Problems with hacking rules Options

[Jimmy_the_Fixer]

I recently ran a game wherein my friend played a horribly min-maxed hacker, and ended up taking all the game time hacking Johnsons' commlinks, and a corporate mainframe.

The rest of the group just sat there waiting for him while he rolled obcene amounts of dice, and thus I had to roll an obscene amount of dice, and it became a really boring game of yahtzee.

how have you guys dealt with the overly complicated hacking rules? I don't want to just tell him "yes" every time he wants info, and the rest of the players are tired of waiting on him.

what the hell do I do?

[Dashifen]

First thing to do is to stop rolling your dice and begin cashing in on the 4 dice = 1 hit ratio. So, you have 18 dice in your pool? That's 4 hits and roll the remaining two dice to see if you get 5 or 6. Granted, you might get more hits if you rolled (statistically, you would) but dividing by 4 is relatively fast and rolling two dice and looking for hits is easier/faster than doing the same for 18.

Don't force the players to do this unless they want to. I started doing it towards the end of this past school year's gaming (I work mostly with a university based gaming club so the summers are light on gaming) and I found that after a session or two, the players began to cash in dice for hits, too. Made things move along much quicker.

Then, the only way to combat over-excited characters in any format is to make sure you can shut them down at some point. Hacker wasting time doing the Johnson's commlink? Stop the hacking scene and have a waiter come over and ask for drink orders (assuming the meet is in a restaurant; other settings can be extrapolated from this example). Since your hacker is distracted by his hacking, make him roll to see if he hears the waiter. Then, the Johnson gets suspicious because here's a guy with a glassy eyed stare who hasn't contributed to the conversation very much and he's not noticing it when others talk to him .... what's he up to exactly? It's at that point when the Johnson (or whom ever the target is) might begin to actively resist the hacker, or just turn off the commlink.

And, finally, no matter what the book says, not everything is easily hackable. Maybe the Johnson uses skinlinks or doesn't have a commlink on him. Or, maybe the Johnson has an internal commlink with sensitive data while his external one is filled with seemingly important but actually useless crap. Hell, maybe the Johnson has a nice Technomancer friend who's loaned him a sprite so that he gets a little help from a semi-intelligent entity who lives in his commlink.

In other words, the easiest way to shut down someone whose hogging the limelight is either (a) to move the limelight or (b) to do something unexpected forcing the player to change tactics or stop hogging.

[toturi]

[HappyDaze]

[deek]

The 4:1 trade in doesn't allow to roll the remainder...just want to clear that up. So 18 dice, per RAW, is only worth 4 successes; you don't get to roll the two "extra" dice if you invoke the trade-in.

As to the hacking situation, I have run across it as well...there is really no game mechanic to speed this up and the "waiter" suggestion, well, is a bit unrealistic because as you hacker is going through his IPs, each combat turn is only 3 seconds of game time...not a lot happens in the real world when you are going through IPs.

My suggestion would be to ask the player what his intentions are. If he is bored and just wanting to roll some dice, I'd say well, everyone else is bored with you doing what he is doing, so let's get through this meet and then the action will start. If the hacker is looking for something specific, its pretty easy to get to that point, either satisfy his desire or put an obstacle in his way, preferrably to knock him out of the comm, as opposed to causing it to take longer.

Hacking, unfortunately, bogs down gameplay unless everyone is acting in IPs...no way around it, no matter how streamlined SR4 is. But, in this instance, its more of a "player" issue, than a mechanic issue. The GM should make that clear that if he is really trying to get "useful" information, then that's ok and we just need to move through it. If he is not, then say there are other people at this table playing and they'd like a chance to interact as well...

[The Jopp]

Also remember that if the hacker is hacking "on the fly" then he/she will be facing simultaneous rolls. Most likely the Johnson will have a GOOD commlink with rating 5 programs and rating 4 agents. That gives a possibility to run "Analyze" with 4+ agents on the commlink at rating 4 with agents 4.

(Rating 5 response commlink can run 9 programs at rating 4 before response drops again. Agent+running program counts as 2 running programs)

That's 4+ agents AND the system itself. If the hacker has a rating 5 stealth program they need 5 successes in TOTAL. If the hacker needs 4 dicerolls to crack the firewall then each agent and system rolls its dice 4 times.

As soon as they manage to gain 5 successes then they will find the hacker. All agents switch to attack programs and pounce him when he enters.

[Dashifen]

RE: no rolling of remainders ...

Interesting. Well, we've all been pretty happy with rolling the remainders because it still allows for some variability in results rather than always rolling 4 hits when your pool is between 16 and 19.

[FriendoftheDork]

Here's a tip: Fast extended test. Basically, instead of letting the player roll his Exploit+Hacking 10 times (or however many times he has dice pool), simply allow him to roll once. If he get's no successes, he fails. Divide the threshold (say, 10 on an OK commlink) on the number of successes he got, that's how many rolls it took him to hack it.

Of course, he can't roll more times than his dice pool, so if he has 10 dice and the threshold is 11 or more, he fails if he only gets one hit in the roll.

If he succeeds, roll the opposing analyze+firwall, and multiply hits by the number of rolls the player needed. If this number equals or exceeds the player's Stealth program rating, the alarm goes off, the commlink shuts down or reboots, or attack IC come running.

The player should realize pretty soon that hacking everything is just too risky as sooner or later he will fail.

[sunnyside]

@Jopp I'm pretty sure when someone hacks it's just the system rolling against them. IC have analyze to find them or interogate icons once inside.

Anyway the first thing is to make sure that you're taking advantage of the streamlining of SR4 and generally hacking quick. This goes regardless of whether a player is doing it to much, hacking should be kept fast.

Remember in SR4 players don't need to know target numbers or anything, and a hacker should know what they're rolling. Often just watching out for glitches, or not getting enough hits after they've rolled as many times as their skill rating. Also I strongly advise making "shadowrun die" for hackers where you take a pen/marker and color 2's 3's and 4's the same color as the body of the die, color the 1's a different high contrast color and the 5's and 6's a third color so you just look and see what you got.

i.e. hacking should go like.

player: I want to hack the Johnsons comlink.
GM: Ok he's operating in hidden mode, have to find him in the noise
player: Rolling electronic warefare, 4 hits, 5 hits , 4 hits (they should keep going till you stop them)
GM: got it
Player: Hacking on fly, user level access, hot sim, 6 hits
GM: You're in (note that as the GM you should have rolled at least the first batch of dice for detection while the player was rolling EW since you could bet this would come up. Roll the second batch while they're rolling their second batch if needed)

That should have taken 20 seconds tops, don't lollygag when hacking.

Once inside they should again know what to roll for what they want to do so they should be rolling die while they say what they want to do. If you rule agents or spiders are checking the area out (usually don't) roll that while they're doing their thing.

Also remember that in SR4 there isn't a security sheave or subprocessors. If they get caught the system throws whatever it has at them and if what they have isn't winning typically it'll try and restart or the owner may shut down all wireless access(cutting the action short and moving on) exceptions being servers and the like, or system interested in getting a trace (which often results in the hacker logging off fast).

If they do run into IC they should also be rolling die when you say what the attack is, so you'd be rolling at the same time.



Second. Make sure you reality check what they're hacking. First the really good stuff isn't on systems accesable by the matrix. Hence all the runs inside buildings to get the data. Also if a J's comlink tells him it's gone on alert they probably immediatly turn the wireless off (meaning hacking a J's comlink will typically be over in 30 secs or less as you'll either get in and get something or get dumped). But they'll be suspicious and next time may have a friend scanning the airwaves at the meet.

[Lagomorph]

yeah, I agree, if your game is turning into "The hacker show". You can pause the action and say "So while he's doing blah, what are you doing?". Also, for hacks that aren't directly story important, I reduce it to 1 or 2 rolls, their hits vs firewall, if they beat firewall they get in clean, if they don't then I make a quick roll to see if they're tracked or tagged. No combat, no details, if its not important to the story or the run, don't bother with spending time on it.

I like the idea of rolling remainders, good idea. It's not the written rules, but makes it a bit more interesting.

[lunchbox311]

[Backgammon]

Why would a Johnson going to a meet with criminals carry a commlink? If he does, it sure as shit won't have anything remotely interesting in it. He's called Mr. Johnson because he's trying to be anonymous!

Don't even make the hacker roll. Tell him he breaks through the firewall 1 defences with no effort and he finds nothing of interest.

That'll cut down on your dice rolling.

[knasser]

[Sterling]

[DireRadiant]

[mfb]

the quick solution to the OP's problem is to simply make sure there's nothing useful to hack until the GM wants to include some hacking-related challenges (which should be pretty frequently, since the player obviously likes hacking so much). if the hacker hacks the J's commlink, you say "okay, you get in but there's no useful information". don't bother rolling. if he attacks a tougher system, do a few rolls to see if the hacker trips any alarms before telling him "sorry, nothing good in here".

however, there's another issue, here. the OP's player appears to know the rules better than the GM, and that is never good. if the GM doesn't know the Matrix rules well, there are two options: one, cut out the Matrix from the game. disallow hacker characters, and handle Matrix stuff with NPCs. that, honestly, is a bad solution; it limits the game. which is why i would strongly recommend the second option: learn the Matrix rules. if you are the GM, and you have a player who wants to play a hacker, you need to know the rules.

and you know what? your player can help you. he wants to hack stuff, so take a few hours with him alone and let him. that will allow you, as the GM, to focus solely on learning the Matrix rules, and it will allow the player to get some of his desire to hack out of the way.

[sunnyside]

Personally I figure a Johnson always has a comlink. In 2070 where people use the thing constantly not having a comlink for an hour is like one of us not having net or cellphone access for a day.

However I do figure that the comlink a Johnson takes to a meeting to at least have a fake SIN on it. At least if the Johnson is meeting in neutral turf. And as such they probably are just using a rating 5 model (have to at least keep up apperances). Typical stuff on the thing would be junk but things like recent surfing messages or comcall logs might be useful.

Though having them be always useless would cut down on die rolling.

[Eleazar]

[Blog]

It all depends on the Johnson. Some will have carry a cheap-o expendable off the shelf and have that running public.

As a GM you need to detemine the flavor of the Johnson.

Personally If I was a johnson I would have the honey-pot comlink with all this nice fake data on it and a very good tracking/stealth program. Sure the hacker at the meet may get in and poke around, but those programs will do a complete trace and therefore the johnson will KNOW the individuals that he is wanting to hire hacked him.

Wonder how long your reputation will hold when all your contacts know that you will hack them during a meeting.

[Backgammon]

[laughingowl]

[Aaron]

Yeah, Mr. J is going to have nothing of particular interest on his commlink, assuming he's a pro. He'll probably have a good Firewall, say 4.

No, not Big and Scary. Not 5 or 6, not unless he's Really Important. Why not? The reasons are twofold. First, the BBB implies that there is a leap between Rating 3 software and Rating 4. This mirrors the difference between consumer and professional software modernly. Assuming our Mr. J is from a megacorp (and not, say, a street gang), he's probably worth about a 4, as 5 is getting up there, and 6 is usually reserved for the big stuff (and 7 for the military and Zurich Orbital).

Second, with the way the rules are set up, I don't bother with any node (including Mr. J's) being higher than 4 unless it's backed up with patrolling IC and spiders, preferably in plural. My GM was initially annoyed with the freedom the hacker has in SR4, so the first node I encountered with my hacker (basically the one from the book) had Rating 6 everything. The result: I hacked in slow and came away with copies of a lot of Rating 6 software.

If a node is important, it should have IC and/or spiders patrolling it. Even if it doesn't, an Analyze program can be set to automatically scan, checking out every icon that accesses the commlink ("What's that icon running? Exploit? Uh-oh!").

Another thing that is often overlooked (even by me) is that just because you've found a wireless signal doesn't mean you've managed to turn it into something identifiable. Usually, sure, that's the case, but if the target is running Stealth, it can avoid being accessed or even seen in AR/VR. After all, you need to succeed in a Matrix Perception action to get a Matrix ID, and you can't access nodes without that.

So, yeah. I'd make your typical megacorp Mr. J with a commlink with a device rating 4, Analyze 4, and Stealth 4. Also, I imagine that bank transactions would require a passkey or biometric data, so I wouldn't worry about that happening.

[Serbitar]

see SGN abd SGP in my sig.

[Abstruse]

I think the best way to deal with this problem is in-character, as many people have suggested. Try to hack the commlink, the Johnson leaves immediately. Lead them on false trails, things like that.

Really want to put a stop to it? Use it to screw them over. Let him hack the commlink, go through the motions, and then feed him the entire info about the J. He works for Ares, he's authorized to pay them X, all the specifications of the mission, everything.

Because word on the street has gotten out that the hacker for their team loves to peek, the Saeder-Krupp Johnson fed him completely false info that ends up with them thinking that Ares screwed them on their run against Renraku, but it was SK pulling the strings the entire time.

However, only use that as a plot device. However, it's best honestly to just point out how completely unprofessional it is to do that. It's like the mage casting a mind probe or something like that during the meet. It's just not done.

Or you could remember that these things go both ways...while he's busy hacking the Johnson's commlink, the guy that's been tailing Mr. J to find out what team he's hiring hacks into the PC's commlink and gets all the intel on the PCs.

Basically, in the Shadowrun world, no Johnson would show up to a meet with his real, personal commlink. Those things are cheap enough to be disposable for the Johnson and he could just pick up a cheap rating 1 one at Radio Shack for the meet then toss it once it's over. Even if he did because he was stupid or overconfident, there is no possible way that sort of behavior would be tolerated and that team would get blacklisted in a hurry. The entire team would have a horrible reputation, and they'd only get the crappiest of crappy runs if not flat-out suicide missions because they would be seen as not being able to be trusted with anything more.

The Abstruse One

[Spoonfunk]

First thing you do is learn the rules back and foreword.
second thing you do is analyze your player and find out his weak spots and I am not just talking about the matrix ones. What about physical, social? Next I would design a very detailed mouse trap that plays perfectly into what he is doing.
Make the johnson have some secret paydata that everyone that is an enemy in your world would kill for. Yeah I know "he's a johnson and wouldnt keep that kind of information on him"....so what Mr.Johnson can be a idiot just like the rest of us. The point is that you use it as an excuse to put the group through hell. Grind it in...make it hard punish the entire group for his fuck ups as well as him...is the DARK future right...don't play kitty cat give them a game. Give them assassins and ninja. Plant explosives under his bed but never kill him. make him hurt so much he'll think its a career and everytime they go through the ringer make one of your NPC's (the nice ones if there are any left) say something like "Man shouldn't of hacked that commlink huh" Drive the point home. If the hacker is hogging the game make the repercussions effect the entire group. Just start hurting them all as long as they are alive and have something out there to look forward to they will have fun.