This one’s been in the back of my mind for a while.

Now, there’s no denying that a headware commlink would be 50 Shades of Awesome™. Imagine your entire digital library only a thought away, and you can experience it all in AR windows that could be your own personal theater. And the rest of your life could be organized with AR, too. Terrible with names? No problem! Your life is basically a video game now as you can have everyone’s name displayed over their head (and add some notes). “John Smith | Branch Manager | NOTES: A total dick.”

There are just endless uses for experiencing life via thought-controlled AR. But…there are some practicalities that need to be addressed.

Issue #1 – Literal Brain Surgery
To put it in your head, they’ll have to open up your skull. How often do you want this happening? Do you ever anticipate upgrading? If so, this will be happening multiple times. I don’t know about you, but I try to cut down on the number of neurosurgeries I plan on experiencing.

Issue #2 – Overheating
Ever experienced an overheating issue on your phone, laptop, or PC? Ok, now imagine that computer is right next to your brain. Are you scared yet? You should be.

Issue #3 – Hackers
Nipping on the heels of the previous issue, what happens if a hacker bricks the thing? I have difficulty not imagining that being an instant kill.


Well, all that kinda sucks. Especially as we still want our cool headware commlinks. So, what to do about that? Well, here’s a thought – don’t put it in your head. Here’s my revised model for headware.

We put it in your chest, specifically underneath your sternum. We’ll attach a mount along the underside of it that’s designed for a thin commlink to slide in and dock with a connector leading up to an internal datajack in your brain. So, you only have to have one neurosurgery with this arrangement. Combine this approach with the Incision spell (SR5 Bullets & Bandages, p. 21) and upgrading your headware commlink is a quick outpatient surgery. You’d be out the clinic door in under an hour without even a scar. Feel free to upgrade your model annually without having your skull cut open every time.

Your thoughts?

I lbsolutely love your attempts to make sense of the rules and the setting, so please don't let my bias towards nitpicking slow you down one bit!

However... For me, this issue mostly falls into the same category as credsticks: it (headware) works, because otherwise the world as we know and love doesn't, and figuring out ways to explain it takes time away from roleplaying, so...nah. Meaning, I'd just ignore points 1 and 2. Point 3, on the other hand, depends on your edition, doesn't it? Headware existed before 4e, but with 4e, teenagers with a commlink could suddenly let the smoke out of your million-nuyen cybersuite, so that certainly needs to be addressed if you play 4th. (or later, I suppose, but who here cares about those?).

I'm sure others can come up with a much better, and definitely more qualified, answer - but with the amount of issues with the RAW, I don't really see the need to go looking for more trouble

LOL. Well, at least I have one fan.


The issue here is that I'm a programmer IRL (have been over 20 years now). So, I'm familiar with the IT industry and so blatantly obvious issues with IT technology in Shadowrun really stand out to me.

With credsticks, I don't see many problems. We have digital money transfers and cryptocurrency IRL, so the only real issues there are probably legal issues, but that's why shadow banks exist where breaking the law is rather the whole point of them.

With items that are more analogous to cell phones and laptops/PCs, there I start noticing issues. This is why it's noted in our House Rules (see my sig) that trying to be "super hacker" on your commlink is a non-starter. At the very least, you won't be doing any full-VR decking on it. And in the case of headware, I can't help but see some practical problems. Some of them could be alleviated with optical circuitry, but I still wouldn't want to be cracking open my skull for the next hot model of commlink.


In the past I used to think like this. But, the older I get and the more I learn the more inclined I am to chase down bugs and fix them rather than gloss over them.

Interesting. I was a programmer for 13 years, and in SR I have avoided playing deckers/hackers like the plague. "Know thyself" notwithstanding, I've never figured out the aversion.



Huh. Different again. Some day, in a dark bar in Istanbul, we will have to share a hookah and talk over such things.