If I were running a Cyberpunk campaign in the near future and it wasn’t a netrunning based campaign I would use a systemI refer to Imp based netrunning. A friend also described the system as Intelligent frames based.

The core of the system is the netrunner has the skeleton of an Imp (Intelligent agent, frame, whatever) that he quickloads for the particular task with an extensive collection of homebrew, commercial, and blackmarket code. The Imp is then given it’s marching orders and released into the net.Sometimes a netrunner may release a veritable army (or at least a platoon) of Imps into the net to accomplish a particularly difficult task or accomplisha task by brute force instead of finesse.

The Netrunner then disconnects and runs in case the Imps get traced.The Imps report their results to a location (maybe through many redirectors) that the netrunner get to without having to pump through many layers of security. Later the netrunner casually picks up the data uses it, sells, it or plans his next move.

There are a couple points of weakness. First the Imp skeleton acts as a fingerprint. Any failed attempts to do something to a system leaves traces that can be matched up to the skeleton in a netrunners deck. This is only useful if the netrunner is apprehended. This can be caused by a trace of a failed Imp either to where the imp was deployed from or where it was supposed to drop off it’s results.

Now for the system part, machines are rated Awareness, Defense and Response. Imps are rated in Attack, Stealth, and Durability. A netrunner has some number of points based off of programming and interface, the NR uses these points to buy Attack, Stealth, and Durability.

When an Imp is released there is an awareness vs Stealth roll. If awareness wins the Imp is discovered and there is a response vs durability roll. If response wins the Imp is instantly disabled and can be traced. If durability wins the Imp realizes it is being destroyed and has time to send a mission failed message and purge itself of useful information before it is disabled.

On the other hand if stealth wins the original roll then there is an attack vs defense roll. If attack wins the Imp succeeds in its mission and it places a report at the drop off point and thoroughly self destructs. If defense wins go back to the stealth vs awareness roll and start over.

Right now this is just ideas, not a finished system. It needs a lot of work. If anyone does anything with it let me know, I’d like to see what becomes of it.