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View Full Version : Testing out the lifepath generator in Cyberpunk V3.0



Malfunctioned
2010-08-13, 08:25 AM
Well as the title here says I've decided to give the lifepath generator from the Cyberpunk V3.0 rulebook a try out, and I couldn't think of a better place to do it then here. I'll be making all the dice rolls needed on a dice rolling thread in the play by post section. For those who don't know, the lifepath generator essentially allows you to create a background for a character, filling in details from birth to the time you start playing. Hopefully this will go well.

Malfunctioned
2010-08-13, 09:22 AM
So to start off I'm going to make the character as comic from an Edgerunner, the closest to the old cyberpunk characters, Altcult. A roll of 5 means that his family were combat freelancers, essentially mercenaries. A roll of 6 means that both his parents are alive. Moving on the the family status table where a 2 shows us that our family status is in danger and we risk losing everything.

It's now that I think our character needs a name, and going with the blending of real-life cultures and nationalities I'm going to give her the name Midori. Also she's female. But moving on from that we now need to roll for a family tragedy that could threaten everything we hold dear. A 1 tells us that our family lost everything through betrayal, this could be quite a defining moment in Midori's life, maybe she's out for revenge. Bloody bloody revenge.

Now to find out about her childhood enviroment. According to our 7 she grew up in a small enclave or town far from the city. A bit odd for an Edgerunner but it could lead to her being quite naive and wonderstruck by the sights of Night City (imagine Megacity One from Judge Dread and you're not too far off.). It turns out that Midori has 3 siblings, and older sister and brother and a younger sister.

The first sibling, the older sister who goes by the name of Rei, likes Midori, they get on well and such. The older brother Hiroto and younger sister Izumi feel the same. That's good, no conflict coming from inside the family then. Moving on to life events!

A quick dice roll reveals that Midori will be 22 at the start of the game. Therefore she will get 6 life events. The first of which occurs when she is 16 and involves a romantic involvement. Moving onto the table we find out that it was a happy love affair, nothing more needed apparently. Let's just say she meet up with a nice handsome Edgerunner from the SanFran Ingrate. Not too bad after only a year in Night City. Next year she....didn't do anything thanks to that 10 we rolled. But in the year she turned 18 Midori...got into another romantic involvement. I think our little girl is quite the charmer here. She must have broken up the Edgerunner, who is now named Deigo, as she spent most of this year in a flurry of fast affairs and hot dates. Quite the party girl it seems. In her 19th year, thanks to the 2 we rolled, Midori got lucky! (No not like that...then again it is pretty likely with her) A 4 says that she found a Sensei to teach her martial arts! So now we have a Japanese action girl in the making. This is turning out quite well....

The next year passed without much excitement. But her fifth year in the big city gave her something good as well! In this case she came into a large amount of money, 900 credits to be precise. That's enough for a couple of decent weapons or armour at the very least. Midori's sixth year in Night City gave her an enemy. A male relative to be exact. As much as he is said to have liked her I'm going to say that Hiroto is this enemy. And apparently he made himself clear by causing the loss of a lover, friend or relative. This way we can say that Hiroto came to the city to try and find his little sister. He found her with Diego and became insanely jealous, without her knowing he killed Diego, or at the very least scared him off, and she has only just again met up with him and found out about this. He doesn't feel as if he's done anything wrong but she hates him, still (according to the dice) she is simply going to ignore him and keep him out of her life now. Hiroto is all alone in the city, if he plays up again Midori can deal with him. (Since Hiroto may actually come up in a game that involves Midori I can now find out about him with a few rolls, these will be in a spoiler at the bottom of the post)

That's it for her life events, not bad if I do say so myself. all there is left to do now is to see what personality traits and motivations she will have.

According to the tables, Midori is stable and serious, she finds it very hard to trust people, she values honour above everything else, she values a pet above all else so let's say she found a stray cat whilst living on the streets and has now taken it in as her own. MESS WITH THE KITTY AT YOUR PERIL. Her most valued possession is a toy, in this case a stuffed lion from when was a child. She wears jumpsuits, has short, spiked hair and a nose ring. Her ethnic origins, already decided as Japanese, gives her the ability to speak Japanese as her native language. And there we go a fully made character with a background all set up.

Any comments?

Hiroto
Personality: Arrogant, Proud and Aloof.
How do you feel about people?: Just like his sister, he doesn't trust anyone.
He values: Love
His most valued person: Brother or Sister, his little sister Midori fits into this, giving him an almost insane obsession with her.
His most valued possession: Is a book or diary, a creepy scrapbook of his sister? Maybe.Dress and personal style: He dresses in high fashion, with a wild and all over hair cut along with spike heeled boots. Midori is being stalked by her insane visual kei brother.

And there we go.

The Glyphstone
2010-08-13, 09:33 AM
Does this system work like Traveller, where you can kill your character during chargen if you roll bad?

Malfunctioned
2010-08-13, 09:45 AM
Nope, you can create the character before hand. It is essentially a really big dice rolling flow chart. Of course it can lead to changing your character in ways you didn't expect, they can become pregnant, develop psychosis, or even end up with a whole Altcult up against them. That would essentially be the same as being hunted down by every member of a certain religion in a city. Except that this city covers most of the west coast of America.

Tiki Snakes
2010-08-13, 10:28 AM
That seems pretty cool.

I take it the chart is only available in the Cyberpunk book, not also online or in any kind of app-form?

Malfunctioned
2010-08-13, 11:28 AM
I do believe so, which is a shame since it could easily be modified to help with almost any other genre of game.

Psyx
2010-08-13, 11:57 AM
The Lifepath system is cool, but players - I feel - should have the right to make up their own appearance. and sort out those details for themselves. But for generating an actual family and history, it's pretty good.

Tiki Snakes
2010-08-13, 12:06 PM
Was a little dissapointed about the lifepath generator absence, but a quick google search and I've actually found something (http://www.moosh.net/cp2020/).

Seems as useful as I expected. Definately bookmarked.

Oh, and after some pretty involved scratching around, I bumped into what looks like a similar lifepath thing, but that has been converted and expanded to do several genre's. Almost all of the links were dead, but here we go;
Post-Cyberpunk Lifepath Generator (http://ftp.pwp.att.net/b/r/brianfwong/SciFi/)

It's clunkily put together in flash, but might be useful for someone. :smallsmile:

The Big Dice
2010-08-13, 12:06 PM
I always used to let players choose things like appearance and personal style on the old 2020 lifepaths. BUt when it came to life evnts, I'd insist on rolls.

They can really shaft a character, but they can also really help. And no matter what, they give you a sense of having come from somewhere. Unlike most RPGs, where characters spring fully formed from the primordial rulebook.

Aroka
2010-08-13, 12:27 PM
Be warned, Cyberpunk 203X is terrifyingly bad. It fixes absolutely none of the problems, rules ambiguities, and lacks of Cyberpunk 2020, and screws up the setting in the most grotesquely failed attempt to transition from cyberpunk to post-cyberpunk. It also completely fails to integrate the superior combat system from Listen Up, You Primitive Screwheads! (or even use the simpler general one that we see in, for instance, Bubblegum Crisis).

Cyberpunk 2020 has the exact same lifepath system, FWIW, with many detailed variations in other books (Pacific Rim, the nomad book, etc.).

Relatedy, Artesia: Adventures in the Known World, based on the same basic Fuzion system, but improves on it incredibly.

Actually, I'll shamelessly piggyback on this thread and go through a LifePath for an Artesia character:
First, note that every single time I roll (usually d10), I'm picking the "roll" option from "roll or choose." That includes all the background and the later life events.

First, culture: I get 5, for a Danian. (The Danians are one of the original peoples of the Middle Kingdoms, now mostly divided among four realms: the western/central Erid Dania and Dain Dania, and the eastern coastal hill-lands of Umat and Umis.)

I check for unusual family situation and get 10, indicating there is one; I roll and get 8, indicating both parents are affected. I roll on the table: another 8, meaning my parents were spies or agents of an Adversary of the ruler of my current homeland, and I was born while they lived there undercover. The GM and I will decide on an employer, and I have the option of taking Spy as a starting occupation.

Flipping to the Danian culture, I roll for social level (6) and birthplace (1): an Umisi hill-fort, which means a -4 penalty to social level, for a total SL of 2. That's Commoner class. I roll for both parents' occupations, and get herder (3) for the mother and scout (7) for the father, deciding to ignore the optional cultural gender restrictions/recommendations. (Aurian and Danian cultures are fairly patriarchal, while the Old Faith-influenced Athairi, Daradjans, and Watchtower Kings cultures are more egilitarian.)

So, my character was born in an Umisi hill-fort to two spies living there as commoners; perhaps their employer was a rival Umisi warlord, a ruler or noble from a neighboring realm, or even a Daradjan pirate captain or a Palatian agent.

I roll d20s for my parents' lineages, and get Maelite (5) for the mother and Aurian (7) for the father. I flip to lineages in the appendix and roll: for the mother's side, I get 6, an Archair Hero Maelite line. I roll again and see it's (8) Palé Meffiré, a Magician of the Age of Legends from Liss Dyved who ruled the Vale of Barrows for a time from her own grave. That's some lineage. I also note that it gives me +1 WILL, +1 COUR, -1 EMP, +1 WIS (all attributes start at a base 5), and the gifts Ghost Mask 2, Otherworldly Visage 1, and Second Sight 2. I flip back to Aurian lineages and get (8) a Legendary Hero line. I roll (1) and get Orfeydda, the war leader of the Aurians that invaded the Middle Kingdoms long ago, and the first Aurian King of Therapoli, the capital of the Middle Kingdoms. I get +1 STR, +1 STAM, +1 WILL, +1 COUR, -1 EMP, Mask of Command 1, and the Binding Cursed at Sea 2 (which plagues almost all Aurian lineages, including common Aurians, because of an old offense against the deity of the seas).

Funny note: because each hero builds on the lineages passed on to them, later heroes' lineages are actually usually more powerful than old or legendary lines, provided the hero comes from one of those old lineages.

Flipping back and moving on, I get to Birth Signs. Rolling d12 (6) and d10 (7), I see I was born under the Sign of The Maiden, with a moderate influence. Those born under this sign are usually beautiful, but often self-involved. I get +1 APP, +1 REAS, and -1 CONV. Not bad! This also indicates I was born sometime in the sixth month of the Celestial Calendar, in autumn.

I move on to birth omens, and roll d20 on the heroic column rather than d100 on the boring column: it's... 1. Doomed! I get 3 (d3+1) Ill Omens. Rolling thrice on the table, I get...
1: The Red Veil falls upon the Moon. Bloodshed is in your future. +1 STR, +1 COUR, -1 EMP.
7: Wolves and carrion birds are seen nearby. Your life will be filled with violence. +1 DEX, +1 COUR, -1 EMP.
8: A vulture witnesses your birth. You will not be a stranger to death. +1 STAM, +1 COUR, -1 EMP.

Well, with a total -5 EMP so far, we're not going to be a shoulder to cry on for anybody, but all that courage is going to be handy with such bad omens.

Family: for siblings, I get a 9, indicating I'm an only child. I roll both parents' attitudes, without the sissy bonus, and find that while my mother is a Friend (6), my Father is an Enemy (1)! I roll to see why (2): one of us made a false accusation against the other, causing trouble with the family, community, employers, or law. I figure I'll be the one who made the trouble, so my father will have a Fury 1 Binding against me. Oops.

For childhood events, I get a 10, indicating both a roll on both the good and bad fortune tables. For the bad fortune, I get (5): parental loss, and (6) it's my mother. I get a Grief Binding equal to half my EMP, and decide to (un)generously round that up to 1. Bet it was nice growing up with a dad who furiously hated me! :smalleek:

Let's balance it out with some good fortune (4): Apt Pupil. I spent my youth in study, and get +1 REAS and 10 extra Training Points for the next stage of the lifepath.

At this point, my stats are...

APPearance 6 STRength 7 STAMina 7 DEXterity 6 TECHnique 5
PERception 5 WILLpower 7 MEMory 5 IMAGination 5 REASon 7
PREsence 5 CONViction 4 COURage 10 EMPathy 1 WISdom 6

Gifts: Ghost Mask 2, Mask of Command 1, Otherworldly Visage 1, and Second Sight 2
Bindings: Cursed at Sea 2, Grief 1
+10 tp

That's an interesting set of statistics that promises a great wealth of choices. With good WILL and REAS, I'd make a good Hermetic magician (wizard), but the poor CONV means religious Cult magic is out. Good physical abilities and great COUR mean I'd be a good warrior - maybe even a leader, even with average PRE.

All things considered, I think I'll go for my father's profession (going with one of your parents' jobs, or the now freely-available Spy, requires no roll), and become a Scout.

(In the next part, I won't bother doing skills, Arcana, income, and equipment. Much numbers, not exciting.)

I roll 2d6(7)+14 for an average starting age and get 21. I get LifePath events from ages 16 to 20 (since I'm 21 in the current, ongoing/starting year).

16: Great Adventure (10, 2): Traveling. I get to go off and see the world, make a Contact and a Friend, and learn some Local Expert skill in two regions. Since I'm already a Scout, I also double my Arcana points and monetary Earnings this year.
17 Minor Good Fortune (6, 4): Outlaw Contact. I make nice with a bandit or thief, get some Streetwise skill and a Contact.
18 Great Adventure (10, 7): Plague. A plague strikes my area, and I lose my remaining family member: my father. Despite not getting along, I get another 1 level of Grief. I also gain my CONV in Death Arcana points, and have the option of switching to an appropriate cultural magic or healing profession... but Witch and Midwife don't seem right, and aren't Hermetic magic anyway. Magister and Alchemist don't seem like they'd be fair options, so I'll just have to hold out and maybe use Arcana points later to learn Hermetic Lore.
19 Romance (9, 4): I have a Fine Affair that ends well, and my ex-Lover remains a Friend.
20 Nothing Happened (1): Nada.

So, there I am, 21, a Scout with a terrible doom and the makings of a warrior-scholar. Next I'd calculate and spend Training Points and Arcana, figure my Income, and buy equipment, but that's a lot of number-crunching.