I need a system for a traumatic cyberpunk game

[akma]

I have an idea for a game which would happen in some sort of a cyberpunk setting. The players are criminals that were caught, and to avoid jail time agreed to have an experimental punishment, served through augmented reality.
They can’t take off their augmented reality tech, so sometimes during their “free” time they will be served a punishment, often a monster that will attack them. The monster can’t physically harm them, but they will feel pain, and instead of dying they would lose consciousness and suffer emotional trauma, which I want to somehow represent in the rules as some sort of debuff in specific cases.

None of them would be a great hacker, but some mechanics to handle hacking make sense, since it is a cyberpunk setting. Also some mechanics to handle blindness and deafness, as it is what would happen to them if they would try to remove the augmented reality tech by force.
Unless they somehow break away from it, at some point in the plot after their punishment will turn into a show, they would gain “RPG stats”, which will only have effect in the augmented reality, but I haven’t planned them yet, I just decided they would be silly. The campaign is somewhat horror and somewhat a parody of corporations and brands.

I don’t really know a system which would fit this game well, or that would be close enough for me to alter a bit.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Don't Rest Your Head, maybe? That's the closest existing system I can think of.

Fate would let you represent mental trauma as aspects, which isn't a terrible approach. STaRS has rules for mental damage and abstract environmental or metaphysical conflict you might find useful, and some of the optional extras like the "doom pool" work well to enhance the horror aspect.

[Berenger]

Cyberpunk, evil corporations, (malevolent) augmented reality... maybe it's too obvious, but are you aware of Shadowrun?

[Lentrax]

Or Cyberpunk 2020 or Cyberpunk RED?

[Mechalich]

They can’t take off their augmented reality tech, so sometimes during their “free” time they will be served a punishment, often a monster that will attack them. The monster can’t physically harm them, but they will feel pain, and instead of dying they would lose consciousness and suffer emotional trauma, which I want to somehow represent in the rules as some sort of debuff in specific cases.

None of them would be a great hacker, but some mechanics to handle hacking make sense, since it is a cyberpunk setting. Also some mechanics to handle blindness and deafness, as it is what would happen to them if they would try to remove the augmented reality tech by force.
Unless they somehow break away from it, at some point in the plot after their punishment will turn into a show, they would gain “RPG stats”, which will only have effect in the augmented reality, but I haven’t planned them yet, I just decided they would be silly. The campaign is somewhat horror and somewhat a parody of corporations and brands.

I don’t really know a system which would fit this game well, or that would be close enough for me to alter a bit.

Eclipse Phase fits all of this. It has a complex mental health system, hacking mechanics, and the idea of 'rpg stats' for characters in a digital reality is represented by 'simulmorph' stats. In fact your hypothetical campaign is a function of a hypercorp dumping a bunch of people into an experimental or unregulated simulspace.

Eclipse Phase is a somewhat complex and overly cumbersome system, but if the characters are spending all their time in a restricted simulspace you can really streamline things. Also, it's free.

[Wraith]

I second Don't Rest Your Head. Managing pain and insanity are built into the mechanics - you can 'bet' dice by exerting yourself physically and mentally for a more successful reward, but if the roll goes wrong then you permanently lose that dice and swap it for a Pain dice which is even more prone to get you a bad roll. Seems ideal, and as a system it's pretty quick to learn as well.

[Crake]

FATE has a pretty good system for managing psychological trauma, including short, mid, and long term effects, and is great if you're interested in a more narrative themed system

[Nifft]

It sounds like these people will suffer from physical complications in the real world while dealing with the simulated monsters and such.

Is that correct?

E.g. will they be ticked for jay walking, or suffer a bruise from running into a telephone pole, while trying to dodge a fictional dragon or the like?

If so then I'd suggest separate damage tracks -- one mental, one physical, and perhaps another one for their RPG character ("mana bar").

Heh, and perhaps even a social stress track which takes damage when they can't stay cool in public.

[Telonius]

The "Powered by the Apocalypse" system seems like it could be a good fit (particularly "The Sprawl"). I've only ever played Masks, which has a more "teen superhero" feel, but it was a lot of fun. The whole mechanic was about inflicting mental states on the target.

[akma]

Out of the options given, I feel like Eclipse Phase is the best option, and I'm currently reading its core book (I started only a few days ago since I wanted to finish other things first).
Most of the systems given I disqualified for slightly nuanced reasons (things like "not feeling like the right feeling with the mechanics") but I might check some of them again. Don't Rest Your head feels too heavy with the insanity mechanics (I want it to be a part of the game, not a part of every roll).

It sounds like these people will suffer from physical complications in the real world while dealing with the simulated monsters and such.

Is that correct?

E.g. will they be ticked for jay walking, or suffer a bruise from running into a telephone pole, while trying to dodge a fictional dragon or the like?

If so then I'd suggest separate damage tracks -- one mental, one physical, and perhaps another one for their RPG character ("mana bar").

Heh, and perhaps even a social stress track which takes damage when they can't stay cool in public.

They could run into telephone poles and such, but generally they will be hurt emotionally and socially. The monsters aren't real, but they inflict real pain. Since the monsters will try to bypass physical objects (since it will be weird if a dragon will just move through chairs), the players could move or throw things to fight them, which might result in additional criminal charges.
Socially, people would sometimes be very weirded out by their behavior (although maybe they could see the monsters vaguely, I am undecided), but people are less mindful of their surroundings in that world, since everyone always wear AR equipment and constantly scrolling through content (basically, the average person there is a worse version of real world people that are constantly on their cell phones).
When they'll be more celebrity like, things like their popularity and how the masses perceive them will have consequences, but I'm not sure what exactly they will be.

The "Powered by the Apocalypse" system seems like it could be a good fit (particularly "The Sprawl"). I've only ever played Masks, which has a more "teen superhero" feel, but it was a lot of fun. The whole mechanic was about inflicting mental states on the target.

I've read about the system, not about The Sprawl specifically, I'll check it.

[Ettina]

Call of Cthulhu could work with some homebrewing.