Hello folks. Here is my dilema. I've recently begun a new session with a new group. Oh yeah did I mention I've never GM'd before. I had created a nice little decker char I was planning on playing in a game. Instead I chose to use him as a NPC. I found myself devoting as much time to an NPC as I was to the actual player chars. This didnt seem right. So how do I minimalize NPC time while keeping things like matrix challenges realistic. I Hope you guys understand where I am coming from.

There are two things you can do. The first is to go ahead and preroll the Matrix run (if you know what it's going to be). The second is to just use GM fiat. You know how good your decker is, and you know what the system looks like. I'd generally take the decker's DF and the system's rating and use those to make an educated guess on how much the decker could get done before setting off some IC.

I'd go with the "good storytelling" approach.

If it makes for a good story for your decker to whiz through everything, and get the data, then go with it and don't bother rolling. If it makes for a good story for him to get trapped by Ice, do it and don't bother rolling. Go with the flow, and don't bother rolling the dice.