If you like your idea, you like your idea. *shrug* It's your imaginary reboot, so imaginarily reboot all you want to. I just wouldn't ever, ever, "buy" that power for any adept I ever made (and I've made my fair share).

Me either, even if we're talking a null-action even during combat.
(Enhanced Skill (Dodge)! Now I'm punching, Killing Hands! I'm doing damage, Elemental Fists!)

Because of one, very simple, thing.

A 3 magic adept is not very good at even one thing, ever, much less being a swiss army knife.

If anything, it would encourage cyber-adepts (why spend "10" magic on Imp. Reflexes 4? Just get cyber for a measly 1.5!).

Because you can reroll anytime. On-the-fly adept is not in the quantity thing, he's in the quality thing. He can compete with any specialist providing he have to time to prepare (or instantly, with null time).

Null time makes him virtually throw [Magic-1] more dices anytime he throws the dices with a skill at 6 (+3 skill +2 attribute for a magic 6), whatever the action. Even the themes he have no knowledge in he gets +3 (+3 attribute) and you still think it's an underpowered power, I'm not sure you understood why null time is broken.

If you want perfect formula, human up to magic X, on the fly null-time is exactly like that, for ANY non-combat action :

Skill 0/1 = +[min(Attribute/2 rounded down;Magic/2 rounded down)] dices (boost attributes)
Skill 2/3 = +[min(Attribute/2 rounded down;(Magic-0.5)/2 rounded down) + 1] dices + property (boost attribute + +1skill + killing hands, whatever)
Skill 4/5 = +[min(Attribute/2 rounded down;(Magic -1)/2 rounded down) + 2] dices (+2 skill + boost attribute)
Skill 6 = +max(2;[min(Attribute/2 rounded down;(Magic - 1.5)/2 rounded down) +3]) dices (+3 skill + 2 boost attributes at magic 6 or 2 dice with magic 1)+property when magic > 2
Skill 7 same as skill 6 + 2 properties when magic > 5.

In combat he gets [Magic] more dice on any defensive action he take (combat sense and if he's hit mystical armor) and I think null time is overkill with 18 dodge (+6 dice in combat sense +dodge 6 + rea 6)/ 14 armor (full form fitting + secure tech + 6 mystical armor).
He's the exact same as a canonic full combat sense/mystical armor adept, by the way so no need to choose this combo because null time Chameleon adept can do other things aswell.
He's a lot better than a canonic "some combat sense / some mystical armor / some third power" provided the third is not used as the same moment than combat sense or mystical armor.

Null-time is full combat sense / mystical armor + very nice swiss knife bonuses that can take you to 18 dices on ANY non-combat action with attribute 6/skill 7/magic 6 with a +5 given there, anytime, at any moment.
You two guys just seems to demonstrate that a full combat sense / mystical armor is highly highly highly low tier since you tell null time is "highly highly" low tier.

And full combat sense/mystical armor is only one combo I could think of. He's also a full big leap/+boost running/gymnastics and can switch to a full freefall/half mystical armor when he fails, etc etc.

He's the same as a lot of canonic adepts with no imp ref since they all don't use half of them at the same time. In VR he's the same as your rigger adept in AR that have bizillion PP in lots of skills, as your hacker adept in AR. He's the same as your face adept (same reasons), he's a lot better than a full detection adept (PP invested in multiple sense and you only need 1 at a time)... For 5 BP it "migth" be too much.

At the same time, he can be any of your x non imp ref adept. And you still call him low tier bceause he can go with magic 6 with flat attribute/skill/power to 7+7+5 = 19 dices and not 20... Now that's just funny you can't see the needed nerf for null time.

There's not only imp ref as powers of adepts. It's sad you think that.

Draco18s, by stating all the adept will be cybered, you seems to think it's an obligatory fix for all the adepts in my SR. I said no, "On the fly" is for one that would choose Chameleon as Mentor spirit.

There's the one that would choose Cat, the one who would use Eagle, the one that would choose Wolf, and so on.

Now you can say ZOMG Adeptrun as Critias says in his unofficial errata.

For me, I think there is enough stuff for anybody to work with. The NAN, for example, may be irritating to some, and sure, it doesn't make sense. But you aren't winning any "sense" arguments when the troll with the metal arms is shooting the floating elf encased in a magic force field.

That being said, I would like more VITAS. It's time for something like VITAS 4, or 5, or whatever we are up to. Hell, make it really wacky and make meta specific strains. That would be way cooler than the zillion HMHVV strains out there.

I'd like more of the dystopia feel brought back. The glossed over can be fine, if it's stressed that this is "pretty" than facing the harsh reality of megacorp control. Better to plug in to a device instead of actually facing your neighbors. I miss that grit and grim, and I don't really get that feel and flavor from the text anymore.

The idea of NAN is, IMO, stupid because they didn't have enough people to populate even one state, much less the whole Midwest.

So he throws a bunch of dice every time he throws dice.

Big deal.

The problem is that he's not throwing those dice often enough.

So he can punch like a truck, but he can only do it once per combat round (everyone else hits like a subcompact car, but they do it three or four times).

What I'm saying is, even if he's "kinda good" at everything, he still has the problem of only being kinda good. Not that he can do it on everything. Jack of All Trades is not a valid character concept in ShadowRun. Probably should be, but it isn't (even with this horrible, horrible swiss army cheese of not requiring actions).

This has been talked over and over. It wasn't only the 1% of native americans that revolted. They had other ethnic groups with them. Sure, the main leaders were native american and the whole civil war began with the concentration camps for native americans, but it was not like only 1% of the american's population went head-to-head with the other 99%.

This I Disagree with. A Jack of All Trades character is a good and valid concept, even in Shadowrun (I would say especially in Shadowrun). It is just very difficult to pull off effectively at some tables. If your "Average" DP is High Teens to low 20's (Your average Highly Specialized Character), then you will have very poor Jacks of all Trades, because their average will likely be 5-8 dice below that for most of their skills. If, on the other hand, your average DP is only 12, a JOAT Character will work extremely well. It is table dependant. I have seen some very effective JOAT Characters in my time. I have also seen some very horrrible ones.

This is kind of what I mean. I'm not saying JoAT shouldn't be a good concept, but that it's not valid within the rules as written as they will only be marginally effective, due to their low dice pools. Even if most people are averaging 12 dice and Joat* is pushing 8, there's a clear 4 die difference. He might be able to succeed but he'll only be useful in the areas that someone else didn't specialize in, making him less of an all trades.

*A friend of mine had a JoAT D&D character once. His name was Joat (rhymes with boat).

But if average Pools are 12, why would a JOAT have 4 dice less. That is definitely not the case at our table. As I have said, I have seen some very impressive JOAT's over the years (And none of them used the MR. LUcky Build to get there). The most effective JOAT (at our table, we have two) has a few MORE dice overall than the specialists across the range of their skills (his pools are around the 12-13 DP Range, for 80+ Skills). Now, he did not start that way (he is currently at 300+ Karma), and he still has a few more dice he could add across the board, as his skills are not maxed out (None are at 6, and only 3 are at 5). His Specialty Skills are higher (he is a Hacker Type) in the 16-20 DP Range. Now, I do uinderstand that these DP's are not considered all that big on Dumpshock. But they are exceptional at our table (DP 16+). AS I said, it will vary by table. At a table where the Charactrers are all sporfting 20+ Dice in their Primary Abilities, the character I am talking about is likely mediocre in anything not his specialty, even with 80+ Skills. The fact that he has more than double the number of skills than most other characters at the table shows how much more broad (and potentially useful) the character is. I would call him a Jack of All Trades.

It is all a matter of taste, I guess.

You were the one who said JoAT only had 8 dice.
*Rereads*
Gah, I hate English sometimes, also my Monitor of Excessive Glare.

Except that with (effective) Magic 3 you're not competing with specialists. With Magic 6, adepts are barely competing with specialists. With only 3 power points to spend, you're not a jack of all trades or a specialist, you're half an adept. You might be half of a very versatile adept, but you're still only half of one. Quite a few powers just cost too much for someone with 3 power points, even 3 power points he can swap out all the time, to be a fantastic character.

I mean, like I said. Rock out with your sock out, if that's what you wanna do. If you think it'd be a great character idea and a tremendous overhaul to how adepts work, go ahead and go to town, man. It's your game. But it's not a power I'd ever want to pick up, simply because too many powers -- and they're some of the "must haves" for certain situations -- cost too much for 3 power points to ever be enough.

Heh...

I think you're making yourself fantasy ideas about Infusion.

Cannonic Adepts are to be specialists by definition since they can't move their powers... They have this, that and that one power and can't do anything else. Augs can move, not adepts, that's the main problem.

- The "solution" of infusion the game gives cost 53 Karma from creation, Karma to be made with powers at level 1
- The infusion adept could "super-saian" only one of those he allready got to 1 single PP more and must remove 1 PP somewhere else.
- That works a few minutes
- and them the adept got stun-drain.

That sucks quite a lot of crap in fact.

On-the-fly is dominant, even with some sleeping time, or, to be used in the same situation, as a complex action since :
- it cost 5 BP, cost no karma that on-the-fly can use for, say, Luck.
- can acheive twice more than 1PP boost (0.5PP per initiate grade, on-the-fly is actually one per 2 magic points minus the seed to even Infusion adept and that seed can't be more than 1PP/level. Actually on-the-fly starts to be better when magic >= 4), can boost more than one power that the adept don't have.
- it's permanent.
- have no drain.
- don't rely on having useless PP spent on the character (see below)

More than 3 (Magic 6) mean more than 0.5/level powers (since he couldn't use level 7 powers with magic 6. That makes 6 level max for 3PP or 0.5/level). Quickly checking in Street Magic's list, there's two of them + 2 in WA.

There's improved physical attribute and imp ref. You put Creative eyes and Keen Wits in WA, which are Way specific.

So at max you've got 3 of them on one character at the same time, two of them being mutually exclusive (physical and WA's) since you don't use them on the same test. One of those two powers is useless PP (even if you consider Initiative, Combat Sense is a lot better).

So, your only problem with on-the-fly/null-time is imp ref. Solely imp ref. You're meaning by that adepts can't do anything else than combat, which is, imho :rolleyes: false.

You can see On-the-fly having all the Adept Powers. He can use only half Magic in PP of them at the same moment. This is suffisant to beat adept on actions that don't use half of their Magic in PP : at the same time for null on-the-fly, on simple actions for simple action on-the-fly, or on pair of actions for complex action on-the-fly.

A null-on-the-fly can is immune to any infusion adept by counterattack them as stated in a previous post, and immune to anything that an adept can be immune to, with combat sense max then when it's done mystical armor max. He could try a counterattack with -2 level of combat sense.

Now seizing what the game gives with crap Infusion, I'm sorry to say that on-the-fly need heavy sleeping to be balanced for what it offers. I didn't put +25% or things like that because of "rounded as normal" thing.

Jazz. I get it. You like your power idea. It makes sense that you'd like it, since it's your idea. I've said my piece -- I'd never buy it, because having 3 power points just plain isn't enough with some of the criminally overpriced adept powers -- and I really don't feel like continued bickering over opinions. Because you know what? My opinion of it doesn't really matter, and neither does the opinion of anyone else, because it's all hypothetical, it's your imaginary Shadowrun reboot, and as such, and as I've said, if you like it, you like it. That's enough. Print it out, let players use it in your next Shadowrun game, and let us know how they do, okay?

And just a reminder, but I never said Infusion was the answer to all your prayers, hopes, and dreams. I said it's a viable alternative, and one that's already rules legal. It's a way to make an adept that can afford to be a bit of a generalist (because he can then temporarily boost himself when he needs to focus somewhere), that's all. You don't like it. Okay. I'm having trouble understanding a few of your more recent posts, but it's clear you disagree with trying to use Infusion, and that you agree with your new power. Fair enough. Got it. Point taken.

But, just for the record?

This, I don't like. I like to think it's pretty well documented that I think adepts should be able to do quite a bit more than combat, thank you.

It's an idea I've got since +/- 91, when I played Shadowrun 1 quite a lot (+/- noob in SR4). Hell yes I like it
And it opens Mentor Spirits to adepts so it's a double hell yes


So either I didn't understood what you said about costy powers being important either my math is stupid or either both.

I tried to explain why to me only combat adept use more than 3PP at a time.

Mentor Spirits are already open to adepts, just FYI.

I'm not just talking about single powers that can run more than 3 PP total, I'm talking about the fact that 3 PP, total, isn't that much in the great scheme of things.

Look at the Mobility Adept "flavor," for instance. Your adept just got a gig to run some stuff across town, so you sleep and meditate for half a day (prior to picking up the package and starting your awesome parkour rooftop jaunt), then it's time to spend your power points. You want Wall Running. You want Gliding. You want as much Great Leap as possible. You want as Freefall as possible (or is it called Catfall? Shit, whichever). You want Improved Ability: Athletics, of course. Whoops, guess what? You were out of points before even maxing out your Great Leap.

And that's not counting any other useful stuff you might want (like any of the sense improvements that chalk up a whopping .25 each) to help you navigate your way across town, or just flat out more Perception dice (to keep an eye out for the inevitable ambush), or just plain attribute boosts to help with the running and jumping rolls, or any of the extra stealth abilities (to run quietly, all awesome and Assassin's Creed-like). And then, of course, you're hosed if someone else does want this package of whatever-it-is and jumps you for it, because you're no better in a fight than a completely unaugmented character.

Adept powers are expensive. Combat ones are MORE expensive, I'll readily admit, especially given how common combat is in Shadowrun (and RPGs in general), absolutely. But all of them are priced heavily enough, or do little enough that you need lots of ranks, to make 3 power points an absolute hamstrung character, in my opinion, and at the level of difficulty I'm accustomed to playing (especially for someone who's invested all those points in a 6 Magic).

You like it, so you like it. That's all that matters. Again, I encourage you to just Print Screen, show it to your players, and use it in your next game. Let us know how it goes.

Wait, I'm obviously missing something by avoiding this thread....

[grabs some popcorn and a soda]

You know perfectly what I'm talking about when I say that currently mentor spirit are closed to adepts. Bonding with tht kind of moody spirit gives more penalties than bonuses, removes 5BP and only a few of them gives half a bonus. They are more negative qualities than advantages atm.


null-time just don't care of 3 PP, it's 3PP he can change [BOD] time a round. I'll stop speaking about him because they are fantasy.
If it was an automatic he can use it once per round and take a complex or two simple with these powers.
If it was a simple, he can use it once or twice per round.
If it was a complex, he can use his new powers next round
If he sleeps, he have to prepare out of action (1 hour or 12 hours, that's the same problem anyway)

A falling adept obviously don't have the time to sleep but you see what I mean : you don't use big leap and freefall at the exact same moment...

I have a problem with the time.

You say main problem is +100% to power's costs. So I must have also a problem with the power.

That's okay but I can't give him +0% for a power at cost 0 allready. I could have put a fixed price of 3 if this +100% was too much but that penalize more adept at the begining of their carrier (ie when you choose mentor spirit) than the most experienced ones@ Magic 14 that'll never use say 7PP at the exact same moment allready.

But okay, say it's only +50%. Adept could "infuse" by that power 450% more than Infusion metamagic that cost 53 karma to buy maybe with only a penalty of time.

There's balancing problems obviously, to stay in line with infusion. But I do want adepts to be able to reroll their powers in some way. I just don't know how to perfectly balance it.

I could do +0% to cost / sleeping / maybe [BOD] times per month. That would make both Infusion and on-the-fly valid, and a good combo to be played. I still thinks that's too powerfull, because all adept would want to reroll and get that mento spirit.

So that should have a fixed price, be it in PP or in big problems playing with chameleon. For exemple, not to be able to take the same powers from the last reroll. Being a karmic drain. Hunting bug spirits. Whatever.

In fact, you makes me realize I quite don't care the penalties to play that. Let's focus, I want two things : to be able to reroll an adept's power list and viable mentor spirits for the adepts with "inhabitant" powers different from the magician's.
And to boost a little mystical adepts that suffer a lot from the generalist problem, I could make them choose at bonding the advantage and the default to be with, for exemple here, chameleon.

Just out of Curiousity, Where are you getting the Costs at 53 karma? It takes 2 Initiations to acquire Infusion. The First one costs 13 Points (with absolutely no reductions) and nets you the Metamagic of Adept Centering. The Second one costs you 16 Points (Again, with no Reductions) and gets you the Use of Infusion. Total Cost - 29 Points. This could further bereduced by Ordeals to 24 points. Yes, it will get better with the More Initiations you have, but will also become more dangerous the higher your Magic is. And since it is an Advanced Metamagic, why do you think that you should have an ability that is BETTER (at least in your opinion) than Advanced MetaMagic, and yet cost less to acquire? *Shakes Head*

Your math just does not work out.

That was about Criteas/Draco saying both that power was making an adept a low tiers in everything. Powers that brings +2 dice to one action and +2 dice to another one + a negative quality that mostly character are created to bear well, for mentor spirit, are also extremly powerfull for cheap BP too.

Most mentor Spirits are like inherent 2 force 2 foci that you can't loose or break, with no need to bound or buy them at character creation.

Everybody got proved rigth that this idea must be reworked and reworked to be fine anyway.


You're rigth about Karma. I was messing around with an optinal "get metamagic" rule. Anyway this one is not to use a fixed metamagic 1 and 2.

Okay... I guess that makes some sense. I am all about making the Mentor Spirits more Adept Friendly, but I would generally choose Skill boosts (which are what the Spellcasting boosts are) to reperesent the Mentor Ideal for Adepts. The Spirit portions might or might not get altered in some way. There were a couple of threads on this subject started by Kerenshara, at one time. You might look into the archives to locate those topics for more ideas on making the Mentor's more useful.

Anyways.

I didn't catch how we got from "adept power vs. metamagic" to "mentor spirits for adepts."

I missed it as well, but I can understand the Sentiment.

It's all a little unclear, but I think Jazz has been saying his whole "on the fly" adept power rearrange stuff is a power solely reserved for adepts with the chameleon mentor spirit. Or something.

That was a limitation hidden at the very bottom of his third post on the subject.

As for that idea, no. Adept Powers shouldn't be restricted to certain mentor spirits unless every mentor spirit can offer an equally useful ability.

That would fall into the trap of painfully specific game mechanics for very niche cases.

And yeah, more Adept mentor spirits. Or maybe better: an Adept translation of Magician mentor spirits, because it would be a shame to deny the archetypes of the current Adepts - they just need bonuses that matter to Adepts.

Second post I made about the subject. or something.


That's the whispered idea...


I think this is a simple way to add them. The thing I don't like is, since adept don't see astral, mentor spirit can't talk to them or only via their dreams. or, run now, materialized.
I think they would need more "story making" power than bonuses, things that would give more personnality to Mentor Spirits than just being some kind of "mute bonus givers".
because through a story, you can insert any strange interraction you want. Per exemple for Chameleon, +2 to disguise and +2 to eat flies with the disadvantage to use the second bonus 3 times a day would only deserve character optimisation, not capacities and not the told story.

And that's lot of less stoytelling elements for the GM. Just another kind of tacnet/new boost to bear with.

Bonus for Magicians, Mojo Magic for Adepts. It's kind of like if Mentors would help the Awakened with what they can't acheive by themselves.

Current mentor spirits are a very background thing, they don't seem to interact much with the character per se. Astral perception doesn't have a lot to do with it; they don't show up in person at all, they're just some shadowy thing showing up in dreams now and then.

It might be nice to bring them to the foreground a bit more, to cut down on the "you're only my Mentor for the bonus" syndrome, but I wouldn't want it too mandatory. Sometimes as a GM you want to streamline a plot, not clutter it with the players having to consult four mentor spirits and five agencies before they can have breakfast.

-- This has been a bit of a meandering topic, but in the original theme of how you would reboot Shadowrun here's my fairly radical take (akin to the Forgotten Realms reboot):

Make Regional Distinctions MATTER
* The core element of cyberpunk balkanization is that travelling short distances puts you in a very different cultural and legal situation. This is somewhat difficult in locations as large as North America, hence the number of NAN nations that were created (many with only the barest connection with actual dominant tribes in those areas). The problem is that this rarely ever *mattered* unless the GM went out of his way to do so. There was actually little difference in legal enforcement and culture between the NAN and UCAS/CAS. Tir Tairngire for a long time was just a crypto-fascist fantasyland that went out of its way to heavy-hand restricted shadowrunning.

* If you keep the NAN concept I would rather see this more as regional cultural power blocks that arose in the vacuum of centralized power following VITAS/world regional warfare/magical resurgence. The NANs may not be recognized 'nations' per se but travelling from Seattle to Spokane should feel different to the characters in some real way and there needs to be a real sense of asymettric relationships that players can exploit. Maybe the Cascades is technically still US territory but it's a no-go area for the feds and is functionally autonomous and ran by a kleptocratic bunch of orks who run a protection racket on all road shipments through their area (e.g. like in parts of Pakistan), nearer to Spokane maybe there are tribal councils where everyone has basically "gone native" after the return of magic and a nasty strain of VITAS turned everything upside down and the shamans were the only things that kept the people that stayed alive.

Don't Worry About Extraterritoriality
* The amount of wierd or downright retarded explanations for how this works in Shadowrun just shows it doesn't work. Why even bother with it, when the real world shows us examples of corporations acting badly and the nation-states being unable or unwilling to do anything about it. Have less centralized power and a population of people craving some order and security in a madhouse world (and a world with people suddenly turning into catgirls and trolls IS madhouse) and you have the corps just outright flaunting the supposed laws. This reinforces regional distinctions and they can change at any time.

Less About Guns
* I like guns. I like heavy technical detail. I think Shadowrun has totally lost the plot in what was interesting in the original concept of shadowrunners. Sure, the troll wielding a panther assault cannon is a core archetype but it sometimes looks like everyone is basically in the same mold now. The core book should emphasize and describe the snoop-n-poop aspect of shadowrunners that is pushed in the fiction. This includes actually dedicating a chunk of the corebook in breaking this all down Barney style for players - Shadowrun needs a really good guide to setting mood, theme, the basics of a good investigative and war story, typical shortcuts players can use because of magic and tech, and so on. A look through SR4A gives me lots of gadgets, some largely irrelevent history, a LOT of space wasted on an overly complex Matrix system, and a boatload of guns.

Think Hard About Magic
* I saw someone mention the fact that every two-bit security team needs a magician in order to even stand a chance against a shadowrun team with a wiz. I'm not sure it's that bad, but I can't shake the feeling that Shadowrun protests FAR too much about the rarity of mages when the source material goes out of its way to show the opposite it seems. I like the idea of magic being a skill anyone can learn, but only a few have true aptitude/resonance for. So every two-bit team doesn't need a mage, they have learned some decent group rituals to guard against a basic threat long enough to get the alarm out. The street sam may have some simple rituals he does each day to make sure that mischevious tech spirits don't jam his gun just to be spiritual douchebags, that sort of thing.

No More Lawnmower Man Matrix
* SR4 matrix rules are just painful, but the idea of integrating the decker into the main 'real world' run was a really good idea. It's just so (intentionally?) convoluted that I'm not sure the goal was really to make it integrated once it got to the rules people.

* On the plus side, the matrix rules have largely shaken the archaic remnants of being written when BBS's were the main sharinghouses of info and all the cool people had private chat rooms on IRC.

Compare the actions of modern international corporations to the East India Company - Extraterritoriality matters.

-- Except that the East India Company is nothing like modern or Shadowrun megacorporations at all IMO. The closest approximation is probably Aztechnology, as it's also an explicit part of the nominal nation-state that hosts it. Also, are there any mercantilist economies in Shadowrun, as all of the chartered British companies were designed around that economic strategy.

-- Extraterritoriality as currently exists in Shadowrun is modeled on that of embassies, taken to ridiculous extremes which breaks suspension of disbelief if we are also to buy into the idea of nation states still being viable. Playing with the idea of the Corporate Court as the victors in an economic war that reduced the nation states to a pathetic half-existence of supplying basic social services would be interesting though.

See, the problem here is that you're dictating playstyle, and I don't think many of us would agree with you.

Should there be a little more clarity in the writing w/r/t what players are supposed to do? I can agree with that. I think a good breakdown of themes would be a great addition to the corebook, to explain to people what Pink Mohawk vs. Snoop-and-Poop vs. Mirrorshades is. The fun thing about Shadowrun - and the reason I come back to it - is that there's a wide open plain of opportunities to just do things you're own way.

Honestly, I think SnP is pushed a little too hard in the books. I mean it's fun, and occasionally I do want to play Burn Notice, but there are other things and other genres out there in Shadowrun (Seattle feels different from Bug City which feels different from New Orleans which feels different from Hamburg which feels different than Berlin). Which is what makes me kind of groan whenever I read one of these topics. Inevitably, it's someone wanting to push their version of SR on people, when the game wouldn't be Shadowrun without its history, warts and all.


Again, it's the symptom of its history. Shadowrun's Matrix isn't our Internet, and hasn't been since '29. Yes, the concept was introduced in the late 80s when BBSs were king, but it's since become its own thing. Though the rules are confusing, and it would be nice to encourage someone in my group to play a hacker...

Personally I'd probably keep the "Lore" as it is (more or less) and just redo the actual game system from the ground up.

Tzeentch and I might quibble on a few points, but I agree with him. The tail is wagging the dog right now. Ware, not setting, pushes the game. Too much of recent works has looked suspiciously like someone got a link in their email or was reading Wired.com, or popular mechanics and decided to add that to the game, often with what seems little thought as to how or why it fits in the game.