CyCo's Blackspot on the Information Highway

I had this idea a couple of years ago. I was going to bed late one night, lamenting that while I loved the TMNT RPG produced by Palladium Books, the actual game system has a lot left to be desired... I remember that as I drifted into sleep, I wished that it was more like the Cyberpunk System...

It was a miracle that I remembered these idle thoughts in the morning. But I did, and as I looked through my copy of TMNT and other Strangeness, I realised that the section on mutating animals into characters could be used as a plug-in in almost any any RPG!! All that really needed converting was the attributes to those used in Cyberpunk. And that wasn't hard at all.... :) This will require a copy of the Cyberpunk 2020 rulebook and TMNT and Other Strangeness. Some of the other TMNT sourcebooks are desirable, the Mutants Down Under sourcebook is a must!! :)

So what follows is a section on converting the Palladium Attributes to those of Cyberpunk. Easy. The actual mutation of your chosen animal is just as easy, as there are no changes here to the one in the main TMNT book!! In fact, this could be used to introduce Psionics into your Cyberpunk game!! Imagine Psychic Mutant Animals running around Night City! Especially if only the Mutant Animals had Psionics...... I envision Corporate and Goverment Black Op Teams full of Psychic Operatives........ Coollll!! Mutant Animals with cyberware.... :)

After that, I'll include a section on the setting I made around this idea. Set in Australia 2025, this is a different Australia than the one in the Pacific Rim Sourcebook for Cyberpunk. Though that sourcebook may be handy to have.

I may even get around to do a Fuzion Netbook Plug-in..... :)

Stat Conversion...
Ok, first thing to mention, is that mutant animals no longer get a bonus to INT if they have a bonus in the TMNT books.... No animal can be smarter than humans.... Animals also don't get a bonus to TECH, this works out well, as there isn't a TECH type stat in the Palladium system anyway.... If a animal gets a bonus to INT, like the Magpie from Mutants in Avalon, they loose the bonus, but gain 5 BIO-E points. Why the BIO-E points? In the back on the main TMNT book in the section on creating other base animal types, it says that for every attribute bonus, it looses 5 BIO-E points, regardless of weither the bonus is +1 or +5... Besides, 5 BIO-E points is one size level....

The second thing is how the stats convert from Palladiun to Cyberpunk....

The difficulty come in with PS and PE. In Cyberpunk these are represented by one stat, BODY. Instead of assigning these to stats, add them to the skills mentioned.....

Palladium	Cyberpunk
IQ	INT
ME	COOL
MA	EMP
PS	Strength Feat
PP	REF
PE	Endurance
PB	ATTR
SPD	MA

This way, the wolverine character in your group won't have a a natural BOD of 15......

The third thing is on how to apply the stat bonus from the TMNT books to the CP system. Take the bonus and divide by 2, rounding up. Thus a bonus of +1 or +2 will become +1, a bonus of +3 or +4 will become +2, etc.... Now that you've worked out what the bonus will be, instead of adding it to the stats after the character points pool has been applied, you work out the 'racial' minimun and maximum. The Magpie gets a +2 to IQ, +1 to PP and +2 ME. These all become a +1 bonus in the CP system (with the exception of the IQ bonus, which is traded for 5 BIO-E points). This bonus is then applied to the human racial minimum of 2, and added to the human racial maximum of 10. Thus a Magpie will have a racial minumim of 3 for REF and COOL, and a racial maximum of 11 for REF and COOL. Thus a player creating a mutant animal in a group of straight humans will get the same Character Points, but will have a slight advantage with a couple of stats.

Fourthly, dealing with the size levels. They still cost 5 BIO-E points per size level, but for every two size levels above 10, you recieve a +1 bonus to your BTM modifier. Thus the bigger you are, the more resistant you are to damage. This replaces the SDC column on the Size Level Table in the main TMNT book. Assign the other stat bonus according to the system above, ie, divide the bonus by 2, rounding up. This includes the penalties for being of a size smaller than size level 6. Divide them by 2 rounding up, in this case, apply the IQ penalty to INT.

Home ¦ Rules ¦ Weapons ¦ Equipment ¦ Vehicles ¦ Cyberware ¦ Campaign Ideas ¦ Corporations

Roles ¦ Drugs ¦ My Bio ¦ Netware ¦ Downloads ¦ Links ¦ Site Map

Email Me!