20 pages, and all I've gathered so far is:

1) Using 'Bricked' as an in-game term for 'impaired, but still functioning' is going to cause a lot of confusion and misunderstanding in the player base. (FWIW, in real life there is a term 'soft bricked' that means that specialised hardware can recover the device by accessing the memory directly, but whether soft or hard, 'bricked' always means that the device is unusable, not just impaired.)

2) Without an explanation as to why adding extra internet-connection communication protocol requirements to a device somehow makes it operate faster instead of slower, some gaming groups will simply opt to ignore the whole thing, and some may give devices the matrix-enabled bonuses for being DNI enabled instead.

3) Changes have been made to give hackers more options in combat, but apparently similar changes were either not needed or not implemented for the Face archetype.

Microsoft was going to an always connected Xbox and look where that got them.
Boy, I'm hoping that they pull a "Microsoft" on this and pull the plug on the idea that every piece of cyberware can be super charged by being connected to the matrix (and is there for hackable).

Great idea that some cyberware can be boosted by being connected, but retconning all Shadowrun cyberware to make it universal is just forcing the whole thing for no good reason.
It is all universal all cyberware can be boosted if connected to the matrix. So it is all hackable but not enough that a hacker could kill you or leave you a quadriplegic until it can be hard reset by a tech.

It so doesn't make any sense so why bother?
Most of my players would be seriously pissed off at the idea and as a GM, I know I don't need the hassle.
It so blows my suspension of disbelief and I've been playing Shadowrun since it came out. I didn't know I had one left.

The people I feel sorry for are the people who run or play in the Official Shadowrun Living Campaign System.
I bet there will be a lot of variation on how this rule is applied. It will be one big hassle.

I expect this will be voted the number 1 Shadowrun 5th edition rule to most likely to be ignored.

I got to say despite all this I'm really looking forward to SR5.
Sounds like you guys really tied to address a lot of issues and I'm hearing really some good solutions.

Thank you so much for answering our questions.

Wrong. I've just done a survey, and 100% af the people asked, answered that they liked the rule, and would like to keep it

No bricked means unusable in game and out, the big confusion by people not actually in the rules in the permanence if such a situation. People got all frothy because I used a term (which I suppoose I should have provided context) which the book both defines and provides remedy for.

Addendum: Earlier I summarized the whole process.

In any poll it is how you ask the question and to who you ask it.


Should all SR5 cyberware be retconned to have a bonus by being connected wirelessly to the Matrix (even if some of the cyberware has no business being connected to the Matrix and given that it makes it vulnerable to be hacked)?

Or to keep from retconning all Shadowrun Cyberware should some cyberware (those not likely to get a boost from being connected to the matrix) not have a wireless connection for security reasons?

Also should a Data Jack DNI link be less effective than a wireless connection?
For example why does having a wireless connection allow you to activate a chemical seal as a free action but having a DNI link using a skin link doesn't?

Simple question: Are you OK with smartlink giving +2 to accuracy?
Are you ok with wired reflexes and reflex booster not stacking?
Are you ok with enhanced vision adding its rating to the limit of perception tests?

Me to. I like hackers who are out in the open, because it provides for smoother gaming having all characters more or less in the same place at the same time. Btw: thanks for shedding sone light on the concept of noise.

And I was comically referring to Epicedion's fluff:



I can't imagine implants causing crossover (unless they were built with loads of unshielded copper wiring). But it's quite elegant to come up with Resonance being blamed for the need to go online. That way you could, as a game developer, cancel this hilarious little move wihtout to great an effort (Resonance could as well ebb an flow like mana...). Chapeau!

@Epicedion: I hope you didn't take my joke as an insult. And if you did: my apologies. Actually I like the idea, and as I said: I would be suprised, if the official explanation were any better.

If you want fluff for skinlink being not around anymore...

The Triple A's had greenlit the skinlink technology after extensive testing, and security professionals began showing a marked interest; even militaries agreed the limited chance of being hacked was a great asset. It quickly found wide use even among normal people on the fringe of such industries... until the "Lightning Rod" incident. The extreme amounts of negative press this caused forced the Triple A's to put out a full recall on such devices, even to the point of setting a small "recycling award" for anybody who was able to turn in such technology. Quickly it seemed that skinlink was impossible to find and service, due to the specialized components that were already in short order. Now only a select few individuals at the tops of corps have reliable skinlink technology, and limit its use to only the most vital personal devices, lest they themselves become "lightning rods."

That's a nice one, too. Any explanation that states "wired is no longer available/working" is better than "wireless is better", because it saves you from technically explaining the unexplainable.

None of this came up in our feedback from 700 players and 15 GMs.

But hey, what do I know, it's not a big enough sample size.

(Shhhh Galen...)

I find that really surprising (not saying I don't believe you )

With the number of active posters here probably around that same number, there's been several dissenting voices. Although some might have expressed their dissent more vehemently or rudely than maybe they should've, the point stands that this dissent shouldn't be so quickly dismissed - unless the devs are only interested in being surrounded by yes-men.

That's why I find it surprising that out of 715 players, not one of them voiced the concern that DNI being slower than wireless Matrix doesn't make a lot of sense (without proper fluff justification). Is the fluff justification in the rulebook and we're just not seeing it? But no, some posters here have the rulebook and haven't made mention of it. The only slightly plausible fluff justifications I've seen are from some posters bending over backwards to justify why a cyberspur needs to be online to open faster. And the mental gymnastics that has to be done to find these fluff justifications makes it even more obvious to me that it was a bad idea in the first place.

There are quite a few people here defending it as well. The large number of threads containing massive discussions on the subject are not one sided. I find the matrix rules as they have been presented to us so far to be a huge step in the right direction. I hope, upon seeing the final rules, that they are implemented well. I suspect they will be.
Your dismissal of the supporters arguments do not invalidate them. In fact the supporters arguments have been well laid out and based on concrete math and principle. I have found many of your detractors arguments to be ad hominem arguments consisting of personal attacks on the supporters. I will be happy to discuss and listen to any concrete arguments you may have that are not based on personal opinion stated as fact. I have asked multiple times for people to back up their statements with factual evidence. I have been simply ignored.
The fact is that the matrix issue comes down to the opinions of both groups. I believe it is a good move and you don't. I won't change your mind, you won't change mine. I won't tell you your wrong for thinking differently than I do because I cannot PROVE you are. There is no game mechanic deficiency other than the benefits may not be strong enough to entice matrix active characters. Doesn't that get you what you want anyway?

Sample size alone doesn't come close to making a good sampling plan.To quote Six Sigma: "A plan that is not random or respresentative can have damaging effects on your customers". The reason in Statistical Analysis that people increase their sample size is to try and make it more representative.

I thought it was pretty clearly a game design decision with some mechanical wrapping to push it past RP flavortext. That's it.

What was the response rate from that official campaign group anyways? If it was anything like what FASA got then it's a tiny fraction of that 700 who care enough to even compose an email. Hopefully it was pretty high!

Daedelus, your post is a great example of exactly what's wrong with this discussion. It attacks things that weren't said. It rails against arguments that were never made. It goes on to say that one side's arguments are "well-laid out and based on concrete math and principle", yet in the same breath it characterizes the other side as having only "personal opinion stated as fact". Talk about dismissive...

At no point did I say my way was objectively right and your way was wrong. I pointed out that it seemed strange that in a sample size of 715, not one voice was raised in dissent on this issue. Surely you can agree that out of the posters of DS, there have been a few voices raised in dissent?

It does help that none of the events seemed to have any nasty NPCs attempt to hack player character's gear.

I strongly suspect most of the 5th Edition Missions will be similar in that regard, given that they need to be written for tables of ANY makeup. 5th Edition might be built with the assumption that most Runner teams have Matrix Overwatch, but Missions cannot.

And there was some chatter about the issues among the tables, but most folks were more just trying to learn the new systems and roleplay. I know I got into a couple of minor conversations about it, but it wasn't my main focus at the time.




-k

I expect all the good things in SR5 and the joy of actually playing it would cause some things to be over looked.

Also to quote another interested party, there are two types of GMs in SR.
Those that are "what goes around comes around" and will be trying to hack players and brick their cyberware every chance they get and those that will be ignoring it.
I expect all the players from the former will have a lot more concerns and issues with this once they have had a chance to experience it.
All the players of the latter will think it is cool until such a time as they experience it for themselves.

They are talking a good idea and trying to apply it in all cases by blunt force.
Removing skinlinks and making DNI connections obsolete to a matrix connection is retconning this in the worse way.
I like the idea, but the implementation leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I seriously considered a drive by hacker gang bricking something random. Using team work you could pretty much one shot brick a single item. It would have been a good lesson to think about matrix security and the need for some technical skills.

That isn't actually a what I would consider a counter argument or supporting to bricking. I could just as easily have a PC shot by a cybered sniper, or an arrow from a Physad, or a random uber spell from a mage, flattened by a vehicle, all of which would be rather more detrimental and bothersome than a bricked device. But none of those incite these feelings of rage and helplessness I've been reading about bricking and matrix bonuses.

I class all the arguments so far against bricking into the fear of change. It hadn't been done before(as easily) and now that there is other option to think about it would be so much easier if it went away.

Of course, in order to do that, you'd have to change and reprint the game in your own image and force me to accept the KarmaInferno way.

Here the thing, I think Hacking Cyberware and bricking it is way cool.
Good idea.

I just think that the Pros would take counter measures and wouldn't risk the exposure.
But the tech to do that ha been retconned out of existence (like skinlinks) or ignored (like DNI link to your gear) so they are as exposed as everyone else.
That and Matrix bonuses that don't make sense or should also apply to a DNI connection are my main concerns.
I'm sure they will fix this as the new books come out, but it is poor planning to throw a monkey wrench in to the standard SOP and make us wait six months to a year to release a book to fix it.

I also figure any team running the shadows would be worried about their matrix connected gear leaving big impossible to remove digital fingerprints telling what devices were active when and what they were doing.
Most runs it won't matter, but if you steal a priceless prototype, the corp will bring in the deckers and processing power to hack in every where and vacuum up all the data from the surrounding area.
Then they will parallel process it down until they find every needle in the haystack. And none of this has been addressed on how a decker could clean up after his team.

But there will plenty of civilian targets to hack and other ways to impact the battle field that a decker doesn't HAVE to be able to hack a street samurai or a corp High Threat Response team's cyberware.
And as always with a little preparation a hacker can rig some nasty surprises in even secure system if he know the target (Example a decker is watching another team of runners for his team because they are after the same thing,he puts a trojan horse in to a commlink that the other team is bound to ran across and examine just in case there is a showdown.)

Wonder how the GM's especially in Missions are gonna handle player Deckers walking all over the opposition while the player Samurai figure out how not to be affected . .
Because obviously this will happen:
Decker:"i hack the red samurais eyes and make him blind!"
GM: *no, that won't work*
Samurai:'OK, since there is a way to make that not work, i will retroactively have gotten that for myself too'

That's because all of these require LOS and give the character a chance to defend himself.

Never mind that lots of people state their love for the idea, but concerns about its implementation, which you so casually dismiss.

Could always just drop a thor shot on them.

Sure, because whoever has access to a cyberdeck must have access to that, as well.

Oh it looked like you were talking about GM directed actions and threats the GM shouldn't have access to.

I had an NPC that had about a half dozen marks by the time combat was avoided through diplomacy. She was ready to drop the hammer if we rolled initiative.

No Direradiant. It has nothing to do with fear of change. It's the whole concept of one script kiddie trashing a 250k piece of 'ware which has a completely nonsensical 'matrix bonus' when it has no cause whatsoever to even be on the matrix. All for a contrived reason. And before you say, script kiddies are gone... you've mentioned agents... if an agent can remove tags... an agent can most likely put them on as well.

All this because some freelancers and the line dev have a hard on to rip off ghost in the shell to give hackers more to do in combat. When SR has NEVER been like GitS. (even a 'lightly cybered' brain is still a full cyborg brain in a box in that system. People don't 'hack' the cybereyes in that system they hack the info feed from the body going into the cyberbrain rigger box. You don't 'rig' a cyberarm... you simply control it using your normal thought processes. The dynamic is completely different and not really compatible with the history of the setting.

The reason many of us are against it is it is nothing but poor game design. It was completely unnecessary and renders one of the most classical cyberpunk tropes the street sam almost completely obsolete. I suspect we'll see a lot more bio-sammies since cyber-sammies are so easily F'ed up now.


Fatum hits the nail on the head... All of those require LOS and have defenses (sniper you can beat with great perception skills... plus good armor... edged soak rolls, etc.). It's the old problem of magic allowing a practically invulnerable astral mage to strike targets directly from the astral to the material with little to no fear of reprisal that commonly came up with grounding abuse.


I'm all for making 'ware have more consequences. But this is no different than earlier editions where the 'ware catalog was the GM's toybook because most of it was too damn expensive and had too many drawbacks to be usable as much more than one time NPC fun. (MbW is a prime example of this... you'd see it on NPC's who didn't need to worry about the TLEX).

Shadowrun is full of stuff that doesn't require LOS and doesn't allow for a strong defense. Just ask my players who stuck 5 kilos of C4 on the outside of a building where a security station was just on the other side.

To plant explosives, you need to be physically at the point of explosion. And that gives lots of methods to defend from, a few of them easy and unsurpassable.

I'm really confused as to how you think this is just going to automagically happen.

It's pretty easy to have decent defenses (DR 6 Commlink is pretty affordable), for one, and provides a solid defense. And even then, items can't just be intsantly, magically bricked. It's about as easy and as efficient to brick someone's cyber as it is to shoot them and kill them (or spell them and kill/stun them). It's on par with that.

Plus nothing stops them from having a counter-decker protecting them.

The whole idea of being able to hack gear and cyber is to provide some fun options to the decker, and we finally have solid rules for how that works (since, you know, this stuff's been around forever).

Also, I'll note Skinlink is not "retconned out of existence", it's just not in the core book. I personally hope to see it get some heavy modification, since it was basically just a nearly-free magical "ignore wireless" piece of bullshit. There should be some DNI connectivity or some subdermal implants or something involved there, IMO.

Bull

It makes sense that you need to actually worry about Matrix threats. We still have to worry about magic threats even if you're not an awaken character. So why do people have to suddenly ignore Matrix threats when it is suppose to be this all seeing advance network that connects everything every where. Everyone has to interact with it, so everyone should have to purchase at least some Matrix defense. Heaven forbid you have to allocate a few nuyen to IC at chargen.

And honestly, hacking cyberware is about as cyberpunk as it gets. The fear of having yourself become your own worst enemy because someone just hacked your gibson is a common theme in most cyberpunk. So why not have rules for it now? If its electronic, its online and has the potential to be hacked. Everything is online is the trope. Honestly, how is being immune to the Matrix cyberpunk at all? It might make sense if you're an awaken character, because magic and machine don't play well with each other, which is also another trope. But to be anyone else and be able to completely ignore the Matrix like its not there, that's absurd.

If anything this is just a correction because people have been able to ignore the Matrix for so long with no negative side effects. Well, now you have to play the game and actually consider Matrix threats.

I see three problems that seem to be generating the most concern and they seem to be too much of a good thing.
And I understand that reason behind a lot of the decisions.
I want less dice being thrown and I'd like there to be more things for the hacker to do, but they seemed forced (a bridge too far).

IMHO a decker shouldn't expect to be able to hack military grade cyberware or drones on the fly because the Military won't take the risk (which has long been a cyberpunk trope).
And in a high security area, a runner who is not a decker (not having a deck to hack the local systems) is going to be running off line except through his team decker because he doesn't want to tip off the Corp Security Spider or leave any traces of his activity (having a stray RFID tip off the Security Spyder about the runners in his building is also a Shadowrun trope).
So that is where I'm coming from.

The first is some of the Matrix bonuses don't make sense (like the smartgun link).
The second is some of the Matrix bonuses we used to be able to do with a DNI (like activating Bipod/Tripods) but can now only do with with a Matrix connection (while DNI (a cyberpunk staple) seems to be totally ignored by SR5).

Finally hacking cyber is cool, and I can see a decking hacking a beat cop or a ganger but not a Corporate High Threat Response Team or a SWAT team expecting trouble.
When the Pros come out to play, they are just not going to risk it happening and would have the hardware to prevent (paying the price of not being connected to the matrix), but all the hardware to protect a pro is gone or ignored.

We will have to agree to disagree on Skin Links but it is real life technology and just common sense.
However a Smartgun link induction pad or a fiberoptic cable would work just as well.
I've always ran Shadowrun as Hardware will always beat software if you are willing to pay the price but I'm not seeing that in SR5.

Finally no one will has commented on this, but the most basic fact is that a runner has to leave no trace.
If you are going to out committing crimes/doing a run/in the middle of a special op you are not going to want to be broadcasting any thing.

You will either tip them off that you are here, open your self up to being hacked, or leave digital fingerprints of all your activities.
Any of the above can get you dead if the stakes are high enough.

Yet no one has explained how a decker can back track his team and can scrub all trace of the activity of a bunch of highly illegal runner gear that has been meshing with other devices in the area and using the cloud.


So not having skin links in the core rules (or fiberoptic cables or Smartgun link induction pads) is like not having white noise generators, bug detectors or gas masks in the core book and saying they will be coming out in a later book.

Especially when SR5 has just introduced all these new fun things for a decker to do.

You can't get away scott free. You will always leave evidence that you were there. A foot print, some hair, blood, an astral signature, Matrix access ID, and your Johnson. By eliminating any ability for your characters to be traced, you've effectively eliminated any story telling possibilities for reprisal. This doesn't mean you shouldn't try to keep it clean and reduce detection as much as possible, but its foolish to think you'll be able to avoid leaving evidence by 100%. And to think that cyberware is going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back is ridiculous; because that's what's going to foil your master plan, right?

Its also a trope that some punk hackers can beat paramilitary/corporation/professional organizations. See Hackers, War Games, or any film ever with hacking as a plot.

Sure you can't be totally a ghost all the time, but you run silent and stay off the matrix (unless you are the decker) while you are in the high security area. And you don't leave a blazing trail for them to follow leading up to the site or after you leave. And hope they move on to other things before they can take advantage of any evidence you left. Also the more you leave the faster they can put it all together and find you.

Running with all your cyberware and gear connected to the matrix meshing with all the local devices is like presenting them with a holopic of your entire run.

The examples you gave were on hacking the military were usually where the technology was new.
The Six World Militaries are old hands in the SOTA race now (Technomacers not withstanding).

And I'm not saying Runners can't hack the military. I'm saying they can't hack the military on the fly.
It would just be the nature of the Military to use fiberoptic cables and laser links every where they could.
I'd also expect a lot of fail safes in the drones and for the cyberware to go into battle with the wireless connections off.

Security through obscurity. If everything is online, it will take them months to years, to never, to find your data trail in the see of data trails that are logged. But of course, also the wireless mesh network actually doesn't work that way in SR4, so I assume it won't work that way in SR5. Packets come and go without leaving any data on what those packets are or where they're going.

True for the run of the mill run.
But for a priceless prototype that a Mega Corp really wanted to find?
They would have deckers hacking in to every device in a 5 mile radius and then using parallel processing to find every needle in the haystack in a very sort time.
A Mega Corp can put an ENORMOUS amount of processing power in to an issue.

I guess they "can." But they wouldn't. A Mega would probably just claim the insurance money on their priceless prototype, and higher the same runners to steal another MacGuffin from the next corp. Its the price of doing business in Shadowrun.

And, I'd like to point out, that odds are your cyberware probably isn't going to leave a data trail, since packets don't leave a trail. Only logging on and accessing things on nodes do. So unless your cyberware is going to hack in to a node, you won't be leaving a data trail for the corp spiders to find.

What insurance?

And DireRadiant:Fear of change has jack shit to do with criticizing horribly written rules.

Or to put it another way the sort of outfits with the resources to insure megacorp research labs are going to have guys on call that make corpsec look like Girlscouts.

Sorry, but all this back and forth is just "I want the cake for later but I also want to eat it right now".

From the psychological point of view I guess it would have been better to just give the boni for cyber as it is and bring this "connect it to the matrix" and get those boni in a later rulebook. As for now a lot of people feel entitled to get at LEAST the same boni as in the last edition. Why this is silly and not even possible in a game ranging over more than 2 edition, should be obvious to anybody, and hostly I think it is.

Combat hacking is a prerequisite for "fun options"? Or to generalize that claim a bit, the only place where fun happens is in combat...

Well there is also hacking porn sites for fun, but that comes out in SR5.18+ sourcebook: DeviantRun

Then how does someone hack your cyber? Either they can find you with absurd ease so its hackable, or its secure by being obscure.

The SR5 is based on exact same mechanics as SR4, so no its not silly at all to except a feature called "wireless bonus" to actually give bonuses instead of stealing away basic functions.
Especially as in most cases the current bonuses are totall bullshit.

Yes but its now BS +3 Bull when wireless.


Basically though the best way to think of it is like a Movie Reboot. Japanese anime does it all the time and drives me crazy when suddenly character A never met character B before and so on. All the past is rewritten and you go with the new story from the new starting point.

Is it a tad annoying.. oh yes. But wracking your head trying to justify/argue the retroconversion is just going to give you a migraine.

If it is a priceless prototype that means a rival has ordered the run.
So if they don't get it back, they will lose their investment and research AND their rival will jump a head in the Market so they are losing twice.

Which is why they are usually under orders to destroy it if they can not recover it.

Also Corps will usually only put some much effort in to finding the runners.
And once the runners have turn the Paydata over to their Johnson the only thing in it for the Corp is making an example of the runners (unless the runners were particularly destructive).
But if you make it EASY for them.....

To find one very specific person's cyberware from the Matrix? Probably near impossible. To find the Street Sam who's clearly infront of you, and you are confident that you are in mutual signal range? Well, there are rules for that in SR4, so I assume that those rules have been translated to SR5.


SR4 bonuses are not equal to SR5 bonuses. So its impossible to compare how stats from gear effect a game with different rule sets.

That is a stretch.

Clearly if you used to be able to use an DNI link to deploy a Bipod as a free action in SR4 and in SR5 you can only do that if you have a wireless connection then you have lost some thing.
And it makes perfect sense that in 2050, if you lost the DNI connection you could use a matrix connection to issue the command.
Your bonus is not a carrot but a stick.

And I like the reduced dice pools and changing cyberware and equipment to increase the limit is a very neat solution (Bravo!).

But it is not the best solution in every case.
A perfect example is the smartgun link.
Right now unless you have some serious skills the base non matrix connected bonus from a smartgun link (+2 accuracy) does you NO good.
So it makes sense that in this case the smartgun link should still add dice to the firearm skill.

And the funny part about this is that the +2 dice to firearm skills is a lot more useful to a GM using Mooks than to a PC.

No its not, its quite simple.
And really the rules set barely qualifies as differend except for the bullshit caused by wireless bonuses.

Yes, thank you for putting words in my mouth, Sengir. I appreciate that. Mmm... They're a little chewy and bitter though, needs more salt.

I never said that was the only place fun happens. But combat is a large portion of the game, and takes up an inordinate amount of time, since Shadowrun has a more strategic style of combat rather than a fast and abstract style. In most 4 hour game sessions, at least a full hour of it will usually be spent in combat. WHich is fine, since that's where several characters really excel. But it means the more options, and the more ways for your character to get involved, the better. Otherwise, you end up with the inverse of the old "Decker is going into the matrix, everyone go get pizza" syndrome.

And they're not the only options. There's no reason the Decker couldn't also be a gun bunny, though he's likely not going to be on par with a Sammy early on. But it's possible he'll be able to hold his own. And hey, honestly, in combat a gun is still probably your better option than messing around trying to mark and brick peoples gear. But, it is now an option to do something the decker is actually specialized in rather than saying "Sit this out kid, I'll handle the rough stuff."

And again, it's all options. The decker doesn't have to mess with this stuff if he doesn't want to. And as someone else said above, you should probably talk with your GM and find out how pervasive he wants to make this stuff ahead of time. For some games it won't come up that much anyway. I know in Missions it won't come up too often. I'm not going to be writing in enemy deckers whose sole purpose is to damage runners 'ware. I'd rather put in more guards to shoot them

Bull

It does sort of bring back the concept of hack everything. Not just players but equipment in general. If the soda machine in the break room down the hall from where you are trying to break into the offices has sensors to let it know when people walk by and triggers a little sales jingle a decker could put a tap into it so when the next patrol comes by there he gets a head's up in case the patrol breaks pattern for any reason.



Or just give the decker a panther cannon... oh wait...