Philip Bishop on the Dioscuri

by Philip Bishop
edited by Jens Kreutzer

I didn't get much feedback on the Dioscuri cards that were published in recent issues of the Top Runners' Quarterly, but Philip Bishop took the trouble and sent me a rather long email with his comments. I also think that the Dioscuri need much work, but read for yourselves what Philip wrote. His ideas really open up some new directions for creativity.

I've read the articles relating to the "Dioscuri", which have been virtually proposed, and I see a shortcoming in their current implementation: In the other faction-based games I have played, factions did one of two things (if a faction did not do this, it was, to put it bluntly, a poor and rightfully underplayed faction): the faction either

1. helped by boosting a current win strategy that was underdeveloped

   or

2. helped stop a currently "broken" win strategy that was overdeveloped.

Runners:
These should be famous Runners from Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0., not the blandly-named psuedo-entities they are currently. The basic element a veteran Runner would have is starting equipment, therefore instead of just starting with 5 bits, some Runners start with more (and here is the addition) which may be spent on hardware/resources/programs to begin the game with. While this may appear unbalancing, understand that this will always come at a price (and after all, 5 bits won't buy much in today's black market).

The balancing feature a Runner Dioscuri would have is brain damage to start with. Since veterans have been running against ice for a while, it is safe to assume some of them have had their "cortical scrubbed" one too many times. That said, a variable will appear on any Dioscuri card, called EKG (their starting hand size in another manner of speaking). A high number would represent a fresh weef (or cybered-veteran) who has more fresh grey matter to work with. A lower number would represent one or more encounters with some black ice.

The next feature on a Runner would be a Runner's starting MU. The base value of 4 is a bit stale, and doesn't represent the economic differences among Runners. Some Runners start their career with hotter decks (5 MU+), and others have had their sweet systems trashed by one too many run-ins with Cinderella and have to work with last generation's tech (3 MU-). Combined with intelligent opening program purchases, this can make a Runner a dangerous thing in the first turn. Veteran Runners, who have been around for a while, have more connections than your average weef, therefore no "blanket" abilities apply any longer, aside from declaration of a run. Each Runner's abilities will be different, and may vary widely. An old veteran may have "A,A: gain 3 bits" or even "A: draw 2 cards", while your average Runner would have the normal "A: gain 1 bit" and "A: draw one card".

Finally, something I'm amazed was not in the game to start, is a Runner's base link and link boost. This will come at a price far greater than your average link card, so it still behooves the runner to aquire a link. Examples would be "3: base link 1" and "3: +1 link" or something to that effect. While this starting link isn't cost effective, it may save the Runner's behind in a pinch (as well as being immune to trashing).

If a Runner appears terribly underpowered, starting agenda should rocket them back up into contender status. A Runner Dioscuri should never have more than one agenda point to start the game (just enough to pay for all the fun stuff, and not enough to write home about) on account of obvious abuse potential, and then only if they are terribly underpowered. All of this sounds dandy, but the more "positive" abilities a Dioscuri would have, the more drawbacks. The veterans may have better connections and tech, but most of them have quite a few mental scars and some have a hard time motivating themselves to gain bits the old-fashioned way (perhaps "A,A: gain 1 bit"). This of course requires thought and playtesting to ensure balance.

Corps:
Last, but far from least is the Corp side of the Greek twins of Netrunner. The Corp Dioscuri (as you proposed) should be named after some nasty Netrunner Corps, and as such should reflect that Corp as much as possible. The number one balancing factor for a starting Corp would be starting publicity (while this sounds like a good thing, it is starting bad publicity). This number should never be very high (1 or 2 points should be nasty enough), but I feel almost every Corp Dioscuri should have bad publicity to start. What this does is it counterbalances the current strength of corporate fast advance by bringing the bad publicity threshold of seven a bit closer to reach. While two bad publicity points by no means ruin a Corp's game, it definitely encourages them to beef up defences before attempting "fast advance" on account of the very real threat of a good round of Scaldan virus infecting their mainframes.

OK, that said, on to the fun stuff. Since these Corps have (typically) been around for a while, they also have more starting bits (more than 5), as well as starting with rezzed ice. All normal costs apply, and only starting bits can be used to purchase this ice. Every ice costs one more than its normal cost (to account for those pesky zero-cost pieces of ice) and no rez benefit comes from starting ice (since it was never "rezzed" manually). Antipodally, the normal "nesting" cost does not apply. This represents the ever-present defences of any Corp, as well as the known ice from Ice and Data. While starting bits won't get many Corps impenetrable defences, they definitely won't be shabby either. An intelligent player can have their central forts protected adequately while starting the game with no bits, or moderately defended with some bits to spare.

Another new addition would be infrastructure, a statistic that represents larger corporations by giving them a larger HQ (i.e. larger hand size) to begin the game.

Minimum deck size: Older Corps realized the glaring problems of a shallow R&D and therefore have imposed new policies that ensure this will not happen. Those new policies are a minimum deck size, and the corresponding minimum number of agenda points in R&D. Hopefully, this will "slow down" Corp draws by gumming up the works with superflous cards as well as protecting from "one-hit R&D runs". Anything can help in the current environment.

Finally, there are corporate abilities. These will represent the nature of the Corp and may vary as widely as "All black ops agenda difficulties are reduced by one" for Arasaka, or "A, A, A: gain 6 bits" for some new, up-and-coming corporation (that somehow avoided being devoured by the older predators). I personally would avoid handing out starting agenda points to corporations, unless they were counter-balanced by double that amount in starting bad publicity, on the obvious abusability of a Corp realizing they only need two three-point agendas (or worse, a three- and a two-point one) while being fully aware that their opponent still needs seven (and therefore only playing with multiples of 3, forcing the runner to score three agendas while they win with two). Just a thought.

I think adding a statistic to Runners and Corps alike would be one final balancing tool: agenda point requirement. This would represent outstanding debts (say to Arasaka?) or a lagging corporate structure in need of a cash influx. Effectively, this number (starting at 7 and going up) would make the more "beefed" Corporations/Runners a bit slower. While this may encourage the old Tag'n'Bag or a resurgence of Big Dig, I'm not so sure that it is such a bad thing (considering current Corp defensive abilities and penalties for harming Runners). I think this addendum to the current Dioscuri discussion would benefit the R&D of more beneficial and useful Dioscuri.