Alternate Matrix Rules, Everyone is doing it Options

[Cthulhudreams]

My impression of brain hacking is that it allows the hacker to treat a brain as a computer with thoughts, memories and actions effectively being files and processes. It is therefore possible for the hacker to not only control another as a puppet, but to substantially read, edit, upload and download memories whole cloth.

Nah, it doesn't.

Because of the very proscribed limits in what you can do, the analogy with control thoughts is bogus as there is no control thoughts program. About the worst you can do is induce seizure or read his mind. As SMA points out the 'implant thoughts' action is totally weaksauce compared to control thoughts in terms of capability.

Brainwashing stuff that turns the guy into a drone is a StoryPower with the only rules being DM Fiat it up.

[Hat]

Cool. I'll definitely have to give the rules a thorough read then. I may wait until Unwired to decide what to do with the rules to see if that clears things up. I'm not sure when that will be out though. Glad to hear things are more balanced than some comments indicated.

Thanks for the feedback.

With a sweep of his...

Hat

[FrankTrollman]

If there's interest I'll post a short rundown on the programs seeing the most action, or other material that has accumulated during play.

I would be very interested in that.

-Frank

[JoelHalpern]

I keep thinking about these rules, and trying to work out the effects.
(THe following is NOT a complaint. I just am trying to walk the implication tree.)

In the rules as written (and in the current, limited world) if you detect an attacking hacker, and can't figure out what else to do, you can turn off the computer. Or just turn off the radio / unplug the computer.
But part of the premise here is that you can't unplug. In fact, if you turn off your comlink, you become a naked brain.

So what actions can a normal person take if they realize they are being attacked via Cyber? Not so much brain hacks, as remote attacks. (Brain hack attacks are just as difficult to deal with as a mage, or a guy with a gun.)
But if you can't turn off the cars computer, and you can't turn off your comlink, then it appears that you need an active response to an attack. Otherwise, sooner or later (and probably not much later) the remote hacker will be able to get in and do whatever he wants.

The question in fact is not so much what a shadowrunner should do. But what the normal corporate type should do. Even the corps can not afford, at the pricing I have seen, to install attack programs on every comlink. (Even if they could, there is also affording to teach the comlink to use the attack?) Is the assumption that in the SINner world, if you detect an attack, you call the cyber-cop equivalent of lone-star?

I suspect I am simply missing some of the assumptions.

Joel

[Crusher Bob]

You still can turn off the computer. You lose the protection of your firewall, but since you are not connected anymore, you are only vulnerable to LOS based hacking attacks. So if you are sitting in your living room, and someone is hacking your commlink, you can reset it or turn it off. As long as no one inside your living room picks this moment to try to hack your brain, you should be fine.

[Sma]

Joel first since it's quick to answer:

You are right that active countermeasures are the goto option when you want to stop a decker from hacking your PAN. If you personally lack the skill to stop the intrusion and notice it, you make sure to keep paying your monthly MatrixGuard™ rate, and a skilled operator will be with you as soon at the press of a (virtual) button. Just as you'd call the police if you see someone trying to break into your car.

Now for the shortish playtest results
The group consists of one full-time hacker, a rigger/doc who mostly dabbles in matrix related chicanery, chaos mage and melee adept, the last two don't really do anything requiring rolls at all. Both the rigger and decker would be decent sammies due to muscle toner and skillwires being cheap, they don't shoot often thoug since there's usually somehting better they can do. BP instead of Karma, commutative skills costs. They've recently cleared the 500 BP mark and the specialty dicepools are edging into the 15+ category.

SKILLS:
The most used skill is datasearch, mostly covering quickly getting more or less public information on people and places. Not rolling extended test here alone has saved a lot of time.

EW sees a lot of use in the form of Signal Defense. Specialising in it goes a long way towards being bulletproof. Possibly too strong for the marginal cost of 2 BP, but since none of my player

I ruled that Matrix Stealth can be applied to Icons in contact range, but needing to be sustained. This allows the decker to stealth the whole team, but makes him drop defensive programs or even run in hot sim, which adds nicely to suspense. Matrix Stealth in general could use clarification though since it's not inuitively obvious what breaks it and what does not. Playing by ear works well enough for us, though.

That said, the 80+ BP hit to get your matrix skills on, combined with the steep program costs, works out nicely to force a starting decker to specialize into their role.

PROGRAMS

Most used program is Misplace, both in combat to lock down drones and out of combat to provide cover from surveillance. This works exceptionally well since it provides room for all characters to do their thing, while not bogging down the game while the hacker makes a lot of rolls to allow for a relatively simple effect.

Backtrack and WhoIs are probably tied for second place, because the ability to know where someone is, is really good, especially since turning off a commlink isn't something that happens. We lowered the accuracy to "within a couple of meters" , but thats just for fluff and not out of any balance concerns. My gut feeling is that WhoIs could possibly use a higher threshold by default.

Find Mind takes third for similar reasons as the aforementioned two.

The other programs pretty much the gamut since they are situational.

Ostraka and single target jamming gets used a lot to steal unattended cars.

Jamming is strong. So strong each and every time a serious attempt gets made it succeeded. But are jammers only get used in extreme situations where giving up the ability to act is worth giving up your position and slowing down any attempts at getting hacked. Adding edge to your ECCM test after laying down ECM made for the odd edge case of being personally unaffected while still locking down everyone in range.

Jingle sees some use simply because it's fun, but never has seen serious use due to being too weak to convince someone to sell their mother.

From the combat programs Jingle is head and feet above the others. We reduced the time until the next resistance test to one round. Blackhammering pretty much only happens when deckers duke it out in the matrix, while crashing only gets done if everyone is feeling nice in a "slap on the fingers and off you go" way. Matrix combat in general, works just as well as mellee combat. No surprises here.

Jedi Trick fills it's role of making the cop's computer agree with your made up ID nicely, while also being the accepted universal key for all electronic doors. This means the hardware maglock passkey stuff pretty much only exists for people who don't wanna play with the matrix.

Recover and Obscure sees relatively little use, which is more down to our playstyle than anything else.

We changed Taxman to be connection range, thus it shares equal time with Brainscan and reveal Contents.

Backdoor pretty much does what it says, no quibbles here.

The other programs have never come up yet, either because neither of the deckers could afford them or because we haven't played any scenarios yet where they would have been useful. Probably lack of cash though.

Generally defense is really strong. Hits to oppose being hacked are uncapped, specialisations are cheap and attacker regularly runs into the caps set by his program ratings. An optimized starting character would probably be one that maxes out software and only buys those few programs that can't wait to be executed (combat & armor mostly).
This makes decently (dicepools 8 programs 3-4) protected hosts good enough to prevent a skilled hacker from simply walking over them while not being impossible to hack. Better opposition (dicepools of 10, programs in the 5-6 range) can be snuck in but any prolonged activity inside usually ends up rather painful.

Two deckers fighting is rocket launcher tag, and in the case of corp systems only one side has respawns.

Rigger Initiative (if its supposed to be equal to matrix initiative) makes sammies cry due to Response being added. Doesn't feel quite right, bot doesn't really matter since getting blown to bits on the count of 23 or 14 hasn't made a difference yet. Pilot and pilot accessory programming prices have been hitched up to thrice the cost and could probably take another raise, but haven't been enough of an issue yet to warrant a closer look.

Stealth nerfs I'm aware of are not being picky when giving people cybercombat (defense) 1 and EW (Signal Defense) 1, often adding 3 dice to defense tests. But since opposition you care about tends to have a decker of their own this only comes into play when mugging random people for their e-golds.

Still no doubt about going back to the official system.

Sma

[Cthulhudreams]

Turning your commlink off still beats any connection range attack, and for those that are LOS.. well the guy has an electronic handgun, so the same basic rules (break LOS) apply.

[Hat]

I've consolidated all of Frank's write up (1st 7 or whatnot posts) into a single word document complete with table of contents. Unfortunately I don't have a convenient place to post it. Assuming Frank agrees, is there anyone willing to host it somewhere? Each page contains title, credits and link to this thread. Send me a message or post an email address to send it to. Thanks.

With a sweep of his...

Hat

[FrankTrollman]

I agree to this being posted pretty much anywhere. It's open content.

-Frank

[WeaverMount]

Here is Hat's word doc of Frank's rules.

[Earlydawn]

Okay, seriously. Where the hell is Unwired? I'm starting soon and I don't want to jump over until I'm sure Unwired doesn't do it for us. This wait is just crazy.

[Synner667]

Looks absolutely fabulous.

Interesting, for all sorts of reasons...
...And useful info for all sorts of things.


Thank you.

[FrankTrollman]

Okay, seriously. Where the hell is Unwired?

I... don't know. I kind of rushed this thing in places because I want to make sure I beat Unwired to press so that it didn't get lost in the mists of the rest of the discussion generated by Unwired's release. But it's been six months already. I'm as confused as anyone not actually working on that project.

-Frank

[Cthulhudreams]

I'm wondering how much effort it would to add photography to it. Artwork seems unlikely, but there are big repositories of copyleft photography that could be used for that sort of project.

Anyone know roughly sort of how much art one would use in a book of this nature? Hat's document is 61 ages, typeset with no graphics.

I'm almost tempted to do it.

I have no artistic taste, but for example http://flickr.com/photos/kirklau/1357780086/ would be a nice coverpage image, or http://flickr.com/photos/vinpooley/97323254/ for the crisis of storage.

[Sma]

I have a version using my slightly modified rules and some rigger stuff. Since I have the annoying layout stuff pretty much set, and it's two columns remaking it with Franks version and adding images wouldn't be too much of a hassle.

That is if someone would be willing to do the searching for art part. (temp link to file with those images here.)

Be warned though, photos like the street one you posted usually don't come out as well on printed paper, unless you spring for a glossy variety

[Cthulhudreams]

The amount I know about the design and layout postage could be written on a postage stamp (assuming your handwriting is small enough to squeeze 'Go ask the design team' on there.) so pointers are useful.

What is the requirements for art stuff? Photos might be easier just because of the copyleft photography out there.

[Sma]

I am not a designer, thats just something I found out on occasion. I'd just go with whatever picture or photo strikes your fancy, because pretty pictures that might or might not come out as well printed are still better than no pictures at all.

[Hat]

SMA: What modifications did you make to Frank's rules and do they show up in your PDF?

With a sweep of his...

Hat

[Hat]

Ok, I finally made my way through all of the rules and ended up with a number of questions.

Is the sensors skill used to gather and interpret feeds from drones into an overall picture?

"A targeted jam attempts to remove a specific signal or close a specific connection. The character must have sufficient high density signal to reach both ends of the communication one is attempting to disrupt. "
I don't follow. A hacker is connected to a system with a signal rating of higher than 1 so out of the range of standard area jammers. Why doesn't jamming work by simply targetting one end of the connection to cause the connection to drop?

To resist jamming attempts does that take an action or is that considered inconsequential? If it doesn't require an action, why not? Good hardware will have some facility at cutting through normal noise and holding a good signal.

I would think of jamming as more like making a ranged attack. The jammer makes the Logic + EW + jammer rating attack vs.Targe Device Rating. On the defensive add logic + EW if the user is actively resisting + Signal Defense if someone's providing overwatch. I'd consider making it (logic + EW)/2 for a simple action and the full logic + EW for a complex action. You can shoot and try and keep your connection steady, but it takes effort. For drones I'd replace logic + EW with pilot + an EW autosoft.

Static Zones are mentioned quite a bit later (with no forward or backward reference). What determines the rating for the background created by a jammer? Would it be better to simply reference the creation of a static zone when jamming is done and provide a single unified mechanic for addressing this – whether background or otherwise?

Forge Credentials - is this used for online only or is this used for a temporary or permanent Fake SIN?

Hiding - what can you do while hiding? What besides launching a black IC attack breaks the concealment? Presumably a character would be actively hiding while attempting a hack a system.

"A full network appears the same as a lone device save that its distributed status is visible to anyone with any hits on a Matrix Perception test. Whether a network is running off a real brain or not can be determined with 2 hits."
What do you mean a network running off a real brain? Do you just mean that there’s someone’s brain actually subscribed to it?

Server Icons section "This manifests as having the server refuse connections to those who don't give the proper passcode. One can still hack in of course, and if the network or device which runs the server is taken down, anyone can log in to the server until it reboots. Since the routing is done with fiberoptics and such, shutting down the core computer does not actually stop hackers from forging connections if that's what they want to do."
I don't follow. Can you explain how a connection is established when the server doesn't have any power to access its systems? If a hacking attempt can be made in these cases anyway, does it require an LOS attack?

Hacking on the fly - is there anything that caps the number of hits on the logic + software test or is it conceivable that using edge a character with a program of 5 and a die pool of 10 could end up with a rating 15 program? Alternatively, does the hacking on the fly simply adjust the maximum number of hits that can be scored using the program? Ok, I think this got covered later, but the section on Response is confusing.

This section needs to be cleaned up. What's the proper wording?
"Response
Response is a measurement of hardware's ability to react to commands and The Reaction of the central unit of a network is added to one's VR initiative. Also, Reaction marks a hard cap on how high a rating a character can program on the fly. Finally, a character operating in the Matrix may take a number of Matrix Free Actions each IP equal to the network's Response."
So is it Response or Reaction that’s the hard cap on programming on the fly?

System ratings for Networks - highest individual attrbute or sum of components? I'm assuming it's highest.

With a sweep of his...

Hat

[Hat]

As another request, does anyone have any examples of these rules in use? I know Frank is or was running a game online for example. I'm trying to get a sense of these rules in action. Thanks!

With a sweep of his...

Hat

[Sma]

The online game has logs posted here on dumpshock, up to the point where it fizzled.

Not a lot of time now so I'll just field a few of the questions, I'll try to come back to the rest later.

Ok, I finally made my way through all of the rules and ended up with a number of questions.

Is the sensors skill used to gather and interpret feeds from drones into an overall picture?

Yes. Perception tests using sensors use Logic+EW+Sensor Rating, Drones use Pilot+Sensor Rating.

"A targeted jam attempts to remove a specific signal or close a specific connection. The character must have sufficient high density signal to reach both ends of the communication one is attempting to disrupt. "
I don't follow. A hacker is connected to a system with a signal rating of higher than 1 so out of the range of standard area jammers. Why doesn't jamming work by simply targetting one end of the connection to cause the connection to drop?

Targeted jamming requires only a comlink, no area jammer required. The test to resist does not use up an action on the part of the defender.

Static Zones are mentioned quite a bit later (with no forward or backward reference). What determines the rating for the background created by a jammer? Would it be better to simply reference the creation of a static zone when jamming is done and provide a single unified mechanic for addressing this – whether background or otherwise?

The rating of a static zone is either set by the hits on the test to use an area jammer (logic+EW+jammer rating) or set by the GM in the case of static zones representing ares with weird interference.

"A full network appears the same as a lone device save that its distributed status is visible to anyone with any hits on a Matrix Perception test. Whether a network is running off a real brain or not can be determined with 2 hits."
What do you mean a network running off a real brain? Do you just mean that there’s someone’s brain actually subscribed to it?

Networks and device can either just run off the hardware (having crappy stats) or run on someones brain plus the hardware (getting better stats). If there's a live metahuman controlling a network the network usually runs better than if there isn't, so two hits will let you gauge this.

This section needs to be cleaned up. What's the proper wording?
"Response
Response is a measurement of hardware's ability to react to commands and The Reaction of the central unit of a network is added to one's VR initiative. Also, Reaction marks a hard cap on how high a rating a character can program on the fly. Finally, a character operating in the Matrix may take a number of Matrix Free Actions each IP equal to the network's Response."
So is it Response or Reaction that’s the hard cap on programming on the fly?

Response is the Hard Cap for anything you want to run on your device, so it also caps the rating of programs boosted or created by hacking on the fly.

System ratings for Networks - highest individual attrbute or sum of components? I'm assuming it's highest.

Right you are.

[Hat]

Targeted jamming requires only a comlink, no area jammer required. The test to resist does not use up an action on the part of the defender.

The section states that both ends of the jamming attempt must be within range for the targetted jamming. My question is why both ends rather than just a single end?

Networks and device can either just run off the hardware (having crappy stats) or run on someones brain plus the hardware (getting better stats). If there's a live metahuman controlling a network the network usually runs better than if there isn't, so two hits will let you gauge this.

I understand the concept, but am having a hard time finding the relevant section of the rules. Could you provide an example showing a network with and without the metahuman added?

"RESPONSE
Response is a measurement of hardware's ability to react to commands and distributed requests. The Reaction of the central unit of a network is added to one's VR initiative. Also, Reaction marks a hard cap on how high a rating a character can program on the fly."

Response is the Hard Cap for anything you want to run on your device, so it also caps the rating of programs boosted or created by hacking on the fly.

Understood. My confusion is still with the section on Response. Note the use of the term "Reaction" at the beginning of the second sentence above and at the beginning of the third. Should that term be replaced with Response or is it actually referencing a character's reaction score or where does the reaction stat come from?

One other thing I was curious about. With Directional Retransmitters, is the goal to provide a way to do LOS attacks without LOS? Is there a limit to the number of DRs you can use? Have you encountered any problems with being able to chain a number of these together to grant the hacker a lot of additional flexibility?

With a sweep of his....

Hat

[Odsh]

Frank, one of the cornerstones of your set of rules (theory?) is that the human brain is required in the matrix because it is supposedly much more powerful than any computer, even in 2070.

A different approach would have been that, even though computers can attain better performances than a human brain, they do not "know" how to make use of this power. In other words, they use inefficient algorithms. If a soft is not written correctly, it can be horribly inefficient at what it is doing, regardless of the power of the computer running it. Writing a program can be quite complex, and if somethings can be done by us, but not by a computer, I think it is in most cases because we didn't find the correct algorithm yet, not because the computer has less processing power than the human brain.

Well this may seem like an insignificant detail, but with your rules, entities such as Deus or Megaera should not exist in the Shadowrun universe, which is a pity.

(Sorry if this subject has already been discussed somehow, I didn't read all comments).

Nicely written and well thought though!

[RunnerPaul]

Just read through Frank's rules. 31 flavors of awesome.

Under this rule set, would the Laser Link equipment option described in Arsenal have enough bandwidth to support high density connections, or is it stuck with low density data only? I have this image of a heavily armed CorpSec response team whose gear has all been faraday modified, supplemented by Signal 0 area jammers to make them nigh-untouchable by hackers, but they use Laser Link connections to maintain the tactical advantage that 2070's squad-level battlefield data sharing can provide.

A bit heavy handed, perhaps, but of course, nothing stops the runners from attempting the same kind of gimmick.

[Hat]

Ok, I've seen multiple references to Matrix Stealth including SMAs note of sustaining multiple of them. I dont' see a program called Matrix Stealth, though there are a number of programs and Patrons that reference it. Is this simply referring to the Hide ability?

If so, does it take up a program slot to sustain it normally even though it's a skill use rather than a program?

Thanks!

With a sweep of his...

Hat