Seems 99% of my hacking runs end in a stream of a dozen or so dicerolls. No fluff, no description. BORING. Combat is fairly exciting: Players and Baddies using the environment, cover, yelling orders at one another, blood pumping... So, I searched for information on sculpted systems here on DS...

Matrix Fluff thread

1. What's stopping me from describing the entire sculpted setting and my hacker/decker just looking at me with dumb eyes, "Uhh... I use Program X to accomplish Y, what's my threshold?", "Uhhhh... I use Browse to look for the file I'm looking for."

2. Maybe Kyoto Kid can swing by and share more of the sculpted systems mentioned? (Same goes to you, so-called community.)

The problem is if it doesn't engage the player, there's little that you can do to change that. I have a similiar problem with my player who's running a Technomancer. He just couldn't let his mind get around the scuplted out settings of the Matrix, he didn't get that he could look like anything on the Matrix and could change his icon easily. So basically I stopped trying to do it all at once and fed him a little at a time so he got used to it.

Instead I do it bit by bit. When he makes a sprite, I tell him what the sprite looks like, what its personality is like and the such. After that I let him make dice rolls. When he first comes to a node of a Talent Agency I tell him about how the whole thing looks like a Red Carpet banquet going in, with all the monitor programs viewed as pavaratzi. Then I let him roll dice for everything.

The trick was I started giving out "stunt dice" if he described actions out in the paradigm of the node or sprite he was working on. Little by little he wants to know more about his environment and about what is around him, because I've let him come to it rather than forcing it down his throat.

Well, Lone Star's Matrix Site is fairly well described in a few novels/sourcebooks (Adobe Fortress staffed by Western Cops and the rare Mountie). Datastores look like rooms with walls made of filing cabinets.

Seattle's Government Matrix Sites take the term "Emerald City" to a whole new meaning, and out-and-out rip-off "Wizard of Oz", and a lot of city affiliates also go along with that. (Example: A Legit NewsBlog would have what looks like a Stand carved out of Jade and have a Munchkin Agent running it.).

Most Minor Corps do the typical "Office Building" filled with hallways of infinite Offices, and generic Sariariman outfits for the drones, with Hackers looking like typical Security Personel with whatever flourishes they can get away with.

One of my story character's, Jon "Money" Johnson, his CommLink is set up to look like his family "Hunting Cabin" back home, with the IC being the stuffed Animals they have hunted over the years. (If you see the Flesh-Form Beetle start moving, you really screwed up, JACK OUT NOW!). So, if you can spare the Clockticks, even a CommLink can have a Sculpted Matrix.

As for el cheapo places like Non-Profits... Generic Matrix. Just like the Sega Genesis Game.

Well, he went through the trouble of drawing out of his persona and even describing his program actions, just never uses them in action. But the stunt dice idea is great... I wanted to import this from Exalted, but I guess I forgot. It's a GREAT idea, even moreso outside of combat situations (where I rarely run into this problem).

Or even cheaper... the Super Nintendo Game.

Yeah... Those places are still running DOS!

One excellent idea someone once mentionned on DSF long, long ago, is to give the hacker a bonus dice or two if he describes his actions in a "fluff" way, that meshes with the system's metaphor.

If you want to be espcially evil, you could substract a dice or two if he does not describe his actions as fluff.

"Evil" happens to be an integral part of my mindset. Noted.

I've GMed Deadlands and Demo Paranoia officially. Evil is my default setting.

Description of what they do in the Matrix it is!