Thanks :)

I've been lost in the real world for like ... forever. But this is sissling on the backburner.

Once I get my new computer up and running, things may get busier :)

I might very well take you up on that offer :)

Just a quick bump to let you know that this project is still alive, though developing slowly.

[A word on themes:]

A word on themes:
Themes were initially envisioned to be character archtypes for the players to choose form. As I spent time thinking about the structure of the lifepathsystem, I felt this became sort of tacked on. I couldn't quite make it fit.

And then in a stroke of insomnic frustration I had the idea that themes should have two purposes.

The first is to provide the color of the flow-chart that guides you through the generation of that memory.
e.g.
Warewolf - being a more war, direct action and heavy combat influnenced memory.
Negotiator - being more a black ops, stealth, assasination influenced memory.

The second is to organise and color the character built with these memories through the type of moves offered.
Warewolf – shell based moves. The core of this theme is the dissociation of human flesh and old skool cyberpsychosis, the forsaking of human frailty for machined perfection.
Negotiator – sleeve based moves. The core of this theme is rapid change, flesh is disposable, and an addiction to the sensations and frailty of the flesh.
Hard Case – moves from the street. The core of this theme is social adaptability, with a raw edge and desperation as heavy fuel.
Player – moves that play with your mind. The core of this theme is the social camouflage, using sex, credits and base instincts to prey on the unwary.
Transporter – moves that are all about motion. The core of this theme is movement through and manipulation of the environment and hardware.
Ghostwalker – moves that manipulate the floating world. The core of this theme is about the crossing of realities, making the A.R. bend to your will or shape the Interface through thought.
Wraith – moves that attack your ghost. The core here is the violation of the mind, the digital soul and those that prey on it.

I see this pushing play in my wanted direction.

[The Basic moves revisited.]

The Basic moves revisited.
As I am exploring the custom moves and building themes you get to pick from during Lifepath generation, some changes becomes more obvious. One of the new concepts is that to do shit well, you need to pick the move that lets you. So to further differentiate between the different theme-moves the basic moves get dumbed down. You may do them, but your options are much more limited.

New basics: Direct Violence
When you BRING THE PAIN to hurt, damage, or kill someone you ROLL + EDGE.
On a 10+ you trade harm as established and pick one:
You suffer little harm (- 1-harm)
You inflict terrible harm (+ 1-harm)
You do not cause collateral damage
On a 7-9 you trade harm as established and the controller picks one:
You drop or break something important
You do too much damage
A piece of your kit gets shot to shit
You lose your footing
You get at though choice or a worse outcome

When you SPRAY AND PRAY to give someone cover ROLL + EDGE.
Doing this adds + reload to any weapon you are using (naturally this can’t be done with a + reload weapon).
On a 10+ pick two. On a 7-9 pick one.
You don’t empty your clip (- reload).
You keep them covered (only incidental fire; 0- harm or 1- harm).
You don’t do collateral damage.

When you BRAVE THE HEAT to get somewhere or stay put under fire ROLL + ATTITUDE.
On a 10+ you pick two. On a 7-9 you get one. If you miss you fucked up and are really hanging out there, vulnerable as fuck.
You get there or at least closer.
You only take incidental fire (0- harm or 1- harm).
You get do what you wanted to.

When you GET THE FUCK DOWN to stay out of harm’s way ROLL + STREET.
This isn’t a dodge bullets move! You got to see it coming. It’s a move for those times you just want to curl up into a little ball and let the hail of death pass you by.
On a 10+ pick two.
You are under cover and safe.
You drop off the radar.
You may do shit.
On 7 – 9 you get under cover but the controller gets to pick one.
You drop or break something important
A piece of your kit gets shot to shit
You’re pinned and need to KEEP COOL.
You get at though choice or a worse outcome

The reason why I lump all these four together is that for those players that want more combat options for their character get to pick one move that contains new versions of all four. As it stand right now there are three moves that offer this. Two from the shell based WAREWOLF theme; Warewolf and Chrome Killer* and one from the sleeve based NEGOTIATOR theme; Bionic Commando*

I was worried that this would over complicate things, but this fits better in with the new thematic structure I've found as a replacement for playbooks. The three choices makes the choice between flesh and steel more different. We'll see how it turns out.

*I might change these at a moments notice.

Thanks amigo. Now I got to think again. Damn.

[Style]

As I start off on the custom moves it is getting more and more clear to me that I will need to revisit these moves aswell. And one of the most apparant changes I see is dropping the stat Style. And then the move Dazzle... as a consequence of this.

What I fear is that I'll end up with a hack that relates/revolves too much around violence. But right now it makes more sense to pick these two, and then press delete.

Funny, but John's words earlier here ring even more true right now.

I'll be thinking hard on this.

[“My own past had gone down years before, lost with all hands, no trace. I understood Fox’s late-night habit of emptying his wallet and shuffling through his identification. He’d lay the pieces out in different patterns, rearrange them, wait for a picture to form. I knew what he was looking for. You did the same with your childhoods.” – William Gibson, New Rose Hotel]

Moving on

“My own past had gone down years before, lost with all hands, no trace. I understood Fox’s late-night habit of emptying his wallet and shuffling through his identification. He’d lay the pieces out in different patterns, rearrange them, wait for a picture to form. I knew what he was looking for. You did the same with your childhoods.” – William Gibson, New Rose Hotel

Imagine a sheet, A5 landscape, covered by hexagons. Between each hex there is a circle or space to write something. Inside the hex there is room for a few things. Now the things that go in the circles we call DETAILS. We are going to call the hexagons MEMORIES and the things inside the memory depends on where the hex is, but they are either ORIGIN or THEME. Then there is also room for a DEVELOPMENT in a memory. One of these memories will contain a LIABILITY instead of a development.

• Memories – these are moments in time that are core to who the Operator is. These have no linear development or linkage. They are moments in time, they may be separated by years or moments. It isn’t important at the beginning. Instead of building a character by following the progression A, B, C , D and so on we look to build a bunch of moments associated by details in the memories. We do not define whether the memory is a good or bad memory.
• Details – an operator’s memories are linked by the details. What the detail means in relation to the two different memories it is associated with depends on how you interpret it there and then in play. The details are the key because they may change as a consequence of SOURCE CODE CORRUPTION. You mark of on the detail if it is altered.
• Origin – only one of the memories is called the Origin. This marks the operator’s formative years, up until sie began on the path that would lead hir to game start. The development here is either SINless or 1W. The details here link the operator into the next memory.
• Theme – theme is the overall nature of the memory. What the operator was at the time. This gives different choices when it comes to developments, and much formats the function of the character in play.
• Development – as you build the operators memories each gives you a choice of developments. Most noticeable of these are the MOVES and the CONTRACTS. You get to pick one pr. memory. Moves are custom moves that defines the operators abilities and specialties when freelancing. Contracts gives the operator the opportunity to earn credit during downtime or between session that may be spent to maintain SOTA.
• Liability – all operators also have picked up at least one liability. These must be worked along with the contracts to avoid the fallout from occurring.
  

The operators are skilled and competent individuals who have led interesting lives. Initially one should create an operator with five memories, plus origin and the liability memory. Creating a memory is all about picking a theme, and then following the flowchart progress through the memory creation, picking details, moves and contracts from the lists as they pop up. The balance between moves and contracts is up to you. But not being SOTA ‘cause you don’t have enough work, well that is just plain stupid.

Here is the thing. As play progresses, if a memory has had three of its associated details altered then it becomes corrupted. Using a corrupted memory gives one transient. Unless … yes there is an unless.
But first, a word from our sponsors.
BIOMEGA - We build a better You.

This is the clincher. This is where all the custom moves comes in, and the hack really shapes into my own thing. Some of you may remember I wrote this in the origianl Source Code thread:

Lifepaths
Design goal:
I love the way the playbooks take you by the front of your shirt and trust you through character generation. This isn't really obvious until you play the game. But it is there and it works like hell. So I got this idea.

It starts, for the moment, with the ideas for some templates. This will be important later. They are:
o   Warewolves – augmented soldiers and veterans.
o   Ghostwalkers – manipulators of the Floating World.
o   Hard Cases – street operators and muscle.
o   Runners/Transporters – movers of information and hardware.
o   Negotiators – settles scores, one way or the other.
o   Players – true manipulators of people and the hidden market.

Right now these are more placeholders for my concepts. I really want to take that shirtgrabby bit from the playbooks and add a bit of lifepath (think old CP 2013/2020) touch to it, with choices made opening some doors and closing others.

What follows is where this has led me.

Just a quick update.

In the section about the Ibrain (disposable future) I mention the possibility of Sourc Code Corruption and this brings up the subjects of memories.

I've mentioned it before but this quote from William Gibson's New Rose Hotel:

“My own past had gone down years before, lost with all hands, no trace. I understood Fox’s late-night habit of emptying his wallet and shuffling through his identification. He’d lay the pieces out in different patterns, rearrange them, wait for a picture to form. I knew what he was looking for. You did the same with your childhoods.

Really speaks to me about one of the core themes of Source Code; what is human?

Add to this one of my favourites quotes from Ghost in the Shell:

So man is an individual only because of his own undefinable memory. But memory cannot be defined, yet it defines mankind

I've been struggeling since this was a fledgeling idea way way back at the Forge on how to bring this into play. There has been countless iterations.
There are many games that have influenced me, but there are three notables, Verge (in development by Adam Dray), Remember Tomorrow (Gregor Hutton) and Beyond the Mirror (in development by Tazio Bettin). And somehow they just fused with the above the last month or so and I was able to move on.

So back to the topic at hand, or rather the topic to come, what is human?

And this boils into who your operator was up until the point of play. And that will be generated through a simple flow sheet like lifepath system. But instead of building a lifepath in the chronological order of ABCDE... it will build a series of distinct memories, linked by little details, or assosciations.
An operators moves will come from these memories, and so will its contracts and liability. But as the operator is pushed into hard situations and exposed to the dangers of the operator lifestyle sie will undergo traumatic events. Events that will lead to Source Code damage. Which will again lead to these associations changing or becoming deleted. Thus changing where the operator comes from. And by questioning these changes in play, or adapting them into the ongoing fiction hopefully one can raise the question, how much of you were really real.

Am I rambling now. Probably. Maybe it will, maybe it wont.

But as I am formalizing my ideas around this, I realize that whatever this does to my hack, it will be for the better.

Oh and it also leads to making the custom theme moves. Whic is really fun, and like Vx says, that is where your hack really becomes different from ApW.

Had to share.

The shell/sleeve function in the game may be a bit hard to follow in the pure text format presented her. So here is the current iteration of the Blank Product sheet for a female shell.

[Sleeve Catalouge]

I am not going to post the tenataive catalouges here, but here is how the sleeves and shells work.


Sleeve Catalouge
[sponsored by Biomega – we build a better you.]
Grown (cue constraint sleeve) – A sleeve is vat-grown. Its upgrade options are integrated in its DNA profile. They can not be changed or upgraded.
Human Norms (constraint sleeve) – Morphic-dissocation syndrome limits the size of the sleeve. Sleeves built outside the norms of human scale seem to generate an inordinate amount of static in a resident’s Ibrain as well as being inordinately expensive to maintain. + 1 transient and +1 Sota for such a shell.
Customization:   
Custom Model (constraint mechanical sleeve) – moving the slots to non-default locations cost +1 SOTA, can only be done when ordered. Only applicable in play and note that a custom model takes time to vat-grow.
Expanded DNA profile (constraint mechanical sleeve) – additional slots to a given model. +1 SOTA buys three slots, +2 Base Transient.
Limits of flesh (constraint mechanical sleeve) – a sleeve can only hold one extra option pr location. Location available slots +1.


Operator sleeve – pro grade.
Why settle for less. This is the base package used by personnel in high threat positions within any part of your active assets department. A combination of affordability and performance that won’t get you into trouble with HR and accounting. If you freelance, going for anything less is inviting trouble.
Base SOTA – 2
Base Transient – 1
Upgrade slots – 6
Location:
Ibrain - 2
Systemic – 3
Head – 1
Arms – 0
Legs – 0

Shell Catalouge
[sponsored by Kuiper Cybernetics – Versatile bodies for versatile people]
MDC (cue constraint shell) – Morphic-dissonance, the shell is not natural. Non shelled humans react instinctively negatively to a shell, the lack of subtle body movement, facial cues, and pheromones. Not to mention the fact that a shell is a glorified, albeit powerful, toaster associated with violence creates negative reactions in almost everydrone. The operator is subconsciously aware that the body is a mechanical tool, thus does not experience a transient accretion when subject to massive shell trauma.
Ablative (cue constraint mechanical shell) – An operator in a shell may sacrifice locations to prevent function loss of the systemic and Ibrain locations, i.e. damage. + 3-armor and remove one limb, torso or head. Given that the location is destroyed it no longer can be used for anything it must be replaced.
Adaptive (cue mechanical shell) – upgrade options may be interchanged and replaced.
Hard Wearing (cue mechanical shell) – all shells have a base 1-armor systemic.
Digital Footprint (constraint mechanical shell) – a shell is harder to camouflage +1 noise.
Customization:
Rewired Model (constraint mechanical shell) – moving the slots to non-default locations cost +1 SOTA, can only be done when ordered.
Extended equipment package (constraint mechanical shell) – additional slots to a given model. +1 SOTA buys three slots, +1 Base Transient.

Trooper shell – Standard combat model.
Immortalized by V-sims like Kombat/Kombat and DMZ TV, this is default shell of the majority of armed forces, both pancorp or governmental. Battlefield survivability never been this easy and affordable.
Base SOTA – 1
Base Transient – 3
Upgrade slots – 8
Location:
Ibrain - 1
Systemic – 3
Head – 2
Arms – 1
Legs – 1

[RESurrection – RESleeve/REShell]

RESurrection – RESleeve/REShell

RESurrection clinics, either Pancorp, white or black market, treat/repair and RES sleeves and shells. These can either be handled with a simple BURN CREDIT move, or developed into an NPC with an agenda and treated like a threat. An operator is extremely vulnerable when the Ibrain is transferred, so it is a brilliant moment for the Controller to fuck with hir. Copying, embedding, faulty transfer, SOURCE CODE CORRUPTION, are some of the unknowns you risk.

Sleeves are biological and require time to heal (though steroid and nanoknitters speed this process up). Shells, may if you have the Credit, just simply replace the broken parts.

Prosthetics (constraint mechanical sleeve) – Replacing lost limbs with cybernetics. +1 SOTA buys three slots, +1 Base Transient pr slot used. MDC with regards to this limb only.

[Building a better you]

Building a better you

In Source Code your body is just another piece of kit. Either a glorified toaster or a custombuilt piece of vatflesh. The more credit you are willing to spend, the better the product. Switching between shells and sleeves (aka: RESurrection, REShell, RESleeve, RE-Intergration) is a part of life for the active operator. At the beginning of a session, as long as you’re not picking up from where you left of, an operator may have changed hir sleeve/shell.
 
Imagine a silhouette on the character sheet. With each location given four boxes linked with diagram arrows and the Ibrain on its own, with a box linked to the base of the silhouettes skull. Building a sleeve/shell model is just a question of picking up the proper catalogue and copying the wanted options onto the silhouette, with brand names and all.

No worries about want or greedy little players. The more shit the players put in their operators, the more shit they will get into due to the SOTA and Transient rules.

[The Brave New Order]

Another braindump, unedited and bad prose and all. Enjoy.

Begin transmission:

The Brave New Order

The beginning of the 21st century saw the world reeling from capitalism gone bad, from fundamentalism growing in the cracks of a world inherently unfair. It had to come down. And the advent of digital immortality, the IBrain was the final straw. Emergent AI and increasingly automated factories, 3D printshops and piracy brought the whole thing down.
 
The world was collapsing in on itself. Rampant unemployment, exploding social cost, the whole 1st world civilization looked more and more like the third world, and to protect itself, they all went on a looting spree. Again the big boys against the small, I guess it is human nature. Which again fuelled the plausible promise of revolt and retribution, flaring a thousand small groups trying to protect themselves against the grand satan of capitalism.  Some people wanted this, hoping to create a Brave New World from chaos.

I guess those people never read Mazlow. I don’t expect you to know who the fuck that is, google it. As things went from bad to worse some smart little fucker in a formerly socialist country suggested the unthinkable. His company would provide a stable living environment and a basic paycheck. All sie wanted in return was your vote. And people nearly ran down hir gates.  And sie became a political power. Never underestimate the Have’s ability to remain on top of the foodchain.
 
Social unrest faded into the background as the first world sold its votes to the Pancorporations, and representative democracy just represented mammon instead of the people. It was quick and easy when it first begun. And to prevent any backbreaking competiton the big boys, the Orbitals and multinationals agreed to the maximum value of a vote. That is when they named it the Universal Wage.
The Brave New Order was here.

World within worlds.

You think it is unfair, no? Well that is a luxury you can afford since you are one of lucky ones. Yes, you may be a drone, accepting the UW and a place in an arcology, a modern serf. But you’re still modestly looked after, a part of the First World, and the 1W looks after its own. It’s always been like that. An be honest, you wouldn’t want to swap for some third world hell hole now would you. We stood on the edge of that abyss, and we chose this instead.

Now imagine, you’re on the outside and looking in. You do not care about fair and unfair. You just want a piece of this bright and shiny world. So you head out. Most likely you die crossing the border, or somewhere on the way, victim of some barely human predator. Another random casualty of the BNO.  Let’s say you make it, to the land of gold and honey, the City.

But when you are here you realize there is a Fourth world. The one of the Displaced, the fugees, SINless, without any rights, without any way of getting the UW you will sink to the bottom, to the District. Where beggars without legs pray for alms under holosigns advertising pirated French skillware, where the gangs rule and life can be just as hard as back home. If you are smart, aggressive, lucky or desperate enough, you end up with a lowgrade IBrain. And you get to see the Floating World. But you still live in la Sona, and there is no escape.

Unfortunatly there is a human failing called hope. And you will cling to this.

So yes it is unfair. But be honest, you wouldn’t want to trade now would you?

The topology of concrete.

The city. A sprawling, teeming mass of humanity. Arcologies rising from the crowded, smog filled streets like hives. Filled with drones living their lives submerged in the Floating World, or carrying out menial tasks to give their pointless lives meaning. This City is the 1world. Sure, there are others like it, but they are all the same. An aggregation of humans spread from one end of the continent to another.
It is just natural. The UW is easier to get back if the unwashed masses are kept close together. We are easier to control. The Floating World there to distract us, and enough small opportunities to spend our 30 silvers to keep us occupied. It is funny how this neon and concrete jungle is a balanced ecosystem of want and need. There is just enough of both to keep the drones pacified. And not enough to make them not ask questions or want something more.

I want something more. I am a predator in this jungle. Do not get me wrong. I am no social revolutionary. I don’t care about the drones. Now the feudal lords owning them. Now they I care about.

On top of all these UW drones sit the zaibatsu lords. A stratified hierarchy made up of an elect few. Living in exclusive small compounds, with enough to make them want more. Each one daily making decisions that affect millions to ensure a good weekly rapport. Always looking out for the claws of the ones underneath, and for the next opportunity to toppled the one above.

The lifeblood of the city   

The city is submerged in information. The Floating World lies like a layer atop everything. Everywhere is tagged, commented and have likes. ADbombs, viral memes and targeted marketing controlled by semi-AI lies atop the streets like fine dust, where ever you walk you stir it up. Everydrone is surrounded by their P.A.N sphere of information. It is omnipresent. Information is the lifeblood of the city. But the Floating World isn’t it. That is just noise.

Now, the true data, the vital one, exist off the grid, hidden in secure servers, in offline databanks and in the minds of an elect few. This information is power. This is what fuels the city. The pancorps and orbitals will go to war over the right bit of code. But war’s are expensive, and nobody wants to deliver a bad quarterly.
That is where we come in, the Operators. Freelance and SINless, deniable and hidden under the noise, our Ronin status our trademark. We steal, we move, we aquire and sell this information. Be it a chip with Paydata, a rumor, an ugly truth, a defecting asset’s IBrain or hir whole shell. We do it contracted, we do it because it drops in our laps, we do it to maintain our SOTA. But most of all we do it because we can.


End transmission.

[Transients.]

Transients.

The sampling rate of the Ibrain is ridiculously high, but even so there is information loss. This loss causes digital noise, or transients. Extreme brain activity, particularly that of traumatic events, seem to trigger transients. The Ichiko-Oeverland rapport found a high degree of Transients in Ibrains that had been through the following traumatic triggers:
•   Re-Integration (extensive VR-therapy and transition training reduces this).
•   Massive sleeve trauma (the morphic-dissociation associated with Shell integration seems to protect the Resident to some degree) [when your body is a toaster, you don’t care that much]
•   Sleeve/Shell Destruction (the animalistic response to imminent death seems to be the trigger here)
•   Ghost Hacks, Meme-bombs and Viral-code (included because they are a source of Transients, though more through direct corruption of Source Code than through sample-loss).

If your operator EXPERIENCES A TRAUMATIC EVENT, then add hir Sleeve/Shell’s Transient Rating to the Transient Accretion Bar.

Transient Overload

When an operator’s Accretion reaches:
1-3 Managable. The Ibrain’s noise correction and redundancy filters allow for error free correction. These Transients will be corrected automatically given time and rest.
4-5 Sample Loss. The Ibrain can no longer compensate and there is an immediate danger of SOURCE CODE CORRUPTION. Correction and reduction procedures are required to lower the Accretion level.
6+ Core Memory Code Errors. The amount of sample noise in the Ibrain is high enough to interfere with Ibrain functions, and SOURCE CODE CORRUPTION is likely. Further transient accretion will provoke Ibrain shutdown. Correction and reduction procedures are required to lower the Accretion level

When you are in danger of SOURCE CODE CORRUPTION roll + [Transient Accretion – 3]. On a:
1-6 Error filters and firewalls have protected code integrity.
7-9 The controller picks one:
•   One Lifepath Event detail are permanently altered. Hir Choice.
•   One Lifepath Event becomes corrupted and any development associated becomes temporarily unavailable. Your Choice.
•   Meme implanted. Follow, add XP. Resist you need to KEEP COOL.
10+ The Controller picks one:
•   One Lifepath Event is corrupted, isolated and deleted by integrity protocols. All developments remain, but the details are gone.
•   New Lifepath Event is created. Either latent file, suppressed or implanted memory, impossible to tell what. No Developments, Liability acquired.
 
When you need CODE INTEGRITY MAINTENANCE to reduce your Accretion or correct source code corruption, ROLL + HACK. You need to enter the Floating World and Time. It is expensive as hell, you do take a – 1-Credit. On a 10+ pick three, on a 7-9 pick two:
•   Your Accretion drops one segment (may be chosen more than once).
•   Lost development comes online.
•   Implanted meme removed (counts as two choices).
•   You kept the cost down ignore the Credit loss.