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[LurkerOutThere]

First a disclamer: I do not have a copy of Running Wild yet, and I can't for love nor money find what happened to my copy of emergence. As such take this commentary with a grain of salt.

Am i the only one who thinks that the movement towards AI's as common place (even low powered ones) and the concept of matrix "critters" fairly disturbing. I was a big Otaku head and have always been a big fan of Hackers and the matrix in general. I like the transhuman idea of the Matrix becoming ubiquitous enough that Technomancers use magic after a fashion and I have no real problem with sprites resonance and disonnance et all. However I'm somewhat distrubed by AI's becoming common and increasing steps to make the matrix just like some big magical realm. I'd prefer that being one part of shadowrun that stays pretty firmly rooted in Scifi and the unexplained. Am i the only one who feels this way? Maybe i need to re-read emergance and I'll hate it less but reading through companion on the different AI types just left me kind of bleh. E-Ghosts annoyed me only slightly less. Although i've been playing around with the thought that their all due to a variation on Jack-B-Nimble.

What has been others thoughts and insights on this phenomena? How are other game masters and players dealing with it? It feels like at the same time their making the matrix accessable to everyone their introducing a whole bunch of phenomina that is basically a otaku only playground.

That's my take at least.

[deek]

I've never had more than one player at any table I've run be interested in hacking and the matrix. And because of that, I haven't got much in depth with anything like AIs, matrix critters or TMs. The matrix is basically a tool for my players to get information, turn off a camera, unlock a door or give a tactical advantage.

While I've read emergence and enjoyed the fluff, unless I get a whole group of hackers and TMs, we are not going to be exploring much of what you describe as "magical". I just can't afford to invest more than 5-10% of my session to the matrix with the groups I normally run.

[Neraph]

I do not enjoy the Matrix/Magic similarities, but it is not due to the expansion of those rulesets in the form of AIs and techno-critters (essentially self-automated agents). I do not like the similarities between technomancers and magicians. I like the flavor of technomancers, but when they started adding avatars, dissonance, free sprites, and other such objects, it just feels way too much like magic, and not enough like technomancy. It should be similar, but not copy-paste.

[Stahlseele]

I have only one guess as to why this is happening, really . . i am probably wrong though.

[ Spoiler ]

Because everybody and their family can get in there as easy as pie. Whereas the REAL magical Realms are closed off to all people who do NOT possess(sorry, i could not help myself) the right spirit in their mind/heart to get into the astral-plane. don't even get me started on the metaplanes. most mages i have seen never ever even once entered the planes, even with being initiates. and not just because the rest of the group can go out and get pizza when they do either.

[Ancient History]

I've always seen it as one of the bizarre confluences of life. As computers and the internet developed, implicit (and sometimes explicit) parallels to magic were made, and references to some terms owned solely by the occult became standard. I mean, it's not hard to see a hacker as a wizard and his programs as literal invocations; anything that worked or happened because of a computer process you didn't know became "black magic," and terms like "avatar" which were formerly obscure became common. Literature was fairly quick to pick up on the possibilities of combining computers and magic: Rich Cook's Wizard's Bane series, Pierce Anthony's Apprentice Adept series, and Roger Zelazney's later Amber novels just to name a few that people might remember. Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash is heavy with the transition from hacking-as-metaphor-for-magic to hacking-as-medium-for-magic.

By contrast, William Gibson's Neuromancer eschews the general science side of computers for a magical realism approach - that is, instead of making oblique references, comparisons, and fantasy cross-overs, he treated computers and their products (AIs, etc.) as any good fantasy writer would their wizards, demons, and magical realms.

Shadowrun ultimately borrows left- and right-handedly from both traditions, with a decisive preference for Gibson's fantastical cyberspace than computers that actually run spells like programs and summon demons or the like, but not neglecting the obvious parallels between magical practice and computer practice that was early recognized and acknowledged by many in the field.

[Kerenshara]

See, this is where I am weird, and my personal faith influences my outlook.

Magic, by any name you want to give it, is fundamentally the aplication of willpower to shape energy into a desired form. That's a broad definition, and it would allow inclusion of magic in the traditional sense, technomancy as willpower incuced changes in the energy of the Matrix, as well as things like prayer being an extremely primitive form of lay Ritual Spellcasting. If enough people believe in something, it begins to take on real substance. As more and more users began to utilize the Matrix, it became more and more real to them. And unlike most religions where articles of faith are described, in the Matrix everybody actually perceives the exact same features and events; That makes their common belief in a completely non-physical place surprisingly coherent and harmonious. Thus, in the same way as a Magician's perception of magic and their own tradition shape how they manipulate mana, a technomancer's perception of the wireless world around them and their stream refines how they handle raw technological mana.

I can see them being very close to one another, because to me they are simply flip sides of the same coin; Magic is the unseen mana energy of the Awakened world, and Technomancy is the unseen wireless energy of the Matrix. And once something becomes real enough, why wouldn't animals or whatever else suddenly become able to perceive or manipulate that energy? And computers are simply primitive artifacts able to help mundanes interact with the Matrix, much like religious symbols and artifacts help people interact with the Divine.

[BlueMax]

My first thought was to simply add "Everything in Fourth will look everything else on a mechanical level. Its how you tell a story that will differentiate the items. An obvious portion of this is that the rules for TM networks in Unwired point to Street Magic: wholesale.

But then Stahlseele gave out this gem of wisdom.

I have only one guess as to why this is happening, really . . i am probably wrong though.

[ Spoiler ]

Because everybody and their family can get in there as easy as pie. Whereas the REAL magical Realms are closed off to all people who do NOT possess(sorry, i could not help myself) the right spirit in their mind/heart to get into the astral-plane. don't even get me started on the metaplanes. most mages i have seen never ever even once entered the planes, even with being initiates. and not just because the rest of the group can go out and get pizza when they do either.

BlueMax
/having fun with the system as is
// as was
/// as will be?

[IceKatze]

hi hi

In my groups, technomancers have been house-ruled out of existence until we can come up with entirely new rules that don't involve taking "The Awakened World" section of the book, changing every instance of Magic with Resonance etc. and pasting it in a new section. Of course, the groups I've been in never really liked how mage and shaman got smooshed together either so that gives you some idea of where we're coming from.

[kzt]

I'd like it to use SOME sort of system that worked, and the SR magic system works. However, instead they are making it "magic" without actually using rules that work. This isn't what I call progress. Much as I hate some aspects of Franks rules at least it had a underlying rules framework that was consistent and playable.

[hobgoblin]

any sufficiently developed technology will be indistinguishable from magic (IMG:style_emoticons/default/silly.gif)

[LurkerOutThere]

Hmmm perhaps i should clarify, the rules similarities between mages and technomancers didn't bother me, in fact I kind of liked them, made it so one (for the most part) didn't have to memorize two systems. What i dislike are the fluff bits, while i can stand the dissonance and resonance as overaching philosophies and even mysterious forces the concept of resonance realms and things of that nature, takes it just a little too far for me.

[Kerenshara]

Hmmm perhaps i should clarify, the rules similarities between mages and technomancers didn't bother me, in fact I kind of liked them, made it so one (for the most part) didn't have to memorize two systems. What i dislike are the fluff bits, while i can stand the dissonance and resonance as overaching philosophies and even mysterious forces the concept of resonance realms and things of that nature, takes it just a little too far for me.

OK, I'm not being argumenative here, but consider something for a moment:

How many MAJOR crashes (as opposed to complete meltdowns) has the Matrix experienced in the SR4 timeline, just since the Awakening? How much cyber warfare has gone on covertly, even if you just count sharowrunning activity? That's pretty disruptive to the fabric of the Matrix. Or how about the ancient data storage dumps, or the lost data files on who knows what device with what operating system? Those things would be overwritten by the Matrix as part of its normal procedure, creating order from chaos, while all those things, including quarantined malware, viruses and manifestations of Matrix destruction struggle with the strength of their programming to remain extant? Their simple presence would present a discordant note to the melody of the streams, would they not? What's to say the Resonance Realms aren't inside a permanent echo of an old but critical piece of Matrix topology relegated to the distant memory of the forgotten?

That's how I choose to see it. And remember: The Resonance never forgets.

[Sir_Psycho]

The cache never forgets!

[The Jake]

Any complaints that you may have are far, far outweighed by the fact that the rules are now so seemless and so intergrated that Hackers are now playable.

Everything else, honestly, is secondary.

Unless you've played SR1 deckers, I wouldn't expect anyone to understand...

- J.

[kigmatzomat]

Program carriers FTW! Just pray you can code fast enough. And never, ever use them as spurs even if they look like 'em.

Am i the only one who thinks that the movement towards AI's as common place (even low powered ones) and the concept of matrix "critters" fairly disturbing.

I hate to break it to you, but there were dogbrain AI in drones back in SR1. And in my Virtual Reality there were expert systems and smart frames available to PCs and the semi-autonomous knowbots available to the richer corps.

Given 20 years of development on top of the (admittedly stupid) mobile smart frames, you'd get something that at least has a reasonable set of general purpose responses and combine that with enough spare processing power to run a persona-soft (like the personality overlay BTL) and you get something that passes for AI.

I'm less fond of the matrix critters but once AI existed in canon, it was really just a matter of time until the source code got shared out fairly widely. I've come to the conclusion that the Agent Smith loop holes were left in the system to enable AI characters to be viable. Maybe I'm wrong but that means the devs aren't willfully ignoring people's criticisms of the system and have put out the best rules they could come up with that would allow their vision of AI PCs. I'm still irked but it means I stop muttering to myself when the topic of the matrix rules comes up.

As for the resonance and such....

[ Spoiler ]

A couple of years back, around the time SR2 came out, I ran an SR one-shot. It had a PC decker and a mage hunting up some obscure information. The decker went on a dive while the mage visited the metaplane of knowledge. The decker had to get through a UV node and found another hacker already in the system, battling the IC. He joins in and the two beat the weird looking IC. The two deckers grap copies of the files they need and jack out. Yeah, the other guy was the mage.

Everyone believes that every bit of data is on the Matrix, even if it isn't true. By the same token, the Metaplane of Knowledge is supposed to be every scrap of knowledge that has ever been known. Magic is magic and it doesn't really follow the laws of physics but if enough people believe something, it might come true. Meaning that all those proto-mage school children who believe in the Matrix as the repository of knowledge could possible, maybe, cause a place that isn't a place to be superimposed with another place that isn't a place.

IIRC, one of the SR2 books had a conversation between Harlequin and the Scribe that wondered how magic would react to faith in technology in general and the matrix in particular.

Which makes technomancers a kind of adept.

Just my $0.02.

[GreyBrother]

any sufficiently developed technology will be indistinguishable from magic (IMG:style_emoticons/default/silly.gif)

Arthur C Claarke, where's my cookie?

I don't like it and i like it...
While i do hate that the rules are TOO similar and that there could've been done more with Technomancers without making those "Yeah, they are probably just Matrix Adepts" References, i can and like to use them. I'd just have something more Otakulike preferred, maybe some distinct flaw they have for just kicking ass in the matrix from Day 1. Otaku had troubles in the Flesh.

About AIs... i think it was a crapshot that they made many smaller AIs and became public knowledge with the advent of Emergence. I loved the Shadowwar of the Network and the whole Overwatch/Deusfollowers conflict. But according to canon it happened that way and although the speed with which those events unfolded is retarded, i stick to it just because i don't want to rewrite every piece of fluff i will encounter.

Technocritters are fine to me. I think the idea is neat.

Paragon, Resonance Realms, oh my... yeah... it's one of those things i don't know if they are awesome or not.

I would've loved if sprites would've been handled like Otaku handled them. Not many, but everyone of them is special. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

What bugs me too is the downplaying of the Resonance. What once was an "unspeaking" power which seemed to care for children (or exploit them) is now... "Whatever the Technomancer makes of it". The Deep Resonance just had some kind of personality to me and that's something i miss.

[Cthulhudreams]

Personally I think the current edition matrix rules would be better if they were more or less exactly the same as the matrix rules. Then atleast the wireless would actually be pervasive. And the matrix rules are a giant source of total dysfunction, whereas the magic rules are very good. Looks like a win/win to me.

[Stahlseele]

Back in SR3, Otaku were following either the path of the TechoShamans oder CyberAdepts. But i don't know what the difference was.

[hobgoblin]

Back in SR3, Otaku were following either the path of the TechoShamans oder CyberAdepts. But i don't know what the difference was.

iirc, none, it was just a case of semantics...

and i recall wrongly...

cyberadepts gained a +1 on complex forms while technoshamans gained a -1 on target numbers when using channels...

[knasser]

I despise the direction that has been taken with Technomancers, Resonance and certain aspects of AIs. Obviously my feelings are personal to me and there will be others that disagree and I am fine with agreeing to disagree. Matters of taste are exactly that. I'll explain my feelings though so that people can understand where I'm coming from.

I banned Technomancers from the moment I got my 4th Edition rulebook. Edited them right out existence. I had two main problems with them and one minor one. Emergence introduced a third major problem that I'll get to.

The first main problem is that they severely break a long-standing and useful flavour tradition of Shadowrun which is that of Technology vs. Magic. That Tech v. Magic is a long-standing staple of Shadowrun I wont go into - it's something that anyone playing earlier editions (especially 1st or 2nd) is aware of. That is is a useful tradition, I reason as follows: If magic is capable of doing everything that tech can do, or vice versa, then there is little point to the two approaches. It would make magic an irrelevancy if tech could duplicate in capability and cost and the whole Awakening would be an event that changed nothing. Or if magic can do everything tech can do then tech and those without magic are obsolete. And this would have a profoundly negative effect on the tech both in the flavour of the setting and in the balance of the satisfaction in game for any player that wasn't running a magic character. That's why it is bad to break the Magic vs. Tech theme of Shadowrun by narrowing the differences between what each can do.

And technomancers narrow that difference badly by granting Matrix mastery to the side of Magic.

And this is where I address those people who have read the above and been saying to themselves: "But TM's aren't magic."

Almost everything about them makes us think "magic". Now if Synner were still around he'd leap in and say they weren't. But you can call an elephant a mouse and it's still going to look like an elephant. "But it's called a mouse," will say the defender. "It's got a trunk! It's grey with a little tail and ears like table cloths. It sat on my car and crushed the roof in!" "Yeah," will say the defender, "but it's not called an elephant". Everyone will think it is, though. Consider the following list of crimes:

• Their name implies magic.
• The way they functionally mechanically is a direct rip off of the magic rules.
• We cannot explain what they do scientifically. Not even in a fluff way of saying that the scientists of 2070 have explanations because it's stated very clearly that they don't. Refences are made to "mysterious energies" and "mystics". This excludes them from the category of mankind applying its scientific knowledge.
• They summon strange beings.
• They go to mystical places where no-one else can follow.

Furthermore they are inextricably linked to newer aspects of the Matrix that are similarly magical, such as Resonance realms, Resonance wells, feral AIs, sprites, etc. Things that are not merely unexplained by the people that build and program the Matrix, but sometimes invisible to them.

So yes, to me and clearly many others, techomancers represent Magic superceding technology and upsetting the long and useful tradition of Magic v. Tech in favour of Magic.

And very much in favour of magic too, because even if Hackers make good generalists, with lower costs and broader skills than starting TMs, we know both from the rules and more perhaps importantly from the fluff that is repeatedly drummed into us, that TMs are the best. No-one really cared if Muhammed Ali wasn't as good all round academically as, say some other person, or if someone else wasn't as good a boxer as him but had also learnt French. Nobody cares if someone can run the 100m in 11 seconds but is also a qualified mechanic. What matters, and I find it staggering that the devs either didn't realize or didn't care about this, is that TM's both in fluff and rules, supercede Hackers at anything they choose to do. Hackers make fine, viable PCs, but if you want to be the best, or even just really special, this is reserved for the spooky TM characters. They even make the best riggers letting them pump out rounds more consistently and better than any Sammie ever could.

The archetype of the skilled hacker who has studied programming, spent many a late night honing his knowledge and skills, is no longer cool in any way because after a decade of mastering the inner workings of computer software, hardware and networking, some thirteen year old is going to appear and say "nah, I'm one with the Matrix. I can do things you can't even understand". TMs kill the hacker as an archetype of anything other than "hey - I'm not bad at quite a few things."

Those are the two major reasons that I disliked TMs and the "magical Matrix" from the start (the two things are pretty much inseperable so I discuss them together). The minor reason is that they can be quite hard to design opposition for. A properly optimised TM can blast through any system that isn't contrived. Threading or Assisting sprites lets TMs reach horrible heights of specialisation. Echos can make it even worse. What do you do with a TM that has an effective Stealth "program" of 8 and a "Firewall" of 9? Both considerable beyond what a hacker could hope to achieve and that most nodes or IC could expect to beat. So another run against a target that has average physical security but, for some reason, Matrix software knocked off from Damian Knight's bank account, then? I pity any group that has a Hacker and a TM in it, both.

This is a side issue, but Emergence introduced a third problem I have with TMs. It came out a year after SR4 and suddenly, any group that had a TM suddenly found that all this time, their TM was this big secret that the whole world was scared of and that megacorps would pay big bounties for. Who knew? Yep - suddenly the Technomancer "class" had built in role-playing background. They were the persecuted X-Men of the Shadowrun setting. I dislike that, too.

So that's my take on it. A magical Matrix is something I have cut from my campaign with great prejudice. Occasional hints from devs have suggested to me that they are, or at least were, going somewhere with this. There was a reference to a magical "hard drive" in India somewhere - a kind of Matrix made of floating rocks and magic, I think. Ancient History would probably know. There were suggestions that the Matrix of today is a re-emergence of some previous incarnation of something from a prior age. I dislike the notion intently and hope that it has been dropped.

Other than that and the lifting rules, really like 4th Edition.

My 0.02 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) , anyway.

K.

[Ancient History]

• Their name implies magic.
• The way they functionally mechanically is a direct rip off of the magic rules.
• We cannot explain what they do scientifically. Not even in a fluff way of saying that the scientists of 2070 have explanations because it's stated very clearly that they don't. Refences are made to "mysterious energies" and "mystics". This excludes them from the category of mankind applying its scientific knowledge.
• They summon strange beings.
• They go to mystical places where no-one else can follow.

Oh Ghost, the frickin' energies thing...its a horrible cop-out, it really is, and I hate it. People write "strange energies" and they sound people in the 1930s with their "Z-Rays" and crap, it annoys me. We did introduce the idea of biological formations in TMs that explain the biological radio bit a little bit.

The archetype of the skilled hacker who has studied programming, spent many a late night honing his knowledge and skills, is no longer cool in any way because after a decade of mastering the inner workings of computer software, hardware and networking, some thirteen year old is going to appear and say "nah, I'm one with the Matrix. I can do things you can't even understand". TMs kill the hacker as an archetype of anything other than "hey - I'm not bad at quite a few things."

T'be fair, yon ancient cyberpunk is just as likely to take it up the rear from script kiddies these days. Sad but true.

This is a side issue, but Emergence introduced a third problem I have with TMs. It came out a year after SR4 and suddenly, any group that had a TM suddenly found that all this time, their TM was this big secret that the whole world was scared of and that megacorps would pay big bounties for. Who knew? Yep - suddenly the Technomancer "class" had built in role-playing background. They were the persecuted X-Men of the Shadowrun setting. I dislike that, too.

This was, to put it mildly, the reason for much gnashing of teeth among freelancers, who realized that exact problem. We were also put in the position of trying to define things we hadn't even seen rules for yet (protosapients, metasapients, xenosapients, oh my!)

So that's my take on it. A magical Matrix is something I have cut from my campaign with great prejudice. Occasional hints from devs have suggested to me that they are, or at least were, going somewhere with this. There was a reference to a magical "hard drive" in India somewhere - a kind of Matrix made of floating rocks and magic, I think. Ancient History would probably know. There were suggestions that the Matrix of today is a re-emergence of some previous incarnation of something from a prior age. I dislike the notion intently and hope that it has been dropped.

Orissa Network, entirely unconnected with the Matrix and technomancer phenomenon so far, and I sincerely hope it remains that way.

[StealthSigma]

Given 20 years of development on top of the (admittedly stupid) mobile smart frames, you'd get something that at least has a reasonable set of general purpose responses and combine that with enough spare processing power to run a persona-soft (like the personality overlay BTL) and you get something that passes for AI.

My issue with AIs stem more from the prevalence of self-aware AIs. Prior to the second crash there were three known self-aware AIs. Megaera, Deus, Mirage, and nobody knows if those still exist. The whole ghosts of people jacked in during the second crash doesn't sit well with me, especially given that some of these DIs are beyond what would constitute a normal metahuman. I just have problems accepting these DIs mostly because I cannot rationalize that the amount of computing power necessary for them to function exists or is available for them to infest in order to manifest.

In my mind, true self-aware AIs should be fully limited to governments and probably the AAA megacorps. They are the only entities that likely have the resources necessary to build such an AI (read UV host), and if they have AIs, they've probably put in a number of fail-safes after the Renraku incident as well as significantly covered them up.

[Kerenshara]

Any complaints that you may have are far, far outweighed by the fact that the rules are now so seemless and so intergrated that Hackers are now playable.

Everything else, honestly, is secondary.

Unless you've played SR1 deckers, I wouldn't expect anyone to understand...

- J.

You mean the pizza break (including delivery) when it came time to do the hack?

Or do you mean watching the hacker go one-on-one against the Fuchi Dragon and counting out his dice pool with three 12-cubes of dice and having to ask the rest o the party to borrow more, then rolling them all with two hands into the lid of Axis & Allies so they have some room to bounce, and totalling it all up and since he got the drop on the Dragon blowing it into dust bunnies?

[StealthSigma]

You mean the pizza break (including delivery) when it came time to do the hack?

Or do you mean watching the hacker go one-on-one against the Fuchi Dragon and counting out his dice pool with three 12-cubes of dice and having to ask the rest o the party to borrow more, then rolling them all with two hands into the lid of Axis & Allies so they have some room to bounce, and totalling it all up and since he got the drop on the Dragon blowing it into dust bunnies?

This is why I bought two sets of 36 d6 (71 total, I lost one). One set is red with black dots, the other is green with gold dots, and each die is -maybe- half an inch cubed.

[Kerenshara]

This is why I bought two sets of 36 d6 (71 total, I lost one). One set is red with black dots, the other is green with gold dots, and each die is -maybe- half an inch cubed.

Uh, huh. I notice you didn't DISagree with the chosen description. *grin*