Limitless Worlds

Limitless Worlds

Sunday, March 16, 2014

BASH! Sci-fi - Transhumanism

BASH! Sci-fi is a cool little game, but when it was written the transhuman RPG genre was not as prevelant as it was today, so there are no rules for using it for such a game. Well, I wrote them! They are pretty basic, but they should get the job done.

Sleeves

In most transhuman games, the body is no longer important, but the mind is.
Conscienceness has been digitized and can move between vatgrown bodies
or constructed robots. Thus, your character has more flexibility than imagined.

The common term for a "body" now is called a Sleeve, which your mind wears like
a coat. Sleeves come in countless varieties, but they do follow four basic
"models." These are treated as races

Baseline - These are humans, or as close to humans, as possible. Aside from
enhanced lifespans, pathogen immunities and so on, they have the same capabilities
as a modern human. Baselines are usually the body you are born in, and are also
called "wombs." They have no specific advantages or disadvantages.

Biomorphs - These are vat grown, organic constructs. Some look very much like
humans, and while others are uplifted animals or alien creatures. Biomorphs
are the most common sleeves. If you inhabit a Biomorph, you can purchase
Alien powers.

Synthmorphs - These are robots, in so many words. Purely mechanical and electrical,
a person's mental synapses are stored in the plastic housing of these synthetic
entities that can have a wide array of forms. They have the Unliving advantage,
except that they can be affected by (and use) psionics, due to the mind
being more transitory. Synthmorphs can also take Mechanical powers.

Infomorph - This is a person's pure conscience, digitized. You are basically
a computer program that can jump between computers, monitor grids and so on.
Infomorphs have the Unliving advantage, including the immunity to psionics,
as well as the Avatar power.

Sleeve Ranks

Sleeves are ranked depending on their capabilities, and you can buy sleeves
you can later upload your mind into. Sleeves operate as character templates;
a normal character in BASH! Sci-fi has 7 points for their stats and 7 for powers.
Sleeve ranks increase these amounts. They are as follows

Alpha - 7 (Rank 3)
Beta - 8 (Rank 4)
Gamma - 9 (Rank 5)
Epsilon - 10 (Rank 6)
Omega - 11 (Rank 7)

Those points are both for stats and powers.

Character Creation

Characters are created as normal in an Alpha Sleeve of their choice,
 though a GM may wish to start players with a better Sleeve than an
Alpha. There is something important you should consider about stats:

Your Mind stat is the only "static" stat. When you switch between bodies,
your Mind stat stays the same, but your Brawn and Agility can change. Subtract
your Mind rating from the Rank Points you get in a new Sleeve to determine
the amount of points you can divide between your Brawn and Agility stat. This
is also down with any Powers you transfer over

Resleeving

In transhuman games, you can switch between bodies by swapping your conscience
between them. A Sleeve is built normally like a character, but when your
mental state switches over to the new body, anything dependent on your old
body no longer applies. Some things carry over, and others don't. Here is
a list of what carries over when you resleeve into a new body

All Advantages except Cyborg, Enhanced, Eat Anything, Large, Lifelike Appearance,
Quick Healer, Short Sleep and Unliving
All Disadvantages except Age, Freak, Poor Hearing, Poor Vision, Slow and Small
All Mundane Powers
All Psionic Powers
All Skills

Alien Powers and Mechanical Powers do not switch over, as they are dependent
on your meat body.

Resleeving Process

Resleeving is both an art and a science. An improper sleeving can damage your
brain or make you feel body dismorphia. Whenever you switch between bodies,
which usually requires 1d6 hours, along with a trained technician and the
correct facilities, you have to make a Mind roll to avoid "alienation," as
it were. The difficulty depends on what body you are sleeving into.

Same Model (baseline to baseline, synthmorph to synthmorph) - 10
Organic (baseline to biomorph or vice versa) - 20
Electric (synthmorph to infomorph or vice versa) - 20
Alien (Organic to Electric or vice versa) - 30

If you succeed, the sleeving went off without a hitch. If you fail, you suffer
body dismorphia for 1d6 days, causing Brawn and Agility tests to increase
by a difficulty for the duration. If you roll snake eyes, your mind was
damaged in the process, causing you to permanently lose 1 Mind.

Forking

Some people undergo the illegal activity of forking, which is dividing your
mind between multiple sleeves so you can do more things at once. Forking
is often considered illegal, but it still happens.

Forking requires 1d6 hours, a trained technician and a proper facility, as
well as a Sleeve. When you Fork, you basically divide your "carried over"
advantages between your bodies, as well as your Mind stat. You can have
a number of forks equal to your Mind-1 active at any time, though that
would could result in at most four other forks with a Mind stat of 1. Each
fork requires a Resleeve roll, and snake eyes result in the Fork being
unsuccessful.

Merging

Eventually you'll probably want to recombine your disparate headspaces in your
Forks back into your base body. Once you get your Forks all back together,
it once again requires 1d6 hours, a trained technician and a proper facility.
You make a Mind roll with a difficulty related to how many forks you are
combining.

1 Fork - 30
2 Forks - 40
3 Forks - 50
4 Forks - 60

If you succeed, you obtain all the memories of the Forks as well as as
their advantages. If you fail, you reobtain all your advantages but
only remember experiences from half your forks. If you roll snake eyes,
you permanently "lose" one of those forks, which amounts to all its advantages
and skills you gave them. You also obtain memories from none of the forks.

Death 

Death is not the end. If your body ever dies, a skilled person can spend
about 1d6 minutes extracting your sleeve's mental shunt, the device
that holds your consciencess. You can then transfer your mind to another
Sleeve through the normal methods.

There is a caveat to this; if you die as an Infomorph, you are dead forever.
A dead infomorph is a consciencess wiped from existence.

Reputation Economy

Money is no object any longer, so the interstellar economy is based not on
money, but your reputation and usefulness. Your Rep is rated from 1 to 10,
and represents basically your purchasing power. All characters start
out with 4 Rep, though the Rank power can increase this (1 Rank per point)

Rep abstractly represents money, with every rep point representing about
an additional zero in terms of dollars. 1 Rep means you have about 10
credits of buying power at any one time, 2 is about 100, all the way up to
10 billion at Rep 10.

Buying Stuff

You can buy any piece of equipment or sleeve of a Rep rank lower than yours
with no problem. If you want to buy something equal to your Red rating,
make a Mind roll of difficulty 10. If you succeed, you get the item fine.
if you fail, you overdraw and temporarily decrease your Rep by 1 for the
rest of the adventure.

You can also buy higher Rep items; buying an item one rank higher requires
a test of 20, two ranks a test of 30, and so on. You can only attempt
to buy equipment up to 5 ranks higher than yours, but this can prove difficult.
Also, if you fail your Rep rating is reduced by an equal amount for the session.
So failing at buying something 5 ranks higher than you results in your Rep
decreasing by 5 for the session. If the request is ever outlandish, like
trying to buy a capital ship with $10 dollars and a fat IOU, your Rep score
could potentially permanently decrease.

Increase and Decrease Rep

Increases and Decreases in your Rep should be handled via the story,
but Rep is usually dependent on where you are. Doing a big job for a
corporation could grant you a Rep boost to buy their items, but staving
off a planetary threat could grant you a Rep boost that applies throughout the
sector. Temporary Rep boosts are more common, and generally represent
the generic "loot" you can obtain from an adventure

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