We have concealability rules for weapons. If you walk down the street with an auto shotgun under your duster and some-one picks that up, they're probably going to call the star. If you walk into a train station and the millimeter wave scanner in the gateway picks up cyberware that your SIN doesn't have a licence for? They're going to be on you.

But what about the team's hacker. His commlink is likely full of unlicensed hacking software, and he's exploiting systems and breaking the law all over the place. But the hacker rarely gets a "stop! Citizen!" unlike your more physically inclined runners.

Hackers can be very powerful, but I think what many GM's forget is that hacking is just like shadowrunning in that if you don't get it done quickly or quietly enough, the cops are going to get you. The more I thought about it, the cops can actually nab you in the matrix easier than they can in real life (exagguration, perhaps).

Lone Star have their own Gridsec division. So if jimmy in the park finds his favourite MCT Fly-Spy has been retasked and is doing something he's not telling it to, he's probably going to call the cops. And a Gridsec hacker can get right on that, at the speed of thought. And that's just if you do something suspicious. If you're flying through a public node or even chilling in VR, it's unlikely that some-one will spot your stealthed persona, but if some-one does, some-one might call Gridsec, and they'll come and have a look.

Personally, I don't think enough matrix perception tests are made. If you're probing a target, your persona has to be there in front of the node for some time. There's always a chance some-one might fly by and their analyze will tell them that the pair of scissors in your personas hands that are cutting into that node are not a friendly and legal pair of scissors.

Emergence has revealed how paranoid the sixth world are about the Matrix, especially post crash. The Strato-9s in the sky and the cameras and tracking systems in gridguide reveal the surveillance society runners live in. Why doesn't this seem to apply to the matrix?

Also, what are the rules for Gridsec/Other matrix security searching your commlink? Do they need to phone the station for a warrant? Can they just do random commlink searches for unlicenced software? Are there Lone Star agents just buzzing around the matrix analyzing for trouble?

And come to think of it, this applies to magic, too. How does a cop find out whether you have an unlicensed spell in your repertoire? Are known spells displayed on assensing tests? Are there watchers on every corner keeping an eye out for astral trouble?

Details details

I think that you make a good point about Grid Security. In a wireless world it would make more sense for more pseudolawenforcementservice to be conducted via matrix. It depends on how hard you want to hit with it, though. Realistically, looking at the world, a guy with illegal wired reflexes should never be able to step into city limits unless he had enough false information in the system to justify its presence.


As for watchers in the city.... very expensive, and not very efficient. Watchers tend to last for a matter of hours (unless i am misremembering, in which case disregard), so they would probably only be placed in access control points - in the case of Seattle that would probably mean the ports and the border crossing areas inland. If they were present in the city, it would likely be because a private party is paying for it - and crime prevention is probably not the purpose of their being summoned.

As far as illicit programs, one would assume that if they aren't being used actively, they aren't that obvious. If some sort of security was randomly hacking commlinks, a hacker would hold out hope their commlink's firewall and security were up to the challenge.

Observing you while casting it.



No.



Unlikely, though security magicians will patrol sensitive areas like airports or AAA zones and will cause no end of trouble for awakened without a magic license (which should better cover your foci active at the moment).
In Areas with security below A, astral patrols should be highly unlikely IMO.

Patrolling watchers have the problem of being ridiculously stupid.
Low power spirits on remote service might be used in secure areas, though, as they can easily expand a security mage's patrol radius.


In SR2, Lone Star kept ritual samples of all registered mages, too.
Don't know wether that still is valid.

Wards are likely in upper-class establishments who want a certain degree of privacy.

Besides that, SR4 includes the possibility of astral mug shots.

That should be about all for astral security outside of an emergency.

The in-game reason gridsec doesn't (and shouldn't) bust your hacker the second he logs is the same reason illegal magicians and other runners aren't stopped on the front steps when they go out for lunch: information density. While the automated surveillance is extensive, and they no doubt catch alot of illegal acts in progress, there are only so many vetted security officers to do anything about it. Rightfully, nobody trusts the technology enough to give drones and expert systems full autonomy in the pursuit of criminals. So the terapulses of data they generate are subjected to a weighted reporting system - and only the most pressing issues are going to be dealt with.

Sure, C-Dos is logged onto the public grid with an invalid ID code, and he's been poking the KSAF node for quite a while. But do you have any idea how many people are online using fake MSP accounts right now? Anyway, the node's not sending back any alerts. And gridsec got word that that car-theft ring might be trying for the DMV again tonight. Plus, it's a full moon and, as usual, about a third of the active officers are tied-up tracking down the phantom virtuakinetics in people's refrigerators and e-ghosts leaving back-masked satanic voicemails.

The more practical reason, of course, is that constantly dropping the full force of the law on a single player is generally no fun for them, and disrupts the game for everybody else. Sure, it's something fun to trot out once in a while to remind your players that, hey, you're not in happy funshine land and there are consequences to being a criminal dirtbag. But to apply it too often would really render the game largely unplayable - whether due to gear lost to confiscation, or the characters being incarcerated.

And that is the reason Shadowrun is the way it is [and so are many other RPGs]...
...An inconsistent playground, where the game and rules are written and rewritten so Players aren't inconvenienced too much - taking the effort and skill away from Players and trying to write rules for every eventuality.

Well knowledge about illegal spells and magical activity can also be gained by scanning astral sigs. Also an unregistered mage will probably be casting illegally.

One thing that should be noted immediately re: cyber security is that many places require your PAN to be in public access mode... In such a mode there is no reason why just by walking into an establishment, neighborhood or what have you that your commlink is not queried for Cyber, Magical and Software licenses along with a manifest of your current hard/software. Fake SINs are the way to play this part, I guess... Either case, you will be scanned regularly with your consent taken rather than asked for politely.

In the past I have come hard up against this issue. How to let players have their toys - cyber, wiz programs, fancy foci etc. - and have there by any good reason why they are not busted for doing anything that is in any way even slightly stupid. The rules and the background are relatively inconsistent at times but the real issue here is what you want to play. SR is a game that often includes a lot of B&E and this can include 'breaking' into the megamall to go to the stuffershack for some nutrisoy. The rub is how much game time you want to spend resolving things like this. Just getting into a AAA zone can be an adventure of its own - this is one of the reasons why SR can be so unbelievably cool, but also why worrying about security in your game can cause it to grind to halt.

The methods that I used to deal with this are to break security down to Encounters. Thinking of challenges in abstract as Encounter blocks that the characters must overcome may be metagaming but if you are good at running the game, no one ought know. The three major types of Encounters in SR are Legwork, Wetwork and Socialwork. My adventures tend to include at least one of each of these major Encounter blocks. Nearly every adventure will also include a B&E scene where you are trying to bust through the Firewall/Maglocked Doors/Scale the Border Fence or whatever. This is your obvious point to really stick it to your players in terms of security. Events leading up to, including and immediately following these B&E sections (which can include just trying to get into a club to go see a target without having to give up your guns) should be where the security scans are actually Role Played, dice are rolled and the players are resolving conflicts. A game can only support so many sub-conflicts of the main story arc before the arc loses continuity and starts to break up so a GM has to be very careful where, when and in what quantity they place conflicts in front of the players to resolve.

For example, I ran a Shadowrun Missions run for a group back home. They had to meet a contact in a public park in a AA zone. I figured it was a good time to spice up the meet by having it in a secured park near a Corp Enclave. The park was surrounded by 5m ferrocrete walls and had a few monitored entry points with scanning drones and guards. What followed was an extremely tense scene where one of my players had to frantically hack and spoof the group's chromed out badass of a street samurai through the gate without getting a shakedown. This situation could be resolved with Legwork by taking the time to scan, research and ask around about this area and find loopholes. Wetwork with guns would obviously result in a bloodbath but it could result in a completed scene... sort of... Wetwork may also constitute a short cyberbattle. Socialwork might also work if they greased the right palms and/or talked fast enough.

The group chose to use Legwork to assist a hack-in. What resulted was that the Hacker observed the network and its activity while the Sammy did classic mark 0 eyeball surveillance and then they hacked their way in, spoofed the returns from the scan drones, played it Bogart and got in. In any case the point is that I did not have to do any of this. We could have just had them meet their contact, chit chat and move on. What the scene did do was probe the weaknesses of knowledge skills, secondary skills and equipment choices of the players. It gave them an opportunity to free-form and problem solve. Players called contacts and tapped resources they otherwise were not using. The scene rewarded them for creativity but also threatened to punish them for failure. Ultimately the run at hand was not at stake, they could reschedule or just matrix-meet but such nonprofessional behavior may result in less pay, less rep etc. Once this scene was concluded the next time security was of a serious concern was when they were actually at the location for the run and trying to break into a computer system under the nose of some Yakuza.

I hope that this example clearly shows what I consider a good method of utilizing security, cyber or otherwise, to enrich a game without grinding it to a halt. One of the best parts of these kinds of mini-challenges is that they can penalize players in a slight way - faster response time from the Star, less cash from the run etc. but also reward them with an extra bit of karma, maybe little more cash, better respect from their contacts etc. All of this can be done in addition to the main adventure without costing the main adventure too much in the way of time or focus (if you are careful).

Don't make SR a paranoid surveillance simulator, but don't just let a bunch of anti-social nutjobs loaded down with illegal hardware designed to wreak havoc on polite society just walk around like the friggin Don.

Good points and examples. Cheers.

I just found that fluff-wise, and based on opinions on dumpshock, mundanes who aren't hackers are often more penalized than their counterparts. For example, if the shit hits the fan, the Samurai probably only has a pistol to defend himself, but a mage can overcast a spell that can blow up cars, and knock-out a room full of enemies. Sure, the sam could do that too, but that would probably require a grenade launcher, which he can't just carry to the deli (where all the hits happen, obviously). Hackers are also similar in this regard. How many hackers do you know who carry all of their R6 Exploit, Black Hammer, Sniffer etc. programs on them at all times. And while a mage might get astral scanned or have to leave his foci behind when passing through a ward, and a sam will need a lot of licences for all that ware he's got, a hacker just gets "oh, I see you have a commlink. Continue on your way."

A commlink is a weapon. It, just like a handgun or a spell, can incapacitate, knock out, or even psychologically condition another individual. Not to mention that in a hyper-capitalist dystopia like shadowrun, property is valued over human life. And most of that property, such as identification, intellectual property, and the vast majority of currency is digital.

I do not want to punish my players. That wasn't the point of the thread. I do like fairly paranoid games, because I like my Shadowrun (in the decent and nicer areas of town) to be phildickian, with ideas from surveillance focused movies like the Bourne trilogy, Enemy of the State, Robert Redford flicks and such. Of course, the reason shadowrunners survive is due to population density, information density and the balkanization of both the geographic and electronic landscape.

I think I will probably just submit deckers to a little more scrutiny, just to match up with sammys and millimeter wave scanners. "Greetings, citizen, welcom to Horizon incorporated megamall #26. I'm the matrix security representative for this area, and for the safety of your person and property, please submit to a quick security scan of your active program list and Access Identification. Our patented Sunblazer36 agents are unobtrusive and efficient, and available at your nearest online Horizon store. Have a nice day" all the while the hacker sweats like a pig.

Also, this kind of thing doesn't have to always have a direct punishment. There are always alternatives to just arresting the runners. Fluff mentions that there's only about 100 shadowrunners operating in Seattle, so they are a hot commodity, and it's often worth corporations and individuals to let runners off in exchange for services. For example, I once had a mage walking down the street see a knifepoint mugging. He was a combat mage, so he shot one ganger in the face and manabolted the other, and then healed the woman (who got her throat cut in the scuffle). He of course left a bullet and an astral signature. And the woman was a law-abiding citizen, so she reported the incident to a cop. Instead of having him arrested for murder with restricted magic and weapons, I had a corrupt beat-cop approach him on the street, recognizing his description, and squeeze him to do murder some more punks in exchange for getting rid of the evidence. So in the scenario of being caught with restricted hacking progs, the gridsec who catches him might say "look, I'll keep these logs under wraps for you if you check out my wife. I think she's cheating on me, but I can't catch her at it, and the boys at the precinct would probably hold it against me if I told them". Goods and services are a good alternative to incarceration and monetary bribes. It's all about plot hooks.

Just reading this, and a couple of things sprung to mind [for me]...

There needs to be a MacGuyver skill for the Street Samurai who can turn innocuous things into weapons or defences
[Traveller's Jack-of-Trades skill was like that.]

For things like shopping centres, would the owners/builders install low-power jammers...
...In the same way that hotels [illegally] do, to stop mobile phones working.
Security and authorised people would have something to override the jammer working, but no-one would be doing unauthorised access.

The macGuyver skill is canon. It's called "industrial mechanic".

Shopping centres? No. They require people's wifi to be in good working order so that they can receive all the AR displays and invasive spam.

Hotels? Perhaps. I imagine the hotel node would not use a selective jammer like you mentioned, but it would be running an encryption key that changes daily, that authorized visitors receive at the front desk every day.

Quality is called "Juryrigger" and can be wound on page 98 of Runners Companion-