...that doesn't mean there are rules for it.

Or, rather, there are, but not at character generation.

If this has already been raised, my apologies, I searched, but it's been a number of years since I've posted here, and my initial search turned up very little.

Basically, I am curious how you all handle multiple copies of the same program for starting characters. According to the rules (which I do not have in front of me) it is possible to crack copy-protection, but piracy is the rule, as most have been cracked. Moreover, our friendly BBB states that most hackers write their own code, which would certainly be copyable for the author.

Unfortunately, this seems to be an all-or-nothing situation. Either you have one copy, or you have infinity copies, which can be a problem once you are talking about Agents/Pilots/etc and drone riggers. The solution we came up with was to allow a starting character to have any program up to her software rating as open source (she either wrote it herself or cracked it) or allow her to pay double to have a program higher than her software skill open source.

Or maybe I'm overthinking this.

I never look at chargen resources as actual cash on hand being spent. they are resources spent, such as time, sweat, maybe a favor from a previous Johnson or Fixer, etc.

so then you would support what sort of rule for this situation? Pay double or triple or quadruple for programs to be open source? Just assume all starting programs are open source?

I agree that resources aren't at all a shopping spree, but we wanted a house rule I think that showed that a better programmer would have better programs. It doesn't make sense that a guy with software 5 and a guy with software 1 are going to spend the same amount of time, sweat, or favors to get the same program.

not that making sense and char gen rules have ever gone hand in hand.

I kinda said that programs had a hardware componit. They were embeaded system chips like todays flash memory. They have to run this way to run at the high speed of a cyberdeck and to give it the ability to be called up with out any load time. Would you like to wait .5 sec real time for your shield program.

I ruled that at character gen people had to buy their own programs. Then, once the game started, if a hacker wanted to try to crack their version of the software and pass it around, they were free to do so. However, failure to succeed in the extended test meant that they couldn't try again till their software skill went up with that program. Critical Glitch meant they corrupted their own program and would have to acquire a new one.

That works for me.

so the majority view (at this point) is that all programs at character creation are closed source?

My main problem with this is that it runs contrary to what the text tells us are the general rules of software acquisition for shadowrunners, although I agree that a literal reading of the rules would lead one to believe that Dashifen's interpretation is correct.

I think some sort of markup to get a cracked version (or sourcecode) would be fair. Otherwise the "assume everything is cracked" means that you can get 100 of everything for the same price as one of everything.

Maybe at cost is uncracked and you can try to crack it later with Dash's rules. costx2 is cracked meaning you can make copies. costx3 (or more?) means you have the actual source code and can upgrade the program rather than writing the new version at a higher rating from scratch.

Something to keep players from heavily abusing starting resources when it comes to programs (which are pretty much on every device).

For simplicity's sake, I just told everyone that ANY software they buy in chargen is already cracked. Now any software they buy after from a retail store is copy-protected, as well as other software in certain circumstances. Any software that hasn't been cracked I just tell them to precede the name of it on their charsheet with an asterisk, like "*Scan 6". I figure that their resources, stats, and backstory are all part of what they've already done. A hardcore hacker isn't going to start the game with uncracked software.

It hasn't proved gamebreaking yet, and I've already had one character sell copies of his software to another at a discount price. I love inter-player economics.

I rule that anybody who buys programs at chargen that she has the skills to crack are cracked. Any programs that are beyond her capabilities are not cracked.

And by abilities - I mean that you could just take the automatic successes and be done with it. So if the total dice pool integrated over the entire interval is four times the number of successes needed, it's cracked. Otherwise, it's not cracked.

-Frank

Eh, I'd just do it the way it was done in the 3rd Ed Matrix book: assume you have source/infinte copies of everything you paid full price for. Discount of 10-20% for object code on a chip for something equally restrictive. If a hacker wants to spend several days at the beginning of his career cracking his software that's fine; he'll be doing that instead of earning money and karma for those days so it balances anyway.