I have played Shadowrun in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions. However, I have never played very much Shadowrun in any of the editions. I know that classically Riggers and Deckers were often considered troublesome as player characters. I myself never had a problem with the Decker and thought that having one added a lot to the game.

So now I find that I am going to be running a Shadowrun game for 4E. I picked the 2050 book up because I like the wired world a whole lot more than the wireless world. Shadowrun to me is the future of the 1980s and not the future. The 2050 book fills the vision.

One of the 3 players is thinking about a rigger that will avoid putting their meat on the line and only use drones. Since I do not have advanced understanding of the rules at this point (since I haven't played SR4 in over a year and never played it much) I figured that I would go ahead and ask the boards if that is a viable thought or not for the player.

Thanks for opinions!

In 3rd edition yes at least and you cannot play safely all that much.

You can't send your drone Roleplay, can you? And it happens more often than one think to be catched in a fight unprepared.

It's entirely possible for the hacker or rigger to stay out of the combat zone in 4ed (except for the airgapped network cases); but I'm not sure on how well that's working with 4E2050.

They had radio controls in early rigger books (at leased as early as rigger 2 if not before) im not sure what the rules are off the top of my head though.

Some riggers have been hiding in their vans as long as there have been riggers. And the traditional problems with that end up being:
- Materializing Spirits in your van with you.
- Jamming (the enemy can do it too)
- If you get in trouble, there's no backup.

Who watches the watchers?

Who backs up the backup?

Magicians. Damned things can't be seen without astral sight.

Annoying buggers, Watchers.

They are almost nonexistent in the SR2 book. No ranges gives, just that you can remote control X vehicles/drones per rating or your RCD basically. Gives access to Control Pool, etc. Haven't checked to see if R2 adds the signals/jamming/ranges/etc.

SR1 has basic remote operations and electronic warfare similar to SR2 and First edition's RBB expanded these. R2 introduced the MIJI rules and extended remote rules. There's a table in the RBB for remote ops signals that adds a penalty for urban environs so riggers early on were encouraged to rig their vehicle on the front line in 2050. That still could be a good distance, circumstances permitting.