The cybereyes thing can be extended to trodes vs. datajacks and skinlinks as well.

Glasses, skinlinks and trodes supposedly have some disadvantage compared to cyber. They could fall off, get taken off you, get disrupted. But there's really no game system for any of that, so the cyber ends up sucking in comparison.

Would it be better to
a) remove the cyber, because it's outdated?
b) provide the cyber a bonus the external gear can't get (even in War5!)?
c) provide rules that implement the fluff problems of externals?

I think a) is a waste of good flavorful cyber. Option c) is annoying to implement (more rules, keeping track of little drawbacks). How to do B?

Bring back the D in DNI. Trodes are great for Joe Average, but the latency is too high for real-time applications on augmented humans. Without a DNI, an electronic device can only be used once (maybe twice?) per turn. You need DNI to overcome this restriction, and DNI is invasive. All cyberware comes with DNI. The only way to connect an external device through DNI is to use a datajack.

EDIT:

No War5. Ever.

So basically, just scrap trodes? I'm in favor.

You could limit trodes to cold sim and/or give implants a bonus (to Matrix Init, an extra Free action to control it, something).

I really prefer the "make cyber better" approach to "make other things more complicated", so giving datajacks the bonus would be nice. I was thinking about giving datajacks and invasive sim devices some built-in biofeedback filtering.

This. Because it also solves the "hack cyberware" issue. You can only do it if you can get close enough to stick your datacable into their neck (and I'm ok with that).

Agreed, Ascalaphus, though I'm open to a combination that includes a *small* amount of 'make other stuff worse'; limiting to cold sim seems fair and flavorful, just for example.

All cyberware already comes with DNI (if it needs/could use it, of course). Removing all non-jack DNI is possible. I'm not convinced it's a good idea, but we know it's possible (SR3). I think it would be interesting if you could still access safe chips and simsense without a jack, but hot sim, BTL, etc. would require it. Non-hot simsense that's still time-critical (specifically, smartlinks) would go back to the SR3 way (hard-wired is better, mere goggles is worse).

Limiting hot sim to implants. Or applying -1 IP (not less than zero) for trodes. Or non-implants are at -1 to all tests (initiative, matrix perception, cybercombat, etc0=.) compared to equivalent implants.

All examples that work on the idea that skull and skin are insulators.

Note the problem that must be considered: the technomancer.

What about him?

While technomancers are a problem unto themselves that need to be addressed... they really have no bearing in the trodes vs datajack balance, given they don't need anything to access VR. That's kind of the point of a technomancer.

That sounds reasonable.

Anyway, a new edition should contain a very clear diagram explaining exactly what devices need to be combined for sim. I keep forgetting if a sim module requires a datajack/trodes, or the other way around, or if either one suffices, and so forth. That needs to be streamlined.

Personally I think it should be commlinks come with a sim module by default. You only need to worry about the sim module if you want to mod it for hot sim. Hot Sim Module becomes a commlink modification, and the simsense accelerator just goes away (if you want the 4th pass in matrix, you get simsense booster cyber).

Then to access VR, all you need is the trodes/datajack. You can't use trodes with hotsim, and a datajack confers a +2 bonus to response (boosting initiative and a few other things) while in VR.

Agreed. The cold sim module is a negligible cost and a fundamental component.

Should there be a special, delicate, immobile version of trodes that works with hot sim/bonuses? You'd have to be calibrated in, and then you couldn't move from the chair.

I'd be concerned about the datajack directly affecting Response; it'd make the *computer* run faster, which doesn't make sense. I don't like 'spooky action' effects, I guess, so your datajack shouldn't make your node faster. Possibly let it directly affect just the things we'd want: Initiative, 'dodging', various Response-based Jumped-In rigger tests, and so on.

What about skinlink? Should it also be slower, should it be vulnerable to skinlink touch-hacking, should it be vulnerable to immersion/taser/etc., strong jamming? Does it cost too little? Should there be 'weak' and 'strong' versions of it (akin to Signal) for resisting any of these effects? Should we make explicit its exact range (through clothing, etc.)?

I guess that's fine. It just seemed easier to say +response than making a big long list of bonuses. It might contradict the fluff of what response is somewhat, but that doesn't mean that some fluff justification couldn't be used (say for example when you have a data jack, your commlink gets directed through your DNI, and gains extra response by using up some of the unused neural pathways in your brain as processing power. I think I saw some fluff to that effect in a set of house rules a while back)

I understand, but my thinking is that it's precisely the general bonuses that are open to munchkinry and cheese-stacking. That's the sort of thing that gives us cosmetic surgery that helps you resist Drain.

I'm leery about having rules/prices/availability for things like that that let the players have them, as it leads to "hacking at a safe distance" that I don't want.

Corp matrix security? Sure. But not for the players.

Why would Corp Matrix security not just use a datajack?

Why would runners not just use a datajack?

They would.


The point is if you make this stationary trode so expensive/hard to find/illegal, why would the corps waste money on them rather than just having their security force use datajacks? It just seems impractical.

Either such a thing exists relatively cheaply and easily, and everyone has them, or it's way more expensive than the logical alternative and the corp has no incentive to make them, and it doesn't exist. I'm in favor of just saying it doesn't exist. The slowdown factor of the trodes isn't the size/power of the trodes, it's the lack of a direct neural connection, and making the chair stationary or pumping more power into it won't make that any more direct.

Amen. Then you need something to make hacking faster in full VR than an AR. How about making all Matrix actions Simple while in full VR?

I don't like it. It feels like cheese waiting to happen.

To be honest I'm comfortable with the relatively simple things already proposed.

Coldsim gives +1 response.
Hotsim gives +2 response.

I raised the technomancer, and should have raised the rigger, not to solve them but to remind that they have to be kept in mind while this is discussed. VR matters, a lot, for both.

That could work. Alternatively, maybe reducing intervals for certain extended tests while in VR. Or one solution I remember seeing is limiting AR to 1 pass worth of matrix actions per round, if you have more meat passes that's great, but you have to use them in meat space. It leaves AR hacking fine for some actions, but for anything serious you want to be in VR.





On an unrelated note (once again, I know, I'm all over the place in this thread), it occurs to me that a major thing lacking for non-awakened characters is the lack of things they can get that awakened characters cannot. Awakened have the benefit of being able to do a cost:benefit analysis and either take the mundane way, or their magical way, depending on what's most efficient. This is what leads to a lot of the "magic is too strong" arguments, not necessarily that magic is crazy strong, but rather that magic gets the best of both worlds, cherry picking from Mundane toys that do things better than magic does.

So I was thinking, what if Genetech/Nanites could do nice things, and are getting nicer... but since they've come onto market, strange side effects have been noticed in magicians who use them. Genetech accidentally messes with parts of the genome that only screws with awakened, causing serious damage to them, or burning them out. Nanites cause magic interference, so while they have no essence cost, they are reducing magic significantly while active in the body. Things like that. Then you can put nice toys that are outside the reach of mages under these two categories, without disrupting continuity too much (bio/cyber continues to work with overlap as always).

I'm not sure what sorts of nice things would be appropriate for this technology to grant, but I'm sure we could come up with some interesting stuff.

*shrug* I just think a special super-trodes with plenty of drawbacks might be fun and useful. There's going to be hacking at a distance regardless of this. It has zero effect on that. All this would do is let someone cyber-averse pay their dues. It's not an important component of the world, I just thought it'd be fun.

Since we're speaking about Chrome and such....I've dug this out of a file I nabbed from the net a few years ago. Possabilites for New Gen Optics

Take a sheet of clear crystal. Each part of the ‘crystal’ (which isn’t actually a crystal at all) is a translucent hexagonal cell. This cell detects light at a specific wavelength. It doesn’t do anything fancy except generate electricity at when exposed to, say, wavelengths of 452.56 nm of the electromagnetic spectrum (that is to say blue-indigo). Every cell in that lattice generates electricity ONLY when exposed to that specific wavelength. Around the edge of each cell is a conductive material, insulated from each other cell, and all transmitting electricity to the edge of the lattice. This electrical energy can then be interpreted as intensity of colour and so give a picture.

What use is this though? We now have a nano-scale thin eye that can only see light at 452.56 nm.

Well… lets layer more lattices around this one. Each lattice is slightly out of synch, so that the visual sharpness increases. Let’s assume that each 0.01nm has 10 lattices associated with it.

We then build up these wafers. Every couple of layers the sensitivity changes by 0.01nm. Visible light is in the 400-700nm range. This means 30,000 layers, of 10 lattices each. That’s 300,000 lattices. With nano-scale engineering this could be a thickness of about 1cm!

There are 126 million photoreceptors in each human retina... If we assume that a lattice has 10,000 cells in it, then we now have a camera of 1 cubic centimeter with 3 billion photoreceptors! That gives us (assuming some degree of redundancy) 1000 times the visual acuity of the human eye!
An average adult eyeball has a diameter of 2.4-2.5cm. With our cube lodged at the back of an artificial eye, (assuming that 0.4-0.5cm is taken up with image processing machinery) that still gives us 1cm to put in a lens array to allow us to focus light, or even extra layers to allow us to see further than the normal human visual spectrum (or the lens could act to artificially shift electromagnetic radiation up & down the spectrum).
Naturally there is a need to introduce active image processing, otherwise we would flood the brain with raw data 1000 times greater than that it has evolved to cope with. The problem is no longer “how do we produce a better cybernetic eye?” but “how do we present the brain with this information?” is now the question.

Effectively this gives us massive image enhancement, and allows us to present the brain with an image which it can zoom into at up to 1000 times magnification. It allows processing software to look for things of interest and present them as separate images to the brain together with their position in the visual field (as a third mental visual field, not overlaid onto existing optical impulses).

Hmm... great for aspiring doctors or if you need to check your body for rogue nanotech. However, eyes are not that clean, so practically we are probably looking at a magification level of x750... which is still excellent imagery and more than suitable for astronomy!

Have you heard about the F-35 fighter jet, yet?
Not to bring politics into this, but people invest money in "impractical and expensive solutions" all the time. The F-35 is the fighter jet the Pentagon does not want, yet the House funded it anyway (again, and again, and again).

Actually, the navy and marines want it. The air force does not. There are reasons both political and practical on all sides of the subject.

That said, unless the 'stationary trode' offers at least the potential for something special I don't see much use in common development. A unique development by one corp as a particular executive's pet bennie, perhaps, but that's it.

However, we're looking at corps motivated by profit, rather than a governmental institution run by a bunch of buffoons who probably don't even realize what they're voting for half the time. The difference between a corporation and a government when it comes to how they handle money is pretty huge.

That said, I will concede if it is possible to make trodes that function as well as a datajack, regardless of how big and impractical they are, chances are they do exist somewhere, and are made by at least one corp and/or government despite the impracticality of it. I however would not expect them as a mainstay of corporate security, and I wouldn't even bother giving it stats, cost, or availability, simply make a brief mention of it and note that it is a novelty item most runners will never actually run into.

edit: double post

Okay. Again I shrug. Personally, I think an important problem with SR is the lack of competing alternatives in certain areas (only certain ones). People are pretty clever, and many people dislike cyber (even the minor datajack). I hardly see this causing a balance or gameplay issue. It's not important enough to get distracted about, of course. (As an aside, it's a huge mistake to pretend that corps aren't buffoon-filled political ecosystems!)

This would all be easier if you could make fine gradations like you can with a computer game but you are wrestling with conveying in a satisfying and simple way complex mathematic relationships with dice and brainpower.

I'll pick out 3 separate systems, three schools of thought really, on the whole skill issue.

Whitewolf. Vastly simplified rules compared to shadowrun. The focus is basically just story telling with a bare bones construct. The simplification and lack of focus on specifics would not really be satisfying for shadowrunners but it strikes me you could play shadowrun with this system and it would not really be out of place with the other whitewolf games. It would be fun but not the same.
It has been a while so I am fuzzy on it but I think skills are something like 1-5 and attributes 1-5 and that is mostly it, you roll some dice in there and that is it for everything. As simple as you can go. Simple everything.

D&D D20 style. You have high skills and high bonuses and there is a satisfying gradation of power but skills are simplified to flat bonuses. Skills being flat bonuses is not really such a bad idea it just would clash with the math shadowrun has so far. But shadowrun as a straight up d20 game would be so boring.

GURPS for elegance of little sheets of numbers, realism and being able to model anything in a mechanically satisfying way is truly something to admire. However it IS complicated, and a little confusing. Think of it as a clearer, slower, and more complicated shadow-run. But hey at least it is very clear and logical with the cost of everything determined by how useful it is to you. Skills I thought were very logical, the cost is determined by how much higher or lower it is from your attribute. So it is about as hard for a very stupid person to become ok at chess as it is for a very smart person to become excellent, being the same amount of effort. Much the same as reality I think. The downside is this is kind of hard to calculate. The old tradeoff of complexity and realism over simplicity so on.

And then there is shadowun, I really do like the diversity of characters that you can make while all characters still not being equally good (that would take the fun out of it). Shadowrun's methodology is to throw more dice at it. It is not a bad methodology really. Simple rules, plus a wide gradation of probability. The only problem is rolling all those dice, and the current rules are not that CLEAR.

Skill being one way or the other does not really mater to me. It is really just fluff that skill should be more important. I am all for changing it if it fixes some problem in the game. Figure out that and then try to model rules to that which meet your level of complexity.

So maybe come up with your 20 dice pool system and then at the end just find a way to proportionally scale it down. But of course the math is just one aspect of the game. You also need to think about all kinds of things like reward and pay out and randomness. You want the game to be fun/addicting. The most addicting behaviors have variable payout a variable amount of the time, like gambling. Well this game does have dice so you need to think of it like that. Character development is one of those pay offs.

It might not be too silly if things can give fractions of a bonus. Like 4.5 in guns because of some bonus from gear.

It's not that they don't want it, it is just that the F-4 phantom spoiled us and now for congress it has become the holy grail. Parts commonality will help the logistics though. But if they keep reducing the # purchased, the cost per plane will skyrocket like the F-22. The government contracting in the U.S. is broken. Much of the time the reason for something being done a certain way is to ensure that jobs are in a Reps district. Price, quality of construction (see the boondoggle that is the LCS), are of minor importance as long as it brings in money to the district.

I'm going to go ahead and say: We definitely don't want anything resembling d20 skills. The d20 skill system is seriously terrible, and I'd take an unmodified SR system before d20 any day of the week, twice on Sunday.

Someone else suggested something along the lines of White Wolf earlier in the thread (1-5 skill and 1-5 attribute), but personally I prefer dice pools a bit bigger than 10, at least for specialty areas. 15-20 gets you to the point where your dice pools are going to be close to the average frequently, but gives you some variability from that average.



I'm curious how you think a partial bonus would work though. I can't think of any way to give a partial bonus using the Shadowrun skill system that would make any sort of sense. If there's a viable way to make it happen, that would be a good way to reduce dice pool bloat from outside sources while still giving some variability(having them give partial modifiers rather than large modifiers), but I can't imagine any way that doesn't involve reworking the skill system to something else entirely, or revert back to variable TNs.

I like the SR4 mechanic. It's a little simpler (ideally) than SR3, without being a control-die system like D&D or EP. I like having hit thresholds instead of TN variation. I think SR4 could benefit from a little *more* threshold variation, instead of relying almost entirely on DP mods. Threshold variation significantly alters the chance/degree of success without majorly influencing glitches, and without wildly altering the DP. When modifiers can reduce DPs to 0, or make them much larger than their base (stat+skill), it really eats away the value of that base DP. We see this a lot in SR4A, I think.

Could a little decent Threshold variation, combined with toned down gear/misc. mods, help to make a simpler, more satisfying core mechanic? :/ This also ties in with my earlier comment that more explicit-defined bonuses (instead of '+1 to Cha', or '+1 to Cha-linked tests') could keep cheese under control.

I agree, that threshold variation is a good place to make modifications kick in. You could even argue for going a step further and making the set TN4, and make all tests threshold based. Even opposed tests would have a base threshold, though many might be 1, and successes from the opposition increases the threshold.

So like a straight up believable bluff might be threshold 1, but the target being wary might up that to 2 or 3, lack of supporting evidence might increase that further, and the lie being unlikely to outlandish might impose higher thresholds. Something really outlandish might be something that requires a threshold 10 test, even before the target rolls their judge intentions or whatever. It would be doable for someone with a really amazing con, with some supporting evidence to bring that threshold back down, but to the average joe they just can't pull it off. It also gives you two places where you can give modifications: To threshold and to dice pool.


edit: It is worth noting this is basically what Runner Smurf's firearm rules, linked earlier in the thread do for shooting things. I don't agree with his exact implementation, but the basic idea of shooting things being a threshold rather than a direct opposed test is there.

Yeah. It's functionally similar to adding/subtracting 3 DP, but I think it's really better in those cases where you'd have too few dice, or way too many. One issue it that it could be a problem when the Threshold is already 1 (any more bonus would be an auto-success); I'm open to the idea that this is not a problem, though, but a speedy feature. At the other end, it means that someone with a DP 6 *can* try a Threshold 5 or 6 action without resorting to Edge, whereas someone in SR4A might well have a DP 0 in that situation. It obviously depends, and I think there are certainly places for DP mods, but I think that relying *more* on Threshold mods would be a positive change.

I think a Threshold-and-smaller-DP-mods approach would also work nicely with a de-capped natural skill system. As was said above, let accelerating karma costs limit skills, not a 6/7/8 cap.

Yes, I definitely saw that Runner Smurf was doing this in his stuff. Bravo for the concept, but I haven't really read the implementation details either.

Well how high of a cost do you think karma has to get to before people say "Forget this, I'm going to raise something else instead"? Is it an absolute number (ie as long as I can raise this with one mission worth of karma Im going to keep raising it), or is it a factor of what you could get instead (ie I COULD go for Firearms 14, but I could instead with that karma increase 2-4 other lower skills by 1 each)? Personally I tend to feel the opportunity cost is where you draw the line (when one skill costs twice as much as another skill that I actually use, I'm most likely going to increase those other skills.), but I'm interested to hear how other people feel about it.

Because I realize that my personal philosophy of what I think a skill is worth is what led me to the multipage argument earlier about pricing skills. The way I see it is having that sudden jump up in skill cost makes you less likely to pursue that skill than raise another, unless you're really dedicated. Where other people seem to have a certain number where they set the threshold that makes them say "Woah that's too much" and would rather have the skill eventually hit that X number.





The other question is how do you actually feel about moving the target number? TN4 vs 5 has been brought up casually a few times, but never really confronted. Should Shadowrun move to TN4? That one decision makes a lot of difference in what threshold levels you deem acceptable.

With TN5, a dice pool that is realistically capped somewhere around 20-25 is getting about 7-8 max successes. This limits you to Threshold 8 as pretty much the upper bound of what an augmented human will be capable of accomplishing with anything resembling regularity. So you have thresholds that are probably usually going to be between 1 and 6, with 7 and 8 thresholds being exceptionally difficult, and anything above that generally considered impossible (though has been done from time to time)

With TN4, and the same dice pool, that upper bound of regularly hit thresholds increases by a full 50%, to Threshold12. It brings the variability in dice pool down, but the variability in thresholds up. The other benefit is lower skilled people may still accomplish basic tasks. When your lowerbound dice pool is 4-6, there's a fair chance of a crit glitch there. With a TN4, while the glitch possibility is still there, you are far less likely to have no successes at all, and can reliably succeed on threshold 1-2 tasks, something someone with a lower dice pool can't really say now.


Personally I like the granularity of TN4, but TN5 is the current standard, and it does work better for some situations. So this is something else I'd be interested in seeing discussed seriously.

Does a lower TN alter the probability distribution of the possible hit results of a test? Does it smoothen the bell-curve, or make it steeper? And is that good?

I think that's an important question to consider if you discuss TN change. How random do you want dice rolls to be?

(I'm not answering it because probability math isn't my strong point.)

TN4 is the smoothest possible, so luck would matter more.

Correct.

I'm okay with TN5, but I don't have strong feelings about it.

I p[refer TN 5 Perswonally. I like that it is not a given.

What do you mean by not a given?

A little more data on what the hit range would look like with a Target Number of 4. I'd like to do a comparison with a TN5, but my math skills break down.

Target Number 4: Percentage Chance of Success by Threshold.




It does show that a Dice pool of 12, and thus the best of the best, are significantly more capable than a dice pool of 6.

Edit. Misread.

So, is that good or bad? I'm serious: do you want a lot or just a bit of randomness?

I think TN4 is better because you should notice a difference in dice pools more than you do currently. While I think the 1-6 scale on skills is bad, it is even worse that the difference between a 1 skill guy and a 7 skill guy is only 2 hits. While it may end up only being 3 hits with TN4 there is a better chance or it it ending up being 4 or 5 hits in difference. And I think that is a good thing.

This pretty much sums my opinion up on it. I find TN4 preferable because it creates more variability from fewer dice. Not only does this help out in differentiating the big dice pools from the small ones, but also lets small dice pools still be able to accomplish -something-, it lowers the chance of critically glitching at a small dicepool a fair deal, which is good, and allows people to contribute to something even if they're not amazing at it.

TN 4 provides very good reliability. I can count on about 50% of the dice to come up good. And though you could say the same about TN 5 (at 33%), it is not always the case in Practice. I really hated the variable TN in Previous Editions of SR, even when it was to my benefit. I never feared being shot by any small arms, because I had enough Armor to reduce the TN to a 2 or 3 (for the Highest Firearms) and to a 2 for anything else. There was absolutely no doubt that I could soak snall arms fire, and so the character acted as such. Got real boring real quick. Now, move forward to SR4, when the TN Set at 5. Same Character now had to actually worry about things like Heavy Pistols and SMG/Assault Rifles (When he never did before), because it was no longer a certaintly that he would take no damage. The Lower the TN, the more certain you become of the outcome. If you have not guessed, I absolutely love the Static TN of 5 for that very reason. It brings in a bit of uncertainty.

I think a lot of people hate having that uncertainty, which leads to excessively high Dice Pools to compensate. The mentality that they just CANNOT FAIL because that would be bad hurts the actual immersion of the game, in my opinion.

I don't really care one way or the other if it's TN 4 or 5, as long as it's fixed. I think the only people who want variable TN are people who started before SR4 - I've never felt the need. Dice pool modifiers and various threshold provide enough diversity already.

Okay, I see where you're coming from. Personally, I get the opposite feeling. Rather than TN4 being "Cannot fail" I see TN5 as "Cannot succeed" in a scenario with low dice pools.


I definitely understand what you mean wrt SR3 having a tn2 on damage resist tests. I had a gnome mage with military grade armor and a high force armor spell who the party occasionally shot rockets at just to see if he'd take any damage or not. It got downright silly.

On the other hand, the TN is only one variable there. The other two variables are the number of soak dice, and the damage value of attacks. If damage is raised, or armor cut, you end up with roughly the same lethality as now (for better or for worse) despite the TN.



I point this out because a TN4 baseline does not automatically need to mean everything is easy. It just means either dicepools need to come down, or thresholds need to go up for more difficult things. Taking a point blank shot from a firearm and taking no damage I'd call a pretty difficult thing, and would need a higher threshold (damage) to resist. Say values stay the same and your average resist pool for a character is about 12. Right now that's on average 4 successes, so a gun will deal say 3+net successes damage. Switching to TN4, to keep the damage roughly the same, you want to up that damage by about 2, since you expect the average pool to resist 2 more successes.


To some degree, you're right though. I don't think highly skilled characters with high dice pools should fail at simple tasks. If someone with a legendary level skill and high attribute can flub a moderate threshold test frequently, what's the point of having all that skill and ability? Where the risk SHOULD come in is when attempting things that are appropriate to your level of skill. If you have a guy with maxed firearms/agility, hitting a guy behind partial cover 20 meters away should be easy. But hitting a guy moving erratically at your extreme range should be something you've got a 50/50 shot at. Meanwhile your more average guy with a decent augmented agility, but not hardcapped, and a moderate (say professional level) skill should be hitting that guy behind cover about 50/50, and be at closer to like a 10% chance for the shot that is hard for the legendary level guy.




I started before SR4, and hate variable TNs.