose your ware, but will have to restart the progression of adapting your body to them. Skills and Stats would still matter, but it'd create a period in which you'd be a far smaller threat and potentially let typically weaker characters actually compete with you.
Furthermore, you could have it so being in public areas and roleplaying would speed up adaptation a tad to incentivise characters, even when they're in a weaker state, leaving their homes and interacting with the world to quicken their recovery.
As is, Cyberware and Nanoware primarily give well-off characters options to be even better off. If you're not already in a hard to dislodge position of power, they're a risky monetary investment that won't really allow you to compete with anyone you couldn't already. What I propose is they become a core consideration of combat balance and are utilized to primarily expand combat options sufficiently that even a character that is a few combat skill and stat levels behind could reasonably utilize them to be a threat to characters that they would, as-is current balance, not be in the slightest.
A mechanic such as this would allow for disruptions of power structure, allow for quicker character skill progression as cyberware and nanoware and their adaptation period would be made just as important; to a degree mimic the balance of 'true' permadeath; and incentivise in-world interaction. It'd also be fitting to the Cyberpunk themes SD aspires to and have a reasonable in-world explanation.
