I understand all about that. However, my point was: if this is possible, why can't everyone (runners, corps) create this double "death" encryption. As soon as you have something like this show up, it begs the question: why doesn't every corp put this encryption on their secure files?

Point. And whatever ist possible or not in Reality: SR4-rules tell me, that in that in SR cracking a code is a question of seconds. It's not good if rules tell something this way and some month later adventures tell it that way.

Gr
Mibo

mdynna: Isn't that called adata bomb?

Mibo: rules can't cover every eventuality. Standard encryption can be beaten in moments, but there is always soemthing outside the realms of the base rules. otherwise there wouldn't be sourcebooks.

Example: vehicle armor deflects attacks without a high enough DV. In a future product, Dikote gets reintroduced, and its rules allow it to bypass vehicle armor's hardening effect. Is that a bad thing? Remember, in SR terms, Dikote is pre-existing technology not covered in the base rules, and it has a history of being able to penetrate vehicular armor.

mdynna and Mibo make good points. And now that I think about it, my players will make the same exact argument.

How about this: Say the encryption can't be copied until it's cracked, and since we've already determined that it's it's uncrackable (or, at the very least, destroys itself once cracked) there is no way of effectively copying it. Unless the runners somehow find the proper key.

But that doesn't mean that creative runners and corps can't do the same thing. Considering how dangerous "proper authorization or your files are destroyed" kind of encryption is, you wouldn't want to put it on all sensitive files, just the REALLY sensitive ones. Imagine the kind of damage one forgetful secretery could unintentionally wreak on a corp that used that kind of security on all of it's private files.

I can't begin to count how many times I've seen (and even done) the "I mistyped my password now my account is locked out" thing. If instead of ebing locked out instead al work for the last three days was lost, corporations would grind to a halt.

Maybe I/we should take a step back for a moment. Guye, what was your original intention for the "uber-encryption": why was the disc encrypted in the first place? Was it to "nudge" the PC's into investigating the origin of the disc? If so, then there must be another way to get them going in that direction.

Mibo's idea about the missing SIM track is a great one, I think, as it will get even the "pure professional" Shadowrunners off in the proper direction.

So, basically, OTR encourages the runners to hunt down the johnson and get both disks (data & key)? Sweet.

I think a better angle than the "super-encryption" would be the "super-old". Say the disc's SIM tracks are encoded using a very old technique that only works with these really old discs. Not only do the PCs need an ancient reader, but they need an ancient reader configured with the right "code" to unlock the SIM tracks.

When I read the summary/synopsis, I really liked the idea of the disc being an "ancient" piece of tech. After reading through the adventure, however, I don't think the fact that it is a super old disc really comes into play as much as it could.

The adventure doesn't say the encryption is unbreakable, it says if it's broken the data integrity is put in jeapordy.

Right. It says that there is a two layer encryption and the only possibility to get the data is finding the code. That's what I call "unbreakable encryption".

Gr
Mibo

I've been running On The Run as my first crack at running SR4 and my players first time playing it, though we are all old hands at SR3. I thought I'd give my impressions so far, spoilers throughout.

First, the team:
Arianna - Cat Shaman, spirit focused, a few manipulation spells, no combat spells
Tony - Troll Urban Brawl hopeful, close to the Enforcer archetype
Digg - Exact copy of the Drone Rigger archetype

We just finished the big combat in the junkyard. I was suprised at how effective the drones were, in particular the Dobermans. The number of autosofts they come with seems to make them quite a good package deal.

The bigest problem the players have had so far was getting started traking down the seller. "We're supposed to be finding someone trying to sell an old music disc somewhere in Seattle, but we don't get to know what was on it or search where it was stolen from for clues? That's awfuly vague..."

Wow, constant perception checks. Serously, I don't think there has been a single scene where there hasn't been at least two of them, per character. It doesn't help that the PCs aren't very good at them.

I'm fairly certain that the PCs are going to take the uber professional route and simply deliver the disc without investigating it at all, so I will be taking the earlier advice on this thread and having the J delay the second meetup by a day.

All of the extra advice on running SR4 is nice. I'm looking forward to the GMs screen because of this.

My BIG complaint is that the PDF seems to be impossible to print. I've had no problem printing other PDFs here, including the SR4 BBB, but everytime I try to print this one it ends up spooling into a several hundred MB file to be sent to the printer and overloading the printer's memory.

My group also had no idea how to get started until one of the guys decided to pay his fixer to set him up as an "old music collector" then track the email he got.

I didn't have any trouble printing it, how old is your printer?

Rather new. I've been trying to print it at work, on either the HP Laserjet 8000 or the Laserjet 8500. I've noticed that the document size in the printer spool grows to almost 1GB.

Agreed on the initial vagueness of the run. The SR rookies that I am running the adventure for spent the first forty-five minutes of the session trying to track down where Darius St. George lives. All because one of them said, "Maybe the disk was stolen from his house and the employer part is just a cover. We should investigate his house..."

After de-railing all of their investigation attempts for awhile ("You can't find anything about that..." "You find way too much data about that...") I finally had them make a Memory Test (don't you love the Memory Test? It's got GM gives you a clue written all over it) and pointed out the things they should have been focusing on: 1) Music, 2) Old, 3) Someone trying to sell

After that things started going smoother. They came up with starting a riot at the concert all on their own!

What he said. I've got a moderately new home laser printer and never had problems. There's also a setting somethere in acrobat that makes it print one page at a time, for a total of 72,000 hours of print time, but I've never tracked it down, just gotten lucky enough to never have it happen at home.

So far, I like what I've read. I either ran One Stage Before, or was setting up to run it (I don't remember which!), when my SR game died years ago, so I dig the nostalgia factor.

I plan on running it in a few sessions.

My .0002¥ on the encryption deal: Decryption is too easy in SR4. There should be variable levels of encryption, that take different amounts of time to decrypt. Real-time data (e.g., communications & similar transmissions) would be encrypted using technologies that take mere seconds to decrypt (i.e., using the current rules); files and other things that don't care if the encryption process takes an extra dozen seconds (or whatever) could have an interval measurable in hours or days.

Then, the MacGuffin in On the Run could be encrypted with some unbreakable SOTA (at least, 20-odd years ago) method, that might take a modern hacker a few days to decrypt. The PCs, of course, won't have that much time, so the encryption is effectively proof against them (assuming they don't save a copy for later; for that, you have to go back to the data bomb, and/or rely on it no longer being timely).

My team asked some orks they were staying with in a nearby safehouse who the opening band for the Nabo concert would be... I whipped out some name thinking, of course there would be an opening band...the next thing I know they are tracking them down at their practice space to knock them out and pose as them to get into the concert.

Well, since this thread has returned from the dead, I may as well shill for myself.

Ouch, that some hard critique! And it makes me glad I've never bought a PDF book. If only Illegal PDFs were that hard to print, we'd avoid all that piracy

I must say, I disagree with some parts. YES, the initial mission is too vague and requires the GM to convince the players that this mission is not a needle in a haystack. Myself, I told them when they objected, that this disk was one a format so rare that just finding ANY disk of this type would give it a good chance it was the right one, and that one such disk put out in the music industry would guarantee it was the right one.

And yes, I'm also afraid my players will act too professional and simply deliver the disk once they find it. I'll have to use the Mr. Johnson stalling tactic, and hint to them that he won't be pleased if it is a fake - they better check it out.

As for the unbreakable code, well the SR system was flawed to begin with and this actually makes more sense to me than the BBB. Thankfully our hacker is only mediocre (7 dice in most hacking/computer programs), so he'll buy that the second encryption will take a long time to do without ruining the material, and will take programs and equipment he doesen't have.
I'll probably use plot devices like this alot in my game as well, for instance trying to hack Zurich-Orbital will be impossible for my group as it is guarded with unhackable systems and unbreakable encryption too.

The more low-key installations they'll be B&E-ing they'll be able to hack as normal though.

However despite these flaws, I think the plot is kinda cool, and I don't mind the "elvis" vampire at all - at least he won't interact directly with the party.

And that the original employer is hidden is fun too, so I hope they make more of these modules.

We haven't played the bar-to-bar action yet, and no combat, but I shouldn't think it will be boring... and we've already ran some fights in this system so I think we'll be prepared... it can get bogged down if you're not very structured.

All in all, it seems like it could be alot of fun.

Hmm, seems like I'll have to bite my words - just ran the adventure and the players were professionals - they sold the disk asap without investigating it (basically the only techie in the party said they couldn't read it).

Still, it was a good way of finishing the game and we had great fun doing it. Gaming time is about quality, not quantity.

I didn't like how omnipotent the Johnson was. He knows you made copies if you sell to a private buyer, he knows you screwed up if you sell to the vampires, and he knows if you tried playing the field. How? If you sold a copy to a very private buyer without alerting anyone else, how does the Johnson just "know"?

I actually liked Cain's review. It was kinda corny about the "Elvis" vampire and just to introduce new SR4 players to a vampire conspiracy after so much publicity about SR4 and NewWOD similarities didn't really jive well with me. I liked the rules notes and extras but the layout was pretty bad.

I second (or third, or whatever) the notion about needing really curious or anarchist style players. It doesn't make sense to be considering yourself professional and then snoop around to much. That gets you killed fast in the shadows.

I agree with WhiskeyMac the only way the Johnson would know that there were other copies of the disc made is if someone else started publishing the songs.
Same can be said for the other party.

I got the players to investigate the disc by not mentioning that it was a rare, and letting them believe that it was a short-lived popular medium gone the way of the 8-track tape. So they had to check it out to ensure that it was legit or risk pissing off the Johnson.

As far as the unbreakable code went, well that had to change. I played as the disc in question only had half the information (tracks) needed for a good playback and had to be combined with information (tracks) from a second disc.

After editing some of the equipment to match the skills the opponents had things seemed to be back on track.

After reading several moduals put out by people for various games, I proof-read the moduals looking for flaws and so I can get a feel for how the flow should go. As far as errors go this one was not nearly as bad as others I have read.
Although, I agree that On the Run is not as good as an introductory adventure as First Run was.