So I have decided to get our RPG group to play shadowrun, and I thought it would be best to leave off were the last GM left off... After all the characters were remade (that is all the glaring weakness addressed) I, the person that was playing as the hacker of the group, noticed something....

They have no hacker... The closest they come is is a petty hacker who can bypass the most basic of security and hotwire cars...

The group is as follows...

An Orkish cybered up street ganger.
A Street Samurai that has been tweaked for a "stealthy approach". (Think tactical assaults rather than ninja)
A physical adept tweaked from the book. (I have not seen the final results but I assume a gun-fu fighter)
A Support Mage (very utility but no technical skills with computers)

In addition, another character that is designed to be a survivor of the streets and does some breaking and entering (basic stuff, enough to steal a car)

The survivor told me that he was going to have a hacker as an NPC... I am fairly new to GMing shadowrun and I am curious as to how to take care of this... Do I run the NPC as my own character, or do I treat him as FIAT as I now control how much information the group can gather.

I know where your coming from my current group is abit like this

There would be two options really either you do the hacker as a npc which is more work for you or you use the buy a better hacker stuff from unwired and if they ask for stuff to be done you know what it iwll cost them to have set up.

You could also go the route of a group contact whos a hacker and hand wave some of it to fit the run.

Simple approach... they contact a hacker (your character or an NPC; doesn't really matter, it's a Contact this way or that way for the purpose of the run), you make a single roll using appropriate dice pool (i.e. Logic + Computer or Hacking) and decide how useful the information is the hacker can provide based upon how good the roll was. Don't play Matrix games with yourself.

Bye
Thanee

Well, you should never make the PCs depend on the random luck of an NPC. If they leave the hacking to NPCs, those NPCs will succeed whenever it suits your plot, and fail whenever you want them to fail. If the players want control, they'll have to hack themselves.

Also, make sure to charge for all the hacking they have done.


Maybe no one wants to play a hacker, but maybe someone figures it's worth a shot, if everyone else is competing for the combat niche anyway. You get more limelight if there's no real competition.

Consider though, you should probably not force the players to designate someone as the hacker, if no one really wants to. But it does limit the kind of jobs they can do.

Don't use DMPCS - it usually doesn't work well. You are probably best off having the hacker as either your old character turned NPC, in which case he will be treated as a Contact (you get to decide his Connection and Loyalty for them) and charge them money for the troubles accordingly, encourage someone to become a hacker (which can be easy with some Skillwires and 'softs, although a little pricey), or you can encourage them to get an Unrestricted Agent to hack for them.

the soulution is simple. if they get offered a job that would require a hacker they either hire one or simply dont take the job. i dont believe in forcing roles. it is the GM's job to tailor the game to their players.

In older editions having a Decker on the team often caused groans, at least at my table, because of the time sink to overall flow of the game. In SR4, however, hacking has been integrated very neatly and is a damn near necessity for at least one, if not multiple parties members. How many people do you know that don't use a computer these days? In just 20 years it went from few people using them to most people in developed countries. In another 60 years? There is a reason the 'Link is a ubiquitos piece of gear, and the rules stopped much of the bogging down, and hey, the hacker can even, and should be encouraged, to come along on the run. TacNets are very helpful, interrupting communications on the other side is useful. Stress the variety of roles available to those with hacking skills and their value to any team.

I said encourage, not force. There's a difference.

Might go the both routes...

I am thinking about picking up where the last GM left off characters wise... My hacker is a 15 year old technomancer, however given the current predicament of being thrown out into the shadows... I think he will be more than glad to help... in exchange for hearth and home.

As for the hacking contact, I think I will also NPC him as I think there might be a huge contrast between someone who is new and someone that is used to the mean streets... NPCing them both sounds interesting and fun...

Given how useful hackers are, I guess it would not hurt to have the Contact and my "DMPC" in the same run... It would be nice to explore the two characters as complete foils...

I havent played in a group that had a decker since the first game I ever played back in highschool or so. We realised its alot of extranious stuff that the rest of the party really doesnt care about except for the result. They cant even show up to be an interested onlooker.

For my part I would never just story fiat hacker support, if your players have chosen not to have anyone with hacking skills that's fine, make up a hacker NPC or even a couple with some stats. The Hacker PC's especially if called to do actual matrix work (and it would be impossible to survive on anything above a very street level in the shadows without some level of matrix work) and have the hacker roll based on the stat rolls. Don't do whole extended tests but there should be some random level of fail. Other thing the hacker should do is want a full or at least partial share of the fee, none of this "Hearth and Home" BS. Hackers risk as much if not more then others on the run, they should want similar payment.

and ya have the players over a barrel so why not skim off the cred!?

well... given that the kid used to live in a corporate enclave... everything about shadowrunning is what he learned from TV shows...

TV shows would not bother with something as lame as clearing data trails or staying in the shadows (IE: watching where your data trail goes)... Hearth and Home for an inexperienced teenaged technomancer (inexperience at life) might cost them more than what would be charged from the contact... He is smart (groomed for the spider work) but naivete as he has never been outside of an enclave... he will learn to stay out of the light and in the shadows, like he will learn how valuable his work is and start charging the party...

As for charging them right now, the contact is a professional and charges a fee like any other hacker... How much this is, I dunno right now...

If he is actually participating in the run he should charge a cut.

Hackers do two things. One, they do data runs on their own, and two, they accompany the team on missions to do on-the-spot stuff. Opening doors, hacking opposing teams' communication, hacking their gear, things like that.

For solitary missions, like hacking in, grabbing some info, you play the hacker as a contact. "Hey man, we're trying to get a hold of this guy. He works at this place. Can you get me his HR file, and find out when he's in the building? Oh, and get me company ID that I can encode into a badge?" "Sure, when do you need it, and how much are you willing to pay?"

That sort of thing bores most people (who aren't playing that hacker). I don't get that, though. This stuff is essential for the success of our mission, and my group generally sticks around to see how it all turns out.

But the here-and-now stuff, that you do while you're with the team in the middle of a mission, is often overlooked. This is not boring hacker stuff, where the rest of the players go for a smoke break, this is done right with the rest of the team, under initiative pass timing.

"Hey ninja, I found the node with the paydata, but I've got to go VR to get it. I'm going to go unconscious here in the elevator next to the unconscious mage. I'm sending all the camera feeds to your comm for the lobbies next to the elevators on each floor, and here is the control for the elevators, if you have to move them. Use your command program. I've locked the one my body is in; here's where to unlock it. Message me if we have to move."

So hackers can be fun, even in combat situation. Our own team is short a hacker right now. We play mercs, so it's not a huge issue. But I still miss a hacker sometimes.

So if you're doing standard shadowruns? Give them the contact, like I mentioned at the top, and they're just going to suck it if they need onsite help. You can occasionally plan a run that requires it, and then supply an NPC hacker to come along. As long as you make any solo hacking work happen instantaneously (in real time), you should be good. And then you can show your players how much help it is to have a hacker along, and maybe someone will be more inclined to play one.

And maybe you can offer some tangible incentive, like giving out some karma specifically for hacking skills, and having the hacker wannabe find a top-end commlink, with all the programs. Another good thing is that hacking is not hard to get into. I played a character that acted as our team's secondary hacker. After I got my combat skills up, I started improving my hacking abilities, and I got pretty good pretty quickly.

Good luck!

Hackers are also useful for other combat things, like hacking into the enemy's TacNet and either 1) patching your team into it and keeping them hidden, so they can use the enemy's TacNet against them, or 2) Crash their TacNet so they lose bonuses and cohesion. You can also do fun things like eject the bad guy's clips from their smartguns, spoof an HTR call to a different location (so the team shows up somewhere they aren't needed), rerout calls to a different country ("We need a SWAT team fast!!" ".... No habla Ingles." [sorry for the bad Spanish, I don't speak it]), hack a pursuing car and cause it to restart, or any number of other things.

Doing these sorts of things to your team are a good way to make them wish they had a hacker. But be careful. It's also a good way to make them mad at the GM for throwing things at them that they have no defense against. Maybe do it in an otherwise low-threat conflict.

My solution has been to provide multiple NPC hackers to choose from, each with their own "drawbacks". They do have a hacker, but realistically he's not very talented and the character is played by a "flakey" player. I then use peer pressure - subtlely, over time to persuade them. E.g. smashing a car window in an attempt to steal the vehicle doesn't work as well in the Sixth Age as it does today.

Of my NPC hackers...
* One is a combat hacker - reasonably talented but a rookie.
* Another is an excellent top notch hacker/face - unfortunately she has a rep of being a junkie and occasionally "flakey".
* Another is as good as they come, uber reliable but he never does jobs face to face, only works 9-5 Mon-Fri and he charges penalty rates for out of hours calls or jobs. Oh and he charges the most out of all three.

My PCs hire hacker #3 more often than not and he makes them BLEED financially. So much so they realise that they cannot function without a hacker but at the same time, they realise that unless someone is willing to take on that role, that it will hit them in the hip pocket.

This, more than anything, has made them slowly realise that they need a PC hacker.

- J.

tapping commuication and breaking locks? that can be done with electronics and electronics B/R and avoid all the complex crap that is decking.

This. This, this, and more this. Get them what they need, if they need it bad, make them have to work harder (pay more or win some social rolls or something), and feed them misinformation and mistakes just often enough that it's fun, but not so often that it's frustrating. Best to put at least one small mistake in the first run, just so they're all clear that it's not going to be 100% all the time.

Breaking locks, yes. Facilitating escape and blocking pursuit by controlling all the locks in a building? No.

I don't get the prevailing attitude here of "They don't want to play a hacker? Punish them!" What's the big deal? For legwork, have a hacker contact. For on the job stuff, have a hacker NPC.

It's like D&D, where it seems like the cleric was always an NPC. There were people who did like playing clerics, just as there are people who like playing hackers. But if this particular group doesn't like playing hackers, why the hell try to force them into it? Let them play what they want to play, and either tailor the runs to play to their strengths (easy to do, considering that they are essentially freelancers who are hired by people who know their general capabilities), or add an NPC or two to the group as needed.

In my opinion it's not a matter of 'punishing' the players for lacking a hacker member of the group. Simply remind them that they have a vulnerability that can at time bite them in the backside. Not every johnson has a hacker on his payroll to plug the hole in their party.

And having the NPC hacker botching things at times isn't 'punishing' : a PC hacker CAN screw up. why should an NPC one be immune just because he's not a PC and it could come inconvenient to the party ?

Of course, overdoing it and having them bump every run into devious matrix tricks and using their datatrail to send enforcers on their tail would be.

An alternative could be to move the action someplace where hacking isn't such a necessity, things like a mercenary outfit in Africa or the like.

I see your point but in my example, its not about punishing it. I see it as "cause and effect".

E.g.
Cause: PCs refuse to play a well balanced team.
Effect: PCs will need to source those additional, complementary skills from SOMEWHERE (read: NPCs).

It's really that simple.

You can structure runs where they are simply acting as muscle but that simply isn't feasible all the times and moreover, there will be times where the lack of those skill sets will get them trounced.

- J.

While i don't pretend to speak for everyone, your arguments are flawed on a number of levels

1) Lets say you have a RPG based on a sailing vessel, someone on the crew is going to need to be familiar with navigation. They might be an NPC or PC but it's not like the oceans no longer require charts just because no one amongst the PC crew feels it's important enough to spend points on. Now further remember just how must the matrix permeats everything in shadowrun and your average shadowrunner team will need the services of a matrix head if they intend to do anything above street level. You can play it another way where they are coming in and removing the cover of every card lock they come across but that gets very tedious very quickly.
2) An NPC is a fine solution, my main concern has been A) The NPC should expect an equal share of the reward and there should be a chance for failure just as there is a chance for success.
3) There are no pre-defined classes in shadowrun this is no incentive for them not to branch out and broaden their skills. In fact theire's a lot of pitfalls to being specialized dumb muscle.

I think a team with no hacker is viable, but you need someone for legwork. Legwork is what separates a Shadowrun mission from a rail-shooter. The only way for the team to find out about the situation and create a plan so they accomplish the run their own way is to do legwork.

A social character can accomplish most of what a hacker can. For instance, you can use Etiquette on the matrix to find out information, it doesn't have to be a data search. You can then use that information to track down people, who you presuade/con/seduce into helping you. You can do everything a hacker would normally do using social skills. You can trick someone into giving you an all-access pass to the facility, or you can convince a security person to be your inside man who lets you in and suppresses alarms and such. It often requires more creativity (when I play a hacker, I generally throw my large handful of dice several times, and the thing that I want happens) but it's doable.

What I don't think is doable is a team of only combat guys. That is, not for most standard Shadowrun missions. You could still get by as essentially a hit squad -- four combat oriented runners is essentially a paramilitary combat squad, cable of fighting in war. That kind of power can be used for wetwork, creating diversions, and other stuff that doesn't involve opening doors (or at least not opening doors quietly).

funny. I once played in a game where all the players were combat. I dont think we could even talk well. We got jobs where other runners had failed because of heavy security. Our general plan of action was similar to Heat. We would generally find out where the pay was (usually data gathered by a dead runner team) and go in on scorpions. We generally had maximum destruction on the facility. Most of those chars only lasted a few runs. I generally dont play like that anymore though. I'm starting to like the job of the face more, allows for more interesting play; such as starting a party and only giving half pay to the stupid troll who answers the door with an autocannon and no cloths.

I'm sure I'll get curb stomped for this, but in my experience most of the people pulling for Deckers and Hackers to be relevant work in computers, or are some kind of computer nerd. (Not to say they're bad people, just that I'm not one of them.)

Like other groups my group prefers to subcontract their "Decker" because I don't think even the computer guys like playing a Decker. This, of course, carries a variety of risks. Is your Decker reliable? Does he owe anyone? How would you know? What happens when he's out of town? when he gets shot. I believe LOT mentioned making sure the Decker gets a cut-no one works for free right?

In the end obviously this is a personal preference-play the game in a way that is fun for you, and your group.

just what defines a computer nerd?

See? They're assembling to curb stomp me right now. Puts his teeth on the curb. Alright, get on with it.

nonono. I really am just asking. More frequantly than I like to admit to myself I have to write programs at work and everytime I go to a user group meeting I find that I seem to know as much or more about programming than many present. I hope to not be a computer nerd and I do not think players must have a decker. but I thought I'd ask.

I think it's a personal preference thing, and everyone's answer will vary. See how I dodged that?

scared of getting nailed down on a position?

Nerd fights are sad, unseemly affairs. Internet Nerd fights are worse.

true.

Paul: your point is worth considering.

I personally enjoy playing a hacker. I'm a computer science student, and well aware that SR hacking rules bear only vague resemblances to reality. I'm also a history student, and I tend to be one of the more active players when it comes to legwork and pre-mission planning. It's a personality thing.


Should a team have a hacker? Usually, yes. They do a lot of useful things. Should it be a PC? If someone thinks playing one is fun, yeah. If no one thinks it's fun, it could be
A) Those are just the players; they just don't like it. Make it an NPC, best solution.
B) They lack inspiration; a couple of movies with cool hacking in them might change their mind.
C) The rules suck so badly/the GM has handled them so poorly, that no one wants to play a hacker and go through that again. Fix rules, or use NPC.

The solution you pick should suit the case you're in.

From reading the OP, I got the impression (perhaps wrongly) that it was A. The players simply weren't interested. Thus, my suggestion to simply make it an NPC, and not go out of the way to "punish" them simply for finding one of the game's roles too boring for them to play.

I do think such an NPC should either be a contact who expects to be paid, or a member of the team who expects his cut. And he should have his own little personality quirks, and not be perfect at his job - but only like any NPC, not to deliberately frag them over for not doing it themselves. I would feel the same way if no one wanted to play a magician. If a team needs a role, and no one would enjoy playing that particular role, then hell, that's one of the things they have NPCs for.

Let's face it, the PCs need NPCs such as fixers, fake ID specialists, arms dealers, smugglers, and lots of other folks in order to exist in their quasi-legal roles. Having one or two of these NPCs as actual party members isn't that different from the status quo.

In my experience, computer nerds go NUTS when they encounter SR4's simplified hacking. You should read the threads on here, hundreds of pages from people who know about computer hacking IRL ranting about how SR4's hacking system is bullshit.

Of course, some of them might prefer to have the role of computer nerd, they just feel good about being the man who controls the tech, regardless of any complaints with SR4's system.

Though I'm not suggesting all computer nerds hate the system, I have encountered some who say, "It's not realistic, but it's a game! Enjoy it!" Which strikes me as a sensible idea, as opposed to FrankTrollman's idea of rewriting the entire system with a whole new source book, effectively.