Technomancers?, Do you know anyone who has used one? Options

[booklord]

I was reading though the technomancy rules. There's been little need really because not one of my players have ever even considered playing a technomancer.

My observations
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1) The technomancer starts weaker than the hacker or equal if you factor in all the bells and whistles they maybe come out about even.
2) If anything the hacker gets stronger faster than the technomancer at first until the hacker meets that big old rating 6 ceiling.
3) With very limited cyberware, bioware, and considerable skill requirements Technomancers are weak in the physical world.

How do technomancers feature in your game?

[BlueRondo]

Aside from mechanical reasons, the few SR players I know (including myself) aren't very fond of the flavor or concept of technomancers.

[hobgoblin]

played to few games to say when it comes to popularity but i dont have a problem with the concept...

[Grinder]

I don't like the concept and it seems that none of the others players in my group did. So no technomancers at all.

[FanGirl]

I'm a technomancer! :D

Emo has come up with super-special houserules just for people like me, because he feels that they get a raw deal. Basically, they are treated much like mages with their spells: the ratings of a TM's Complex Forms are equal to his or her Resonance, and they only cost 3 BPs or 5 karma each. Plus, in order to accommodate those who were otaku before the Crash, he allows TMs to have up to 2 points of Essence loss at character creation. I didn't take this last opportunity, though, because my character was never an otaku and was too young to get implanted cyberware in 2064 (the Crash began the day before her 14th birthday.)

[Glayvin34]

I love the concept, but I tried playing one and it was boring. There's no room for physical world anything if a TM is a capable Cracker. FanGirl and Emo's ideas sound hyper-awesome, but my GM only takes rules away, he never adds them.
It was obnoxious playing next to a Mage that had the same essence restrictions on 'ware, but could spend an extra few BP to have some serious combat ability with spells. So I switched to a cybered Hacker, which is ten times the fun because you can make a character like that's more Jack-of-most-trades-and-master-at-Hacking. There was BP left over to shoot a gun effectively, and be a halfway decent Face and have a 2 in Athletics and Stealth. Way more fun than my Infirm TM.

[Lagomorph]

At first, I was not interested in them in the least. I think that they seemed like a poor concept of a character type. But the more that I start to think about them the cooler they seem.

Not this anime, techno-magic brain lazer, spiky hair crap. But thinking about it as a guy who's brain unconciously picks up on and manipulates signals, making it like having a 6th sense that he may not even know is related to being in the matrix. I've been writing some super short stories to try and illustrate that angle, I'm thinking about positng here in a thread. I think that they're described so breifly and poorly in the BBB that there's not much to go on about how they work, or what their about.

When I play SR4 again, my next character will be a Technomancer.

[James McMurray]

[Moon-Hawk]

I think Technomancers were intentionally given a slightly raw deal to keep them rare. My perception is, if you want to play a good hacker, you should play a hacker. Technomancers are reserved for people who really want to delve into the differences and the RPing, not for people who want to be "teh 1337 h4XX0rz"
I guess I'm using the, "it's not a bug, it's a feature" defense, but when something seems weird I try to assume it's supposed to be that way and figure out why, first.

[James McMurray]

Expect technomancers to get a gargantuan boost in Unwired. There's just no way they could have squeezed a lot of stuff into the core book to cover them, so they opted to give enough that you could play one, but it's mostly just a teaser. At least that's my assumption, I could be totally off base.

[Moon-Hawk]

I'd say that's about as likely as an upgrade to give hackers a 4th pass in VR. (i.e. I consider it pretty damn likely)

[mfb]

hopefully, they'll get a massive shot of fluff in Unwired. as it stands, there's not much to go on.

actually, what i hope is that all the technomancers catch on fire and die in Unwired, followed by a mysterious resurgence of otakuism. but that's just me.

[James McMurray]

Somehow I doubt that will happen, if only because you want it. ;)

[fool]

I think that technomancers are more powerful in ar and vr than regular hackers (though the adept with enhanced skills in computer areas will beat them to a pulp) to begin with and outstrip them the stronger they get. In RL though they suck. I had to make my tm a dwarf just to keep from being autokilled by everything.

[Glayvin34]

[fool]

gotta wait for threats 3

[James McMurray]

Glayvin: Technomancers are not a culture. They aren't predisposed to answer those questions any differently then they would have if they were normal people or hackers. they tend to gather together, but any group with such major similarities and the ability to communicate with each other nearly instantly is going to eventually gather together in groups.

[booklord]

[Moon-Hawk]

[Geekkake]

[Glayvin34]

[deek]

I have made them very rare in my campaign world and haven't yet allowed the class for players to build. Granted, no one has really had an interest to play one, so that has not been an issue as of yet.

[X-Kalibur]

I've always loved the flavor behind Technomancers/Otaku. Honestly though I think alot of you might be underestimating the power of sprites. As dangerous as spirits are in the material/astral realms, sprites can be just as, if not even more a threat in the matrix and indirectly in the material.

I'm honestly considering making one and giving them minor bio/cyber. Anyone know if modified attributes from 'ware count towards the TMs persona?

[James McMurray]

What I meant was that questions like how they get along with otaku, what they think baout the Deep Resonance, etc. cannot be answered because each technomancer is an individual. While it might be that a majority of technomancers hold a certain view (not unlike majorities in a country holding a certain religion) it would not be safe to assume that any technomancer you happen to meet will hold those same views.

[mfb]