Br0ni 4 lyfe brah

"And bring the drenchin' tool, Joe-Bob. Reckon them critters'll have all kindsa worms."

Actually I think that one has the misspelling vyrus. Incurable.

After some thought, I don't really agree. There are a hell of a lot of very cheap, incredibly crappy sensors out there. False negatives and false positives abound. Oh, you wanted a quality sensor? Sure. Just pay through the nose.

That matches a rating system in my book. Hell, some places I worked, alarms were actually off because the sensors kept going crazy.

I've actually gotten the impression that different writers have varying ideas, but that nobody's really touched it for reasons I haven't really been able to figure out. There are certainly a number of possible ideas - I have my own theories - but they've DECIDED to keep them unexplained for now.

Then the canon material needs to stop talking about runners who forget to use a tag eraser on their morning breakfast, or they'll get caught.
(Protip: tags only come in one rating)

At least with Otaku they kept them a touch more plausible. With the whole bit about needing a datajack and ASIST filter to actually convert network packets to sensory info, even if they were essentially spoofing cyberprograms via their brains.

Then we get to the tacomancers, and 'welp, guess someone evolved a wireless receiver/transmitter in their head, sure glad it's IEEE compatible!' which is where we go from suspension of disbelief to 'it's magic, deal with it'. There were multiple explanations for how Otaku happened floating around in the novels, even, but tacomancy just plan requires shrugging and accepting that it's a game mechanic that can't be rationally explained in-world.

Yep, Otaku made sense (somewhat) in the setting. I've always had big problems understanding and accepting TM's, game mechanics aside. Those were their own ball of wax. The explanation that made sense was some Dev going "lets make Mages... in the MATRIX!! And we'll give them MATRIX Spirits! It'll be AWESOME!!!!!"

Never was my cup of tea.

By the by, was it 4th Edition brought technomancers about? Or was there a 3rd splat that brought them into being? I can't recall anymore.

I always liked Smedman's take from Psychotrope, where Otaku were essentially just people who'd been modified by psychotropic means by a rogue AI.



TMs are Crash of '64, so solidly 4e.

That's what I always considered them, and that worked for me. And since the had to have some 'ware it wasn't ALL that different from a chip carrier equipped regular hacker. They just got to use their crazy brains as programs, which worked for me.



That's what I thought. There was very little of the fluff added in 4e that I liked, at all. Pretty much drove me away from Shadowrun for a few years. That and all my playing friends lost interest/moved away, etc. Ghost Cartels I liked, however.

Same here. I played a demo of 4e at a con way back, then didn't really start even looking at new SR publications again until 5e was announced... just in time to get WAR. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

The trouble with technomancers is that their abilities are confined to the matrix, so it is harder to keep them balanced with hackers and distinct from them. I think people need to really think about what they would be better, or worse, at than someone who uses programs and hardware. I also think the "natural wireless" should be done away with - like otaku, they should still need a technological means to connect to the matrix.

Adepts were comparatively balanced with street samurai in SR3. Sammies were tough, fast, and good in a variety of combat situations, while adepts were more specialized - ninjas, marksmen, and martial artist types. They tried to keep them in those niches in SR4, by making initiative and Attribute enhancements expensive, but other abilities comparatively cheaper. Unfortunately, the high cost of certain adept powers, and the low Essence cost of bioware, created the (possibly) unintended consequence of bio-adepts who used muscle toner and synaptic boosters instead of buying costlier adept powers. The other problem with adepts was that their abilities often stacked with those of augmentations. A mundane face could not ever get kinesics, but an adept with kinesics could get tailored pheromones.

in order to avoid that there needs to be a larger penalty for losing essence for an Adept. I can already see Bio Adepts or Bio Mystics being a huge boon for most people in 5E.

SR5 did make some odd changes in the matter of Augments and Adepts. "Critical Strike" for example. Double the cost and no more, than one level. All the while, the (bioware) "Bone Density Augmentation" grants up to 4 resistance dice, P unarmed damage at up to str+3, for little cost (low essence- and monetary cost).

Buying that stuf alpha is easily affordable, so while you get "Killing Hands", +1 damage and 4 points of armor for about 3 powerpoints, you could also get it for 1 powerpoint, if you are willing to go bio and loose 1 essence. The biggest downside would probably be to forgo the "magic damage" that "Killing Hands" would have allowed for, but having 2 points more base damage in unarmed combat may make up for that...that and the saved powerpoints.

So it still is perfectly understandable, if going cyber or bio, is tempting for adepts. It also feels a little, as if there was a lack of communication between the responsible authors.

EDIT:



It would be preferable to serve both parties (Augs and Ads) better at home, instead of trying surgery with a sledgehammer. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

there is another difference, Critical Strike has now been broadened to more than just fists. Which means your best bet is to use Bio to boost Strength, then get an additional DV boost from Crit Strike, then any other boosts from new splats.

True, it would be nice if it were more tempting, to get additional damage through "Critical Strike" than to go bio on it. As far as I see it, not even "Attribute Boost" raises the damage (temporarily) ... I mean... who get's strength mainly for the dice?

well, it is more important now in sr5, a Melee focused Troll Adept who maxes Strength & Agility can be running an 11str & a 7Agi out of character creation with an Axe they will do 16P+nets rolling 19 dice to hit

Sure, but that is not Str 11 just for the dice...

The main value of Strength as an attribute is in damage, recoil-compensation and physical limit calculation. These things aren't affected by "Attribute Boost" and damage can be raised only slightly ( by +1 max) for half a powerpoint, if you buy critical hit. Raising attributes per "Improved Physical Attribute" is far more expensive than to simply go bio and get damage or attributepoints there.

While I really do not like it, it just makes far to much sense, to go bio adept.

no, that is a Bio-Adept Troll, that 11 str & 7 Agi are modified after stats I would have gone higher but the Availability limit of gear kicked in.

It's unavoidable that one class of possible explanations for technomancers is that there's something supernatural at play that isn't Magic, which would be what is represented by Resonance. Other explanations go to some sort of experimentation/alteration by some organization or entity, though many of these theories (especially those tied specifically to Deus) have notable holes in them. Still other possible explanations would go to some sort of evolution (more accurately mutation, as no selection effect can be inferred), wherein the capability may have already existed but didn't become known until the wireless systems came around (and in the case of these explanations, it must be assumed that it is possible for the technomancer to interact with a range of signals (which nicely explains how E-Sensing works, actually), which includes those used for the Wireless Matrix. Once you have something that's physically capable of sending and receiving signals on the right channel, it's just a matter of the right software (which in this case is the brain learning how to go about this).

There are many possible explanations that can be perfectly compatible with the assumptions of the setting (for example, the assumption of the existence of Magic is really the assumption of the existence of at least one supernatural force; nothing I know of in the setting is incompatible with there being more than one).

Another area which needs more work for real verisimilitude is the way that the world works.

If you read many of the discussions here on how things work, or how dystopian the world of Shadowrun is(n't), it's obvious that not only is there a lack of clarity on how things work and why shadowrunners can even exist (regardless of how pink their mohawks are, or how black their trenchcoats) but it's far from clear how society actually functions.

On the one hand, you have high energy, high density, high sophistication areas where the corporations produce breathtaking technology and people live in almost aseptic conditions under a purportedly benevolent dictatorship where they can spin their little hamster wheels until they die of natural causes.

On the other hand, less than a good rifle shot away, you have starving beasts rending each other limb from limb in the vilest of squalid, hazardous conditions, and where the closest thing to a functioning governing structure is the local gang boss and whichever drugs his cronies took that morning.

There has to be some recognition that the aseptic world of miraculous perfection has to be supported by primary industries (farming, fishing, logging, mining) which are largely not present in those aseptic conditions, and that, where those primary industries do exist, things are necessarily less aseptic (if only because it is just not feasible to patrol thousands of square miles of thinly populated countryside, beyond a certain level).

Up to a point, the technocratic panopticon must be, can only be, strictly localised. You walk around in the Renraku arcology? They can tell from your gait that your bladder is full, they can tell from atmospheric and auditory analysis that you are urinating in a potted tree, they can tell from your mass that your bladder is now empty, and they can tell by vocal analysis how stressed you are when Renraku's security shoves a gun barrel up your left nostril.

On the other hand, shadowrunners must necessarily be able to escape the panopticon otherwise the entire conceit behind the game becomes impossible. Do they slip under the umbrella to do their dirty work? Sure. Do they later leave it to receive their ill-gotten gains? Yes - if successful - because if they couldn't the first shadowrun would be the last.

The intersection between the ultra-shiny first world and the ultra-grungy third is what makes the whole thing possible. Borders - not merely legal, but also social, infrastructural, and technological.

Please observe that this is not a stable situation.

In the big picture, shadowrunners are bad for business. Business benefits from stability, and shadowrunners add risk to every investment. At best they can be seen as reducing the friction between burdensome regulations and functional needs. They are a symptom of authoritarian overreach in an environment where authoritarian control is limited. However, people in authority like it and benefit from it, and want to expand their authority and reduce challenges to it. Shadowrunners are a way for people with less authority to get some of the benefits of subverting, circumventing or claiming higher authorities. Therefore one should expect to see concerted efforts by high authorities and their collaborators (such as civil servants of all stripes) to tame and incorporate the less controlled areas.

How? And what countervailing efforts would one see?

Many approaches are obvious. Buy areas, condemn them, bulldoze them, build on them. Pay for more security, establish control, round up undesirables and wash the area clean. Educate and assimilate the barrens brats, get them some stake in the system, and thus establish their cooperation.

On the other hand, there are neo-anarchists who value their liberties (as they perceive them) more highly than pretty much anything the authorities (corporate or otherwise) have to offer. There are also gangsters and other informal authorities of various stripes who are performing an equivalent subversion of conventional authorities so as to expand their own standing.

The return of magic is also a factor. The authorities can try to regulate it, but it is astonishingly destabilising, and empowering to individuals rather than to groups. This is a major factor in limiting the ultimate power of authoritarian structures - the empowerment of the individual.


Fortunately, the shadowrun background materials (such as the Shadows of Europe book) have done a fairly good job of illustrating these things, but I am of the opinion that the broader structure, the way it all fits together and why it fits together could be better elucidated.

In the end, such an analysis provides a pretty good idea of who might be a shadowrunner, why they might (in the big picture) run the shadows, why the shadows are there in the first place, and how they can get away with shooting people right in the face for money, time after time - and what their major challenges would be in doing so.

You know, CCP employs a full-time economist (seriously, the guy's got a Ph.D.) to study and help them understand the economy of EVE Online. It occurs to me that Shadowrun would benefit, at least a little, if Catalyst hired a sociologist to figure out how the Sixth World actually might work.

Please understand, I'm not saying it can't work. It's a world in flux, things are changing, the very concept of the law is going to be pretty shady, it's the general equivalent of crooks going south of the border to evade pursuit, as per cowboys and bandits lore. Right now in places like Brazil you can have the shiniest of shinies cheek by jowl with the most broken favelas, and Brazil isn't alone in this either. It certainly is plausible. It just needs investigation.

Yeah, except that fails plausibility hard. We've been flooding the RF range with signals for over 170 years now as of the 2070's. The range of signals hasn't changed, because the laws of physics define a fairly limited set of useful signal frequencies. Even assuming (and it is a huge assumption) that a human body was capable of receiving and generating RF signals of enough power to be useful, the chances of the human brain suddenly being capable of reading and recreating Matrix encryption standards (which like any computer standard, are going to change fairly frequently) is astronomically unlikely, and thus not plausible.


Seriously, take ten seconds and go look up how radio frequency transmission works.

That's very true in the real world. It's a lot less true in SR - wireless wasn't much of a thing until the WMI. Until then, there was basically no use for that send/receive capability. - so a person's brain very well might have filtered it out as meaningless input. Once the WMI got going, there's a lot more going on and there's a lot more structure there, so the brain learns to work with it (a certain difference in neuroplasticity may be requisite here).

Also, I think you're vastly overestimating how often standards for things like network transmission change. IPv4 STILL carries most internet traffic, for example.