The “big two” of cyberpunk roleplaying games, Cyberpunk and Shadowrun, both have a conceit that the more you augment yourself with technology, the more you lose the essence of your humanity. This is, no doubt, a mechanism to enforce game balance. Metal is quantitatively better than machine, so to avoid robots taking over the joint, they instituted the humanity cost of cybernetics. I am of different minds about this, so this blog is an attempt for me to explore what cyberpsychosis might look like. On one hand, we have been transplanting organs and installing pacemakers or artificial joints for decades now. There is even a lovely little girl with a cybernetic arm these days. They don’t seem any more or less human now than before their procedure. On the other hand, those procedures are based on medical need. My knees are ruined from the military, but they still aren’t bad enough to replace them, let alone cut out my perfectly good eyes and replace them with electronic versions that can send a news ticker across my range of vision and zoom in to a 25x magnification.
Philosophers, physicians, and psychologists have been debating and defining the essence of humanity for centuries. If altering our bodies makes us less human, then there is more to it than just being a member of homo sapiens. Artificial Intelligence is presenting some serious questions about if humanity is sapience. If a human body is driven by a fully sapient AI instead of a meat brain, is it still human? Yeah, this is a big fucking can of worms. Scholarly thought on the subject has alternated between physical, spiritual, and theoretical models of what makes humans human. As best as I understand it, how we think, act, and feel is determined by a combination of the genetic cards we are dealt and how we process and internalize the events of our lives within that genetic paradigm. This is the basic premise I am going to work from as I try to reconcile my training in psychology with the mechanics of Cyberpunk.
Does a machine have desire? Not really, it just does what it is supposed to do. Humans have these other silly notions like wants and needs and dreams. Machines just say “my purpose is this. I will execute my purpose.” That, I think might be the essence of cyberpsychosis. I’m torn on this, though. The implications of what I am saying, that cyberpsychosis is single-minded focus, lack of empathy, a theory of mind that does not take into account that others do not think and act the same as you do… I am describing Autism Spectrum Disorder. I am not comfortable with putting ASD on the low end of a scale that measures humanity.
Fortunately, there are some interesting rules for psychology in Ianus Publications’ Grimm Cybertales. In addition to an interesting Stress mechanism, they track cyberpsychosis using the basic Cyberpunk model of Humanity Loss, but specify the loss over four spectrums—Alienation, Egotism, Obsession, and Paranoia. Different types of cyberware affect the different spectrums. So, let’s take a hypothetical character—Dingo McGoggins—who has a starting EMP of 6. With that, he starts off with 20 points he can assign to each of those spectrums. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll just have him have 5 points in each. No real effects yet. Over the course of time, he adds in some chrome: for Fashionware (which affects Alienation and Obsession) he adds a Biomonitor (1pt. to Obsession), a Light Tattoo and Shift-Tacts (1 pt. total to Alienation). His Neuralware (affecting any, but mostly Alienation) is a Neural Processor (2 points to Alienation), Sandevistan boost (2 points to Alienation), a Pain Editor (3 points to Alienation), Interface Plugs (5 points to Alienation), and a Smartgun Link (2 points to Paranoia). Dingo’s Bioware (affecting Egotism) is Grafted Muscle (7 points), a Muscle and Bone Lacing (3 points), and some Skinweave (4 points). His Cyberoptics (Alienation, Egotism, and Paranoia) are basically one eye (7 points to paranoia) with a targeting scope (1 point to paranoia).
At this point, he’s got an EMP of 2, and suffers the following effects because of the nature of his cybernetics. His Alienation score of 18 means he is Absent-Minded, which means that he gets negative effects at anything that is not his main focus or to remember things. His own reality has started to take over. His Egotism score of 19 indicates that he is more stubborn and self-involved than normal. No mechanical effects, but living in his world has granted it a greater sense of importance and a detachment from the rest of humanity. His Obsession score of 6 is within normal tolerances, so no effects there. His Paranoia of 15 makes him a little more nervous and jumpy than usual, giving him a penalty to Fright Checks (I don’t remember these from Cyberpunk, so I think they might be something Ianus—who integrated supernatural elements into the setting—may have come up with. I’ll figure that out down the road). So Dingo is a self-absorbed and slightly detached individual who feels more threatened than the average Joe on the street. I spread out the points, but if I decided to put all of my eggs in one basket and had his points all go into Alienation (with the exception of the Bioware that only goes to Egotism), he’d be more than just Absent-Minded, with 29 points, he’d also be Eccentric, with odd quirks related to his cybernetics that would be obvious and come out in roleplaying.
How does it come out in Cyberpsychosis? Let’s say he gets two superchrome cyberarms with ripper hands (17 points to Egotism, 17 to Obsession), in addition to being Absent-Minded and Nervous, he is now incredibly Egocentric and Compulsive. He’s also well under his threshold for Cyberpsychosis. He is above the normal threshold for all four spectrums, so his full-blown psychosis would be a combination of all of them, but with his Egotism and Obsession amplified. I could see him now becoming convinced he needs to become full borg or bust to fully assert himself over these pathetic meatbags around him. So instead of just being a homicidal maniac, Dingo is now just a colossal asshole who will violently resist any attempt to bring him back towards humanity. It probably won’t end well for him.
Overall, I like this system a lot more, as it means different characters will go crazy in different manners. It gives a lot more nuance to the slow degradation of humanity in different ways that I think make much more sense than just the slow rejection of emotion. It’s a little more paperwork, but I see it taking place more in the admin time between games as opposed to mid-game, so I don’t think it’ll slow things down. I am definitely more at ease with Cyberpsychosis now. Pick up Grimm’s Cybertales if this is something you’d be interested.
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