I miss the Types of Storage and IO.

As for the programs, I made my life easier. There are only TM at my table.

BlueMax

i think there is a set of pdf's out there for cards with program names on them.

and while unrelated to the post i quoted, i find the arguing that the hacker rules swap attribute for program rating are confusing and a big log in the eye of the reader a strange one. its the same basic mechanic, 2 numbers added up, some modifiers on top, grab that many dice, roll.

Matrix mechanics and the extended test. I´m more in favour of repetitive success tests for stuff like breaking encryption. The SR4A update to extended tests makes them work for availability (as in "occasionally not work"), but does not influence the 1-3 test situations in the matrix, much.


Our table has seen a hacker, a rigger and a TM played at the same time, the rules are absolutely useable. And since we already learned them, there would be little benefit in houseruling stuff right now. (We do use the open source optional rule.) Yet if I was going to tinker with the matrix rules, I´d still be looking at the number of programs.

("pdf´s with program names in them" by Aaron)

This is not quote correct. For example, I use certificate based authentication when I ssh to servers (today). My certificate key is encrypted, but just because you got root on one of my servers, doesn't mean you have decrypted my private key... That has to be independently decrypted.

So to follow on my original thought... While the encryption rules don't follow things we currently know about encryption, they work reasonably well when put into the perspective that one by one the algorithms are indeed being broken.

I agree that IRL it's a lot of effort to be a real hacker, and that's without cybercombat. But SR rules are not all created equal. For instance:

Is becoming a novice hacker at creation (computer/data search/electronic warfare/hacking @ 1 = 20BP) really that much harder than being a top-end pilot able to fly helicopters, blimps, planes, and vtols (Pilot Aircraft 5 = 20BP)? Or if you want to base in on a character starting at 0 and becoming a script kiddie (20 karma) vs being a Pilot 4 (20 karma)? (SR4 karma)

So why does pilot get away with doing so much? Well, it sucks if your pilot can't fly your sorry butt out of the jungle when you find a gyrocopter. However, it's rather silly that Data Search takes as much training as stunt driving a car or learning how to accurately fire assault weapons.

If EW did what it should (impact ECM and ECCM) I'd agree with keeping it. Since it only does various Sniffer functions, it's rather redundant.

If you trim it down to Computer, Hacking, and Cybercombat then it's roughly as much effort to learn how to be a good hacker as it is to learn how to fly all aircraft, drive all groundcraft, and operate any vehicle-mounted weapon from water cannons to misslie launchers. Or learn gymnastics, fencing and boxing. Roughly comparable in overall time and effort.

One could claim that data search is more then just hitting google for a name, it could be applying proper techniques for source checking, data mining and other stuff to dig out as much data as one can find.

Hell, even using google can be a black belt performance, as there is a lot of hidden data being indexed by their spiders...

And that's just as hard to learn as manually landing on an aircraft carrier at night using NVGs.... Really?

Ok, nobody likes having easy average and hard skills with different costs, but don't claim that all the SR skills should be equally difficult to learn. Having trivial skills that are required but that cost just as much as clearly hard skills is just silly. How could someone today learn to be a world class computer expert without ever having used Google? That's what SR is saying you can do.

Don't I know it. My job for the last year has been designing models for data mining. This year my primary source model will likely hit 1TB, of which ~800GB will be indexes. I am so glad we've migated our source data to a database away from 300MB text files. I know a bit about searching hard to manage datasetj.

But when you get down to brass tacks, Computers do 3 fundamental things: 1) find data, 2) modify data, 3) transmit data.

Given that Command can run anything from a toaster to an autofactory to the space shuttle even at rating 1, I think that Browse should be easier to use than Google and produce better results without requiring a specialized skill.

And when using command you need the relevant skill...

Still, im having a hard time figuring out why command is even present, as its description is basically vague...

In the end, SR rules are abstract. It could be that the devices one try to control via command provide all the needed data, but with a low rating command program you cant make use of all the data. And same goes for browse, is that the data and services is out there, but the poor program cant make use of them all as it lacks the code.

The skills in SR (as in have always been more separated according to their usefulness rather than on their real separations/difficulty. It takes only one skill to be a painter, a musician able to play all instruments, a sculptor and everything artistic, but it takes two skills to shoot with rifles and automatics.
It's all about game balance.

And stop comparing Data Search to Google-Fu.
First of all, we're in a world where the world wide web has been replaced nearly fifty years ago by something completely different and based on a much more closed architecture (think Minitel or the beginning (or in some cases the present) of the wap/i-mode: you can only access a service you know of and the services you can access might even be restricted by your service provider).
Second, we're not talking about a "Matrix Search" skill but a "Data Search" skill. It also means using various sources of information to look for data, being able to read between the lines, to match the data you have to get the big picture... And if it was that easy, people wouldn't be paid to do it (or to develop programs that do it).

Blade you gave me an idea: Part of Data Search is how to find things NOT indexed by global search engines.

All I'm saying is the relevant skill for browse shouldn't be a dedicated skill.

Browsing a network for data your account can access uses Computer skill. Trying to find data on that network that requires a higher grade of account would be Hacking (and at a penalty). By the same token, finding a public wireless signal would be Computer with Hacking to find hidden networks.

And if Command bothers you, consider Edit. Its MS Office, Adobe Illustator/Poser/Photoshop, 3dsMax, Video Toaster and SoundLab all rolled into one. Oh and you can use it without being literate.

I think Browse can be a super data spider with the ability to take spoken language input and correlate that to stored data without using a dedicated skill.

When realism interferes with gameplay realism should lose. SR4 makes no bones about the Matrix being realistic so why are Matrix skills a sacred cow not to be sacrificed?

They're a white elephant.

(And anyone who understands the significance of a white elephant, will in fact, get my meaning).

I prefer those purple polka-dotted pink elephants myself, though...

It's all fun and games until someone brings up the scheming and maneuvering of Indian nobility.

I feel that a big failing of a system that demands an entirely separate universe that only affects the physical tangentially and which can provide more IPs (thereby demanding more time for action adjudication) than any other subsystem is that it requires too many dice rolls because most actions are Opposed Tests. Even more so, many ongoing processes can be active at once, many of which require dice rolls.

In terms of Computing terminology, the contended resource is GM time, which blocks for dice rolls. The fewer dice the GM has to roll, the faster an aspect of the system is. For something that is not the primary focus of a game, taking too much time is bad.

3 big problems...

1) The rules are based on ad&d-esqe dungeon crawling behaviour [though not as much as in the past], with programs replacing swords and spells.

2) The rules are much too granular. No other part of the game takes such a step-by-step, detailed approach to doing things, apart from the main rules. It really is trying to be 2 games at the same time. Newer RPGs, even cyberpunk ones, handle decking and internet activity in much vaguer detail.

3)The rules are desperate to keep decking capable for players to do, rewriting the universe and ignoring practicality to maintain a "players are better than machines" experience [2 global internet crashes and it's still not secure and robust ?? Only just going wireless, 50 years after the real world ?? Players outdecking AIs ??] because otherwise the concept of a human decker falls apart.


As far as Data Search is concerned, isn't it just an aspect of Research/Gather Information ?? Or do people in a tech advanced society, with easy access to global information sources really need 2 separate skill to gather information - 1 for online and 1 for offline ??

Players are better than machines. Except when they get machines implanted into them. Then machines are players.

(And then things explode in paradoxal weirdness)

Sweet...



Are you talking about the SR4 rules? Because they used to be a LOT more granular. Not only that, but it didn't happen in real time, it happened in hyper time, so 2 hours of gameplay would happen in 12 in-game seconds, and the rest of the player just had to sit there while the decker was decking.



50 year after the real world assumes the two worlds are anything like each other. I don't see magic, goblinization, or anything of that sort in the real future, so technology will develop at a different pace in the real world.

Also, the crashes were not caused by instability or insecurity, they were caused by magical or quasi-magical phenomena. As for the lack of security, I think there are tons of networks today that are hackable, it's not that different... There are still virtually unhackable systems in Shadowrun, whether because they're offline, shielded, or hidden behind a daisy chain of chokepoints. If your players are able to hack in and download the most top secret information in existence, you're doing it wrong.

Anyway, it's not that people are better than machines, it's more like person + machine > machine. The hacker is using a machine too after all, a commlink running high level programs does add machine intelligence to what the human is doing. So a person using a machine is going to beat a machine using itself, any day.



Are you saying there's a skill called Research/Gather Information? That's news to me...

At least you can be somewhat confident that the machine that is mumbling to itself and waving its hands in the air is just ordering pizza ... or not.

You'd think so. :O

Still regard time in VR is as subjective, compared real world, which reconsiles some ealier posts

VR actions are an abstract, each resolving action which from the Hackers perspective might have have taken minutes of interacting with the virtual world

Remember earlier Deckers looking out through the security camera at teammates running in slow motion

Aaron, you've been helping me with the rules and I'm still struggling.

I don't feel that the rules really illustrates how, why and when you will use your programs. What's helped so far is Ryu's intro to the Matrix thread, Knasser's info and the MP3 of the Matrix run that you linked in my Matrix thread. I really love the rule mechanic play-by-play that Tiger Eyes added to my thread for the "Game Set Match" story from the SR4A book.

Like I've mentioned before, I learn through examples and the Matrix section in both books is mostly mechanics and facts. I think everyone would really benefit from more GM & player interaction examples with a parallel story like your Matrix run MP3 and the play-by-play of Game Set Match.

Hope that helped, and I hope its coherent... I'm going to bed.

Ayeohx, which version of the rules are you reading: SR4 or SR4A? The latter has more careful descriptions and it does have examples.

The shadowrun rules have two big problems.

A) They take way to long - every hacking action should consume exactly as much real time and screen time as trying to shoot someone.

B) The shadowrun fluff is tied to the historical shadowrun conventions, real life and 'the future' in a way that just makes it date at a rate of knots, makes it seem unrealistic AND prevents it from presenting a coherent image.

You can deal with this two issues in any number of ways obviously, but just pick one and do that. Totally detaching it from reality and going for ghost in the shell brain hacking is one option, or you can go to 'real' computer hacking and give the hackers a tool box of bot net shotguns and social engineering scalpels or you can go back to the 'old skool' shadowrun, but just do one thing, completely detach it from everything else and cleave to it.

That gives us a consistent vision, and something that goes quickly and lets the game trundle along, rather than crushing pacing under its enmorous weight.

As for the actual system as presented, the things I don't like the overemphasis on equipment, the fact you can just turn your wireless off an use a CB radio from the 90s and be totally immune to hackers, and it takes too long as hacking a door takes to many steps.

Just a quick question out of curiosity: why do you play out all the steps of hacking a door? I'd have to look back over the rules again, but I thought SR4 suggested that GMs could choose to resolve many of these routine tasks with one or two rolls (and then when you factor in SR4's automatic successes rule, possibly even less). Granted, I haven't actually run a game in awhile, but I know that's how I'd handle it; and save the drawn out scenes for more significant hacks.

Yeah look, while that is an option, I'm not really paying money for a book that advises me to ignore it and come up with my own house rules for resolution on the fly. I pay money for a book that has flavour and some sort of functional resolution framework.

Saying "Yeah, here is our resolution framework but it doesn't work for a solid 50% of the things you might actually want to do so just make that up" doesn't really cut it assuming you want me to give you money for that. I mean it works, but I can work that one out all by myself and am reluctant to pay for it.

I also choose the door example because it illustrates the other problem quite well:

If the door doesn't have a wireless connection - and really, why would it - and is instead linked by wires to some sort of server how the hell do I actually hack into the damn door with my funky wireless commlink. It certainly appears I actually have to hack in via their matrix connection - but why does their security system even have a matrix connection? But lets assume that it does - that makes hacking the door take a billion years and hardly a 'simple' task. And if it doesn't, what the hell is the hacker even supposed to door if he cannot open doors?

In my first campaign, I use to go through all the steps. So, the hacker would search and find the security node. He might do a couple Matrix Perceptions to get some basic node stats. Then he'd hack on the fly...multiple rows. Then once in, he'd do a couple more Matrix Perceptions. Then assuming he was in free and clear, find the door lock and unlock. All in all, this would take from 5 to 15 minutes, all the while, no one else really cared and I knew that unless he really botched, he would get the door. And I also knew that the door being locked was not a major obstacle I had planned. It was not a major plot device.

But now, I've got a lot more background and experience. I realize that a hacker could easily Spoof the door open as well as hitting the security node. I no longer worry about trying to describe a node, I just stick to the need mechanics and go. So, I would then just have a roll to find the control node (assuming hidden). Once found, the hacker could either Spoof locally or hack the node and unlock the door. I don't worry about describing anything and unless an alert is sounded, we are down to a minute or so for actions.

I've even just considered dropping it down to a single roll if it really isn't THAT important...

Good point.

From a security perspective, I'd do just that. Everything is wired, so you need physical access to do anything. Now, that really just means that instead of finding a node, you just need a Hardware skill to access the door lock and then you could still use your commlink to hack it. The book talks about it having ports and the like to connect wires to it. Once connected, you just Spoof it open. Still down to 2 or 3 rolls total.

But, the setting describes everything as being wireless. And a "secure" building would have wi-fi paint so you would have to be inside the building to hack. So, your hacker can't just access the matrix and get to the node. He'd have to come inside. And its easier from an installation point that if you had cameras or locks or other security, that you just leave the wireless on and don't worry about having to run wires everywhere. So, once inside, no need to access the security node (even if the device is slaved), just hack from wherever via wireless.

That's the "balance" SR4 was trying to accomplish. While wireless doesn't seem the smartest thing to do from a security standpoint, as mentioned many times in Unwired, many installations have security as a 2nd or 3rd priority to usability and ease. That's really the tradeoff between having hacking be quick, easy and effective for a runner team versus every hack being an ordeal and a bunch of players saying, "Next time, no one be a hacker, we'll just get an NPC if we need a hack cause it bogs the game down too much".

^ See, this is what I think is supposed to happen, but it doesn't make sense in all the 'dimensions' of shadowrun

IF you are

A) Trying to tie it up to 'real life' which the botnet stuff implies: It is stupid, I could just turn off the wireless and have an access panel on the other side of the door. Now how does spoof work?

B) Tying it up to the 'cyberpunk' schtick where you open stuff with palm scan or iris readers: Spoof.. doesn't do this, unless it has wireless for no reason.

C) Tying it up to the 'wireless future' thing: It totally makes sense there, but there is no actual reason to have wireless doors so that needs some work.

By trying to do to much, it results in nothing making sense. I prefer amping C up to 11 and making electron teleportation work so you can connect to whatever, but yeah, shadowrun ties to do all of them and as a result it makes no sense.

Spoof works by sending valid commands to a device from an authenticated source. So, you need two things: 1) the access id of an authenticated source and 2) access to the device.

Now, there are many ways to get an access id: access the node, intercept traffic, social engineering, etc. And accessing the device, is either going to be physical access or wireless access. A "standard" hacker should be able to access a device either way with the same equipment and skills, the vast majority of the time.

The easiest way I can break it down is think of a standard 2009 laptop with wi-fi access. You can connect to the internet wireless and use all your programs. But, you could also just plug your ethernet into a device and get to the internet. All your programs work the same way, you've just traded air for a wire to connect.

No argument from me that SR is complicated. I've always just tried to stick with what angle made the most sense to me and keep driving that home to my players...

Yeah, but if we are talking to physical access, say to a steel door, where the electronics are on the other side of the door - what are you going to do? Bust out a power saw? Why not just cut the door then?

The book doesn't really present a vision for this - there are all sorts of possible resolutions obviously, but it would be nice if the guys just picked one and ampped that up rather than trying to have one of everything and cocking it up. Just the fact we have this debate constantly on some sort of rolling schedule - but everyone likes pretty much the rest of the rules - shows there is a problem with clarity and vision.

See, deek's posts make sense to me. I'm not bothered that sometimes a resolution system takes a shortcut for the sake of dramatic pacing, but I've always considered that sort of flexibility to be one of the strengths of tabletop roleplaying. That you aren't bound to one resolution system for every occasion, that there is the ability for a GM to adapt to keep the game moving at the pace entertainment value demands. There are times in hacking when a player is going to want the drawn-out system because it makes the task entertaining and it creates an adventure in itself. But hacking a door usually isn't one of those moments.

As for the whole wireless versus security argument, I think this is one that boils down to a GM's personal view of the setting. The topic did come up during SR4's development, I know because I threw in some of the arguments myself. And the general feeling, as I understood it, was to play to Shadowrun's historical strength of being a very flexible setting and provide the GM with the tools to decide that argument for himself. If a GM thinks that security systems using wireless heavily doesn't make any sense, he can use more wired systems for secure networks and the hackers will be forced to patch into things these systems the old fashioned way. Some GMs like the "wireless is everywhere" feel and care less about making secure networks realistically secure, and the tools are there for them to play that way too. Shadowrun is flexible like that, just like you can have a magic-heavy campaign, a magic-light campaign, a mercenary campaign, a company man campaign, a special forces campaign, etc.

I really don't want to get too sidetracked here, but how do authorized people get into this door from the outside?

Again, you make a good point...

In my games, I try to put more focus on the players being able to accomplish their objectives. Unless I really want a door to be an objective, I pretty much just make things able to be overcome, even if it makes no sense whatsoever to have a door lock be wireless accessible.

And I do agree, and maybe that is one of the things I don't like about the matrix rules as presented, there are a multitude of possible resolutions and instead of picking one (or even a handful), its just open. Granted, the other side of that coin is that SR lets the players and GMs be creative. But sometimes fewer options or a couple of solid examples to give us all a hand-hold is appreciated.

It has taken me about 3 years, two core books and Unwired, to finally feel very comfortable with the matrix rules. That's a very steep learning curve. And not to be an asshat, but I'm pretty smart, work as a software analyst and am not bound by trying to make "real-life" sense of everything. It usually doesn't take me half that time to get familiar with something new.

Lets think about security cameras then if the idea of a palm reader encased in concrete except for a glass top is out of the realms of possibility - but again, these arguements are as old as time. You can probably pull out my posting history if you really want. Let me check.

There is this one: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...c=23045&hl=

This one: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...c=23034&hl=

This other one: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...c=22458&hl=

Some more random ones but you don't care anymore, this one we are posting in, that one http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...c=22713&hl= , a million unwired views, blah, blah. Kzt and Frank go through it as well if you want.

Edit: Exactly - that is the problem. Giving us a billion options, an imcomplete resolution system and saying 'and then magical tea party it' just isn't a quality product. Plus having so many options is just a minefield if you ever play games with people that have different expectations that you!

Aaron's going to send wetwork squads after me if I sidetrack his thread too much on this topic, so I'll end it here unless we want to take it to a new thread. But I don't think the idea of a palm reader encased in concrete and glass is out of the realm of possibility, and I'm not sure where in SR4 they have said it is. If that's the access point, that's the vulnerability a hacker needs to take advantage of, which isn't always going to be wireless. Hacking is about taking advantage of systems of convenience. Systems designed to be inconvenient sometimes require other methods. Like demolitions.



So to go back to Aaron's original question, you find a flexible system to be a detriment rather than a strength. Which is opposite of the way I feel, but a valid criticism.

No arguments here...

I'd imagine if you took 4 GMs games, of at least a couple years, and in a snapshot, witnessed a sample matrix hack, you'd likely find a couple similarities where the rules are given in core books and then some completely different methods and "best practices" where that particular GM with a particular set of players found something that worked well for them.

I'd even go as far to say some of us would see these hacks and point out several things that aren't RAW, which may have been a GM mistake or simply they chose to do it that way because they liked it. And then we'd probably see a few novel ideas that worked, but never really thought of in that light.

Now, go to a DnD game with 4 different DMs, and while their styles may be different, you're probably going to see the same rule mechanics being used for about everything...and many would qualify DnD as having quality mechanics (even if you hate the latest edition).

Flexibility is great!

That isn't the problem here. The problem is the system provides a broad of pallet of options and none of them work. That isn't flexibility - that is dysfunction. As we've just discussed on this page, it isn't obvious how you're supposed to hack a door - there a bunch of options, some of them involve power saws (?!?!) and your suggested resolution was ignore the resolution framework in the rules and magical teaparty it.

Looking at ourselves here - Consider all the posts in this thread which are "The system makes no sense to me" Heck, lets just look at the first page, depending how you want to count it, a solid 33% of posts (and possibly as high as 50% ignoring Aaron's OP and followups) are "It makes no sense" or "It is inconsistent/illogical"

It is possible to be both flexible and consistent, and this isn't it. Seriously, if a whole bunch of the punters think its inconsistent and illogical then it has some crippling problems, whatever the designers vision was when they wrote it down.

My personal root cause analysis is not that it is flexibility in the rules causing it, it is the dodgy vision, which is in turn caused by unclear design goals. But I suppose the problem is that ~20%? of the customer base doesn't understand what the hell you are on about.

Many of us can't do this, but I'd be interested to know how logical the matrix rules are if you only account for readers that started with SR4A. I thought the rewrite of that chapter was profoundly better than the previous printing.

I wish I could erase my head of all the lingering pre-SR4A and Unwired understandings and just start with those two.

And I guess I also wonder how many of "us" still have those older "issues" in mind when trying to understand the matrix...

Your post is too vague for me to respond directly, but I will agree that the matrix rules can be confusing. This is not because they are inherently inconsistent or bad, it's because people can't get into the mindset of a permissive ruleset. The rules literally say everything you can do. What they don't say is everything you cannot do. People use their preconceptions about modern computers to guide how they do things on the Matrix, and this gives them trouble. Can their use their Computer skill to run their Command program to tell their Agent to load an Autosoft? No, that's not what the Computer skill does, and it's not what the Command program does, and agents can't use autosofts. The game doesn't explicitly say you can't do these things, all it does is fail to allow them, which is the same as forbidding in a permissive ruleset. That's hard for people to grasp. They just can't get outside of looking at the plain english meaning of the words "command" or "computer," and start thinking about what they mean in-game. They can't get outside of their modern conception of skills and programs and use them as the game provides. I submit that you'd have the same problems with any system that proposes to provide a system for computers which doesn't replicate modern computing. But of course, you'd need an encyclopedia sized volume to replicate modern computing, and it would be neither fun nor sci-fi.

That said, I think Catalyst (or someone) should produce a newbie's guide to using the Matrix under the current rules. That would help people grasp the system a lot more readily. They managed to improve it by simplifying and streamlining, but this created vagueness which is confusing. I still prefer it to the original rules though, which were still confusing by virtue of being complicated, and also took much longer to use.

Re: Power Saws - Needing different tools for different situations is not a flaw in the Matrix rules. Not everything is done through Matrix hacking, just like not everything is a job for the magician or the street sam. Using Negotiation to get out of a tight spot instead of a pistol isn't a flaw in the combat resolution rules.

Re: Ignoring the resolution framework and the magical teaparty - SR4 includes quick resolution options as part of its most basic resolution system, not specifically as part of the Matrix resolution system. You aren't ignoring the resolution framework when you use an optional part of it, nor are you resorting to a magical teaparty (whatever that is exactly). Just like the automatic successes rule (also part of the basic resolution system) isn't ignoring the game's resolution system; it's part of it. Same with using karma.

Larme's is much closer to the problem, in my opinion. It is a permissive system, as most of Shadowrun is. And I think general confusion is the real root of many issues with the Matrix rules and I totally agree that more examples would be great. I know SR4A did a much better job with this, but some people haven't had a chance to see the SR4A material yet. And I don't think it would hurt if Catalyst had play examples on their website as part of a regular feature (not just Matrix, but other aspects too).

For the love of god yes. WotC has dozens of walk throughs on their site to explain things people had trouble with. It has the cachet of being officially blessed by the developers as well as being free from page-count limitations. The cost is predominantly in the time required to write the process down.

And IMNSHO if it takes a financially unacceptable amount of time to make a web walk-through of your most troublesome mechanics then your mechanics are not acceptable at the game table.

if these walk throughs exist in SR4A then all the better since you can cut & paste the text since the web doesn't need fancy page layouts. Yes, there may be some sales of SR4A lost since people won't need to get it to figure out how to use the SR4s they already own but a) that's just crappy in general and b)it sucks as a financial model since you'd sell more Unwireds/Augmentations/etc if more people were happier to play with the SR4s they already had.

I couldn't agree with you more.

@Aaron

I read both Matrix sections in SR4 & SR4A back-to-back. But, like many, I only have the pdf for SR4A. And I always tend to have a harder time reading from pdfs since my computer doesn't handle them well.

I think SR4A has some good examples, but not counting the technomancers section, there are only about 4 examples in the Matrix area; odd considering how example heavy some of the other area are.

In both books we get a lot of rules on actions, programs and security but it never really wraps it all up; we're kind of left hanging.

We need to see the interaction of a hacker with a system, beginning to end. This would help me as a GM because I would see how a building's network is laid out and how a hacker deals with it. This is why I really enjoyed your MP3 and Tiger's play-by-play. In yours I got to see the layout of a store's network and watch it get hacked. It Tiger Eye's I got to see a hacker and a technomancer battling with a rigger for control of a drone. I need more of this!

I'd like to add that I think its slick that the Matrix uses some actual networking concepts. I like the idea of the new system a lot; I'm just having a tough time rapping my noggin around it.

My friend who is set to play the hacker thinks Logic should play a larger part in the hacking game, though. As a tech I understand the reasons (I've seen script-kiddies in action) but it does seem to be an odd choice to largely nullify what seems to be THE stat for a hacker.

@Ayeohx

Did you read page 79 in Unwired. I think that is an awesome example of security and thought it really wrapped things up nicely.

Also, there are two optional rules that bring logic back into the mix:

1) Skill + Attribute (which is normally logic) with hits limited by Program Rating (just like Force limits in magic)
2) Skill + Program (as written) with hits limited by Logic (again, just like Force limits in magic)

I've been running with option 1 for two campaigns spanning a couple years and it works great.

Thanks Deek, I'm reading Unwired inbetween posting; finally got my own copy. Beginnings a little slow but I'm excited to get deeper into it. Getting ready to read the Idiot's Guide to the Matrix on pg 40. (sounds like it was written just for me).

I may run with option 1 too; we'll see. I'll probably run standard RAW at first and adjust from there.

I'd like to add that I'm cool with reading Unwired but I don't think that it should be necessary to purchase it to get a grasp on what's an important part of the game.

The optional rules first printed in Unwired are part of the SR4A core. Still optional rules, but now you don't need a second book just for that.

If you run RAW and have fairly intelligent players, they are going to figure out that the can create a very good hacker with a 1 Logic. And if the do that, and then later you decide you want to house-rule, they are probably going to be pissed because they are going to lose a lot of build points to get their logic up to something acceptable. So, fair warning...if you are thinking about it, you might as well pick one of those options to start. You won't regret it...

I agree with you. You shouldn't have to buy a second book to make sense of the Matrix. And while I can run without Unwired pretty well, there's just enough good examples and extra stuff in Unwired to make it necessary...well, at least for those of us that want a little extra hand-holding to get comfortable.

But this isn't hacking any more - it is a hardware check and doesn't require any software. You don't even need a commlink. If hackers don't open doors with software, what are they doing?

Well, yes. I did already say that hacking isn't always the best tool for every problem.

But as an aside, hacking isn't always about software.