[X] My Assistant

[Jaid]

Did they fix the wireless nonsense? I mean honestly that is the one thing that bugs the crap out of me.

no. that doesn't make the game unplayable, just dumb, so i presume they're not allowed to fix it.

they're also allowed to make changes that come up as a result of missions often being played with different groups every work, so for example a whole bunch of qualities (positive and negative) are not allowed in missions play.

but just as an example... in missions play you cannot spend edge on a quickened spell (which would allow you to spend 1 karma for a force 1 spell but get the benefit of the quickened spell at several hits because spending karma allows you to exceed the limit of the force rating). that isn't an official errata, but it's probably something you'd want to consider for your own games (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[JanessaVR]

Did they fix the wireless nonsense? I mean honestly that is the one thing that bugs the crap out of me.

Of course they didn't - this is why you stick with 4e and cherry-pick a few things here and there from 5e. Magical wireless bonuses are the stupidest thing in all 5e, I swear.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

no. that doesn't make the game unplayable, just dumb, so i presume they're not allowed to fix it.

they're also allowed to make changes that come up as a result of missions often being played with different groups every work, so for example a whole bunch of qualities (positive and negative) are not allowed in missions play.

but just as an example... in missions play you cannot spend edge on a quickened spell (which would allow you to spend 1 karma for a force 1 spell but get the benefit of the quickened spell at several hits because spending karma allows you to exceed the limit of the force rating). that isn't an official errata, but it's probably something you'd want to consider for your own games (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Force 1 Quickened spells are way too easy to dispell... and are stupid susceptible to wards...
Force 8 Quickened Spells on the other hand... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Jaid]

Force 1 Quickened spells are way too easy to dispell... and are stupid susceptible to wards...
Force 8 Quickened Spells on the other hand... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

*shrug* it's still prone to a lot of abuse. if you don't like the risk of force 1 (though dispelling attempts shouldn't be all that common, and there are ways to get a spell through a ward), try casting a spell until you get 10 hits on a slightly higher force spell, and then quicken.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Quickening is prone to a LOT of potential abuse, yes... But Having seen high leve/prolific Quickening going on in our campaign, it also has plenty of drawbacks...

[Sturmlied]

You all realize that the Matrix has never been a realistic simulation of computer networking, right?

The core fundamental concepts for the Matrix came from William Gipson's Neuromancer.

Why on earth would you want it to be realistic anyway? It's not fun or very playable to read through lines of code looking for a place where you can cause a stackover flow so you can start reallocating bytes of data to access the data you actually want. Likewise with real network security it doesn't take minutes or hours to do a hack, but months or years to find vulnerabilities in a system, which is unplayable in the scales that Shadowruns happen.

It's easy to criticize CGL, but the real difference between a hyper abstracted game system that represents hacking, and that of a realistic simulation of hacking; is basically playability.

You guys will either create a system that betrays the core concepts of the Matrix, or you'll just make something insanely unfun. A mystical magical Matrix is the right move, because there is no reason that a fantasy computer network in 60-ish years from now should be anything like what we currently have.

I am aware of that and this is not the issue I have... there are "sacrifices" to realism that have to be made for play ability and that is ok. But throwing logic and realism out of the window and drowning it afterwards is my issue and I think that is what the 5e Matrix is.

There is in my opinion no problem with abstract representations of hacking and computers.

The Matrix in Neuromancer is still based on technological constructs and had in the confines of his fictional universe an inherent logic.
The Matrix in Shadowun 5e is a construct based on unicorn farts, fairy dust and the dreams and wishes of little children as far as we know and it sprang up basically over night with not one person understand why and how and everyone went "*shrug*That will work!"

The Matrix being mystical doesn't mean magical. It means that its so complex that it's incomprehensible. Once again, this is a post singularity world. People don't need to understand how the under lying system works, but how to use the 3D abstractions to make it do what they want.

I pull a level and a secret door opens works both in a mansion in meat world and a host system in the Matrix.

This is a world where a computer virus destroyed the internet in 2029, and cyber commandos fought it in virtual reality across the entire internet. This is a world where the Matrix somehow became self aware and started to rewire children's brains to interface with the Matrix. This is a world where an elf decker fell in love with an advance computer program and gave it sentience. None of that can be done realistically.

I have to disagree on your statement that people don't need to understand how the underlying systems work. Like I mentioned a few times before... most people don't need to know how that stuff works yes... that is even true today.
But the Matrix was build by human hands, engineers and scientists created it... and yes even these people don't need to know every detail individually. BUT! Their combined knowledge amounts to knowing to the smallest detail on how the matrix works... at least it should... because this is how technology works.

Now in a true post Singularity world technology would not be build by humans and things are different and you could argue that Deus was the Singularity moment. But then my other argument from above comes into play... why would the corporations so easily put the fate of the world into the hands of super intelligence after the experiences with Deus, two devastating crashes and at the same time another technology doing the body snatcher thing?

Corporate greed and stupidity have their limits when it comes to maintaining their wealth and power... and the matrix is the key to this and even to a point human existence itself with everything from food production, power, transportation, financial system, military weapons and almost everything else depending on it.

If we accept that the 5e Matrix is the direct product of the technological singularity than it is potentially the biggest thread to human existence that ever existed.

Edit:

I want to add something about abstraction and computers...

Even today in our world we work with huge level of abstraction when it comes to computers. Any code programmers write is a simplified representation of how the processor works. Even the processor is an abstraction because it is (oversimplified) just a collection of logic gates.
The graphical interface we use is another level of abstraction.

The more complex computer systems will get the more we will need to reinvent the way to use them. In this regard Gipson's Matrix makes sense.

Edit 2:

We like to think we made such great strides in computer technology in the last 60-70 years... but if you really look at it the big stride was miniaturization, allowing us to pack more logic gates, more memory into smaller spaces.
Since the invention of the first integrated circuit in 1958 that is all we basically did. The technology did not change, it just got smaller.

And here I lost my train of thought... pls forgive me as I am on some pretty heavy pain meds right now... or simplified... I am high as a kite! I was planning on making a point with these two edits I swear!

[DeathStrobe]

Literally, the Crash of 2029 is the Singularity moment. And you know what the corps did? They modeled Black IC after it. A virus so powerful it broke the entire Internet, and they then start using it to secure their black sites.

Corporations have insane levels of hubris. It's a tried and true cliché in the cyberpunk setting. An example in other media, in the Alien franchise, Weyland-Yutani Corporation constantly thinks they can control the Xenomorphs. It always turns out bad. Why would they invest untold amounts of wealth and constantly sacrifice colony after colony on trying to control Aliens? It's the same reason Ares plays with bugs. It's the same reason MCT plays with Dissonance TMs. Everyone thinks they're different and thinks they'll do it better and have all the problems figured out and it always bites them in the ass because when mega corp play with fire, it means it'll make a damn interesting run.

[JanessaVR]

Literally, the Crash of 2029 is the Singularity moment. And you know what the corps did? They modeled Black IC after it. A virus so powerful it broke the entire Internet, and they then start using it to secure their black sites.

Corporations have insane levels of hubris. It's a tried and true cliché in the cyberpunk setting. An example in other media, in the Alien franchise, Weyland-Yutani Corporation constantly thinks they can control the Xenomorphs. It always turns out bad. Why would they invest untold amounts of wealth and constantly sacrifice colony after colony on trying to control Aliens? It's the same reason Ares plays with bugs. It's the same reason MCT plays with Dissonance TMs. Everyone thinks they're different and thinks they'll do it better and have all the problems figured out and it always bites them in the ass because when mega corp play with fire, it means it'll make a damn interesting run.

With Weyland-Yutani, I chalk a lot of that up to bad writing, and writers who have a Let's Stick It to The Man! ™ agenda.

After all, why send a dedicated team of xenologists to pick up your fancy new alien specimen when you can co-opt a small ship of space truckers, who have absolutely no experience or training with what you want them to do (and no xenobiology specimen facilities), and trick them into doing it instead? It has a way smaller chance of success, but hey, it's way more evil, so let's do that! Damn the cost, I say! And who cares if the whole affair is a colossal failure?

And who cares if you lose an entire colony of your personnel, and a highly-expensive atmosphere processor, and an entire squad of Marines (which absolutely will trigger an official military inquiry into the situation), when you can once again send in completely unqualified people to clumsily attempt to grab the same alien specimen you tried to obtain before (that hasn't gone anywhere but that you've conveniently forgotten about for last 50 years)? Again, way more evil, and no opportunity to engage in evil, no matter how much it costs the corporation, must ever be passed up.

Weyland-Yutani's behavior can only be adequately explained if every single person in the corporation with decision-making authority is continually smoking huge amounts of crack and cares absolutely nothing about making a profit or avoiding costly losses of money, facilities, equipment, and personnel. I've worked with far too many people in the corporate sector who have a balance sheet in place of a soul, and none of them behave like that. Ever.

And some Shadowrun corporations aren't far behind that, in the hands of some writers.

[KCKitsune]

Weyland-Yutani's behavior can only be adequately explained if every single person in the corporation with decision-making authority is continually smoking huge amounts of crack and cares absolutely nothing about making a profit or avoiding costly losses of money, facilities, equipment, and personnel. I've worked with far too many people in the corporate sector who have a balance sheet in place of a soul, and none of them behave like that. Ever.

And some Shadowrun corporations aren't far behind that, in the hands of some writers.

Part of that is needed to give the characters a reason to go shoot of the other company's people in the face.

With that said, companies are almost ALWAYS portrayed negatively in Hollyweird. If they're mentioned they're always the bad guy, and their only reason for existing is to show that Capitalism is bad, horrible, and icky. Besides, it's SOOOOO much easier to make the company the bad guy because they have all the money and jealously is easy to invoke.

[lokii]

Literally, the Crash of 2029 is the Singularity moment. And you know what the corps did? They modeled Black IC after it. A virus so powerful it broke the entire Internet, and they then start using it to secure their black sites.

I wouldn't consider the 2029 crash a singularity, not even an aborted one. I don't think there is any actual claim that the crash entity was a superintelligence experiencing exponential growth of its faculties. It was mainly good at destroying things. And while I feel there is a rumour that the entity could be lurking out there in the matrix, a connection to, for example, the Deep Resonance was never made. So maybe the virus was a form of early artificial intelligence, but as the emergence of AI in the early 2050s shows even that doesn't trigger a direct pathway to a singularity moment: Morgan was fooling around with Dodger rather than reaching to unknown horizons. And metahumanity was always chasing AI rather than productively using it to trigger rapid technological development (there is kinda the exception of nanotechnology, though that proved to be another research field rather than a stepping stone to greater things). The crash of 2064 was an aborted singularity moment. But after the singularity didn't happen, history repeats itself: A few years later the matrix is swarming with AIs (digital intelligence) and there is still no indication for a true acceleration of technological growth, instead nanotechnology now had to even be abandoned because of a type of intelligent agent.

To the Black ICE comparison: I think there is a big difference between reusing a mechanism like lethal neural feedback induction learned from an emergent intelligence and using an emergent intelligence as a black box to run your whole network.

[DeathStrobe]

Did you forget about Psychotrope? Mirage is an AI. Mirage can rewire metahumans to become Otaku. Mirage was active in 2029.

[binarywraith]

Did you forget about Psychotrope? Mirage is an AI. Mirage can rewire metahumans to become Otaku. Mirage was active in 2029.

I didn't forget. The writers, on the other hand...

[lokii]

Did you forget about Psychotrope? Mirage is an AI. Mirage can rewire metahumans to become Otaku. Mirage was active in 2029.

Whew! For a second there, I thought I had. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Mirage was "born" at the end of the Fuchi Civil War, so the late 2050s. The dissolution of Fuchi triggered the events described in the novel Psychotrope or rather the retconned version of these events. This process created Mirage. Its core software, a highly sophisticated anti-virus program used against the crash entity, was indeed active since the first crash, but all these years the x-factor was missing.

The distinction of being the first AI goes to either Morgan or the Deep Resonance, if it is one. Un-retconned Psychotrope actually explained the Deep Resonance, but if I'm not mistaken it didn't achieve awareness in 2029 but later. I would have to read up on it. Anyway as I said that whole portion of the novel was retconned.


Update: Had a look into the book. Psychotrope p. 186:

We now believe that the knowbots that served as Psychotrope's delivery system achieved connectivity, some time in the mid-2040s. Somehow, Psychotrope became a single, self-aware program capable of self-programming in response to new data. [...] By all definitions, Psychotrope had become a true AI.

So even without the retcon version the first crash shouldn't be considered a point of singularity at least not because AI first emerged there. Though if you ask me evidently, since after 2029 for years "nothing" happened. A technological singularity means that you don't have to go further in time to go up on the scale of technological development. "Everything" happens at this point.


By the way to add to the overall discussion, on the same page is this:

In 2047, Psychotrope disappeared from the Matrix. We believe that it retreated into a host of its own creation--a virtual "pocket universe." A sanctuary that we could not locate.

[Sengir]

But the Matrix was build by human hands, engineers and scientists created it... and yes even these people don't need to know every detail individually. BUT! Their combined knowledge amounts to knowing to the smallest detail on how the matrix works... at least it should... because this is how technology works.

The role of carbon in steel was only discovered by Reaumur in the 18th century, and a detailed analysis of the various phase states and their transitions came even later. But the fact that blades can be hardened and by heating and quenching was already discovered in the iron age, or course burdened with various anecdotal and mythical procedures. Firearms were developed and improved for centuries by people who explained oxidation by some combination of the four elements or phlogiston. And wireless communications were in use when the idea of luminous aether was still given serious consideration.

[DeathStrobe]

While Mirage didn't achieve self-awareness until...later. I'd say code that can self-regulate and self-code itself is what I'm talking about. Anyway, the point is that code has been writing itself and rewriting itself since 2029 at the least, if not earlier. So the modern Matrix being so complex that no one understands how it works is extremely probable. Is the Crash of 2029 THE Singularity moment...I'd argue yes, but even if it's not; code complexity is exponential once code is self-optimizing.

[lokii]

While Mirage didn't achieve self-awareness until...later. I'd say code that can self-regulate and self-code itself is what I'm talking about. Anyway, the point is that code has been writing itself and rewriting itself since 2029 at the least, if not earlier.

In the retconned version Mirage was more of a proto-SK. Less emphasis on the self-coding, so they downgraded that too.

Is the Crash of 2029 THE Singularity moment...I'd argue yes

Just to note, we're not argueing over a solid theory of technological development. But if anything the singularity is a point in time when the curve charting this development approaches infinity. Self-modifying code (which exists) is not enough, self-modifying intelligence is posited as the key innovation.

But a lot of hidden things happened in the Shadowrun matrix, so I go with another counter argument: From the perspective of metahumanity 2029 marks a loss of knowledge rather than a rapid increase. I think you have to at least feel the singularity for it to actually be one. A superintelligence dominating the matrix in secret without really doing anything with it, is fine I guess. It's one of the options to explain the Deep Resonance, but I would argue that's just not a singularity.

So the modern Matrix being so complex that no one understands how it works is extremely probable.

The problem is we are not talking about a fifty year development. The revelation not even GOD knows how the new matrix works, implies that while the matrix was of course complex as a system the underlying technological basis and the implementation was well-understood. I certainly never got the impression that wasn't the case. Metahumanity is flying blind for four years now, not fifty.


Also a description of "pocket universes" from Virtual Realities 2.0 p. 141:

More powerful AIs might possess the ability to weave together wasted memory, dataspace, and distributed processing power on scores of hosts into virtual "pocket universes" in cyberspace--ultraviolet systems independent of any single host, systems that are everywhere and nowhere.

Sounds like the Foundation actually.

[Jack_Spade]

The greatest problem of the new matrix concept is that it relies basically on faster than light information propagation. There is no other explanation why you can talk in real time, without delay to someone you are sharing a host with even if he is inside Zurich Orbital at the other side of the world. Not to mention the fact that you are in essence routing all this across millions of devices.

You basically need something either a magic component to break the laws of physics or there are some new as of yet unexplored physics at work.

Taking the matrix away from physical servers was imho the greatest mistake in all this.

[binarywraith]

You could have stopped at 'Devices do not require being in mutual signal range of a Host'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[KCKitsune]

You could have stopped at 'Devices do not require being in mutual signal range of a Host'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

That's another thing I miss from SR 4. Each Commlink had a signal range. Now if you're somewhere like the Australian Outback, you still have a connection to the Matrix. Massive stupidity.

[Sengir]

Also a description of "pocket universes" from Virtual Realities 2.0 p. 141:
Sounds like the Foundation actually.

Hmm, very interesting find

@Jack: You could always rig a drone from the other side of the world without problems. And IMHO that's better than rules for latency, keeping track of storage and bandwidth was bad enough (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)