[CalibanX9]

So I have a player in my game who wanted to do full amnesia, mwahaha. I created a pretty pimp street sam, but I wanted him to be locked out of using his cyberware, at least initially. Any tips on how to do this? I was thinking of just having his PAN being coded to his commlink that he's locked out of (and is sporting some IC), but I'm unsure where to go from there.

Thanks for any help!

[UmaroVI]

I agree that would be the most sensible way to go - have all his 'ware slaved to his commlink.

An alternative - by default, 'ware runs on DNI. You could, in theory, have it set to do something odd like run in wireless but him not have an account.

Alternatively, it could have all access (DNI and Wireless) off and require minor surgery to turn DNI on.

Of those I think the first is probably the most sensible. Of course, it will only take a quick hacking job to fix this, but that's not really avoidable.

[Crash_00]

Or it could just have an old school killswitch that has been activated and is in a really awkward place to notice (which is honestly reasonable since it would need to be somewhere that wouldn't get accidentally activated). My old street sam had his in his ear canal.

[ArkangelWinter]

Put the killswitch a pressure point in his cyber-eyes, and make them realistic cyber-eyes. He'll never think to poke around under his eyelid if he's forgot he has cyber-eyes

[Crash_00]

Then when he gets that eye poke from Dr. Insano, he really won't know what hit him.

[UmaroVI]

That's really not going to last very long. A rating 6 cyberware scanner is 4R, 450Y, and will find all of his cyberware in at most a few tries, likely one try.

[ArkangelWinter]

Yea but he doesnt know to scan himself. For all he knows, he's a burned out Adept. And surely he wouldnt think to poke himself in the eye hard to hit the killswitch

[Tsuzua]

Yea but he doesnt know to scan himself. For all he knows, he's a burned out Adept. And surely he wouldnt think to poke himself in the eye hard to hit the killswitch

Really it depends on how common cyberware scanners are in your game.  Other PCs might have one or it'll be discovered when you walk onto a plane.

That said, cyberware scanners likely don't get "poke under the eye to turn on" level detail.  At least, they won't most of the time.  However it'll likely be enough of a head's up to talk to a street doc about it.

[Crash_00]

Barring some serious metagaming he probably wouldn't find out until the first security scan set off an alarm. The group mage might notice, but he'll probably assume the sammie knows about his ware.

[UmaroVI]

Right, I didn't say it wouldn't last at all, just that it wouldn't last very long and is even easier to bypass than the slaved-to-commlink version.

[Tsuzua]

Barring some serious metagaming he probably wouldn't find out until the first security scan set off an alarm. The group mage might notice, but he'll probably assume the sammie knows about his ware.

Really it depends on how everyone meets.  If everyone is meeting for the first time, another PC with a scanner might be checking out the field.  That might lead to the interesting situation where a PC might know the amnesia'd PC's ware but the amnesia'd PC doesn't know.  However, everything is going to be laid bare if they join a tacnet using the scanner as channel "hey the tactical readout says I have an attention coprocessor, wired reflexes 2, and plastic bone lacing."

If instead everyone knows the PC has amnesia, giving them an once over with a scanner might seem reasonable.  You as a fellow teammate would want to know if a teammate has a cranial bomb or not especially if said teammate doesn't remember.  I also hope any doctors would check for existing ware if the amnesia'd PC ever goes for new ware.

That said, not knowing your ware would work for a few sessions most likely.  However, once anyone cares to look at the PC, the cat will rapidly be out of the bag. 

[Mason]

Unless, of course, he has unregistered ware with the transmitters removed, or prototype ware, and if none of his ware is visible and is ruthenium shielded, he could be unaware he has the wares. He could honestly think he is an adept. You could also go with bioware and get the "I am an Adept" vibe going much easier.

[CalibanX9]

Thanks for the feedback, fun ideas.

Well, I put his commlink in his head, so he's not even going to be aware of it, initially, there's a technomancer, so I'm sure he'll pick up on the node eventually. And, he's got a glitchy fly by wire system. And a serious unknown addiction to novacoke, so it's going to be pretty apparent that something is seriously wrong with this guy.