Your optimal Matrix rules, How should the Matrix rules be in your oppinion? Options

[Aaron]

For what it's worth, we tried a version of the SR5 Matrix with no marks. Instead, more difficult tasks were given dice pool penalties instead of number of marks. The results included a hacker playing with street lights like he was Dumbledore, an enemy samurai shoving his sword into his own skull with his cyberarm, and electronics blowing sparks at the snap of a sprite's digital fingers.

We went back to marks.

[Sendaz]

For what it's worth, we tried a version of the SR5 Matrix with no marks. Instead, more difficult tasks were given dice pool penalties instead of number of marks. The results included a hacker playing with street lights like he was Dumbledore, an enemy samurai shoving his sword into his own skull with his cyberarm, and electronics blowing sparks at the snap of a sprite's digital fingers.

We went back to marks.

Whoa....

Pretty though.

I am guessing the Sammie had not previously oinvested in an Evo Cranial Scabbard™? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

But yeah, it's tough because we want cool hacks but still be able to survive it if we are on the receiving end.

[Nath]

For what it's worth, we tried a version of the SR5 Matrix with no marks. Instead, more difficult tasks were given dice pool penalties instead of number of marks. The results included a hacker playing with street lights like he was Dumbledore, an enemy samurai shoving his sword into his own skull with his cyberarm, and electronics blowing sparks at the snap of a sprite's digital fingers.

We went back to marks.

But was it because the roll were too easy, or because or the hackers (and sprites) were getting effect with a single Complex Action instead of several ones?

SR5 rules do include the possibility of a -4 modifier to get 2 Marks at once and -10 to get 3 Marks at once. If the modifiers were lower in order to get a similar result, it ought to make hacking easier. Higher modifiers would make the amount of time required more random, as the hacker may (or not) need to roll several times before getting enough hits.

If the modifiers are appropriate, the only thing that otherwise matters is the number of actions other characters may take while the hacker perform the two to four Complex Action (and rolls) his hacking requires. In which case the problem rather lies in the number of Initiative Pass a hacker gets because the trope wants that "mind goes faster than meat", while actual game balance requires the opposite.

[Aaron]

But was it because the roll were too easy, or because or the hackers (and sprites) were getting effect with a single Complex Action instead of several ones?

It was partly that and partly the fact that Edge can get you a lot of things when you really want it.

A simple illustrative exercise would be to have on samurai against one hacker, each trying to kill one another in a one-block region of the Barrens. Try it both ways. =i)

[Smash]

It was partly that and partly the fact that Edge can get you a lot of things when you really want it.

A simple illustrative exercise would be to have on samurai against one hacker, each trying to kill one another in a one-block region of the Barrens. Try it both ways. =i)

So a complex matrix action that used edge resulted in someone dying and that was considered too powerful, while the same result could be achieved a multitude of ways with magic, firearms, explosives or melee weapons?

Your example above doesn't put the decker at any particular advantage over the samurai unless they have scanned the samurai within 100m previously. In fact, if the samurai had any stealth capability and turned their wireless off (why not, the advantages aren't needed against a lone hacker) I'd have my money on them every time, marks or not.

[Draco18s]

*Skim thread*

A lot of people have said a lot of things I like.
Abstract it more, give me tactical options, fix or remove wireless,* fun uncomplicated and in-genre.

Do not make me roll 17 times to perform a simple task. I realize that "hacking an electronic lock" is not actually a simple task, but if "Pick the Lock with Elecropicker 5000" is one roll, then hacking the sucker should be no more than two.
Secondly, there needs to be sane durations on various tasks. Sure, doing a data-search shouldn't take 8 seconds, but I shouldn't also be tied up twiddling my thumbs at the gaming table while everyone else is off doing whiz-bang things. We need to separate and make distinct actions that require the hacker/decker's direct involvement and things he can delegate to software.

Rigging a drone? Direct involvement. Data search? Software. And don't even go around mixing and matching "You can do it in X time with Y dicepool if you do it yourself or you can have software do it for W dice in Z time." No. I don't care how much you think doing things yourself is going to get better results, you're still using freaking Google. The software is doing 98% of the work, done. It will do its thing, you can do yours.

(Hacking on the fly: direct involvement. Probing the target? Software.)

Oh, and by the way: location services on your phone? All that does is prevent the software on your phone from knowing where you are. The cell tower knows where you are and how fast you're moving down to a square meter. It has to, or the whole time-slicing thing doesn't work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U7ROVno2ys

*I don't mind the wireless net as a Thing That Exists, but the "hack anything from anywhere" result is Just Bad. I should not be able to daisy chain off a god damn toaster.

[Sendaz]

I should not be able to daisy chain off a god damn toaster.

Isn't that what NetCat does with a toaster?

Wait... different meaning....

Nvm (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

On a more serious note I like the splitting idea between direct vs software

[Blade]

Two things:

1. Quick hacks and big cyber heists : I need hackers to be able to hack all the cameras in the perimeter with a single roll or to be able to turn the lights off in a single action that's quick to resolve. But when they have to attack the mainframe of Whatever Corp. it needs to feel epic.

2. A clear decision on what the Matrix is. 80s cyberpunk VR thingy or command lines?
I'd really like to split Shadowrun into 3 flavors: Shadowrun 2035, the techno-thriller, Shadowrun 2050, with 80s cyberpunk style and Shadowrun 2070, with a post-cyberpunk flavor. The Matrix would have to be handled differently in each case. In 2035 it's close to moder-day hacking. In 2050 it's VR and shared consensual hallucinations. In 2070 it's a layer on top of reality, similar to the astral plane.

[apple]

I do not think that this needs to be seperated - similar to today website a node/icon can have 3 different representations from where you can choose, 2D normal display, 3d virtual reality and "1D" command prompt. You choose the representation according to your device and habit.

SYL

[Nath]

1. Quick hacks and big cyber heists : I need hackers to be able to hack all the cameras in the perimeter with a single roll or to be able to turn the lights off in a single action that's quick to resolve. But when they have to attack the mainframe of Whatever Corp. it needs to feel epic.

I see two ways to make an epic adventure, in this case an epic cyber-heist.

The first one is The Journey. Buy a Chinese military icebreaker from a Russian fixer in Istanbul, con a corporate executive to get his retinal print and "borrow" his comlink for five minutes, blow out a fiber optic in the basement to make the site back up on a satellite link... Whatever. That's the kind of magnificent planning many have tried to do for Shadowrun, not just for the Matrix, and many failed.
In the end, to make such "side quests" necessary, you need to introduce security mechanisms that cannot be beaten with a good roll and/or Edge. If you do that, you introduce in the setting security mechanisms that everyone should use since they cannot be beaten. If you don't, players will avoid doing epic stuff and favor the simplest, mundane route to their goal, like they always do.

( I nonetheless think Chinese military icebreakers should be a thing, but I have no idea how to use it to achieve epicness. So far my idea would have been to cap "standard" programs rating, and to have program above a given rating practically available only in a specialized form, kinda like "Stealth (MCT Matrix security)" which would expire after a month or so. )

The second way is The Battle. Try to outmaneuver the opposition in real time, muttering something like "Hell, I've never seen a dynamic encryption moving so fast. He's good, really good." My take would be to keep the stealth and lock-breaking simple, and rely on the Cybercombat subsystem to provide epicness as needed. Beating Firewall should straightforward, beating IC less so. This would first require more cybercombat options (however, I don't like the idea of making a cybercombat a full mock-up of actual combat, things like "hiding behind files" and so on).
Besides, one of the problem with SR4 Matrix was that regardless of how hard a Matrix defense was supposed to be, Cybercombat always came as a fall-back scenario once you failed to be stealthy (which was practically only possible if the GM had realized that actual security required an IC packed with Analyze to roll Matrix Perception all the time...). I would go for a way to make Cybercombat against IC a separate concern from Stealth up to a point. That is, that you could engage IC for at least several turns in Cybercombat without triggering an alert (with an half-assed explanation about Cybercombat targeting piece of codes at a lower-level than exploit or stealth hacking, hence the relative rudeness of the result, so as to stay below the radar of the IC smart system...). Then, once the alert broke out, you can go on with the epic fight against the spider and his army of IC.

[Bertramn]

That brings it to the point pretty much.

I actually think that 5th Edition went into the direction of the first type of hacking you identified.

Archives in 5th are not hack-able, which I actually like a lot.
If you need data from a server, and that data is not in use at the moment,
you need someone to get it out for you.

That forces the players to strategize, and either con, or force someone to help them,
which kinda mirrors how real hacking works.
I think more hacking in Shadowrun should go like that.
Getting into a secure system should sometimes involve digging up dirt about someone,
or threatening him, or bribing him, or kidnapping his family, so that he will help you.

[Draco18s]

On a side note, only tangentially related to hacking, but one that provides a "huh, I wonder if..." kind of point.

I'm reading a book called The Magician's Land (third in a series by Lev Grossman, the first two are amazing*) and in it is a card game called Push. Push is sort of a War variant. Higher cards beat lower cards, odd rules like throwing cards into a hat and when you get five in, scoring it like a poker hand, and so on. But the rules are irrelevant, as the point of the game is to cheat. Force the card you need to the top of the deck, steal a card from the discard pile, and so on (and because this is magicians we're talking about, that stuff is easy), and cheating is not grounds for elimination (you didn't cheat hard enough!). And it is not beyond reason that cards from another deck, another game, or even from suits that don't exist to be played (queen of glass, anyone? Suicide jack? The rule card for poker? A $10 bill from Monopoly?).

This idea has so entranced me I've been trying to figure out a rules set to enable people-who-are-not-stage-magicians to get that same kind of "cheat at the game of Push" experience, as its all about out-maneuvering your opponent (also, printing up 100 cards with poker backs and randomly detailed front faces) is just so interesting.

Anyway. Apply that kind of concept to hacking in Shadowrun:
A set of rules that essentially are about cheating, and cheating better, faster and harder than the other guy.

That would be an awesome hacking system. Sure, it would be a mini-game inside the game, but it would be a lot more interesting than "throw dice until someone dies."

For my very short-lived HK campaign, I replaced dice with mahjong tiles, and it was better for the immersion than D6.

OH GOD. HACKING WITH MAHJONG TILES. WITH CHEATY POWERS.
Playing a tile gets you that number. Running ProgramX flips a tile over (blank faces are worth 0, duh), swaps it with another tile (yours or an opponent's), drawing tiles, discarding tiles, stealing tiles....

Dear lord...

*Kind of a spoiler, but it sets up the series really well: main character grows up on Narnia--sorry, Fillory novels--and an unprinted sequel is what leads him to Hogwarts--I mean Brakebills--and finds that magic is real and so is Fillory.

[tete]

Having GMed every matrix version I'd throw away the whole thing and build it as a fun side game that moves at the same speed as regular combat with meaningful rolls. Its more about rolling for how long it takes than success vs failure, this can be done passively or you could help out and go active if time is a factor. This would be demonstrated in missions where the decking examples are things like turn off the poison gas filling the area while the street sam is fighting off cyberzombies or something similar. Active is basicly for when it can be interesting while not requiring a pizza run and Passive would handle the rest. Its about how the matrix is presented more than what the rules are. You can avoid the pizza run even in 1e if you limit the nodes to 6 or less. If your spending more than 5-10 min on any one player there needs to be a cut scene with something interesting for everyone else to do before you go back to the one player. The rules should help drive this style of play not hinder it.

[edit] my advise for anyone having issues with split party stuff be it matrix, astral space or other is go watch the end of return of the jedi and time how much time they spend on any one group. Then try to do that same thing in your game, it will take practice and some tweaking but its all about flow control.

[Nath]

I actually think that 5th Edition went into the direction of the first type of hacking you identified.

Archives in 5th are not hack-able, which I actually like a lot. If you need data from a server, and that data is not in use at the moment, you need someone to get it out for you.

That forces the players to strategize, and either con, or force someone to help them, which kinda mirrors how real hacking works. I think more hacking in Shadowrun should go like that.
Getting into a secure system should sometimes involve digging up dirt about someone, or threatening him, or bribing him, or kidnapping his family, so that he will help you.

Hard to say, since the rules do state there will be a "dangerous process that is detailed in the forthcoming Matrix sourcebook" of which we know nothing about, how difficult the roll(s) will be, how long it will take and what flavor it will have.

As far as SR5 corebook goes, Host Archives cannot be accessed using Matrix rules, period. It says you have to "convince someone," which as far as I can tell is the sole province of the social skills (even if you first use your combat, magical or matrix skills to get a bonus to your Intimidation roll). It can make hacking epic by forcing you into "social hacking," which is a thing, but as far as the game goes, is a Face affair. It still doesn't give the hacker/decker/technomancer anything epic to do with the Matrix rules. Basically, to the question "Which epic act someone can do in the Matrix?" it answers "Go learn another skill."

It only makes thing worse that the actual archetypes most people have in mind when offered to play a hacker character is "the guy with awkward social skills that avoid dealing physically with people". Sure, it is a cliché, social hacking does exist and some real-life hackers are very social creatures. But it's still not what most people think (because of movies, TV and video games) when you tell them hacker is an archetype they can play.

[Bertramn]

Fair point about the reference to a future sourcebook.

About the 'being socially awkward' thing though. I prefer hacking like it is in the movie 'Hackers'.
Flashy, cool, fun, and it is something that makes you popular in a certain circle of people.
Hackers in that movie are nerds, but they are cool, and socially accepted in their circle.

Sure, a sammy might still look down on someone who needs cyberspace to properly wield a katana,
but society in general should idolize hackers, as they are the most vocal cyberpunks within the setting.

[Cain]

Okay, let me preface with this: I've played every edition to date, although I have yet to fully grasp the SR5 rules. I could make the matrix work in any of the others; Sr3 was the easiest for me, although that might be familiarity.

Anyway, the first requirements for a Matrix system is that it's fun. It also needs to work, and be internally consistent. Of less concern to me is realism: I don't want a system that tries to mimic real-world computing. I know some people here are very skilled at this, but not everyone is-- and sacrificing playbility for realism has always been a bad choice in Shadowrun.

The next problem is how to deal with deckers. Deckers have this wonderful and amazing skill set, but they only get to use it some of the time, so they got shoved to the side often. I tried to get about this with spotlight time: I tried to include a scene or two where the decker got to shine. The sam got his time in combats, the face got his time in social-fu, and the decker's time was technology. Still, apparently some don't think this is enough, and the decker should be able to do more stuff in combat. This puzzled me, until I realized that starting with 4.0, hybrid deckers were much less possible than ever before.

I know this seems strange, because the gear became a lot cheaper, but gear isn't all you need to be a good decker. In classic SR, the elements of a good decker were the right gear and a high Computer skill, preferably at 6. So, any Resources A or B character could fit that in, and have room left for other things, like combat. In SR4-onwards, Computer was broken into lots of little skills. That wouldn't be such a big deal, except in SR4.5, you can't start with more than one skill at 6. Most of your skills were capped at 4, and since your dice pool was skill + program, it became much harder to actually have average dice pools that were notably stronger than a wage slave. In order to get better, you had to super-focus, and so deckers ended up less capable in other areas than ever before. SR5 removed the skill cap, but made decks much more expensive again, which didn't seem to help.

Anyway, so the real problem isn't deckers not being able to do stuff. The problem is doing decking in combat. However, if you make it easier for deckers to branch out, they won't feel the need to do this as often. You still need to make the matrix scenes meaningful, and tie it into the overall adventure, but it can be done.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I too have played in all editions, and I have had the reverse experience...

In SR1, 2 and 3, playing a Decker, while cool, was a lone proposition most of the time (though I do remember some great hacks in 1st and 2nd Edition), and so we made the decision to just say no to PC Deckers. When SR4/4A came out, it was a step in the right direction. Now, the hardware was not stupid expensive, and though you may have needed a couple more skills, they were not that onerous to pick up in Chargen or in play (though I was not all that happy with ignoring the Attributes associated with Hacking substituting Programs in their place). My Longest running character in SR4A was a Hacker (Cyberlogician). He was cool. He had good Hacking Abiliites (Hacking and EW 5 and Cybercombat 4) with the Electronics Skill group to backstop other options. He was always messing around with [what I called] the cool stuff in setting. There was never a lack of things for him to do, and when on the run, he was the controller for the Tacnet as well as several Surveillance drones. If the Target was not on the grid, no worries, because he had good skills with technology as a whole. I am still a bit stumped on the path that SR5 took, with an emphasis on Decker Combat capabilities. It just makes no sense to me. If you want to have a Decker in Combat, he should pick up a gun like the rest of the team does. Yes, that means he will likely not have as many kills as the Street Sam or Ninja Adept, but so what, when the chips are down and they had to get through a door, the Decker got to shine, while the others covered his ass.

That said, I do understand that not everyone plays like I prefer (Why do you need 20+ Dice again?), but in SR5, while the basic premise is interesting, and I do like a few of their design choices, I still feel that it does not play quite right, at least for me. Maybe it is just a familiarity thing, and some of that feeling may vanish as the system becomes more familiar.

[Kyrel]

since your dice pool was skill + program, it became much harder to actually have average dice pools that were notably stronger than a wage slave. In order to get better, you had to super-focus, and so deckers ended up less capable in other areas than ever before.

You know Cain, I'm tempted to say that the issue you here present as a problem, might have more to do with player perception than it being an actual problem with the game. In my oppinion, given the mechanics in 4.X, having 10 or 12 dice for a dice pool for hacking (to which VR added an easy +2 dice), didn't make all that much of a difference. Yes, it probably deducts about 1 hit on average, but based on the setting description, a rating 6 program is top of the line military quality, and Skill rating 4 means "Very good at what you do; can handle difficult tasks with ease." and "Technical Example: Mid-career professional (four or more years experience)." Skill rating 4 is not bad, based on setting description, and Skill rating 5-6 is respectively the equivalent of a top-scientist or "superstars" of the world at the top of their game. IMO the average runner really shouldn't be in that area of skill. That being said, I do recognize that the mechanics of the game more or less promote hyperspecialization, which led to people hunting gigantic dice pools and viewing dice pools of less than 18-20 as virtually "not trying".

The way I've normally run games, the players have rarely been encountering stuff beyond Rating 4-5, unless they've gone into high security areas, or have run into serious security professionals or similar.

[DeathStrobe]

Anyway, so the real problem isn't deckers not being able to do stuff. The problem is doing decking in combat. However, if you make it easier for deckers to branch out, they won't feel the need to do this as often. You still need to make the matrix scenes meaningful, and tie it into the overall adventure, but it can be done.

The problem is as a decker, I don't want to branch out. I want to hack. Its like having your mage need to do something other than cast spells, or your adept need to do something that doesn't use their adept powers. If I need to train in 6 skills and spend a ton of nuyen on a commlink/programs or a deck, then you better believe I'm going to want to use it and make the best use of it in every situation. Not to mention, this is cyberpunk. People are suppose to fear hackers turning their electronics against them.

I don't want to be a part time Street Sam, shooting everyone up. I don't want to be an awaken despite how brokenly good at being hackers they can be. I want to be some wageslave who turned away from this corporate overlords to join the shadows, or some punk kid that made his own deck to get revenge on some bully by hacking his car, or ideological terrorist that uses that Matrix to spread my word by sowing chaos. I want to use my deck, my skills, and my brainmeats. But I definitely want something to do.

So I do think combat hacking is absolutely necessary.

I also think cybercombat is really cool, despite mechanically, it not being very rewarding. But thematically its really cool. In SR5, cybercombat is the quickest and most efficient way to deal with enemy deckers. Who'll need to worry about and deal with if you want your team to be running at full efficiency.

[Cain]

You know Cain, I'm tempted to say that the issue you here present as a problem, might have more to do with player perception than it being an actual problem with the game. In my oppinion, given the mechanics in 4.X, having 10 or 12 dice for a dice pool for hacking (to which VR added an easy +2 dice), didn't make all that much of a difference. Yes, it probably deducts about 1 hit on average, but based on the setting description, a rating 6 program is top of the line military quality, and Skill rating 4 means "Very good at what you do; can handle difficult tasks with ease." and "Technical Example: Mid-career professional (four or more years experience)." Skill rating 4 is not bad, based on setting description, and Skill rating 5-6 is respectively the equivalent of a top-scientist or "superstars" of the world at the top of their game. IMO the average runner really shouldn't be in that area of skill. That being said, I do recognize that the mechanics of the game more or less promote hyperspecialization, which led to people hunting gigantic dice pools and viewing dice pools of less than 18-20 as virtually "not trying".

Well, it's less a problem with pool size, and more of a system issue: most rolls in 4.5 are opposed tests. Since the difference between a mid-career wageslave and a world class expert is 2 dice, on average they'll come out about the same most of the time. In SR1-3, it was harder to justify the wage slave having the same programs and gear as the decker; but with 4.5, since gear and programs were so cheap, it was hard *not* giving every Tom Dick and Harry that level of gear.

The net result was that, unless you hyperspecialized, you weren't any better off than a wageslave.

The problem is as a decker, I don't want to branch out. I want to hack. Its like having your mage need to do something other than cast spells, or your adept need to do something that doesn't use their adept powers. If I need to train in 6 skills and spend a ton of nuyen on a commlink/programs or a deck, then you better believe I'm going to want to use it and make the best use of it in every situation. Not to mention, this is cyberpunk. People are suppose to fear hackers turning their electronics against them.

While I'm very much against generalist characters, every shadowrunner needs at least one backup skill, and has to be self-sufficient in several other areas. Every character needs enough social ability to not embarrass themselves in front of a Johnson, and negotiate a reasonable deal. They need to be able to use stealth, and be observant enough to spot others using stealth. And they all need to be capable in a fight-- not a main shooter, but at least good enough to be a match for a guard, and back up the main shooters in a fight.

Right now, I have three characters: a gunslinger adept, a mystic adept, and a face. The gunslinger is uncannily deadly, but he's got a few strong social skills as well. He's no Face, but he can fast talk the team out of a tight corner when needed. The mystic adept is actually mostly a face, with magic and adept abilities backing that up. The face is also an adept, with a strong shooting secondary pool. He's nowhere near the gunslinger, but he is good enough to hold his own. They're all top of the line at what they do (two of them have over 20 dice in their specialties), have strong secondary skills, and are "well rounded" enough that they can handle other things, at least until the specialist arrives.

As for your last problem: no, people are not supposed to fear deckers for attacking their equipment. That's a new addition, and one that I don't think works just yet. In 4.5, it took a minimum of three complex actions to hack a piece of gear. In that same time, the sammie could walk up and shoot them six times. SR5 seems to be slightly faster, but I still don't think you can reasonably expect to do much in a fight, certainly not enough to be better than just shooting.

I do agree that deckers should have more options than just shooting, but that doesn't necessarily mean making everything hackable is the answer. Back in Sr3, my favorite character was the decker/rigger: an information specialist. He collected info from drones and the team, fed them tactical data, and helped keep them out of trouble. He could do that up front, so he could fight if need be, but his biggest job was running the tacnet and giving everyone huge bonuses. You could do something like that in SR5-- deckers could contribute to the technological/information side of the battle.

[Smash]

Archives in 5th are not hack-able, which I actually like a lot.
If you need data from a server, and that data is not in use at the moment,
you need someone to get it out for you.

I'd be interested to know where you get this from. Is it an assumption that archived data is offline or is this explicitly stated in the rules somewhere?

[Bertramn]

I'd be interested to know where you get this from. Is it an assumption that archived data is offline or is this explicitly stated in the rules somewhere?

It is stated in the matrix rules of fifth edition, there is a box about archives somewhere.
If you play BBB only, Archives are untouchable.

It is not a definite decision though.
As Nath pointed out, the BBB points to a future Matrix rulebook for rules about archives.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

It is stated in the matrix rules of fifth edition, there is a box about archives somewhere.
If you play BBB only, Archives are untouchable.

Untouchable through hacking, anyways... But it has always been that way.

[Bertramn]

Untouchable through hacking, anyways... But it has always been that way.

Which is what I said in the post that I was asked about, Mr.Fancypants! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Which is what I said in the post that I was asked about, Mr.Fancypants! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

You said you need someone else - which is not always the case...
There is something to be said for going in and getting the archive hardware yourself and then taking time to crack it at your leisure. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)