or you just buy successes at 4:1 to figure out how long it takes...

as for the number of hackable targets in a downtown area, think about it like this:

you have maybe 30 people around you. each of these carry a comlink, ar glasses & ear plugs or trodes, each of their article of clothing packs a rfid, any bag, backpack or similar will have a rfid. anything else they carry will have a rfid. in the end the number of data contacts becomes so large that unless the hacker tells his analyze program to filter out anything thats not a comlink, or similar, one can be looking at something equivalent of a spam zone. that is, negative dice because of to much unwanted traffic.

and thats on top of the potential spam effect from agents, nodes and whatever else in the downtown area trying to sell you something or make you visit some establishment.

now if you head out into the barrens, your looking at it the other way. the coverage will be spotty, infrastructure is probably gang or crime driven and locked down so that corps or rivals cant find it and bring it down. now your looking at negative dice for poor coverage.

and it may well be that anyone running a open comlink in the barrens either have nothing to steal, or are so high up in the local food chain that hacking whoever will basically drop a bomb on the team.

another option is that higher security areas are running random signal interception to look for signs of data crime. and the star, and/or whatever other security in the area. ask your hacker player if a runner would mug or pickpocket a random person on the street. thats basically what they are doing. sure, you can get away with it ones or twice, but make it a habit and the star will start to look for this increasingly high profile hacker.

and just like you dont want to start a gunfight with the star (as they can always call for more ammo or people), you do not want the full weight of the star start looking for you in the local matrix area.

i recall hearing ones that the bigger id theft people where not the kid running up some expensive item on your credit card and then tossing it. its the person that do every day shopping for months after months. why? because they are much harder to notice and find.

'fraid not. One of the runs in the London section of Cities of Intrigue involves the runners breaking into a military site in north-west London, hacking an isolated matrix host and stealing a set of encrypted data without being discovered. Which later turns out to be the launch codes for the UK's four Bellerophon class SSBN submarines - HMS Bellerophon, HMS Black Prince, HMS Britannia and HMS Bulwark. All four submarines launch and their missiles go burning south. Scratch Tir Na nOg - everything from Cavan to Cork is toast. Whilst nearly two thirds of the warheads fail to detonate thanks to the Veil and other unknown reasons 131 nuclear warheads still get through and detonate. The entire country is devastated and reduced to ruin, the Seelie Court in particular is heavily targeted with Lady Brane Deigh being killed and the rest of it almost wiped out to a man. Alaicha herself is killed by a piece of flying debris when a warhead that failed to activate and broke up coming through the Veil comes screaming in at over 10 kilometres a second, piercing her shields and hitting her on the side of her head - she was unable to use the Hand of God since she previously used it back in 2053 to avoid the embarrassment of choking to death on a piece of toast that got lodged in her throat.

At least that's what I'm hoping for and lobbying Peter to have happen. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

That's up to the GM. There's no reason disinformation couldn't be placed on the Matrix so even a successful Matrix search could be a complete red herring.


That's up to the GM. A fixer could be able to put a PC in touch with the right information. For a price.


Or a PC could try old fashioned leg work. I'm going to trust Bill Gates' shrink before I trust what some nut job says on a message board. The Matrix isn't the be all and end all of information collection.


That's up to the GM. If I was GMing a game I would have the runners owe him a favor if I knew they didn't have the nuyen on them. That's a springboard for further adventures.


A good GM wouldn't make a Matrix search the only way to get useful information to move the game along.


You could stake out the target, spot the security company logo on vehicles, shadow the security officers to the laundrymat, then chat up (or bribe) the cleaner about the drones. It would take more time but a good GM would allow for this. Especially if he's ever seen a heist movie. Danny Ocean didn't rob the Bellagio by clicking a mouse.


Or they can make an intuitive decision to trust the information given based on the reliability of the source.


Prep work takes time and planning, usually more in-game time than the actual gunplay if the players are smart. Not every shadowrun can be completed in one hour.


No, that's actually up to the GM. A good GM will allow some flexibility on bad rolls to keep the story moving so long as the players are going in the right direction.

Disinformation can also be spread via people. In fact, it's easier in some cases to convince a person or three of something than it is to convince the internet at large.

And as I said, a matrix search is free.

No, but according to the setting itself, it's sure as hell a good place to start looking. How would you even know someone is Bill Gates' shrink without doing a lot of legwork? Heck, you could find out who his shrink is online much faster than you could asking around; odds are that you don't have a contact who knows that sort of thing offhand.


Unless you're playing a Missions game, or On The Run, the published adventures. Frequently, there's a lot of information that's most easily discovered via matrix. In fact, in On The Run, you have to have a decker do some of the legwork, since it'll involve backtracking an email. In other words, if you're playing true to the setting, you have to leave certain clues online.

As you said, that'd take more time and money. Besides which, it's common practice to do a matrix search on your target before you stake them out. Just knowing certain things (like the neighborhood security rating) can give you a lot of help before you go in.

See your own comment on Red Herrings, above.

Yes, and much of that prep time is spent gathering information. Which is largely the province of the decker.

Although I may have confused an optional rule with the standard, the fact is that no GM should allow people to make unlimited Extended Test rolls. For one, it means that anybody can do anything, given enough time. Second, it rapidly becomes boring, as both real time and in-game time is wasted with a sequence of rolls.

Now, a lot of what you said amounts to: "It's up to the GM." The problem here is that if the GM is true to the setting, the first place you should look for information should always be on the matrix. What you're saying is that if the GM ignores large chunks of the setting, he can then create a balanced game for all players. That's exactly the problem! .

Or let me put this to you: have you ever told the players that the meet is at a bar or restaurant? How many times have they done a quick matrix search on the meeting place? Smart runners do it all the time, just so they know how to dress. They don't run down contacts, they just look online. Some might go into a bit more detail: they might want to know who owns the place, what security is like, and so on and so forth. This helps forewarn them of any unpleasant surprises they might encounter. This is just something smart runners do: they check online right away.

The fact is, the best way to start looking for information is with an online search. Once you've got your general intel, you can then start narrowing down your possibilities, and then see if you have any contacts who might know something. You can't just go to all of your contacts with every question you have; in addition to the fact that most of them won't know anything, you'll probably annoy them with the pestering, and it'll end up costing you money. Besides which, people can be compromised much more quickly than a Data Search roll. Sure, a high-loyalty contact shouldn't be setting you up; but is the person he points you to as trustworthy? Also, don't you think someone might notice you rattling the shadows, looking for information? The matrix search is safer.

Now, once you've gathered your basic intel, then traditional legwork might be of help. If you know someone's connected to the Yakuza, going to an organized crime contact is going to be beneficial. But that assumes that you have an organized crime contact in the first place, *and* that you know the connection exists. To discover that connection in the first place would come as a result of a matrix search. And even once you've got your basic intel, that doesn't mean your time searching the matrix is over; there might be more clues, more information, and more confirmation waiting there. You also might want to start chasing down specific information; doing a comprehensive search means checking online as well as in the meat world.

When planning for a run, it's pretty typical to spend a lot of time doing legwork, then forming and discarding a lot of plans of attack, until you get the one you like. This means you need to get a lot of information, some of which will never be used. That in turn means you need to make a lot of Data Search rolls, which eats up time. And even then, what happens if the decker stumbles across something interesting, and decides to chase it down on his own? You've now got a solo game, while everyone else goes out for pizza.

The issue I see is that you're allowing yourself to have the matrix aspects overrun your games. If it's honestly taking so long that your other players leave for food, then you need to reevaluate how you're handling things to keep people involved.

There are other options. You seem completely focused on the matrix side, and if that works for you, go for it.

Your stance just reinforces for me why I always make riggers and deckers/hackers npc's. It's not worth the hassle that Cain portrays.

It's not a personal issue. I've seen it come up in every SR4 game I've played in, not just the ones I've ran. That includes home games and Missions games. In fact, people leaving for food is what happened in a particular set of Missions games I was in.

It's not just me. I've heard the same complaint come from other players, and I've witnessed it personally under a number of different GMs. It is indeed much easier to simply NPC deckers, and hand out the matrix information the PC's need. The problem is, the whole point of the wireless matrix is to make deckers into viable PC's.

Yeah, but with the idiotic levels that wireless goes to, NPC = king when it comes to matrix handling.

Were I to see it happen in my games that a player opted to play a hacker/rigger, I'd be doing everything I could to streamline the process. Heck, I might make them roll once (even on an extended test) and use the resultant hits as a base to figure out how many turns they'd need to hit the threshold. Bam, extended test done in 1 roll with minimal brainpower and time.

Additionally, I'd keep other PC's involved by having the hacker divvy up info for them to follow up on through their contacts, or to have them data search for themselves. After all, it shouldn't take a hacker to find out the dress code of the place they're meeting at. Have the GM bouncing between players as they acquire and coalesce the info. Use some handwaving to control in-game time line of events to keep it straight.

Simple fact is that if a group is excluded to do matrix stuff, then the GM isn't doing his job.

Look the purpose of the thread isn't on how to GM or how to home rule.

If the written books are causing people who read them directly to have these problems, then future books should probably be written a better way in the interest of the fact that there are lots of bad GMs and sometimes a home rule is unsatisfactory to some groups.

I see little point in telling other players how to play, and even less in telling them that they have a bad GM who follows the books to closely. Can we come up with an improvement to have books written better?

The excessive need for house rules is part of the problem I have with SR4. Most systems require some house-rules, but some games require more fixes than others.

As far as giving Data Search tasks to other players, the problem is that by the rules, you need both the skill and a program (and a sufficiently powerful commlink) to have any dice for the roll. If you're looking for anything important, you need the dice pool to pull it off. That means you need to make a significant investment in those skills and equipment in order to play second-fiddle to a decker.

Reading the comments about searching for information indicates a real problem...
...But searching for information has always been done - so what's changed ??

Has it always caused this much of a problem ??

I don't need anything special to search the internet, regardless of the intricacy of the information, so why would I apparently need to be a specialist with special gear to do it in the future - when computers and software are supposed to be more user friendly and more powerful ??

Have search engines vanished or been retconned ?? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

It's not that search engines have vanished, as much as a glut of information and disinformation being pumped into the system. You need the data search skill and Browse program to sift through the crap.

Try typing in "Star Wars" in Google to research Reagan's satellite defense network and the socio-political reasons against it. All the tips and tricks that you use to sort out stuff from movies and Lucasfilms is your data search skill.

For public simple information such as a Dress Code at a club, the threshold should be very low and a competent person with a low rating program (dice pool of 4) could find out about it in a matter of minutes. (Just like today...) On the other hand, if you are trying to track down Rowena O'Malley's personal itinerary for the next three days, you have to access hidden databases, shadow havens etc which requires a great deal more skill and a program to negotiate and assess thousand of possibilities with appropriate filtering. (Dice pools of 8-12) Remember a dice pool of 8, means you can automatically get 16 hits on any data search, no house rules required. 16 is also the primary threshold for restricted and limited information.

So the internet of the future is worse than the internet of now ??

The amount of info available, and the ability to search for it are relative - to be useful, better search engines will be indexing more info.

I'm not aware that I need special software beyond a computer running a browser and an internet connection to access information on the internet, no matter how intricate or rare that info is.

If I want secret itinerary info about someone famous [as I presume she is. I've never heard of her], I'd be asking people - not randomly searching the internet.

For internet searches, a £50k super computer doesn't search much better than a £200 iPhone...
...Because the computer just queries the data gathered by search engines - I can't access information they haven't gathered.

I may have to phrase the query better or it may take a long time to finish the search [using an avatar, or just old fashioned skills], but I don't need any special software or hardware to do it.

Accessing a "hidden database" is knowing the address, not about having anything special to do so...
...Because if I need special software, I would never be available to access that info from a standard internet search anyway [accessing a sql database, or some oracle files]

And, as I said, this has always been an issue [using the internet for information gathering], but I don't recall it ever being this much of a problem...
...So what's changed ??
If new rules have made information searching on the internet longwinded and difficult for non-specialists, then that is a design flaw.

SR4 bashing/trolling is kinda like a hydra. Lock one thread, and you've got 3 of them that opens up with exactly the same content... wheeee.

I guess I'm playing SR4 wrong, because everyone seems to have fun and I can't get as many troubles as some of you seem to. I even have a hacker PC whose player loves the Matrix side of things and does a lot of Matrix actions, yet I can't seem to get the rest of the party to get bored everytime he does something.

This has come up before.

Data Search is not "Using Google."

Data Search is a computer skill because computers are universally how you search for data in Shadowrun. Data Search covers googling, running intelligent agents, database queries, plumbing JSTOR, public archives searches, public blueprint culling from county records offices, how to read footnotes, how to cross-reference, and above all, WHERE to do all these things. Google and Google's 2070 equivalent does not have unique and total penetration to find everything you need to know. It'll often tell you where to look, but it will rarely give you in-depth data on anything but common-knowledge subjects without deep digging. That's when you have to start searching more specialized areas.

Just using google is the Browse program and an off-the-cuff keyword search.

Data Search really should have been called Research, but oh well.

Don't believe me? Find me a place in 2070 where you can't use Data Search to find something in their private database. Even antique book stores are gonna have a node witha database if they're too large to be staffed by one or two people.

Crazy-ass double post, sorry.

remember that today, google is stepping on a lot of toes grabbing data all over the place.

and there are ways to withhold data from google. robot.txt for one.

then there are access levels.

i see a public search service like google only having guest access on most systems (see unwired).

if you want to go deeper then that one would need some sort of user access.

take all the noise thats been over the year around google, archive.org and other crawlers, and then apply the most draconian rulings you can think of. thats how i see it. remember, its the corp court that rules the matrix, not individual nationals. and the corp court puts the corps first, not freedom or speech or something "silly" like that...

oh, and i would suspect that what SR4 calls data search could more accurately be described as data mining...

Yes, I am aware of the intimacies, as well, thank you. I do IT for an ISP/Cable/Telco. I didnt feel the thread needed this level of detail for what was essentially a throwaway post.

Actually it is exactly that. I considered issuing a warning to return to topic, then I reread the topic.

The solution to each of those is how you GM the setting.

I work in website marketing. I can plant a viral marketing campaign onto the Internet and have web users convinced that whatever I want them to believe (so long as it's plausible) is true. However I can keep the truth in confidence to myself and a select group of people who could then be tapped by snoops for the truth. And I'm talking about real life.


You're complaining that hackers have too much power in information gathering in the game and when I offer you alternatives you complain about it being too much work for the runners. You're not even trying to meet me halfway on this or trying to think outside the box, you're just complaining. This thread is about compromise.


When a GM takes a pre-published adventure like On The Run or a Missions campaign and only uses what's presented, he's going to screw himself and his players. The adventure authors can't think of every possible thing a theoretical player could do. I had to do a lot of on-the-fly adjustments to move the players in the right direction when I did On The Run including some trickery on my part. This is part of being a good GM.


And I also said not every Shadowrun can be completed in an hour with a free Matrix check as the sole means of information gathering.


I'm not going to jerk my players around unless it's part of my overall plan as GM. And there would be a point to it, I wouldn't do it to mess with their heads in a bad way.


Or the face. Or the bounty hunter. Or the guy who happens to know someone who knows someone who works in the target corporation. The province of the hacker is data manipulation, information warfare, and the like not just to be the team's reference librarian.


Think seriously for a second about how much time it takes to roll dice. A minute at most. No, it doesn't mean anybody could do anything as a good GM would curb that once it became detrimental to the tone of the game. Sometimes decisions need to be made that are good for the game overall. Of course a bad dice roll can ruin things but c'est la vie. That's RPGing.


As a GM I disagree and I doubt that I'm alone in this. The Matrix and real-life contacts are equally important in information gathering which is backed up by the very tone of the Shadowrun setting. Rick Deckard did footwork in Blade Runner along with data examination. So did Johnny Mnemonic and all the other cyberpunk film protagonists out there.


It also takes two minutes to make a phone call to a contact. If there was no reasonable appropriate contact in the time needed then I'd allow a fudged Matrix test to keep the game moving. That's part of being a GM. Cheating to keep the game moving but not letting your players know as that would take away from their sense of accomplishment. I do it all the time and my players are happy but challenged when appropriate.


What happens if a street samurai decides he wants to go on a personal revenge quest when the rest of the team is supposed to be involved in an extraction? A good GM would keep that player on task or say, "okay, you can do that but the rest of the team wants to do something else so you're going to need to sideline that for the time being because I can't run two adventures at once". I wouldn't allow a powerful hacker to go hog-wild at the expense of boredom for the rest of the players. You can't stick to the letter of the rules and ignore the spirit of the rules which allows for a fun time for all. If a GM running On The Run or a Missions story only sticks to what's printed rather than just using it as a guide and doesn't allow any wiggle room, well, he's a bad GM. Yes, he needs to do what the rules say but when the rules get in the way they need to be fudged around a bit until they can be put in play again. Hopefully a good GM is like a good judge and knows when it's appropriate to do this. It's got nothing to do with house rules or any of that nonsense, it's just good RPGing.

Other than what's been listed in the errata the core rule books are fine when used with reason and discretion by player and GM alike. On the Run was pretty poorly written so I'd say that's a fair statement there. Emergence was just plot.

So what I gather from this whole thread so far that we can all agree on is Catalyst needs to write future missions in such a way that decker/hacker != win. There need to be reasonable alternatives to data searching or at leased don't allow data searches to find everything.

I don't think that we all agree on that. That's dumpshock, after all. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

I think it's implied in the rules but it could be emphasized more. So I agree with this statement. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I've been working my way through SR Missions and converting 3rd ed to 4th. In the Kethers Building smash 'n grab mission the info gathering section states that only knowledgeable contacts can provide certain bits of data. That kind of thinking needs to be carried over to 4th ed published adventures as many players and GMs will need this stuff spelled out for them.

Quoted from the Missions:


Please, before you go around saying that Missions only provide a single way to solve Legwork, read the actual text.

Edit: This was pulled from one of our Denver Missions. The New York Missions have similar text. Additionally, in SRM 03-00, there are ways to get information for money or by doing simple favors for people. Stats are also provided to allow the team to do everything themselves if they don't want to use the contact provided in the Mission.

I wasn't speaking for 4th Ed. Denver or NYC, as I haven't played them. However in the 3rd ed. SRM01-02 Strings Attached Mission under legwork:

Then it gives the examples of The Kethers Building - Contacts, Public Research, Matrix Research and Security - Contacts.

Like I said, I haven't played Denver yet so as it seems that this has been rectified I apologize for any misleading information I may have unintentionally provided.


Which is what I stated several posts up about SR in general.