So, here's a thing. I have noticed that when I am posting to a forum (or sometimes chatting online, or even on the phone) I tend to google a bunch of stuff so that I can be sure of what I'm saying. Actually I've got fairly decent google-fu by now, so it makes me appear pretty knowledgeable sometimes. This reminds me a bit of Ghost in the Shell:SAC, the really talky parts of the series, where someone will allude to, say, Catcher in the Rye and everyone (after a millisecond pause) gets what they're saying because they looked it up on teh Intertoobz (and then of course they explain the reference, because they're the sort of people who do that, or maybe it's for the audience's benefit -- subtitles explaining things would be cooler, but I digress). Also I tend to forget a lot of that stuff, probably because I know I can spend all of five seconds looking it up again next time I need it.

Anyway, you see where this is going. With 24-hour broadband wireless connectivity in all civilized places, and nearly everyone expected to be online every waking moment with at least part of their attention, a lot of Knowledge skills seem like things you could substitute with Data Search. Like, I can't recall what igneous and sedimentary rock look like, but Google Images sure can. If I couldn't remember those terms, wikipedia could. Granted, wikipedia might be sometimes inaccurate (and plus maybe "open-source anything is illegal" like in NYC 2123), but there would be various online encyclopedias, search engines, tutorials and so on, supported by ads or subscriptions -- and subscriptions would probably fit into your lifestyle costs (or you blow past the barriers with your l33t w4r3z).

So I think hits from a Data Search + Browse test should be added to your dice pool for appropriate Knowledge skill tests. Making it an extended test could also work (particularly if the interval went something like 1 minute, 1 hour, 6 hours, one day ...)

Obviously things like Safehouse Locations and Secret Mafia Politics should be much harder to find than Geology, and Data Search takes longer than just remembering stuff. This can be crucial, as you may not want to have to read up on "SWAT Team Tactics" when there is an actual SWAT team surrounding your building.

Thoughts?

No, but if I Google around maybe I can come up with some.

GITS is totally like that! I always figured that they have some Rating 6 Knowsoft for Existential Quotes.

Seriously though, know that there is wireless matrix, if you need to diffuse a bomb and don't have the skill? DL it! Course you need skillwires to load the activesofts, but who doesn't get skillwires in SR4. There is also the possibility to allow an online subscription service that, for a monthly fee, allows you access to just about any knowsoft commonly available for 1k/month, or permanent download for half price. May have some balance issues, but since this would not have any illegal/criminal knowsoft, it shouldnt be too much of an issue.

I think it was explicitly stated at one point that The Major at any rate looked up some of those literary/philosophical references right away, over the net. I think skillwires are great, but it's odd that none of the sample characters have them. I had forgotten about knowsofts, though. That's great (expensive, though).

You have to remember that SR != GITS. After that we are left with adapting certain things to be similar. Sure you can look it up via a formal search, or you could just kind of "know" it but not have ever learned it. I personally love that about skillsofts. As for why none of the archetypes have skillwires: because the softs cost too much and they are too good for these street level characters (which most of the starting characters are).

I like the idea for instant Google-fication of information, but I've never gone with a character with skillsofts myself. Maybe it's just up to preference.

We did that in our last game during cinematic or downtime sequences when timing didn't matter. Worked out fairly well for getting the basics of what your character would need to know. Sure there were white papers you could look up to tell you exactly about something, too bad your character didn't have the knowledge to even understand wtf they were talking about though.

When our face goes to meets, as the Technomancer I'm usually patched into cyberears/cybereyes. And basically my job is to google-fu any thing that seems important. Running Hot-Sim, I usually do 3 Data-Search rolls for any important term that comes up. As soon as there's a pause or the face asks a question I supply him with my search results. Makes him seem much more knowledgable, and he has a better idea of what we're getting into with the job to bargain ahead of time.

GitS: ubiquitous wireless internet used near-constantly by the vast majority of people. Also essentialism vs existentialism and weird AI.

SR: ubiquitous wireless internet used near-constantly by the vast majority of people. Also magic and weird AI.

I'm not saying "it should work this way because Shirow has it happening", but that it makes sense for people to habitually use the available technology, like we do now.

Outsourcing your memory (for certain things anyway) to the internet is a logical extrapolation of how people act today, one that GitS has explored, or at least used as background. SR's exploration of how such technology would be used seems a bit less imaginative (text people! buy music online! but while you're at the music store) but there's plenty of room for people walking around while browsing google/wiki/chat rooms. Just trying to get an idea of how "powerful" to make it; I'm thinking of just rolling it into the +1-3 AR bonus.

EDIT: Nightwalker, I love it -- that's just what I'm talking about (except better, because you're working as a team).

See, now this becomes a game balance issue. If I can default to the Matrix for knowledge skills, why would I ever learn anything, or even spend money on buying Knowsofts? The point is that while you can easily do a datasearch on some topic, the massive amount of info that you will be required to dig through to comprehend it is amazing. Knowsofts interface with your memory (how, I dont know) and respond to the mental recall stimulus and provides the memories then. If you want to remember the quadratic formula, bam! you know it.

I'm not sure how long, if ever, it will be in the SR world for external memories and a mind "net". I guess one way to do what you are thinking of is just to have a host/node somewhere running all knowsofts at the same time, and you just log in/subscribe to it and as long as you are accessing it, you have all the knowsofts it has. This is possible with SR4's abstraction of bandwidth and storage, though purchasing all the softs can cause an issue.

I see it as a realistic application of technology in a setting; you're surrounded by readily accessible information, so why wouldn't you use it? Of course, you would. But why indeed would people learn things? Why do they learn things now, when they can google most information, or go to the library? Partly convenience, because right now most people don't have the ability to use the internet instantly wherever they are. Partly because we like learning about things that actually interest us. Partly we might look up something because we need to know it, and a bit of that info sticks with us. Maybe you learn about stuff as part of a job or hobby where you can't really be looking up stuff all the time and need to know what you're talking about. Maybe you aren't really that good at Data Search but enjoy reading.

Why might you buy a knowsoft? Probably because just sifting through the publicly available information, even with good Data Search skills and Browse programs, will only get you so far. To really know enough about futures trading(or premillenial dispensationalism, or Troll fetishism) to impersonate a futures trader (etc) would require a fair bit of depth that you wouldn't reliably get doing your own research. Probably you could make your own knowsoft, but at a cost (in terms of time and resources used) a good deal higher than what you'd pay if you bought it.

Another question becomes "if knowsofts are just software, why are they expensive"?

Why do people read what is in books? Seriously? That's obvious: we don't yet know what is in them. Sure someone does somewhere, but we are not that person.

Imagine a law library, full of millions of cases and millions of words. That is something that many, many lives and lifetimes are spent reading and comprehending. It is also constantly changing. New laws and precedents are being written and set every minute. I am not saying it is impossible to understand all of it, it just requires a lot of time. Being able to know all of this (up to a point) without having spent a single second studying/reading is fascinating! This is why there is not a whole lot for lot of higher education in SR. Corps find it cheaper to skillwire a guy and buy some chips than it is to train him. Think how much time you can save when you can buy knowledge. I think you should be happy with what is in the books. At least in SR4 you don't have to tally up and keep track of program memory.

Someone using knowsofts/skillsofts won't innovate (in terms of the skill), is really the problem. If you can save money on something by having it done by a doofus with a knowsoft, you can save even more by just having an expert system do it.

EDIT: As for what's in the books, that's pretty much just what I'm talking about. The BBB describes a society that uses the wireless matrix all the time. To ignore the likelihood that they'll be googling stuff GitS-style is as silly as saying that most people are going to physically walk over to a printer kiosk, have the newspaper faxed to them, and tear it off at the perforation.

I guess it really depends what you want and how much time (pause) you are willing to have in between. Sure, if someone quotes something, why not look it up on some online encyclopedia or literary archive. The issue is that you still have to search for it and read it. Unless you have an agent that is always running Browse and is programmed to listen to your conversation and get references to things you might not know. He posts links to encyclopedia articles, news feeds, cliff notes, etc. Sounds fairly reasonable. I wouldn't necessarily give more dice to a Logic/Intuition + Knowledge skill test. It is a data search test and if you want to get a certain kind of info, you should resolve it as that (and just that). Whether all your searches would after a time increase your knowledge on a certain subject is up to your GM.

I'll tell you this from the perspective of a science student. Just because you can look something up it doesn't mean that you don't need a knowledge skill for it. For example, I have access to all sorts of scientific journals and papers, but there is no way I can understand anything that is said in those without the requisite knowledge.

You can search up chemical compounds, but that doesn't mean you will know what they mean or do. You can wiki a type of metal like gold, but that gives you very basic knowledge of what gold is and what it can do.

The last street sam i built was around the concept of bodyguard. No over the top weapons. heaviest tihng was a HP. But I did grab two reference programs. Jane's Guide to Modern Weaponry and the Boy Scout's Handbook. My feeling was if I need to ID a weapon for capabilities, I can use a browse loaded agent to scan my view in the book and tell me the likely weapon I just saw and any pertinent information, such as a physical loaded chamber indicator (something I could see any weapon that doesn't come standard with a smartgun system as having) etc. and the Boy Scout Manual is just a great reference book to have at hand.

Yeah, the BS handbook is great when you need to tie a knot and forgot how.

True Believer, I know what you mean. The OP is more referring to general knowledge, like you can get on wiki. True scientific understanding is worked at for decades.

See the thing is, I am myself a science student (still, technically), and while I get what you're talking about, really a tremendous amount of what I do on a daily basis involves looking stuff up. Back in the old days Medline (the searchable index of biology and medicine journals) was on a couple of CDs in the library, and you had to go there in person or shell out serious moolah to have your own. Then it was accessible over the internet, but the internet was slow, for me with my cheap dialup connection. Plus usually you could only get the 1-2 paragraph abstract, not the 6-20 page paper that tells you how to do everything. And now, it's like there's a huge, huge repository of knowledge (and crap) out there and I actually have easy rapid access to a lot of it. It would be even better if I generally carried around a laptop with wifi, because sometimes an idea occurs to me and I need to look something up but can't. That's one of the things that I find exciting about the setting (yes, dragons are cute too).

You make a really good point about needing to know stuff to understand what you're reading, though -- I often forget that when talking to people without biology backgrounds. I'll be like "so the virus produces this one protein that" and they're like "wait, I thought protein was good" and then I'm like "okay we have to sit down now and I'm going to start drawing stuff" and they're like "yeah so my toast is burning and my mom is calling and I have to go to the bathroom. at the hospital. bye!"

I also think that I neglected the bit in the BBB where AR gives you a bonus to just about everything; this whole discussion could easily be balled into that.



Er? Of course it means that. I'll give you an example: last week I was listening to some MD/clinical type guys talking about the virus I work on and they were mentioning some drug. I didn't want to say "HAY GUYS WHATS THAT" but at the same time I really wanted to know. So I noted it down and then googled it afterwards (this is why I really would like a laptop that isn't a piece of junk, because then I could have looked it up right there, but whatever). So in seconds I saw articles on what it's used for, various mechanisms it's thought to work by, and most importantly the generic name, which I recognized because I have actually used it in experiments. If I'd been able to look it up I would probably have said something worthwhile (and probably if I had not gotten into the habit of letting myself forget stuff because "I can easily google it" I would have remembered the trade name, but I really don't think I would have gotten my doctorate without google and pubmed).

I actually consider Knowledge skill opportunities to often be like that, actually -- knowing a fact. Sometimes they're not, and they involve knowing a whole bunch of stuff and having a certain mindset that you only get after learning and thinking a lot about a certain thing, and for that Data Search might not be so helpful. But more and more people have written white papers and tutorials and just put them up on their lab's web page, often with well-written theoretical explanations and easy-to-follow protocols (though again, I tend to forget just how much background is involved in understanding those), and I can only see that becoming more prevalent unless the flow of information is severely restricted in 2070, which is not how the setting is described.

(Another thing is that I don't have a GM; I'm not currently involved in a game so basically I'm enjoying talking about the setting and rules. Kind of sad, maybe, but that's how it is. My friends who might be into it are mostly big GitS fans anyway so we'd probably assume a lot of similarity in those settings).

I over-simplified in order to make sure my point got across. Basically though, you and I agree. While the matrix will be a great boon to someone needing to know something or wanting to supplement their knowledge, it can't just replace knowledge in general. I think the bonus works best. It allows someone with 0 knowledge to glean some information and will even supplement someone with a lot of knowledge.

Yeah, sounds good. So to sum up how I think this can be handled:

1) A reasonable mechanic for adding Data Search to Knowledge Skills (or for when 2 distinct but complimentary skills can address a problem) is to make it a teamwork test. Or, to simplify, replace the Data Search + Browse roll with a 1-3 AR dice pool bonus (plus the "Reference Materials Available" bonus, if appropriate). Not game-breaking by any means, but reflective of how easy and fast it should be to find info in Shadowrun (as opposed to riding your horse for two weeks to find a Venerable Sage).

2) Datasofts are pretty cheap.

3) Knowledge skill rolls to know a discrete fact can benefit from, or be replaced by, a quick Data Search + Browse, while Knowledge skill rolls that require more in-depth understanding cannot be replaced (but should usually benefit from AR enhancements and reference materials).

EDIT: Also when I wrote earlier about how some of my friends and I "outsource our memories", I did not mean that in the much more literal sense it is used in GitS, just that we often don't bother committing worthwhile information to our own long-term memory because we can easily find it again, bookmark it, or write it down somewhere. It was probably a complaint of cultural conservatives when writing was invented that "nobody would bother to memorize sagas".

EDIT: Also, thanks for saying "Basically, you and I agree". There's just something about the internet that makes every discussion feel like an argument.

I was actually brain storming with a friend about cyber-punk setting a while back. The 20X6 versions of the UC system and American Madrasah played a central roll in the story. Once thing we how we handled the phenomenon you are talking about was that higher education became more about situating the individual in Knowledge rather than filling their head with knowledge.


Also I really don't like this idea that software skills somehow keep you from being able to improve. I really don't see how an activesoft wouldn't also function as an instruction program. From my martial arts training I know that when once I did something right the first time it became much much easier to do it again. Most people have no clue how much power is in there body. If you can hop up and down on one foot that means your calf alone can generate enough force to lift you some one of you weight off the ground. The body memory of directing that into a strike would be huge.
As for Knowsoft keeping you from innovating I really can't see this at all. I don't see how chipping a knowsoft and mulling over what you now know is qualitatively different that what people do today. If you chip Lab techniques as both a knowsoft and an activesoft who do yo see that limiting the experiments that you could design?

To sum up:

The book provides the 'AR' bonus to just about everything which pretty much covers even 'I know everything because I have Google'...


Skillwires are problematic from a design perspective, partly because they wind up with the same cap as normal skills, partly because interfacing them with learning/replacing the need to learn completely alters the landscape.


I think CP2020 did it right, both in capping the skills at competent but low, and explaining, in setting terms, why. This, however interfaces poorly with the simple fact that Shadowrun's Skillwires are much more 'complete' in that you literally CAN replace the need to ever learning a skill by simply wiring up to world class ability and slotting a high end chip. Congratulations: For far less money than studying for the rest of your life you are now able to compete with the best in the world on essentially even footing.

Active softs only go up to rating 4 (even though skill wires go to 5), don't let you specialize, and requires an add on to use edge. That's a heavy enough penalty I'm not sure you could call a chip head world class, but still as good a seasoned professional. Yeah I hear you that about them being a balance issue "seasoned professional" does take some individualism out of characters and/or quickly becomes what the character is about. Also any explanation for how they work is totally out of line with the rest of SR's tech level.

Spike, would you mind recapped the CP2020 fluff, I'm just curious?

Yeah, I think the way Skillsofts are presented in the RAW are a bit weird; I don't think it would mess up game balance to allow Skillsofts to also function as somewhat gimped Tutorsofts (you still have to spend Karma to improve skills). Similarly with Knowsofts -- my speculation that they'd inhibit innovative thought is based on the way they're described and on the fact that there should be some (mechanics) reason for people to actually go through the process of learning stuff rather than chipping it. I don't have the book handy, but if Knowsofts aren't capped at 4 maybe they should be?



Activesofts are capped at 4, aren't they? Admittedly, this is the equivalent of someone with several years of professional experience, but it's not "world class".

A though just occurred to me sim-sense education instruction could be used to justify the frightening rate that runners pick up skill. Buying a skill from 0-3 is common in a campaign that last a year or two of game time. And while a phenomenally gifted individual (like someone with a runner's attributes) could become a paramedic in 2 years, that would be 2 years of intensive training and education, not adventuring and reading up on medical techniques while you're hiding in a safe house letting the heat die down.
Yes this doesn't work for magic. But whatever it's magic. Also it doesn't work for people but without a DNI, but screw'em they can play Earthdawn

I really dislike the whole idea of Skillwires. I pretty much never use them for my characters (once back in SR1), as I just can't get past the cheese factor. I don't disallow them in my games or anything, but the temptation is always there.

They are cheesy. But then, they are really cyberpunk.