And some people complain about escalating power levels and players wanting to go toe-to-toe with big baddies ruining the street nature of the game. But you don't even have to get a major encounter with any of those things to keep that sense of awe about it. Maybe see a Juggernaut from a distance while you're riding a T-bird across the CAS-Pueblo border. Or a chance encounter seeing Mirage doing business with Overwatch in some backwater matrix node somewhere. I think it adds to the cyberpunkiness to occasionally be shown that no matter how big and bad a PC thinks they are, there's still some things out there that can absolutely ruin your day.

But is it really gone? Does having rules for Free Spirit PCs make them any less awe inspiring or wonderous when you encounter one in its native environment? The PC versions are weakened, with cause. But the major ones (both AI and Free Spirit) would have the equivalent of PILES of build boints/Karma, and access to wicky/weird Imersion/Initiation Echoes/Powers. Despite the potential for weak AIs as PCs, I don't find the MAJOR AIs any less fantastical and special than I did before.

Well, if you give a PC AI loads of karma, you'll eventually end up with something as powerful as Deus. Plus, the major AI's have disappeared from canon. And I think the free spirit PC's don't bug me as much because there haven't been any free spirits that occupy the same position in the metaplot as the AI's did. But, to each their own. And I have to admit, the AI PC rules do give the opportunity for some interesting roleplaying opportunities and group dynamic among the players. I just don't enjoy it quite so much, and liked the feel of the metaplot with respect to the AI's back in SR3.

So, what you're really saying, if you're being honest about it, is that you miss the way the old "super" AIs were being developed and are disapointed and a little bereft at losing a beloved plotline more than actually having issue with the new rules... Would you say that's correct? Sort of the way I am dissapointed about the NAN drifting out of the spotlight?

(Everybody: Please, don't use that last remark as an excuse to bring the "NAN Fading" thread in here. I haven't bothered to read the blasted thing since the middle of the second page - now up to four on my screen - because I got disgusted with what happened to it, AND IT WAS MY THREAD!)

You are right, kind of. I do miss that plotline, but mostly because I thought it was so well done, and I haven't seen anything come to up that's quite like it. But the AI's I always viewed more like the Great Dragons of the matrix. And with the passing of the major AI's, and the emergence of the AI PC rules, it feels to me like they've taken something fantastic and unique and made it kind of mundane.

I don't have any issue with making the new Matrix rules more similar to the magic rules, because it's made a hacker character playable and integrated with the group. But I would have liked to seen it done with the flavor of it a little more different than that of magic.

And the aspect of magic now becoming much more of a science, say, like Computer Science? *grin* See: Chaos Mage.

I'm not spoken to, but i have to agree. It sums up nicely how i feel about AIs and Technomancers/Otaku.

Well sorry if the internet didn't live up to yoru expectations.

While i don't speak for Kerenshara I felt that the wash away of the dues/morgan/mirage plot to be replaced with "oh AI's are just another thing you know, they have citizenship and don't you know the corps want themt o move in because the "magically" improve their home system." as a literary tool from one to the next was just garbage. The pulling back fo the curtain just didn't work very well.

Similarly the technomancers with their magical overtones right down to the totem/avatars and streams/traditions just cheapened things for me. Even if i can see the benefits of cribing the magic system there should be some clear lines drawn. In other words as much depth as it may add to some elements of tghe system I would like the matrix not to be hampered by the magic/cyclic/immortal elf albatross. Someone mentioned the talk between Harlequin and the as yet unrepeated Ambrose character in 2.0. I remember reading that at the time, and once I figured out it was Harlequin I was kind of dumbfounded. Of all the possible luminaries to grace Shadowrun, to talk about the Matrix, the possible only new under the sun in the sixth world they have to bring an Immortal Elf and a "Mysterious Immortal" gag, me with a datajack.



NOTHING would make me happier then JackBNimble coming from another world as in something potentially alien or even the future, but if it's a "world" as in the past world I think i'm going to be quite annoyed. For all that's worth.

I sincerely hope some of the core dev team are reading this thread.

K.

kinda fun, how one had one group arguing that the earlier rules where two complicated as matrix, real life and magic had their own rules, meaning they where basically seperate games.

now we have another group that claims they are to similar...

There's just no pleasing some people. You could throw them into an orgy with several hot specimen of the gender of their choice and they would probably still find something to complain about . .

I think they are different arguments. It is the fluff that is the biggest problem in this case. Also, I'm not sure that there was a major group complaining that the Matrix rules weren't the same as the Magic rules, just that there wasn't a lot of coherence generally and that the Matrix rules were the most complicated / convoluted of all. Keep in mind that it is only Technomancers that parallel magic almost exactly (right down to drain mechanics and summoning of spirits) - you still do have Hackers using their own rules so it's not correct to say that people here are complaining about the Matrix rules and the Magic rules being the same. It's just Technomancers, i.e. the "Magic" ones, that have their own way of doing things. The general Matrix rules used by Hackers and anyone other than Technomancers actually are streamlined. They're just an extension of the general rules into specific areas with the exception of using Program ratings. Very few people are complaining about the normal Matrix rules anymore. Plenty are complaining about the lack of explanations and examples, mind you, but that's a different issue.

My feelings, anyway.

K.

I think it's more that the current AIs really have no reason for existing. They're treated as people and no one really knows (at least from what I've read) where they've come from or how they came into existence. What sets Deus, Morgan/Megaera/Mirage apart from those AIs is that they were purely the constructs of humanity/metahumanity. Even if their existence was an accident, they still stand as the crowning achievement of technology.

Plus I think all the Halo fanboys want a reason to put a Cortana AI into their game....

Wow this thread seems to have opened up a can of worms.

I tend to view things from a GM perspective - so I always tend to look at things in terms of balance, at least initially. My gut reaction to TMs were the same as most people in this thread - imbalanced, too uber, bringing in Magic to the Matrix, etc. However, I still vividly remember the early days when things were so painful playing a hacker. Now it is so seemless that I just cannot imagine how we existed without the SR4 rules. If a PC wants to hack a node it is a handful of dicerolls. Only when we hit turn 4 of cybercombat did the other players get up and leave the table (hey, that was BIG step for my PCs).

I'm sure you could easily ignore Emergence (I really didn't like that book) and TMs, even AIs and never lose any sleep over it. I don't think this stuff would come up in 90% of games to be honest. Alternatively, if you wanted to keep them, it wouldn't be hard to re-write them based on SR3 material if you were so inclined (although it would be time consuming). At the moment, I'm experimenting with all the new content just to get a feel for it. I have players picking every exotic thing under the sun. I don't personally dig it but they do - so I run the game they want to play. I don't mind it - so long as we're all having fun (and we are).

My old games were very cyberpunk/post-cyberpunk in feel. Yotc and Emergence give me a sense that we're moving away from the cyberpunk roots and more towards a transhumanist setting. Emergence, SR4 and Brainscan almost lead me to believe we're approach a technological singularity in game (I forget what its called - the theoretical TM/Mage-In-One - hinted at as being the Holy Grail in Emergence if it was ever found). But I think even since SR1 days there was always an incling that someday, the line between Magic and the Matrix would blur. As tech and magic advances, I personally would be fascinated in seeing that convergeance. I'm not sure how it would fit together however and I'm not sure if I'd like it, but I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing.

My largest gripe was the loss of the uber powerful AIs as (forgive me, no pun intended) the ultimate deus-ex-machina. The downgrade in power, emergence of new AIs, no technical explanation did kinda urk me. Saying that no more Uber AIs exist (just because) never sat well with me at all. Then again I loved the Deus' plot and knew it had to end sometime - so no I'm not sure what bothers me more there - the absence of a great story arc, or the loss of uber-AIs without a good explanation.

- J.

Oh I just had to add:


Werd... heh... heh werd...

- J.

i guess the problem with emergence is not so much its content, but that it got delayed because of the fanpro troubles, and changeover to catalyst games. End result, groups had the chance to put in months of play time and development, while the timeline of the world did not officially move...

My problem with Emergence is that it seems like a bail-out book to me, much like the original SR4 book (especially the german one, even without my usual prejudices). The haste with which the plot moves forward and the acceptance of AIs and Technomancers ("Well yeah, we all love them and their cute fluffy icons") just seems to fast to me. I think it is a good book, but i really think about stretching everything past Witch Hunt to accomodate a better plausibility.

Emergence should have been a longer arc, maybe setting the whole world in 2075 and letting the Emergence stretch out a bit....

looking at the timestamps of emergence, it covers the whole of 2070...

the first timestamped upload is 01/19/70, while the one at the start of the last chapter is 12/01/70...

so while reading the book from end to end may make it rushed, its playing out over a whole year...

Yes but the acceptance of AIs as citizens only plays out over about half a year. AFAIK (I'm at work) they weren't known about until September or October.

Hell, Brackhaven gets voted in in November and passes a TM registry bill but that gets largely lost in the love fest that is the AI emergence.

Very weird timing.

more like some impressive media blitzing by the big corps...

but then, look at real life media corps selling the idea of military intervention...

oh, and lets not forget that those 3 months both held a planetary hostage situation diffused and a corp media horror story uncovered. Some of the big boys probably wanted to dismantle the situation fast...

if so, they would probably play up the resolution of the hostage situation, keep very very quiet about the horror story, and find just about anything else to run as headline news as one rolled over into new year...

Yeah, I see what you're saying but I don't really agree that its a reason to write them out of existence. When it comes right down to it, a Magician will be able to take out more opponents than a Sammie, especially when they start Initiating and getting Foci and such. Adepts will always be better than their non-Magical counterpart in the Adept's chosen specialty. That is simply their prerogative. However, if there is one thing that I try to teach my players repeatedly, it's that there is more to being a Shadowrunner than your one or two chosen skill specialties.

It's true that a TM might be able to Hack better, but they have to give up a lot in order to do it. Sometimes, a crucial point in a run comes down to a skill that is not your character's specialty. Case in point: the last run I had for my players. They were sneaking up to a house to extract a corp guy and his family. The group's sniper was all set: he had a ton of dice, a brand new rifle, and EX-EX rounds, ready to blow away the opposition. However, just as they were approaching the house he failed an Infiltration roll, the Barghest saw him, and its Fear effect caused him to run away for 3 Combat Turns, which turned out to be the whole battle. In that case I'm sure the rest of the group would have noticed if he was a little bit less of a skilled Sniper and a little bit more of a skilled Infiltrator.

If your group needs to penetrate a secret corp research facility and steal paydata from its system that is not accessible outside of the heart of the building, are you going to take the hacking-god TM with no Stealth or Combat skills? Or are you taking that combat Hacker, who's not quite as good at cracking the system, but has solid sneaking skills, and can hold is own in a fight if things go bad?

Infiltration, the skill everyone should have. Just because you have a high agility doesn't mean you should rely on defaulting.

Agility, the one attribute that freaking applies to everything.

If only there was some sort of favored race that got a bonus to agility.

Then if they played Mages or Technomancers, imagine if they got a bonus to Charisma as well.

They would never let something like that through.

BlueMax
/sits at a table loaded with elves
//not happy about it.

I'm still stuck on finding reasons why they should exist personally as I have never found them "cool". But I'll stick to the topic.



This is incorrect, but besides the point so it's not worth derailing the thread into one of the Magician is better than Samurai debates that we had when 4th first appeared. Suffice to say that there are many situations where technology quite utterly outclasses magic both on the level of individuals and on the larger scale. However, if you're trying to make the point that magic is already better than technology in other areas, I hardly see that as an argument for it being granted superiority in other areas also.



If you re-read my post, you'll see that I talk about exactly the problem of granting status as "The Best" to Technomancers and relegating Hackers to being good all-rounders. Nobody respects that outside of the metagame constraints of a GM trying to find ways to challenge players. If you want to be the best at stealthing your way into systems, if you want to be the best at cracking encryption or breaking into guarded systems or anything else on the Matrix including Rigging, you need to be a Technomancer. That itself is the problem to me because it makes the archetypes of the hacker who knows code backwards, who understands how the Matrix is built, even the rigger who becomes one with his machine through wiring his motor-cortex direct to it, all of these archetypes - it makes them forever second place to Magic. Can you honestly tell me that you look at a world class athlete, boxer or scientist and say to yourself: "yeah, but he doesn't know how to hotwire a car".

Nobody thinks in those terms and certainly the wider world doesn't. From here on, the super-people of the Matrix are TMs and the Hackers are the ordinary types. The first time an experienced computer security expert gets their digital arse handed to them by a fourteen year old who can barely write a program but can perceive and interact with the Matrix in a way that the expert never can, the point is made. Also, the rules don't quite back you up. At the start with constraints of 400BP, TMs give up a lot to be very good. But that misses the point because (a) they can become well-rounded with a bit of time and still be super compared to the hacker and (b) in an argument that is largely about fluff, it doesn't matter because the world isn't built according to PC generation rules. I know plenty of people who are both strong and clever and a number of people who are physically out of shape and not very bright or educated. And I don't picture the world of Shadowrun being different in this regard (if it were there would be no Grunts or Wageslaves ). The basic fluff of the setting (and books like Emergence really drive it home) is that TMs are the impressive ones.

Hacker characters might be fine normally, but if you're running a game for a Hacker and a TM then every time it comes to the area of speciality, e.g. Hacking into a node, the Hacker is going to sit back and watch the TM gather their dice with a vacuum cleaner. It doesn't matter that the Hacker knows how to do something else as well. He can't compete on the thing that he wants to. Now this isn't much of a problem with Magic V. Tech in other areas, because Sammies and Magicians play very differently and have a range of strengths and weaknesses that make them different. But a TM is competing directly with the Hacker's primary focus in the same situations and is much better at it. Magic has taken the crown in the Matrix and that is very wrong to me because I don't want Magic to dominate the Matrix.

And it's not just TMs. There are mighty AIs and strange sprites and feral digital entities that normal science and technology can't comprehend or compete with. I don't mind an AI like Deus because its a product of man. But when you start talking about mysterious energies and Resonance Realms, we're back with Magic as the big stuff.

That's basically where I'm coming from. I think if you don't have a problem with Magicky Matrix, then these arguments wont work for you, but they explain why I and I think quite a lot of other people dislike it.

Peace,

K.

When I think of Technomancers I usually compare them with scanners, the guys from this movie and that kid from heroes.

I'm still not with you on this point. Shadowrunners are not "pure" athletes, boxers, or scientists. They have a profession that may require them to perform a number of different tasks, each of which could be critical or literally life or death. If the TM was awesomely fast at getting the paydata from the system, but now cannot hotwire the car that the team needs to escape, then what good was getting the data?


Yeah, I think it comes down to the fact that I don't seem to perceive TM's as you do. I understand that mechanically they are similar to Magicians but I don't see them as "Magic" quite as you do. If the non-TM hacking rules resolved their actions in a manner analogous to Magic (such as Frank's alternate rules) would you have the same problem with them? Did you feel the same way about Otaku from previous editions?

I agree that it was very unfortunate that Emergence came as late as it did after the core SR4 book was released. I really like the book and the plotline, but it was rendered almost entirely moot because of the timing of its release. It probably would have been better to keep all of the TM rules out of the main book and put them in Emergence but I believe that putting "core" rules into supplements was something the dev team was trying to avoid in SR4. So they were really caught between a rock and a hard place with that product.

We're talking at cross-purposes. You're talking very much from the point of view of a game with a GM engineering appropriate challenges for a party. I am only partly talking from this point of view. The other aspect, which is a large thing, is that of the world outside tonight's mission. TMs are the best, easily trouncing mundanes at anything they choose to beat them at. The point is that "Magic" has rendered mundanes a desultory second best at the most technological of games there is. I don't like that for thematic reasons and for me the argument stops there. I have reached my negative outcome. Because you don't consider this a problem, you continue past that arguing that within the context of a game, a Hacker has other advantages. You are talking about game balance, but this thread is entirely and demonstrably about flavour and fluff. The hacker as generalist may find ways to be useful to the party, but he is forever second best at hacking. And to many of us that is a big problem.



The similarity of rules is one of the reasons why TM's come across as Magic. But don't neglect the inability of science to explain them or claim responsibility for them, the Resonance Realms, the communication with Satellites via brain wave, the general equivalence of spirit summoning and the existence of drain. There's no way you can introduce, for example, drain to a hacker using AR without making it resemble Magic or summoning independent creatures native to the Matrix, so the question of whether making non-TM hacking rules similar to magic would diminish the Magicness of TMs is an incorrect question. You would simply lead Mundane fluff to start seeming more magic.

Otaku never came up in previous games I played, so I can't comment. But if they were introduced now I would be unlikely to like them.



When I find myself caught between a rock and a hard place, I ask myself if I should be there.

Anyway, I'm happy to agree to disagree. This is a discussion on fluff, after all. I just felt compelled to go into a slightly longer answer because I felt you were misunderstanding my point at the start. Though every time you repeat an argument in a shorter form, it becomes less accurate. As you are approaching my comments from the point of view of game balance and party challenging, don't neglect my comments in the previous post about a hacker and a TM in the same party. It would not be easy to design Matrix challenges for the group in this case which didn't cause the TM to leave the Hacker looking stupid.

That might be a more valid point against TM:s, if actual magic didn't make the best hackers.
Even with-out TM:s magic rules the matrix, as adepts make the best hackers.

The more I read knasser's posts, the more I agree with him...

I too have had issues with TMs, but more from a point of not wanting to learn another "subsystem". And in my first campaign, I didn't realize how closely TMs mirrored magic (I read through them for the first time about a month ago), so just removed them from the game.

I just read through Emergence a few months ago and have been teetering on introducing some of that plot to my current campaign (which is only in January of 2070 right now).

I'm still torn about opening TMs up to be players in my games. To date, I have not...although, from a player perspective, I have made a couple of them for exactly the reason knasser points out...they are way more badass in anything they want to do than a hacker. I mean, threading your stealth up above 10 basically owns anything that is in the matrix unless its another TM.

An Adept can make a great hacker, but at least she is (a) not awesome-sauce better, just a bit maxed out and (b) the Matrix itself doesn't become in any way magic, you just have someone who can do technological things extremely well. And ©, the mundane can do some pretty impressive things with Cyberware that it would an Adept has to compensate for with more BP and karma.

Now you're just addressing whether Magic impinges on Mundanes in Matrix usage other than with TMs, which is relevant to what I was saying about balance of Tech v. Magic, but for the reasons above (most especially b), it's much less of an issue, imo. Though people have had exactly the problem with it that you raise in the past.

K.

How badass would it be to play a street sam with some awesome battle armor, and your own personal AI living inside to handle hacking duties.

That is basically what me and a friend have planned for our next game. He will be playing a Rigger, and I will be playing an AI. Together we will rule the world!

Wasn't that a TV show?

I still want my AI Supercomputer in my Visa card that I can slip into a 3 1/2" floppy drive so it can hack it for me, then project a holographic avater to talk with.

What's the difference between a woman and a computer?

You can slip a 3 1/2" floppy into a computer...

I had to think about that for a minute. That's just awful.

yeah, who in their right mind still uses these when there are things like my "thumb-drive"?
Bigger and better performance! ^^

No, he just described Master Chief and Cortana.

Or Ironman.

Were you going along with the bad humor (who, Stahl?! Never!) or were you actually being serious for a change?

If you were being serious... *reaches for a callendar and a sharpie*

If you were being you... *smacks with a large trout*

That's for me to know and you know the rest ^^
also: ouch, more*snickers*

*Kerenshara digs through a bag in frustration*

"Riding crop... riding crop... Where's the damned riding crop? I know I put it in here somewhere..."

"Allow me" *hands over his own*

*Smirks and raises an eyebrow*

"I see... I see indeed... Is this thing rated for troll hide?"

For the life of me I cannot believe I didn't bring this up earlier.

Magic is getting to scientific for me.

its all becoming one big blend.

BlueMax

"Of course it is. What do you take me for. I like to at least give the Women a Chance" *shrugs*

Well, what with the Corps meddling in this, even Shamans on Corp Pay-Roll, it was to be expected neh?
But that's not such a big Problem for me, with THAT i can deal . . But Matrix based spirits and critters? x.x
Did that have to happen? <.<

Ok you two kindly, break it up, I'd prefer to still be able to check this forum from work.

In the spririt of that getting back to concept:

AI's as PC's in particular draw my wrath as it seems an ill concieved and ultimately unneeded nitch. Certainly more tools is better then less but it seems like we moved awefull fast into 'AI's are here and their GREEEAAAAT" AI's gained societal acceptance faster then dwarves did to put it plainly. That strikes me as wrong.

I will also say that I do not like technomancers as magic, which seems to be where they are going. I DO NOT want them to be "two sides of the same coin." "An echo of something that came before" or anything even remotely related.

Also as was a concern with the Otaku before them and Physical Adepts before them I am a bit concerned it is ultimately pointless to play a non "magical" character concept, By the high game it is pretty much pointless. Not only can "magical" characters do things better then their "tech" counterparts they can do things that tech just can't, and that seems wrong to me in a future based setting.

Well, it WAS bound to happen sooner or later, but i would have preferred it to be in a more decker-way than in the Otaku/TechnoMancer Way.
Not every day business as usual, when suddenly AI's! *snaps fingers* like that. There should have been some more big AI's popping up from time to time.
Things like Mirage, Deus, Morgana and the others. Maybe some popping up in Europe, Asia and Africa, as opposed to somehow only in North America.
Evolving software would be a certain probability in SR, but the Computing Power did NOT make quantum leaps in the time of the 2nd Crash.

Aw, give me a LITTLE credit, would ya? I'd like to be able to post from work. Savvy?

Maybe people are just getting desensitized. I mean first there was magic, then dragon, then orks, dwarves, elves, then insect spirits, then SURGE and changeling, not to mention paracritters and other new changes and advances. To the point when you get to AI, people just don't care that much any more. 

Brilliant corp propaganda or media portrayal might have helped.





Computer power did not make quantum leaps, perhaps that would explain why most of the common that have shown up are fairly weak and take compared to those before the crash.


I have been wondering. Are there still UV hosts around? Have they been removed, downscaled, or simply changed in preference of the wireless matrix with a mesh network. How does the nature of the new wireless matrix affect AI?



Are people just against the idea of weaker AI in general, or against the lack of strong AI in the canon after the crash? If it's the latter, as far as we know, they could still be around. If the option of drake as PC and existence of weaker draconic form of all sort does not affect what you think of the Great Dragon, why get bothered by weak AI?

Nope, but the way the Matrix works did. And perhaps that even the slight increase in processing power was enough to prompt the Emergance of DI's. If Moore's Law is still in effect circa Crash 2.0 the increase in processing power every 18 months would still be massive. Perhaps those increases finally sparked a Technological Singularity, that the huge amounts of processing power taking place throughout the Matrix was enough to spark AI.

It is not that much of a suspense of disbelief that the levels of Self-Adaptive code that are used every day in the Sixth World might randomly create a DI. If I remember right the current estimated numbers of DIs throughout the world numbers in the thousands, about 10,000. That is also surely taking into account any recognised E-Ghosts (That from the storys about CC we can guess are created by Jack'B'Nimble). So DIs are still very rare beings, they are not something any individual is likely to ever meet.

And also, if I remember right, the three AIs that came before this new wave where just the ones that we knew about. It is hinted multiple times that the Nexus might of been home to one, and if the Nexus could hold an AI then any stupidly high level Node (One owned by a Megacorp lets say) could. For all we know the Megacorps could have even more AI's sitting in secure nodes just waiting to get out. You really think a company like Ares would let Renraku have all the fun?