Kruger. Stop the argumentative and bigoted comments regarding ADD.

Feel free to discuss your dislike of certain people's playstyles without resorting to your personal bigoted and provocative commentary on a set of mental and social developmental handicaps.

So you're saying my tinfoil hat will be back in fashion?

Hooray!

Do aluminum foil hats actually block brain waves?

Testing was inconclusive - turns out half the ones wearing the hats weren't transmitting brainwaves in the first place.

Wait, they went out of fashion? Crap...

Sort of in line with the discussion, Tron and The Matrix. Old VR movie vs. a New(ish) VR movie. Easy to draw comparisons with Old Matrix and New Matrix.

I'd go so far as to say you are flat out ignoring all of the rules and fluff for matrix security in fourth edition.

Anything remotely secure is not connected to the Matrix, or if it is, it is through a series of choke-points of escalating difficulty. Even if you don't flat-out need to be on site, being on site (and having the various muscle and magic guys to cover you) has enormous advantages.

Stuff that is really, really, really secure? It isn't wireless AT ALL.

To ad with-the datasearch rules mention this somewhat. Not all information is on the Matrix---secure information can be wireless, vanishing (timed burst transmission), hard copy, or availbe only by talking to the right people.

Also, skillsofts, emo-softs and such have their limits.

Two words that fundamentally changed the nature of the Matrix and how the game plays: Dataline Tap.

Ok, so please show anything in Unwired 2.0 that treat about Wired security ? 99.99% of every rules and fluff of SR4 is about Unwired security. People with just the rulebook are showed that everything is wifi directed.

In Unwired 2.0, on the node example there is only 2 of them that use optic-fiber connection : The Orbital Bank and The Hyper Secured base. Note that 3 of the 4 Nodes of the Secret Aztlan Base are accessible from Matrix only one from site, so "It isn't wireless AT ALL." ?, please.

So even the game designer accept that security doesnt rely heavily on wired system, thoses are definitely last ressort. Also thoses description forget about all the other nodes in the area (vehicules, personnal commlinks and such).

Oh, as I said, it's a feeling! Feelings don't tend to incorporate all the facts, they selectively pick some to create themselves. Naturally games I play in are adjusted according to feelings - and incorporate wired networks extensively. So it's all good, in my games.

Do you allow Deckers to continue to use the item that was their bread and butter for 35 years before Crash 2.0? The Dataline Tap?

It's hilarious how in 5 years all of a sudden the "ultra secure, unbreakable systems" are all wired when "hackers" have been dealing with that for decades. Did all the wired data transfer become magically unbreakable when someone flipped the switch to "wireless"? I can't find a reference in the book saying so. In fact it goes out of its way to say that the backbone and structure is the same meaning the tried and true method of Dataline Tapping should still work. Fuck your wireless inhibiting paint and Faraday cages.

Funny enough, wireless being so easy and efficient actually made the hacker LESS willing to physically go on site in 4th edition. Also the removal of the I/O stat, bandwidth, and Active/Storage Memory all contributed to the hacker never having to leave the van now. If you were trying to wirelessly hack into a Red-Hard system and you knew you couldn't fit all the programs you need on your deck and the bandwidth on the wireless connection would be shit you suddenly had to face the very real options of either 1) going on site, or 2) potentially getting facerolled by the ice (which were actually scary back then).

ICE is still scary.
It just needs to be multiples of them.
3-4 Agents against 1 Hacker is a bad day for the hacker, unless he has bully boys with him.

lol
only needed 1 to be a threat back in the day! and if you killed it you got weaker or else triggered another one to attack you.
That plus grey ice and greater could destroy your multi-million nuyen deck. Deckers must be having a hard time adjusting to the 2070's where if you can't avoid the trace you can just throw away your commlink and get another one just as good in a week.

This brings up another point -- Cybercombat. The removal of maneuvers made it bland as hell. Or did they add them back in in Unwired?

The more I think about it the more they ruined the Matrix part of the game for those of us who actually understood it and played with it. It's a crying shame. It was actually more powerful, engaging, and fun to play a Decker than it was to be a Mage. Now Mages rule all in SR4.

Yeah.. cybercombat is a snorefest.

They simplified it in weird ways, and made it hard in other weird ways, made everyone a decker.

A friend and I are working on improvements to increase the flavor and individuality of hackers. So you can actually have hackers in a group who specialize in different things.

redoing the scultupting and topography of systems.
We do need to bring back ICE that destroys the commlink and not just the user
And it would be nice if the SOTA commlinks were /expensive/ again. Instead of barely 20k?

Heh, they always ruled. Actually, if you extrapolate from the number of PC mages to NPC mages, and use magical security, a lot of magic is a lot weaker now. Especially being stealthy as a mage is hard, since you tend to stick out like a sore thumb on the astral. Manatech? Mage shackles? Previously it was fricken impossible to imprison a mage without keeping him on drugs 24h a day. Yes, FAB isn't exactly new. It was also a very crappy mechanic. Sort of the Too-awesesome-to-use superscare for any mage. But... magic is really old topic, and I guess not for this thread.

Well... IMHO the trade of on the matrix side in SR4 is an understandable one: They wanted to make things more accessible. They wanted more matrix action to happen AT the table. The result is a dumbed down design, surely, but, whatever people like Kruger and maybe you say, the matrix was NOT present on MANY game tables in earlier editions. I haven't ever seen a PC decker in all the years of SR3.

So, what I suggest is, just put the complexity back in. If you want it. I mean it's still all there, in older rulebooks. It can't be that hard to come up with useable SR4 rules for a lot of stuff. This is one of the core concept of RPGs - YOUR group, YOUR game. I'm pretty certain you didn't find a lot of matrix action in SR1-3 during convention play, and really conventions are the ONLY place where you need to stick excessively to RAW. Anywhere else the rules are debatable.

Oh, I know it wasn't common. But I completely deny your claim that the new system is more accessible and streamlined. It has just as many dice rolls and just as many weird little rules to remember while giving the GM and Player LESS options. SR4 hacking is on rails but the track is just as long as it ever was in SR3. At least in SR3 you could hit the railway switch and take a different track.

And I'm talking about BBB compared to BBB in the above statement. SR3 pulls even farther ahead when you add in Unwired and Matrix.

You are also incorrect about Mages. Mages are quantifiably more powerful in SR4. Being able to cast at the highest power level without having to learn/earn the right to do so. All traditions being able to summon and bind. No domains anymore. Being able to use magic to boost performance in AR. Bigger base dice pools. Vastly improved Shapechange. Counterspelling that doesn't reduce your ability to cast. I'm sure I can find more.

What they lost: "free" spell points, shamans can't summon as many varieties of spirits anymore (most were the same but different domains so you could actually access them -- most people just used 5 tops anyway). Free Magic when initiating (but the mechanic is so different it is hard to track). Better Watcher spirits. Probably missed a couple.

I miss the domains, too. In fact, I just recently discovered that they weren't there (must of missed it when initially reading the core book, heh), but I've been running them for the past 2 or 3 years. Think I'm still gonna do it, at least for the elementally/naturey spirits.

Cheops, that's not refuting, that's denying. Refuting is actually proving that the SR4 matrix isn't more streamlined.

Edited just for you.

I'm just glad you didn't use 'refudiate'!

Hey, I'm a business man. Just the fact that I know some big words like that should be impressive enough. Let alone whether I am using them correctly!

Ah, note that while I said the tradeoff was understandable, I never said they succeeded in doing anything at all .

As to mages:

What they lost: A crapton of successes at piddly force. So that is balanced out by being able to use Force 12. Oh, but they still lost the crapton of successes. In SR3 I could be INVISIBLE to EVERYTHING on the material plane with Force 1 simply by rolling all my spell pool with my casting dice against a piddly threshhold. In SR4 it's already hard to be invisible to drones at all, with their upped OR of 5! And spending edge isn't equivalent to the pool!
In SR3 I could fly really really fast, enough to never want to walk again, at force 3. I could also technically levitate a 16 ton truck with enough attempts.
In SR6 a stunbolt cast at F6D was easily equivalent to the modern day F11. In SR3 the Shatter equivalent at F1D was easily superior to the modern equivalent at F11 - because you still need to fill 20 boxes of condition monitor - post beating OR - on a lot of objects, maybe more.

You didn't even have small dice pools. 6 casting + 10 spell pool meant any buff cast with a ton of successes at chargen into a piddly F1 sustaining focus.

Granted, SR4 introduced new problems, and made counterspelling rather easier, but I tend to repeat that while mages rule all sorts of combat, they don't rule stealth any more. Or maybe I'm just too stupid to do it right.

It does, optical taps are in Unwired.

There's very little in terms of tech that didn't survive the 3-to-4 transition, it feels like. (Except, of course, the good bits of Rigger 3)

There are even tapper drones, handy.

tapper drones are awesome.

I did a touchless run using a pair of tapper drones to get around wireless suppression.

I wish I could have known Shadowrun back in the day... *Sigh*

Yup, no more rummaging in the dust under raised floors. Just have the face drop one during his "I'm a potential investor, would you give me a short tour?" routine.

Too bad the rules for all those don't specifically mention that they give you access to the system. Optical Tappers just allow you to monitor traffic between nodes with Intercept Traffic. All the drone does is set up an optical tap. No rules are given to indicate whether you can access the system through these or not. So house-ruled SR4 Splat books regain 1 piece that BBB had in SR3.

I really miss the aztec RPV and some of the larger ships. The RPV was my riggers favorite toy. Can't really convert it over either.

What is a "tapper drone"?


(a drone that keeps tapping your back? WTF?)

It's a microdrone that carries equipment to tap into non-wireless networks.

From Unwired.

They have a picture of a mouse-sized buglike walker drone dragging an optical cable past a guard's feet.


-k

I thought it was clear from context, but it's a tiny drone with really one purpose: hook up an optical line tap, so you can Intercept Traffic over it.

Now, Cheops, you're right that the book doesn't explicitly say you can connect this way, but you can alter/insert your own traffic. That should be enough, in practical terms, to make a connection. The nodes involved might notice, but that's why it's a hacking action. Whether it amounts to RAW or not, I'm not arguing. Where exactly is 'Dataline Tap' in the SR3 core book, btw?

Same thing but it specifically rules that it also serves as a Jackpoint which means that you log-on your session where ever you happen to be plugged in. They allow you to create illegal jackpoints. So if you tap into the telephone box on the street corner you get onto your LTG. If you tap into the main trunk coming out of a corporate facility you log into their Host. You'd still need to hack access or else you'd only have whatever public access was available. But it was very helpful for bypassing any potential matrix dungeons your GM had set up to secure the system. Downside was you usually needed to physically be on site because no one else had the skills/gear to hook it up for you.

Altering/insert traffic is very different than actually accessing a system. The best it could do for you in SR4 is get you the AID so that you can try to hack directly into the node you wanted. So you could bypass the matrix dungeons that Unwired re-introduced to solve the problem of nodes being easy to hack despite one of the design goals of SR4 being to get rid of the matrix dungeons.

Deckers perfectly illustrate another thing that irks me about SR4. There is very little room for advancement in your specialty and gear upgrades are so easy to get. It was always such a great feeling the first time your decker used an MPCP 10+ deck. Or your Sam/Rigger pulled out some SOTA new Mil-spec gun and blew someone away. Or when that last die stopped spinning and you realized your mage could now cast a Force 10+ spell. You felt like you'd taken a major step in your chosen field.

Now, everything is so easy to get (under the same restriction that existed in SR3 -- GM permission). Like I said up-thread, a top of the line commlink is something that can be TOSSED IN THE GARBAGE at only SLIGHT loss. We had Deckers and Riggers die in the past because they refused to abandon their gear. That 1.5 million nuyen deck was precious to them. Betaware was something that was REALLY hard to get and cost an arm and a leg (often literally).

And as a GM it was fun to also see this growth happen. I could take pleasure in their glee and blowing away my baddies with their brand new mortar, rocket launcher, military drone, or mega-spell. Challenges were more scalable by "cheating" and artificially inflating the TN to make things difficult for them. There were never situations where success was impossible -- everyone had a CHANCE. Sure, you ended up with crazy stuff, but Shadowrun was about the crazy, gonzo fun.

We didn't have to have any gentlemen's agreements at the table to not break the system because it a) was harder to do, and b) didn't matter. We didn't have to purposefully underpower our starting characters to give them room to grow. And we could grow both vertically and horizontally in all classes -- not just awakened and resonance.

I agree, and it bears repeating: the Caliban used to cost 1.5 *million* nuyen. Today, a 6/6/6/6 commlink is like… what, 50k, at most? And there's nothing above that, except for mil/corp/gov. Honestly, I think it's a mistake the way most of the whole system is based on the 1-to-6 scale. It's not granular enough. The smallest possible penalty or bonus is 1, which is a big step (even for stat+skill=12). In hacking, this really shows, because there are not quite as many degrees of freedom as, say, gunfighting.

The inevitable march of technology continues. How much were the old machines in Mission Control that my smartphone now can outperform?

Yes, and how much are the machines that mission control now uses?

I wonder if altering the Availability curve (along with price) would help. After all, 'normal' users (normal runners, that is) don't necessarily need the super-comm anyway. Or, apply this change only to hacking programs, and leave the common use/sensor/etc.

As much as they were back then, adjusted for inflation.

Yes, Upping the avail/cost of programs and commlinsk would go a long way.

Avalon with Signal and Response upgrades, and system 6 firewall 6 would cost 22,250

Customized Interface: 250
Hardening R6: 150
Optimization: 500
Simsense accelerator: 15000
Biomtric Lock: 150
Armor R10: 500
Crypto sense: 1000
Fetch Module R6: 24000
Response Enhancer: 12000

Maxed out Total: 76050

For the most tricked out commlink you can legally get.

Technically, you can only have 4 of those mods anyway.

Ah, I forgot the Fetch module.

What's the deal with the Fetch module, anyway? It's just a gimped Agent with Browse, right? Seems like a real waste of time. I guess you can slap a high-rating Fetch onto a low-rating comm…

It's an Agent/Browse program that does not take up processor space and has a personafix.

It's rolling 12 dice on a datasearch test at R6.
And it's cheaper than buying a whole new commlink just for the Agent/Browse.. and yeah, you can take it and hook it up to a 2/2 100ny commlink

Still, a very limited, odd use. It's not like processor space or personafix matter.

Yeah I only threw it in there for shnarfs and giggles.

Anybody else miss Dikote? Don't know why I suddenly remember that bit of fun.

Not really.

It was too much of a "must have" item.

Yeah: if everything is Dikoted, nothing is.

Agreed. Dikote can die in a fire.

I agree the 1-6 scale falls down in a lot of areas. With the TN of 5 it exaggerates it even more since it really means on average a 2 hit scale. There is very little difference in feel between a 4 or 6 rating skill for example. And since the scale mostly stops at 6 it really does not capture the difference in feel the skill/attribute/program rating is supposed to convey.

I liked some of dikote's effects specifically the weapons that cut through anything, but I did not like the overall dikote everything feel. The cut an X object in half thing I dig in my cyberpunk, I've seen it too often in books, movies, anime. And I want it in more places than the monofilament whip.(which is only for people anyways). Maybe not quite as impressive as earlier SR's but a certain type of melee weapon like vibro weapons that 1/2d the armor mod before the armor mod normal for that weapon type or something.

This is one of those things in SR4. Does anyone else think the hard skill cap of 6 should just go out the window? It just doesn't make sense. While it does amplify the problems of large dice pools, it kills a lot of immersiveness of the system. Also, as long as you apply the cap (if you use it) AFTER modifiers, there is really nothing wrong with pushing up the skills - and you still do get a gain.