There are many different aspects of Shadow Run that allows for GM interpretation. Frankly, that's part of the awesomeness of the game. However, I'm curious to see how everyone else handles this particular aspect of our favorite RPG.

~ Matrix Tempo ~ I'll begin with this fact, I love the matrix. I'm a network technician by trade and I find that I identify with the wireless world better than the spell slinging and hack-n-slash of the streets. The trouble is this, while a PCs in the Matrix the rest of the PCs are doing nothing! Add to this that matrix hacking/combat can be bogged down by lots of rolls and you have a recipe for board players. I may be exagerating the rolls a bit since we are just now getting used to them and are not yet proficient, but I find it hard to believe that anyone can describe to a hacker/technomancer what he/she sees and takes their actions while the rest of the group handles their own affairs. This is an ancient problem from D&D as well. The moment you split the party, you've made a mistake. At least, that's conventional wisdom.

So what about you? How do you handle matrix interactions in your games? Do you just handle the hacking and come back to the PCs afterward? Do you handle hacking and PC actions at once? Do you have a trick for doing that and not burning out or slowing the game down? Are there ANY ways to accomplish this while keeping game pace and player spirits up? Discuss!

funny enough, i thought that SR4 introed AR for just such issues

It depends. If they're hacking into a site for camera, etc. access, try to arrange it so that other characters have things to do at the same time and switch. If they're doing it for intel, it's like any other legwork - different characters are doing different things, so naturally the spotlight will shift. Do it more often if you feel players are bored. I personally don't think SR is the kind of game where the PCs are always together and always do things together - so keep the spotlight shifting, at a reveal or a cliffhanger ideally.

I have found the pace of Matrix stuff is way better in SR4 than in previous editions. However, there is still a chance that it can take up too much of the session.

If the Matrix stuff is happening during the legwork/planning section of the run, then make sure to switch your attention between the players doing their legwork stuff. Sometimes this means putting the Matrix stuff on "pause" for a few minutes while you deal with some other players as they call contacts or whatever. That's okay.

Keep it moving. When a Matrix specialist initiates a hack, they're almost always going into the system to do something. Make sure you get to that "something" without bogging down in a bunch of hurdles that the player has to jump. Making the intrusion test against the Firewall, then let them make a roll to do whatever they need to do. Badda-bing badda-boom your done. This is especially true if the Hack is happening as part of a general legwork/gathering information phase.

When its time to do the actual run, remember that network security in SR4 is structured so that the easiest point to electronically enter the system is in close physical proximity to the system (direct Signal range). This means that your group's Hacker should be physically with the group when the run happens. This allows for tightly focused Matrix actions. Hacking becomes opening that door or disabling that camera. Again this tends toward the "get in, do your thing, and get out" style of Hacking.

In the end, if you find there are too many rolls and that is bogging down the game, then cut out some rolls. The "getting in" test could be cut from an Extended Test to simple Success Test. Cut out all tests for Browsing for things, just let the character find it. Try to reserve Matrix Combat for the times when it is most dramatically appropriate.

Check out the first link in my signature. It's a long read, I know, but it contains a lot of detail on how I plan for Matrix actions and how I incorporate them into my game.

I'd like to say I have an answer, but I don't. To take an example from my last game, the hacker wanted to access a commlink that was sitting on the desk in an apartment the group just searched. There were only a few pieces of information in the commlink, but the fact was, he still needed to hack it and there was a tracking IC in the node.

I thought it would be a super simple hack, a couple of dice rolls and we'd move on...but...the hacker rolled horribly and it took him 5 attempts to get into the node. Now, he did hack admin (which I later discussed with him) but once the rest of the players saw it would take more than 3 rolls just to get in, they all left the table.

Now, the hacker finally gets in, but there is an alert and the IC begins its trace. The hacker disables the alert, but I rules that he could not disable the IC from tracking, so at this point, he engages in cybercombat. Another 4 rolls later, its defeated, he has full admin privileges and he goes about his business, gets the information, yadda yadda yadda.

But, in real-time, we've spent 10 minutes, rolling dice and segregating the rest of the party. AR, VR, doesn't matter, as the party was going to wait for the hacker anyways. Plus, unlike if this was physical combat, or some opposed tests to sneak around the other side of the building while the rest of the group waits, no one is really interested what the hacker is doing.

My first campaign (a couple years ago), I tried to describe parts of VR, but I abandoned that and for my current campaign, I don't bother at all. It just takes too long and everyone else is so disinterested in it. And these are all IT Professionals that enjoy this sort of thing and if they had a matrix character, would enjoy it. But since they don't, all interest is lost and they smoke, go to the bathroom, etc until its done. And these are not old SR players...its just the way of the matrix.

Unless the hacker is spoofing cameras or maglocks in AR, or performing matrix actions during a firefight, there really now way around the matrix timesink...well, at least by RAW. Simplifying matrix rolls would help, but then you are building a whole separate system to handle the matrix...

When I read this post, this is the line that stuck out for me the most, and is really the heart of the matter. It's important to gauge how your players really feel about the Matrix. One of the biggest mountains the Matrix rules need to climb is the mountain of prior bad experience. Many old-hat SR vets are used to Matrix stuff being a gigantic time-sink and so have a lot of built-up prior negativity there. In the end, however, if most of your group is not really interested in Matrix stuff and consider it an important part of the group, then pitch it. Slide it off to an NPC, or minimize its impact or whatever.

There, inevitable, going to be times when the action of the run focused on one particular character. If the other players in the group aren't interested in what that player is doing, then whatever-it-is is going to seem like a big waste of time. Having to wait around while someone does there thing is not unique to Matrix stuff: the Magician doing a lengthy Astral recon or Metaplanar Quest, the Face working a whole network of contacts or conning their way into a key position, or the melee sammie that has to challenge the head of a gang in hand-to-hand combat in order to gain their respect and help. Any of the above could be seen as "time wasters" if the rest of the group isn't really interested in what is going on. The key is to keep things moving and scale the opposition to accomplishing the task based on how important it is to the overall story.

well, there's your problem (and one no rules system can fix, ever)...

After playing SR 1 and GMing SR 2 and SR 3 I can say the Matrix rules have been GREATLY improved. In the old days I would make a list of tests for the Decker, have him/her roll all the tests and then state the outcomes as they effect the real world. This was nearly as stupid as firing FA in SR 1 (in which you had to roll for each individual bullet). I think the key when you have your team broken down into different locations is act on each group as it pertains to the mission. This means if the runners need a door open then they should have to call the Hacker and he should then hack the door to open it. At any time I would allow any player to pass notes to the GM (as not to disrupt the current flow of the game with out of context questions) stating if there is anything extra they are doing like setting off alarms somewhere else in the facility to direct security elsewhere, or if the hacker is looking for paydata.

I agree with Hobgoblin in that you should encourage your Hacker to use AR more often then he will actually be with the group as they make their way through a run.

Up front I make a point to integrate ARO into physical actions. It's better and easier with AR assisting you. That way the transition for the Hacker Matrix Spotlight is not a switch from the Physical to VR, but from (Physical + AR) to (Physical + AR) + VR, and everyone has a vested interest in it. It's also SR4(a). Everyone can watch, they can talk, they can give advice. The Mage will have an AR window open in their field of view displaying the Hackers VR perspective and can comment on it. Let them table talk it up. It's all IC! In actual fact the Astral world is the more inaccessible world out of the three.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Not to derail this thing, but I find that hilarious. I work IT myself, and I treat The Matrix as an electronic Metaplane. Trying to apply actual computing logic to it just makes my head hurt.

It can help to compare this to other roles.

* During planification:
- The face will try to get information out of people. If you don't want it to take too long, you'll have him roll one social skill test and tell him what he gets. If there's something interesting to play (an interesting NPC for example) you'll roleplay the whole conversation, making it interesting enough for the whole group so that they'll listen to it. Sometimes, the rest of the team will come along as backup, even if nothing happens.
- The team might send the ninja to steal something. If it's not very important or interesting, you might sort it out with one infiltration roll. If it's interesting, you might play it out. The rest of the team might come along as a diversion, or as a backup in case something goes wrong.

The hacker? He'll try to get data or get an account on some systems. If it's not important or interesting, you can have him roll his exploit test just to see how long it takes. If it is, you can play it out. You might think that the rest of the team won't be of any use, but it'd be wrong: everyone with a commlink can do something in the Matrix. Sure, just like the face will do the talking and the ninja will do the infiltration, the hacker will be the one to do the hacking. But the rest of the team can do things: they can create a diversion by asking the system's spider for support because they can't seem to be able to click that icon there, they can run still run attack programs on their rating 3 commlink in cold sim (so that they don't get too much damage if they get hit) if things go wrong and the hacker is under attack. They can also act outside the Matrix: guard the hacker's body while he accesses a node that can only be accessed from a specific point. And if you make the description of the hacker's matrix scene interesting enough, the other players might listen just like they'd listen to the face's conversation or the ninja's infiltration.

* During the run:

- The face tries to get a secretary to tell him where something is and you don't have time to roleplay it all? You'll have him roll his social skill test.
- The hacker tries to hack a security camera and you don't have time to roll it all? Just have him roll a Logic+hacking (camera's rating) test.

- The mage is summoning a spirit while the rest of the team is doing something else? You can have him take care of the rolls.
- The hacker is hacking a simple system while the rest of the team is doing something else? Tell him the system's stats and have him take care of the rolls.

- The streetsamurai is holding a corridor while the rest of the team is elsewhere? You probably won't play all his combat turns IP per IP, one after the other. You'll just have him roll his suppressive fire, see how it affects the opposition and decide if he's able to hold his ground or if he's losing to the opposition.
- The hacker is infiltrating the system alone while the rest of the team is elsewhere? You probably won't roll it all. Have him roll the exploit while you talk with the other players and then deal with the action in a few rolls.

- The streetsamurai is fighting a big enemy in an epic fight? It's spotlight time, and the rest of the team will have to suck it up. If you make it interesting enough, they might actual pay attention.
- The hacker is infiltrating the mainframe? It's spotlight time too. Make it interesting: use the metaphor! The hacker isn't in a Tron world sending one and zeroes to bland geometric shapes! He's in a spacecraft, approaching from the mothership, his motors off to avoid detection, turrets scanning the horizon, the hull of his ship creaking...

* In the middle of combat:
1 IP = 1 IP. The mage does his astral mojo, the hacker does his matrix mojo (or they all throw grenades because sometimes you just have to stop fooling around and start being efficient).

This sounds like my table. Right down to the IT Professionals. Agreed 100%.

Hey, at least the hacking rules are better in SR4. That is SUCH a huge improvement - it made hackers playable.

- J.

It took some learning, yet I got to GM for a hacker, a rigger and a TM at the same time, and it worked well.

• Most matrix interactions can simply be described without a test. I mostly have hacking, spoofing and editing of data tests rolled. Every test used to determine time taken is usually not important, as the difference between good and bad rolls is just a few seconds.
• There is no "leaving the other PCs". I agree with Blade: it´s the hackers turn, and the hackers actions are resolved.
• If you have simultaneous physical and matrix action, go low on describing matrix iconography. You get one sentence: "The node looks like an office/a castle/a tribal camp."
• Give the player of the hacker the freedom to describe their activities in style if they want. You can not come prepared for every matrix action, there are too many of those.

May I ask if "everytime we look up a matrix action, the flow of combat is broken" describes your group? If yes, take a look at Aarons cheat sheets. (If no, do it anyway )

I think this is the crux of the problem. To me there's no way to have my character be interested, witness, or even care about what the hacker is doing. Therefore there's no reason for me, the player, to pay attention during any events that are focused on a hacker. Even if there was a way to transmit the experience to another viewer, my character wouldn't comprehend what was going on, only other hackers, riggers, and technomancers would likely understand.

On the other hand, take this example. My character is not a face, and he lacks social engineering skills, yet my character has a method and reason to be interested in the GM's descriptions of the face's social engineering intrusion because of live video feed. My character can view, interpret, and look for things of importance (read security measures) in the feed from the face's cybereyes allowing the face to not have to focus on studying specific details. I can go back through any part of the feed and watch it, analyze it, and I can potentially send transmissions back to the face to take a glance at something that I might need a slightly longer view on. In other words, my character can be engaged in the action without having to be part of the action.

Almost every action that takes place in meat space that focuses on a single character can invariably lead to other characters having a reason to pay attention to what the focus character is doing. The same cannot be said about the Matrix. Which leads to this quote...



This adequately describes pretty much the only methods by which matrix interactions are pertinent to other players paying attention. The actions have results in meat space that the players are waiting for in order to act.



Would most characters necessarily think to do this if the hacker didn't ask them or suggest it to them? Hacking is a mentality and while most people will know how to navigate and use the Matrix, a vast majority of people will not think of how to circumvent digital protections, runners included. A rigger or technomancer might think of doing that to assist the hacker, but would a face, street sammy or mage think to do it?

I create the AR view of the world around the characters as the primary POV for all characters. I describe the ARO view first. It is most useful because there are background systems making it so. Literally in a crowd there will be a highlighted individual shown to the team because someone's agent software or routine has identified that person as the one the team should talk to because there is something related to what the team is interested in. This works for everyone, whether or not there is a Hacker in the group. You will be gimped without using AR, because that stuff doesn't happen if you have AR turned off.

Once this mode is established, VR becomes of interest to the team. Physical only views become boring and uninformative.

If you don't work to make it matter, then it won't.

I think that a lot of players make a mistake by considering that the Matrix is restricted to the hacker. (I particularly dislike the mage players who think that because their character is a mage he has nothing to do with the Matrix and get Computer Illiterate and Gremlins 4. Hopefully I can make their daily-life the nightmare it should be.)
It was true before 4th ed, but now anybody can afford a decent access to the Matrix.

A good idea would be to give the idea directly to your players. You can do it in a subtle way, such as telling your hacker: "There are some spiders 24/24 in this node, they're there in case of emergencies but they also offer help to lost personas. It'll be difficult to hack the system with them around. A distraction would be a good thing."

The TMs at my table make quick work of anything thrown at them. The gun bunnies really slow down the game.


BlueMax
/s'truth.

Doesn't your group have three TMs though? Hell, a single TM can whip through the Matrix at speed, I would hate to see what three can do all at once.

Stolen. Thanks!

We do have three. And yes, the hacking focused TM tears through every node as if it were left open.

The Rigger focused TM can still use sprites to crack open any tin can.
And the phys adept-style TM (think about it) takes some huge risks on occasion and compiles a rating 9 Crack.


BlueMax

While I agree that abstracted a series of tests to one is useful when time is of the essence, as a player I would be extremely peeved to discover that you were nerfing my character by abstracting my actions to a roll that never occurs at any point during those actions and that I suck at.

Now if you are using some optional rule or house rule that includes Logic into normal Hacking fair enough, but otherwise you've just put yourself into conflict with the Hacker character. He is going to want to play the whole Hack out because he knows he stands a much higher chance of success using the actual rules than he does with the 'speeding things up' house rules.

My point wasn't that the Matrix is restricted to the hacker, it's that the stuff that the hacker is doing is going to be completely over the heads of most individuals. Most activities require a specific mindset to do as well as knowledge of the medium in which you're exploiting. I've constantly been lead to believe that the Matrix is basically a 3D representation of the modern Internet, except that you can access it through wireless connections virtually anywhere.

Basically, you're going to have a couple of mindsets to define various people.

The first group is hackers. Using modern terms, these guys are going to be black hat or white hat hackers. The former are usually malicious while the latter typically hack and find security exploits and vulnerabilities to fix them. These guys need to be able to think through how a system works in order to be able to effectively subvert it. Deckers, Riggers, Spiders, and Technomancers can fall into this category.

The second group will be those that know practices on applying security and setting up systems. In real life correlation, this group would involve most people in the Information Technology and Computer Science fields. These guys are given a problem and can solve it, but they usually don't have the mind frame to circumvent it. Riggers and Spiders could fall into this group.

The third group is power users. These guys know there way around systems and generally not foul it up, they rarely need guidance. They may have security measures in place, but the likely hood is they won't keep up. Any security exploits cause by this group are in most cased purely accidental, they certainly lack the mindset to come up with methods to circumvent systems.

The fourth group is normal users. These guys can use the systems with a little bit of help and guidance.

The fifth group are incompetent users. These guys basically need you to hold their hand while using the systems.

The sixth group are those that completely shun the systems.

The 3rd through 6th group is where most runners will fall. The characters aren't likely to come up with -new- ideas to help out the hacker, and the only ways they will help is due to idea a hacker has already given them, or they get the idea from some sim-chip. It is up to the hacker to realize that the other runners can help him out, and if the GM need to hint at it to the hacker so be it. You can't have other players tell the hacker to do this, do that. You just end up having multiple people playing one character.

I'm quoting this again because I think people need to have it sink in. More than any previous edition, the Matrix in SR4 is something pervasive that all characters interact with. AR is fabulous because it instantly made all meta-game "table talk" completely valid and IC. This point can be emphasized to characters by specifically excluding them from "table talk" if they have chosen to "opt out" of AR. If your computer illiterate Mage starts to pipe up with a suggestion, cut him off:
"Where is your character?"
"I'm still (somewhere that the other players are not."
"Then you're not there. The other guys will have to fill you in."

Making the non-Hacker characters feel "part" of the Matrix action is up to the GM. Ensure that you (as GM) are giving as much narration time to the Matrix stuff as you are Magic actions and Physical actions.

ah yes, biowire, acceleration and all that?

Having AR is like everyone uses and interacts with computers today even if they know nothing about IT. There is a state full of businesses who are really going to care when I mess up some system they are using to do their business. They may think they don't care about IT, and don't need it, but the moment it's gone, they don't know any other way of doing it.

3 though 6 only think they aren't using the Matrix. Show them differently. Work at it. It's the GM's job to show them the 6th world and all the wonders in it. Up to the challenge?

Indeed. Big Troll with an axe. Backed up by drones slaved to his mind...

BlueMax

Bringing all the characters into AR is certainly a good idea, but it doesn't help the fact that once the "hacker" says that he wants to hack the active node of some patrol drone, that everything comes to a halt. Assuming a Firewall 3 and a security account, that's a threshold of 6. In response, say I'm rolling 6 dice against the hacker's 5 Stealth. I can usually count on two rolls from the hacker and two rolls from me...and there's a good chance that I'll hit his Stealth score, so now there is an Alert. Do we start cybercombat with IC? Is a spider alerted? Does the node try to disconnect the hacker? Maybe the IC just starts a trace?

Now the hacker is rolling a perception test to figure out if an Alert was raised and dealing with whatever else is in the node.

Even saying there was no Alert, the hacker may still need a Browse to find those stored video files, and Edit test to erase or edit the file and then another Edit to remove his prints from the Access Log.

I still don't see how the other 3 players at my table are going to be interested in the process... They are interested if the drone starts targeting and shooting them, or if the hacker erased the video and they are now safe, but the in-between stuff? AR or not, what do they care?

That's the problem that I am experiencing with my PCs. I have been able to mitigate the problem a bit by not asking for rolls of simple things or not asking for rolls if they could simply "buy it". Works very well for perception tests, I've found. Not that I'm a wiz a the matrix rules yet, but I'm getting there.

Well that's an attitude problem on their part and there's no way to fix that whit game rules.

Are they interested to see if the patrolling Spirit noticed the Mage when he did his Astral recon of the target facility? Do they care when the group's Covert Ops specialist makes his Infiltration rolls to see if one of the guards spots him which would blow the whole plan? Are they interested to see if the Street Sam can shoot that guard with one shot from his Silenced weapon to take him out before he discovers the bomb the group planted?

If there's no consequence of failure in what the Hacker is doing (if triggering an Alert won't really have any consequences) then don't go into so much detail. If there is a risk with failure, maybe you need to emphasize it more or in a different way to your group. Ranged combat has way more rolls than Hacking does but no one appears to consider it a "time sink" even if its just the group combat specialist doing some solo combat with the BBEG or something.

Max, I agree, that is a player attitude issue. I won't say its a problem, as no one complains or is ruining the game because of it, but as the GM, I don't like my players feeling like they can disengage because there is a "hack".

Malachi, I see what you are getting at, but the case is that the players do care about the end result (did the spirit notice the mage, did the covert ops sneak by, did the sammy drop the guard with one shot, did the hacker delete the video from the drone), just not the steps in between. If it takes 2 minutes, they disengage and talk to one another. If it takes 10 minutes, they go up for a smoke. If it takes 10 seconds, they get ready to talk about something else...

There have been times where the hacker wanted to spoof say, 5 random guys' comms in a crowd to hide his own comm (by setting them to all the same Access ID) and there wasn't any major consequence for failure, so I just had him roll a single spoof, gave him a threshold and told him the result based on his roll. But other times, what may be a simple hack (like the patrol drone video erasure example I gave above) may have a consequence if he rolls really bad, gets engaged in cybercombat, throws an alert and causes a couple more drones or a squad car to arrive on the scene.

I'm certainly open to believing that its poor judgment on my part making a "simple hack" into more than what it should be. Tricen's suggestion of buying hits may help alleviate the issue some, but seeing that I feel really comfortable with the matrix rules, its just hard for me to say, no you don't have to hack on the fly, make a perception, browse for the data, edit the feed, edit to clean up your Access Log, just give me one roll and its done.

To me, that is like telling the sammy, don't worry about shooting the mook, him resisting damage, dodging his bullet and resisting damage just give me one roll and its done...

Do they get this distracted by any mechanic that takes that long to resolve, not just Matrix stuff?


Yeah, I agree... you don't want to "streamline" someone's roll to the point where they feel like their actions are marginalized. At the same time, there will be times in a run where one character or another is going to have some "spotlight" time and the other players just have to deal. If they are losing interest and talking to each other every time any action takes 2 minutes, then I suppose that's just their attention span. If they just lose focus when its Matrix stuff, but they all wait with baited breath while the Sammie engages in a 30 minute solo hand-to-hand fight, then it might be time for one of the sit-down meta-game talks.

Do they get distracted by any mechanic? Not that I recall. I know in our last campaign, any time the mage had a few summoning rolls or astrally projected and did some scouting, the rest of the players would get distracted. The more I think about my situation, the more I feel its more the players than anything else.

But even with that being said, if there was a way to speed up matrix actions, I'd certainly be interested. Just going by RAW, each hack, even the simplest, has a series of tests that segregates the hacker from the rest of the group and I just can't seem to get around that.

I did talk to some of the players yesterday and told them that unlike our DnD game, where we basically try and stay together to minimize the DM having to work solo with some of us doing separate thing, that I'm shifting my mindset to focus more on "spotlighting" players throughout the session and balance it that way. There's just really no way around it...

Sounds like the distraction isn't really the issue, then. If they're just bored when they don't get to throw bones, then they'll just have to learn to deal. If THEY'RE distracting YOU when you're trying to give somebody spotlight time, then you should probably have a discussion about what they can do that doesn't disrupt the game when it's not their turn, and establish a procedure for getting their attention back when the soliloquy is over.


Well, your security design can go a long way here. Hacking a maglock shouldn't require beating a trace IC while making a Browse(12) test. Exploit vs. device rating, load Command, simple action, move on. If the facility is so high-security that such measures WOULD be reasonable, then there should be an equal number of challenges in the meat world to overcome. The prototype they're collecting is actually being tested at the moment, so maybe the face has to do some fast-talking to distract the researchers, or the sammy can create a diversion that chases them out of the lab.


Transitioning out of D&D is pretty tough. The flow is so different, it actually discourages doing anything like what SR is basically built upon. When you're wandering around forests and caves, strength in numbers is the only thing keeping the party alive. When you're a bunch of career criminals with families living in a city, your secrets are the only thing keeping you alive.