Hey All

My name is Hughes Crawford. I am a long time Shadowrunner, player and GM.

I'm giving 4th edition my first try and also giving RUNNING the matrix my first try. We just never really got too involved with it in my old groups. But my new group has both a technomancer and a hacker. So I'd like to not disappoint them (too much, anyways )

I got the majority of SR 4th down, it looks pretty good all and all. but does anyone have an example of how to run a the hacking part ? I remember seeing the old flow charts from 1st-3rd, but as I said we've never done much with them.

http://pavao.org/shadowrun/cheatsheets/
This site has some " Cheat Sheets " on multiple aspects of SR4. Hope it helps.

Thanks that helps a lot.

One other question, what is a good rating for a system ? Should i use the the comlinks ratings as a springboard ??

All my old stuff is 1,000 miles away from me right now.

Most System ratings the players will encounter will be between 3 and 5. Very secure or powerful systems will have a system rating of 6. You can also making a Hack more difficult by increasing the amount of patrolling IC and/or Security Hackers instead of just upping the System rating.

My advice to you when running the Matrix is not to get too caught up in all of the nit-picky rules. Have them make their Hacking + Exploit test in order to break into the system, and once there just ask them what they want to do. Intuition + Analyze is used to "look" at things in the Matrix to discover their purpose, Computer + Browse is used to locate devices or files they want to manipulate, Hacking + Edit will be used for most actions that they will want to do in the system (like disabling cameras, door locks, and alarms). My "rule of thumb" is to have the target system make a Firewall + Analyze test every time they perform any action using their Hacking skill. If the system gets more Hits than they do, they fail at the operation and the system logs the action. If the system gets a number of Net Hits equal to or exceeding the rating of any active Stealth program they have, then the System goes on Active Alert (intruder detected). If you want to make things a little tougher, have a patrolling IC randomly roll its Rating + Analyze and see if it gets hits equal or exceeding their Stealth program. If so, they have been detected and you can have the IC do a variety of things: initiate a Trace, engage in Matrix Combat, or put the system on Active Alert.

In the end, keep it fast. If you're not sure what the rule is, just pick a skill (usually Hacking) and a Program (Edit being a good one to default to) and have them roll it opposed by the system's Firewall + Analyze. Keep it focused on what they are actually doing in the system and cut out anything that delays that. If they're in there to disable the Cameras then let them get right to it. Nothing bogged down previous incarnations of Matrix rules more than having to do a ton of intermediate junk before getting to do what you are actually there to do. If actions in the Matrix are starting to take up a bunch of game time, put them on pause for a minute and switch the action back to the non-Matrix people for a bit, that will keep everyone at the table engaged. Have fun, I love the new Matrix rules.

Thanks Malachi

This will be my first game trying to run all three "worlds" of Shadowrun at once, we got two matrix-runners and a mage. So I potentially have real world, matrix and astral plane all at once.

You should also go to the miscellany section of Aarons site and print the Hacker Cards for your players. They have some core rules knowledge on them, and are quite handy for keeping track of running programs.

Then you could look at Running the Matrix101 in the first post of my matrix introduction thread.. While the basic idea of that thread is slowly building up to the full ruleset, the collected core mechanics are rules-as-written (or so I believe).