MetaCyber

GM
Paradigm	Key Notes	Assumptions
Starting	Races	Professions

Starting Characters

This document details a number of assumptions involving the creation of new Player Characters in the MetaCyber setting. Individual GM's may vary on specific details.

ORIGIN

All Players must pick one of the four Origins for their characters.

ARCHETYPE

Archetypes are elective; they merely provide some structure to well recognized broad skills sets that are useful to Running in a general sense. Players are free to use or ignore the idea of Archetypes to inform their character design.

STARTING EQUIPMENT

Players start with free points in three Resource Pools as described in the Dark Champions Genre book, as illustrated in the adjoining table. However, these numbers are modified by some Origins.

RESOURCE POOL	POINTS

Equipment	60
Vehicles \ Bases	10
Contacts \ Followers	5

Metas start with Equipment Pool (30)
Adepts get 15 free character points with which to buy more Pool.

INCREASING RESOURCE POOLS

Players can spend extra character points to increase the size of their Resource Pools. This is not a 1:1 ratio; a single character point will buy more than one point of Pool, at different rates by type of Resource Pool (this is explained on page 151 of Dark Champions and cannot be reprinted here with out infringing on HERO Games' IP).

Extra points are purchased as a Perk (if using HERO Designer, use the Custom Perk).

CREDIT COSTS OF STARTING EQUIPMENT

Characters do not have to pay the credit cost of Equipment that they start with in their Equipment Resource Pool. If a character has more gear than they can fit into their Resource Pool the character must pay the credit cost for the extra Equipment from their starting funds.

EQUIPMENT AVAILABILITY

The Equipment Availability Perks detailed in Dark Champions are in effect. To start with Equipment of a particular type a character must have the appropriate Equipment Availablity level. In addition to starting play such items characters with these perks are assumed to have connections that allow them to acquire these items during play with greater ease than other characters.

RESOURCE POOL	POINTS

Standard	Free
Enforcement	3
Military	5
Advanced Military	10

Characters that lack these Perks might acquire higher grade equipment via play every now and then but it should be unusual and sporadic, and they wont be able to easily replace such gear.

Standard covers handguns, basic body armor, and "army surplus" type gear. For vehicles it covers normal street vehicles.
Enforcement covers military small arms, submachine guns / assault weapons, and basic military issue. For vehicles it covers SWAT style vehicles (such as Runner Vans).
Military covers grenades, machine guns, high grade body armor, basic military vehicles, and restricted military issue. It also covers all light to medium military air and ground vehicles such as Armored Reconnaissance Vehicles, observation planes, transport helicopters, and similar mid-grade units.
Advanced Military covers missile launchers, flamethrowers, small-scale Nuclear / Biological / Chemical weapons, ordinance, artillery pieces, experimental and cutting edge weapons, and similar items. For vehicles it covers main battle tanks, fighter aircraft, assault helicopters, and other high-end units.

STARTING FUNDS

The following assumptions are in effect for starting funds:

WEALTH LEVEL	STARTING FUNDS

Destitute	250,000 credits
Poor	500,000 credits

Normal	1,000,000 credits

Wealth (1)	2,000,000 credits
Wealth (2)	3,000,000 credits
Wealth (3)	4,000,000 credits
Wealth (4)	5,000,000 credits
Wealth (5)	6,000,000 credits

Wealth (6)+	Not Available for starting PC's

CHARACTER POINT LEVELS

This paradigm is expected to be mid powered and to rise into high power as Runners gain experience. It is assumed that new characters in this paradigm start with 125 Base Points and up to 100 points from Disadvantages. This value can be altered by the GM at will.

HIGH / LOW

A GM can easily kickstart the campaign to a higher level of play by granting Experience to characters to represent their status as veteran adventurers when the campaign starts, but this is not as common in this paradigm. Similarly the GM could downscale the characters to represent that they are somewhat green when the campaign starts

EXPERIENCE

In play GMs should be somewhat fluid with XP awards to encourage a sense of growing power and so that the scale of the antagonists can be ramped up as the group takes on bigger and more dangerous missions. Without this feeling of ascending scale a sense of boredom can set in; you can only break into a regional office to hack a corporate mainframe so many times before it becomes routine. There are always bigger, more dangerous missions that can be cooked up to maintain the challenge level, and when a GM starts to feel like the game is in a comfortable place the XP flow can be tapered off to keep the PC's in that point range for a while.

RELATIVE POINT LEVELS

The following chart vaguely indicates relative status levels by adjusted character points. The titles are not intended to have any literal meaning; they are just intended to give an idea of the status of a character with that many character points relative to the setting.

Relative Status	Base	Max Disadvantage Points	Starting Experience	Total Points

Noob	25	100	0	125
Neophyte	75	100	0	175

Youngblood	125	100	0	225

Pro	125	100	25	250
Veteran	125	100	75	300
Hero	125	100	125	350
Champion	125	100	175	400
Famous	125	100	250	475
Legend	125	100	400	625+