A thing that ain't ever fully set right with me in cyberpunk games is how the installation of cybernetics always seem to make you 'less' of a person. Be it the lose of 'humanity' or 'soul', the wearer of such prosthetics is treated as less of a person. Okay, yes, fine, given the typical systems for this sort of thing, some form of balance needed to be found, but - maybe - that weren't it.
Say you're out and about in your dystopian future of choice, minding your own business, just doing a job you were hired for, probably arson, no biggie, when some jerk starts screaming about "don't burn down my business" and swinging a katana who's edge has been honed down to an atom's thickness. Real day ruiner. Long story short, you're down an arm. Mechanically, you're still a 'full' person at this point (which is correct), but as soon as you decide to replace your missing limb with a prosthetic, you're somehow no longer fully human? Your soul is diminished because you've...had a surgery?
Awful. Garbage. Get the fuck outta here.
The human body is able to adapt in some amazing ways. You know when you pick up a set of tongs and you give them a good clicking to see if they still work? That's your brain forming and calibrating the new addition to your body that exists via the tongs. Ya getting your soul eaten every time you pick up a set of tongs? Hell, the sack of meat in your skull can even adapt to completely altered input, adjusting to the new orientation in just days.
When you install cybernetics, you should be less worried that your somehow "less of a person", and more concerned that by integrating this technology into your body, you run the risk of being over dependent upon said technology and the people who control it. While some may have altruistic goals to providing the technology, ultimately the corruption of capitalism (which actually eats away at your soul) bring them to offering 'subscription plans' or 'cost cutting measures' or some other bullshit that cheats the consumer.
Additionally, to address the 'balance' issue mentioned above: I don't...care? Some Weird Sin is perhaps too lethal of a system and if you want to jam your cyberarm full of weaponry, boom box, thief's tools, bar supplies, phone kit, kitchen sink, additional sensory organs, and whatever else you can imagine, go ahead. Enjoy yourself. Your character will probably be dead soon. Unbalance shouldn't be feared by the player, nor the General Manager. (But I'm the sort to give a character of a template variant a nuke, just for showing up)
Instead of harassing and insulting people with disabilities, I look to ask the player a set of questions to get them thinking about their choices, leaning into the roleplaying side of things, rather than the purely mechanical. The explanations offer more sub questions, to really press the issue if you want. It's neither a long, nor complicated list, but I have seen it help the player consider and role play their decisions. Which is something that, obviously, should be striven for. Far too often I've seen a Shadow run player say "I've got a chip in my head" at character creation, then it never get brought up again.
1. Why have you chosen to give up a part of yourself?
Obviously, if the augment is replacing a missing part, this is apparent. But, if the player is replacing a perfectly working organic part: Why? What is leading you to give it up? Do you fear falling behind the competition? Or is it fashion wear you're trying to use to fit in? That part is you and has been since birth. Why get rid of it now?
2. Why make yourself a Product?
Despite what they try to tell you, personality can't be bought at Hot Topic. Not many people have what you're installing, sure, but it's still a Product made by a company. One unit out of countless thousands produced every single day. That meat was yours, and yours alone. Your new eyes are now shared, potentially, with any random person on the street.
3. Which company do you bind yourself to?
Ultimately, you're giving up a part of your organic self and replacing it with company made product. Almost every company in the biomedical business has a version of the part you're looking for. You're now going to be dependent on their fabrication, their firmware updates, their back doors into your ware. What makes this company better? Why give your freedom to them? What are you planning to do when a back door hack into their software is discovered and almost any hacker punk can take control of your body part?
4. What do you plan to do if they go out of business?
Cattle die, kinsmen die, all things must end. Including businesses in this corporate-eat-corporate world these days. What are you planning to do when the company goes out of business and the DRM expires, leaving a chunk of your brain unusable, locked behind security protocols, waiting for the key from a company that no longer exists. (I secretly hope the players look to jailbreak their gear and make it truly theirs, but that has yet to be)
5. Cash or Credit?
In the possibly implied setting (or at least the one I use at my table, parts of which may have slipped into the rule book for space filling fluff. I drift, I admit it.) physical paper currency, such as the Soviet Ruble, is illegal as it is untraceable and easily hidden. Credits, on the other hand, store all transaction data to a distributed ledger, making every single transaction public and searchable. Will you keep your privacy after all this, or brazenly flaunt your actions? (There's a correct answer here) So after all the decisions are made, the process complete, and the doctors need paying. So "cash or credit?"
Again, not a terribly complicated list, but it puts the roleplay first and fresh in the player's minds. Giving other players and the GM a glimpse into the character's position.
