For simplicity's sake I'll start with direct neurological effects. The page will basically be laid out as a series of options that can be incorporated into software. Now unlike some writers I'm not interested in making rules so you'll find no values here, or at best only suggested values. I'm much more interesting in making you think than in doing the work for you. This material is for you to incorporate into your own games as you see fit. Of course if you start writing program entries based on this stuff it'd be nice to get some credit.

For those of you desperate to make rules these, concepts can be slotted into the current creation rules as listed in Rache Bartmoss' Guide to the Net, all you need to do is assign values to each effect you wish to use and a modifier for strength. This will add to the normal difficult test for writing the program.

Pain Induction: Severe
The sensation of pain is the only sense we truly have mental control over. Unlike our awareness of temperature or light we never grow accustomed to a set level of stimuli when pain is involved, but we can choose to ignore it. Or create it. This code sequence is designed to trigger a massive sensation of pain, customizable options allow for various real world injuries to be simulated. But of course pain is one of those options that no RPG can really convey, so I recommend adding a penalty to action equal to the strength of the program. And of course the program must manage to strike the 'runner before it can do anything.

Pain Induction: Annoyance
One of the aspects of hackers and Cyberpunk's netrunners that has been largely lost is the element of practical jokes, or doing something just to prove you can. But for something that amounts to a complicated way of saying "I can see you", the full crippling pain function is too heavy handed. And if ya just wanna pull someone's chain wouldn't an itch that doesn't go away be more amusing? Or giving him the sensation of a burning genital rash? You see the idea. This wouldn't really have any game effect, except maybe in social tests (scratching your balls while trying to score with that socket could be embarrassing) or critical moments (is it the red or the black wire?), but I'd be willing to award IP for amusing play.

Somatic Induction: Rash
Of course pain isn't the only thing the mind can be tricked into. With enough encouragement and bio feed back its possible to play a wide variety of tricks. This is one of them. While this can't create a true rash, which is usually the result of a skin infection it can make the body simulate the experience. Reddening of the skin, some warmth and swelling, itching and pain. No real effect on play except in social checks.

Somatic Induction: Twitch
The brain is a very sensitive organ, and its functioning, along with that of the nerves is finely regulated. Add a slight change to that timing and all kinda of things can occur. By tricking the brain into sending off timed or misplaced impulses a muscle twitch can be caused. Of course its up to the designer to decide what kind of twitch and how severe. I'll leave it up to GM's to decide. But facial twitches can affect social and coolness checks, muscle twitches may affect shooting or fighting...you get the idea. And I'd simply recommend a modifier equal to the program's strength.

Somatic Induction: Seizure
By causing a mix up in neurological signals the body's voluntary muscle system can be thrown in turmoil. In medical terms we call this a seizure. Though there are many kinds of seizures, I'm not going to get into them all. We'll just look at the one most people know. Grand Mal or Tonic-Clonic seizures. This effect throws the whole body into a series of jerks as muscles clench and relax, leading to spastic twitching, and nothing else can be done during this time. The duration of the effect should be related to program strength. Anyone having suffered a full seizure will need to rest, and will suffer a reduction of activity and/or skills at the GM's discretion, till fully rested.

Somatic Induction: Paralysis
For all intents and purposes this is exactly the opposite of a seizure, nerve impulses to the muscles cease. Leaving the body flaccid and uncontrollable, no actions maybe performed, and with serious enough programs there can be risk of suffocation. Again duration should be related to program strength.

Somatic Induction: Aphasia
This effect will also be simulated by a different attack program system, but using a different route. This form of aphasia, which can basically be summed up as trouble speaking is caused by alterations in the target's ability to control the muscles of the jaw and tongue. Only verbal skills will be affected.

Somatic Induction: Blindness
This works by affecting at least short term the brain's ability to alter the focus of the eyes, making the word a blur. This is not true blindness, the target can still perceive light and dark, they just can't alter their focus to see clearly.

Somatic Induction: Exaggeration
This affect alters the brain's ability to correctly interpret nerve impulses from the voluntary muscles. As a result the target overexaggerates each action. Moves his arm to far, to hard and to fast. The effect makes it initially impossible to fine tune muscle movements.

Cardiogenic Effects: Arrest
Okay I'll admit this is the original concept in Cyberpunk for the functioning of ICE, it shows up in Gibson's Neuromancer and was responsible for wasting the book's most gifted netrunner, the Dixie Flatline. However the basic net article writer seems to have decided it was done with outright electrical shock, and thus the creation of damage programs came to pass. But again this isn't an electrical effect, the power needed just isn't available in a battery powered box connected to a fiber optics link. However the neural processor can be tricked it causing this effect by altering the body's own brain based pacemaking. Realistically this would only have a 50/50 chance (at best) due to the heart's own independent pacemaker but we'll ignore that and call this the lethal heart attack effect we all know and love.

Cardiogenic Effects: Tachycardia
Okay there are times however when we don't really wanna kill the netrunner at the end, just let him know he's been tagged and beaten. There's really no way to gloat to a dead foe, but one who knows he's beaten... That's another story. Using similar brain based effects the ICE triggers a period of extremely rapid heart beats, often felt as chest palpitations. Its up to the GM to decide how much of an effect this has, and whether or not any strenuous activity will cause a full arrest.

Cardiogenic Effects: Bradycardia
This has exactly the opposite effect as tachycardia, it leads to a marked decrease in heart beats per minute and can lead to shock, shortness of breath and other related effects. The oddest to describe to players might be tingling in the fingers and toes as oxygen flow is reduced by slower pulses.

Reformatted: December 16th, 2000