Turn of the Century, A Cyberpunk RP, planning thread Options

[Colonel Mustard]

Seeing as Sutch has petered out, and the Shivering Isles RP never really went anywhere, I figured I'd try a departure from the norm with a new RP idea. Pitch is below, let me know what you think.

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Las Vegas, 28th of November, 2099. As the city prepares itself for the biggest New Years party in history, one of the most powerful and importan men in Vegas is shot and killed on the street.

His name is Paulo Lazilli. For the past twenty years, he's held Vegas' underworld in an iron chokehold, undisputed king of its organised crime scene, a realm that, whilst bubbling with violence and corruption, has been contained and stabilised under his control. He controlled the casinos, the drugs, the hookers, the cybernetic smugglers, the cyberspace gangsters and Mob AIs. Now that he is dead, killed by an unknown assailant, his domain is threatening to unravel, and already there are flocks of vultures circling, ready to pick clean the corpse of this cancerous leviathan of criminality.

Vegas' other organised crime syndicates, sidelined for the past two decades, have scented opportunity and are muscling in; the Yakuza are on the move, surreptitiously shifting guns and men into Vegas with rumours abounding of one of their elite squads of cyber ronin visiting town, whilst the marginalised but vengeful Grove Street Gang have donned their green colours and are arming up for full scale war. The Mafia hunker down, preparing to weather a storm, but within their ranks Lazilli's most ambitious lieutenants are squaring up and plotting ways to take the throne. Outside of the gangs, corrupt corporate execs see this as a chance to help maximise profits, while the few good cops that remain see their chance to strike a major blow against organised crime. Vegas is a powder keg, ready to go nuclear at the slighest provocation.

Dancing on the fringes of this storm are the middlemen. Some are cybernetically-enhanced guns for hire, others hackers who can bust down firewalls and networks with a thought. Contract-thieves and assassins receive offers for work, getaway drivers are in constant demand and back-street doctors and augmen surgeons receive nightly visits. Of all the people in Vegas, some of them might just be what the gangs need to tip the scale in their favour.

It is the 1st December 2099 in Las Vegas, and as the city prepares for the biggest New Years party in history, somebody might just paint the town red.

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Okay, so the way this is going to work is that we're having a GM-run game (I am Game Master for this RP, for those of you unfamiliar with this, I will explain below). The setting is a futuristic Las Vegas with a dash of good old-fashioned Cyberpunk; cybernetic augmentions such as robotic arms or direct neural links to computers are relatively commonplace, organised criminals and powerful corporations all but run the place, there's a heavy Film-Noir aesthetic and the internet is god. If you're unfamiliar with the trapping of Cyberpunk, I recommend you read TVTropes' helpful outline article and then go and watch Blade Runner. Seriuosly, go watch Blade Runner, that film is amazing.

Anyway, quick note on my role as GM: I won't play a character, and instead I shall play the world, so to speak. I'll control NPCs and the setting as well as providing scenarios, obstacles and situations. As GM, I hold ultimate sway over the RP, but while I am an autocrat, I shall do all that is in my power to be a benevolent, fair autocrat, and my central concern is that everybody has fun, and will do my utmost to avoid the cardinal sin of GMing that is railroading. You are welcome to do your own thing, and I will reward intelligence, lateral thinking and solving problems through means beyond the simple employment of violence. However, if you are stupid, don't expect me to be merciful.

Character sheet is below. If people are interested, I'll put up a player's guide detailing the situation in Vegas in the next few days with information like major players and so forth.


Name:
Alias/nickname:
Gender:
Age:
Race:
Nationality:

Career:
Skills:
Gang affiliation (if any):

Equipment:
Cybernetics: [Note: for the sake of balance, due to biological complications the risk of random breakdowns of cybernetics increases the more of them a person has implanted in their body. With this in mind, yes, you can create a heavily augmented, bulletproof, car-throwing monster of a character, but that means that I'll be hitting you with one hell of a lot glitches, bugs, seizures, fits and attacks from hackers. Be sensible]
Weaponry:
Clothing:

History:

Misc info:

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At the start of the RP, your character recieves the following email:

Sent at: 04.53, 12/01/2099
From: frank.delorio@talknet.com
Subject: A proposition for our mutual benefit

Dear all

I'm messaging you now to make you an offer.

As you've no doubt heard, just a couple of days ago Paulo Lazilli got iced. The street's riled up and it's riled up bad, and as a former acquaintance of Mr Lazilli, I'm interested in seeing the status quo restored and for things to go back to the nice peaceful way they were. Now maybe you're thinking that you don't necessarily want things back the way they were, but before you delete this email let me tell you that we've noticed your skills and could use somebody of your talents, and we can offer a lot. Not just money, mind, though if you want cash we got cash, but we have favours and services we can offer, which nobody else in Vegas is going to be able to match. Name your price, and we'll pay it.

If you're interested, come to Mama Maria's Pizza Emporium on Radkovich Avenue for 12pm. Say you're here for lunch with Mr Delorio. Come alone, and only bring weapons if you want to piss me off. I'll give you more details if I see you there.

Frank

[Saquira]

I think I'm done now. Tell me if there's something that doesn't add up or that you're wondering about.

Name: Clare Linn Griffin
Alias/nickname: Specter
Gender: Female
Age: 29
Race: Caucasian
Nationality: American (born in Las Vegas, but lived most of her life in England)

Career: Studied computer science and human augmentation at university and began to work with computer programming, more specifically the monitoring of security and defence systems, once she graduated. After a few years she quit and moved to Las Vegas, at which point any trace of Clare Griffin simply cut of. Since then, she's been doing both digital and physical thefts, and for the right price she'll steal practically anything.

Skills: Hacking computers and AI's – though she prefers to overload or confuse the AI before bypassing it, stealth both by sneaking as well as using a tactical cloak, climbing (buildings for the most part) and free-running, enhancing implants, sewing. She's a natural rider, though most animals can't stand her presence due to all the implants. Though she can't fight, she knows several ways of incapacitating people quickly. Lockpicking, because as rare as it is, she does occasionally come across the older type of locks.

Gang affiliation (if any): She's recently been doing work for the Yakuza, as they pay well and haven't asked many questions. She does not however see it as anything near a declaration of loyalty, and will turn on them if she needs to. As it is, they don't know her name or her face, and she intends to keep it that way.

Equipment: She keeps a small backpack on hand at all times, in which she keeps her most important belongings. A portable memory disk, with backups hidden in her apartment. A sufficient amount of cash to get by for a couple of days, in case she can't get home. A so-called med-pack containing enough supplies for her to patch herself up. If she needs to get somewhere quickly, she “borrows” someone’s vehicle, as hijacking is something that she can do on the run. Also an extra set of clothes. A small tactical cloak is attached to her belt.

Cybernetics: The top of her fingers have been replaced with implants that masks her fingerprints and allows her to use other peoples fingerprints. The fake fingerprints works for one hour, or until she puts her fingers against any surface. Optical enhancement that can change her eye colour, work as magnifying glasses, present data directly onto her retina(a HUD) and see through certain materials. Ear implants in the place of a phone, that can also be used to hack into different communications. Larynx modification in order to change her voice at will. Enhanced memory to be able to handle the information she receive through the Cloud easier.

A heavily modified metaphor machine that allows her to be directly immersed into the cloud. To her, it appears as a river delta she can navigate. There she can change things like the direction a turret is firing or completely turn of security alarms. She only uses the most subtle functions however, and is always careful not to stay in one place for too long. Instead of turning of security alarms, she bypasses them. And instead of messing with a weapons programming, she stays out of its range of fire when possible. The metaphor machine has been modified to leave a fake digital signature or none at all, depending on the situation. It takes time to find things through the cloud however, and hacking is much easier when she's physically closer to a computer or something else connected to the network/data that she's trying to access.

Her cloud avatar looks like she does in real life while wearing her jacket and mask, but is slightly transparent. Specters' avatar is not limited to human capabilities, because if she isn't trying to access a data stream, she can merely wade through the representative water-stream. Unless the data stream is a firewall, in which case she has to bypass it.

Weaponry: A 10mm pistol made by Triple-P.

Clothing: Black tight-fitting polo and cargo-pants held up by a leather belt, also holding her pistol holster. As she keeps her hair cropped she also wears a mask that covers her whole head (looks a bit like the recon hood in Mass Effect 2, but no blue lights and only made of fabric with a built in breather). The fabric's lined with Kevlar and she only wears it while working. Finger-less gloves. A thigh-long jacket to wear when she isn't infiltrating. She also wears a bullet-proof vest.

History: Born in Las Vegas in 2070, Clare was the only child of Mrs. and Mr. Griffin, two very successful designers of cybernetic enhancements working for Shukla-Peterson Meditechnology. An accident in their department forced them to move in 2076, and they went to England where her mother began to teach at the university and her father signed up with another less known company. She didn't want for anything as she was growing up, and her parents began to teach her about implants as soon as it was clear that she understood what they were saying. They wouldn't allow her to get any until she was 16 however, at which point she got the optical enhancements. She did well in school – not excelling – but still enough to be accepted at Oxford, where she studied computer science and human augmentation, meaning to one day follow in her parents footsteps.

Once she'd gained her degrees, that's just what she did, working with computer programming for several years before her parents death. Though the police shut the case down as a car crash, Clare knew it was a lie, and used her cybernetics and skills to track down the man who murdered them. His death was written of as a fall down the stairs, despite the enhancements to his skull, and she got on the plane for Las Vegas the day after. The work that her parents did had allowed them to assemble quite a bit of money, and as the sole child, Clare inherited everything.

Though she grew up with her fair share of boyfriend troubles and school acquaintances, she cut those ties after her parents death. And though she refrains from killing, ever since she caused the death of her parents murderer, her outlook on life has grown increasingly dark. She won't hesitate to take a life if she has too. She seems cold to most, but then, she hasn't actually allowed anyone to get to know her since she came to Vegas roughly 1-2 years ago.

Misc info: Though she goes to the gym regularly, she focuses mostly on running and agility, and is useless when it comes to both close-quarter combat and fire-fights. She can fire a gun and keeps one at hand, but isn't good at it, and tries to avoid conflicts with anyone who'd seek to harm her.

This post has been edited by Saquira: May 6 2013, 02:57 PM