Patrick, you and the other writers do/did good work with the confines you were given. People tend to get incensed about things (on the internet?! Never!) and forget that it's not necessarily the writer's fault. Sure, sometimes we get things like a port in Bogota (I really try to not bring it up, honest!) or rules that are misinterpreted easily. But I'd like to think most of these people also know that every attempt was made to make the game as good as it can be. Jason made some decisions in regards to doing things with Decking; he's the line developer, it's his job to make the system work better. It's just a shame there wasn't (apparently) more work put into having it all make sense. But many of these same people were afraid about the shift to wireless and commlinks with SR4 and adapted just fine. So, thanks Patrick, Critias, and all the other writers who put their time into this.

Now, I have to go get my pink jumpsuit ready for my +3 initiative bonus.

Consider the numbers involved and the fact that the book isn't even out yet, and this is rather akin, oddly enough, to Jackpoint and ShadowSEA getting hold of advance material that hasn't hit the broader Matrix yet, and having the experts and others-who-have-an-interest-in-the-topic having an argument about it.

As I said: Dumpshock can be expected to be the weathervane, and we've got a nice brouhaha going here. For a product that hasn't even gone on-sale yet! If it lights a fire in Dumpshock before it's even on sale, it's going to touch off a firestorm when it becomes broadly available.



Look at who is in agreement versus who isn't. You know who's in agreement? The folks with lots of posts to their name. The old guard. The experienced players who are very vocal about the game, who invest a lot of their time and energy into thinking about the game. The people who know a god-damn thing about real computing and security, the people vested in older editions and the history of the setting. Hell, you!

Who's wedded to the concept of "wireless boni" and can justify sending the calculations for your hydraulic jack leap out "to the cloud" to have "calculations done distributively" and bounced back to you?

Not those people; not the people whose opinions and discourses on the matter should be very heavily weighted in the consideration process.




Weathervane. There will come a firestorm over this.



They're a terrible idea horrifically implemented. It's pure gamist "Don your glowing pink suit to gain +3 to initiative" nonsense, and abrogates a very large part of the history of the setting and what we know of actual computing and laws of physics.




I do object to the whole premise behind them, but I can accept the notion that some pieces of gear might work better, for some applications if you let them get Matrix access. And you do that by choke-pointing them through your commlink, which, if you're in the field or near your team, you choke-point through the hacker's commlink. Because you're not a flaming retard.



Uh, no, in fact you haven't taken scope of hardly any of my arguments against the topic. You've just focused on one, decided that since I hate the whole idea in general, that's an invalid opinion that invalidates all of my other, logical arguments against the implementations of those ideas and declared yourself to have the moral high-ground with false humility and apology.



Try claiming some moral high ground that doesn't lie on the artillery range there, pal. This bickering and argument is anything but petty, it's anger because the new edition of the game is including an entire subsystem wholly designed to fuck over several entire, integral character archetypes in one way or another, and it does so in the most highhandedly, verisimilitude-destroying manner possible. "Because we say so." It retcons entire technologies out of existance and ignores the fact that old gear which doesn't do "online boni" should still be extant and installed in player characters in order to force the new "bend over and take it up the ass, because hackers need to hack in combat" paradigm on everyone.

That is not a petty complaint by any stretch of the imagination. And if your "experienced and intelligent" gamers avoid forums, they're going to be blindsided by this nonsense.

Oh, and take your false humility "I am ashamed that I have become a part of it" schtick and stow it. You're not morally superior because you can say "Oh, this is an argument, I want no part of it, therefor I declare all of your arguments to be without substance so I don't have to actually address them, look at me for I am Ghandi-like in my humility." In fact, that's kind of the opposite of morally superior, and it's distracting us from the real subject at hand: the fact that these "online boni" rules and the "either on the Matrix or completely in luddite mode" black and white dichotomy of equipment are utter crap.

This is giving me flashbacks to when John Chambers was steering the helm of Exalted and knew practically nothing about it, but frequently overruled the freelancers who actually knew a goddamn thing. Whomever made this decision made the decision to make combat hacking of people's cyberware a thing, no matter what they had to trample upon to do so. And they have trampled upon pretty much all of the "cyber" part of "cyberpunk fantasy."



He called it out as crap during the design phase. If they wouldn't listen to him...

Well, unfortunately, we don't have much of an option to vote with our wallets, do we? We can't exactly pick apart rules that suck without buying the books (well, unless we pirate them, which is a bad thing,) and whomever's got the helm of this thing has a knack for taking precisely the wrong takeaway lesson from the data he has at-hand. Such as the take-away lesson that players need to be forced to expose their cyber to hackers, rather than that nobody wants to expose their cyber to hackers because that's a dumb thing to do voluntarily.



A complex problem can't be fixed with a simple solution. (Unless the simple solution is to consult Shadowrun 4th Edition for the particulars of how the Matrix works and looks like and functions and use that to extrapolate to SR5's actions, programs, and hacking rules.)




You'd think the quality of the opinions in question would matter more than the quantity. Unfortunately, you'd be wrong in so many tragic practical applications where the voice of ten thousand laymen who know little carries far more weight than the voice of ten experts. I guess someone is going to have to beat RPG.net like a drum until the internet starts to resonate with how ridiculous this is. Not it. I don't even have an account there. I prefer to glean my information from dedicated communities.



The rest of the book might be polished golden, but we've seen enough of the Matrix stuff and "online boni" to know that you'd be an idiot to have any 'ware installed, because the mere possibility exists that someone hostile to you will brick the motherfucker, which will at the very least cost time and money to replace, and given how 'ware tends to replace vital bodily functions, could literally kill you outright (if it's your cyberheart that gets bricked) or will make you easy prey for any random unaugmented joe (if it's your eyes or arms or legs that get bricked.)

Sadly, someone's going to have to pretty much rewrite the Matrix stuff and online boni from the ground up to work with the new mechanics introduced in SR5 and try to keep the new cyberdeck stuff (ugh... Sigh. Can I just call mine a commlink? I liked my commlink,) and other things, but make the Matrix rules congruent with a world which is not populated by people who wear their underpants on top of their heads and consider nostril-pencils to be the height of fashion. I imagine Dumpshock is up to the task, though. I know I'll be taking a stab at it - out of spite if for no other reason!



I'm broke and jobless, but right now I would rally all my spare cash to deposit in my checking account for one hurrah to buy a PDF of the con version or the full version just to get a head start on this task. It rubs me that wrongly. This is pure MMORPG gamism at its finest - it's nerfing things that don't need to be nerfed in order to force people to play "correctly," when people want to play sensibly.

Uh, UmaroVI, could you please explain how this works without a Matrix connection? Because I'm pretty certain that this gun doesn't talk to the Matrix to make the shot. Also this tech is available today. I would think in 60 years they can make it small enough to put in pistols.

My opinion:
I don't think it's whether or not you would need to be connected to the matrix to do some of this sort of thing. Yes, I'm certain a lot of these things could work fine with software built into the device itself. No argument there.

It's whether or not that's how things are done, and I can easily see this as a matter of corporate control. The software isn't put into the device, because the corporations don't want to. They keep the software nice and safe in their networks, the hardware has just enough technology for basic functionality, and for anything else, you need matrix connections. This allows the corporations to keep control of the programs (limiting hacking and such), allows them to update in an instant and know everybody's got the latest patches (whether or not they want them), and allows them to gather user statistics in an instant. To the corporations, this is data mining and control at its finest.

This is like Microsoft having it so every laptop had no hard-drive. Instead, you turned on your laptop. It scanned for a network connection, logged into the OS that's on Microsoft's servers, and let you go from there. Everything you want to do goes through Microsoft's servers. If there's a new patch to the OS, they patch, and next time you turn on your laptop, you're running that patch. Your word processor, your web browser, everything is run through Microsoft's servers. If you need to save data, you bring out your thumb drive or what-have-you, or you stick it on the cloud.

(Point of fact, for all my roleplaying games now, I have everything stored in Google Drive... saved me crap tonnes of space on my HDs, and also means I can access it from any computer, any time... including my cellphone. That's actually a perfect example of this...)

Now, a shadowrunner may absolutely hate the concept, but to the corporations, this is gold. And your typical corp citizen might find this a godsend, since the corporation's doing all the 'work' for them. Sure, you might need to put up with the odd corp ad, and sure, you might be restricted to corp-approved software, but that's the price for security.

I can easily, easily see this being 'standard' in Shadowrun. I can see shadowrunners going apecrap over this. And I'm pretty sure the 5E version of 'Unwired' will go into more detail about how to get around this kind of thing - but for the core rulebook? It's laying out the base setting. And I'm more than willing to accept this.

So what you're trying to say is: In a game setting where the focus for players lies with criminals called "shadowrunners" the core rulebook should revolve around the presentation of how "ordinary" people live and not about how the main protagonists of the game deal with such a situation?

I think the technology presented should be 'standard', and mods to the technology can come out later, yes. Note that every program isn't hacked and cracked, and that vehicles aren't modded in the core rulebook.

We're playing Shadowrunners, not Joe Bob Salaryman. The gear being presented should, thus, be written to be useful to shadowrunners, as those are the characters we are creating with that core book.

I completely disagree. If that was the case, every vehicle should be presented, modded for shadowrunning, every weapon, every piece of gear. I'd rather know what's 'normal' in the setting, then try to figure out how my character would use it for his job.

For out-there custom stuff? Sure, that makes sense.

But we're talking about something that's a no-brainer. If a way to not have to have 'welcome aboard' tattooed above your ass cheeks in every decker's AR exists, it will be one of the default tools of the trade for shadowrunners.

Just like skinlink was. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif)

Joe Salaryman doesn't need white noise generators, wired reflexes, or bug detectors.
Joe Runner does.

He also needs gear for when he needs to go off the Matrix like skinlinks (included in the 4th edition core rule book) or a smartgun link induction pad.

And if it was in the previous core rulebooks then why wasn't it included in this one especially when they just rolled out some shiny new options for the decker to pull on anyone with cyberware?

Not to be confused with Joe Bob Celeryman from GURPS: Veggietales


A problem is there is so much stuff no one is ever going to be completely happy with what starts it off with, the book starts off with one could call 'starter' gear, the most commonly available elements, not necessarily the best.

And of course it sells more books to spread out the new shinies abit, so there will be rehashed versions of Arsenal and the rest. It is afterall a business and there is tons of materials to cover. It would sound nice to just have it all in one tome/pdf but it would be staggering in size (though I would so buy that, even if it was a giant paperweight-- Encyclopedia Shadowia?)

Another problem is the wide range of backgrounds. A paramilitary backgrounded op is going to be all over wired security and what not to do to be boned by it whereas your starting ganger probably has not seen a decker outside of the local triad or such so probably does not know all the ins and outs beyond the basics. The former will probably be cybered up a bit and be wanting whatever he can to reduce his web presence whereas the ganger wont have tons of cyber and probably using secondhand ware bought off the streetdoc so he takes what he can get, wired or otherwise.

You raise a very good point, actually. Most starting teams aren't going to have everything hacked and modded up to the nines.

And you are aware that the design goal of combat hacking (the main reason behind the changes in question) will go extinct if such mods to technology actually arise? Because once our protagonists have access so means of getting both the bonus and maintaining their "offline" state, that'll become the default again.

Oh and ofc you are aware that by definition GOD and thus to an extend the software providing corps are capable of performing real time threat evaluation and user authentification under your stipulation. So your "100% of software is located in the cloud" not only opens the attack vector of combat hacking but also makes it even less likely to go unnoticed than under the "RFID everywhere" assumption of SR4. And since your stipulation now works as the standard, it should be noted that under such circumstances being "online" would be the default and not having access to the matrix actually be just the fallback ... thus your corps would even try to make it impossible to deliberately go offline. Yet we're presented with a situation where going offline is a matter of standard choice and not something that needs hacking to achieve.

So this whole thing is a mess both in terms of fluff (and the resulting, logical consequences for the world setting) and eye-brow raising, particular implementation of specific bonuses that have been presented so far. And to make things worse: For now it's players trying to come up with explainations as to why and how stuff works now, instead of those who should be giving such explainations ... even in their previews.

The skin link technology was patented in 2007.
And is likely pretty slow but if all you need to do is tell your Predator to eject a clip or have the bipod deploy on your LMG then you don't need much band width.

I always thought that if you had a cyberlimp, then you had a DNI interface with the gear incorporated in the cyberarm. If you have a pistol built in then you could fire it with a mental command because the arm was attached to your nervous system. If you had an endoscope/cybereye built in to your forefinger and a datalink in your normal pair of cybereyes then you could see through the endoscope with additional special gear because the cyberarm by definition had a DNI with your brain.

Depends on the difficulty and cost of being able to do it. If they make such really hard, or really expensive (or hell, just make sure that the difficulty of obtaining it is high), then it isn't as much of a problem.



Pretty much. I also make the assumption that the camera system we see in London these days is pretty much everywhere, and upgraded. Advertising is everywhere, and you're probably under surveillance almost all the time unless you're in the slums or sprawl. As it goes, I like taking the natural progression of technology as it stands now, moving it forward, and then using that as the prime difficulty for Shadowrunners to work around to do their job. (Or, in the case of my character Koryo, he embraces it completely, and uses it to his advantage).



Possibly. But if they're also selling in areas with poor or no connectivity, they want the item to be at least passably usable. (PS3 / XBox 360). You get full usability if online, partial if offline. Again, a reflection of modern society.



I don't have the book, so I'm just going with what makes sense to me - nothing stands out as 'OMG this would never happen!' from what I've seen so far. Which means it doesn't bother me in the slightest, no matter how much it would screw the shadowrunners. They just need to evolve, or decide not to go with the full bonuses.

Actually, I could see that, too. A sec team with full wired access, versus a shadowrun team who decides to be 'off grid', and use the base effects. I could so see that... giving the secs an edge.

And that is my main problem.

A Pro on the job should know how to take matrix security seriously and be able to do so.
There are times and places when a shadowrun team needs to be totally off the Matrix except for the decker (who has the gear to spoof his presence.) so they don't tip off the building spyder or have any gear leaving digital fingerprints by connecting to the Matrix while on the run.

A decker shouldn't be able to on the fly hack the gear and cyberware of a Corporate High Threat Response Team or a SWAT team because they will have locked every thing off the Matrix.
But in SR5 they have removed or ignored the gear to do that.

And on go multiple Jammers.

Sec Team loses their edge.
Runners laugh.

Which is perfectly fine. I'm cool with that.

Let's just hope that the players that take on the runner role rule have "fun" in such a scenario, because that certainly is not the core setting of SR (neither for pink mohawk nor shades wearing spy types).

Yes, and they can have specific books for that come out later. No core book in Shadowrun has ever dealt specifically with high-end teams out of the main book. SR4A brushed it, by allowing Initiation and Submersion in the main rulebook - that was a first, but for most SR core rulebooks, it deals with 'the start' to the 'mid level' sort of play. When you get into the advanced stuff, they put it into later books.

Depends on the play group. The GM is expected to tailor the game to the playgroup. For me, as a player, part of my fun is having an idea of what could be set against me, and plotting and planning how to circumvent it (re: my sig). SR5 just makes it more difficult, which means it's more of a challenge, which means I need to plan with more care. I'm fine with that. I don't think my group's going to mind either. With them, they tend to work semi-legit, so being connected to the matrix is less of a problem for them.

Yeah, at least in the A level security zones.
As a GM you just have to kinda ignore just how Big Brother the surveillance side of things would be in 2075.
Or as you say, take advantage of it.
Magic helps a lot.
The Balkanization of every thing also helps. Just cut through a couple of different Corp extraterritoriality zones.
Plus with walk in Plastic surgery people can change faces like they change hair color.

As a GM? I embrace it, completely. I see no reason to ignore it.



Yes, those are tools the players have, and I'm fine with that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Just as liking or disliking these changes depends on the individual players, right?



And now let's just assume that I as gm decide to throw every "legal" thing at you when playing with the force and including all logical consequences that this has from both crunch and fluff ... Then I quite obviously "fail" at tailoring the game to my group's desires, despite merely using what the makers have envisioned as the now normal setting.



Depending on PoV it has made not just "more difficult" but "immersion breaking impossible" ...



... which means that they either have to try to come up with additional ideas to rationalize the new cirumstances (and no, your explainations quite obviously don't satisfy their needs), that they have to walk away or remove major parts of the "new game features" as house rulings (thus questioning the need to make the edition transition in the first place).



You're kind of lucky in that case.