I was reading along in Matrix and noticed that even a quadriplegic decker (Quickness = 0) gets no penalty if using pure DNI and I thought that makes sense. Then I started thinking about riggers. I read the book, but I don't recall the mention of Reaction = Int. Did I miss it? Is that an easy house rule?

For quadriplegic deckers, Quickness != 0. If it does, they're paralyzed in the sense of being unable to do anything at all.

~J

Okay, fine. Quickness 1. Now answer the question.

No mention. Easy house rule is just allowing it, but given that the skill itself is linked to Reaction that's got some complexities of its own. Also, Reaction is more valuable for Riggers. I'd say it makes sense but isn't balanced.

~J

There is no mention of running on pure DNI in the Rigger book. Does this mean you can't do it when driving by datajack? Who knows.

You can run a car with removed manual controls through a datajack link; not sure how much purer you can get.

~J

You can have a quadriplegic decker with a quickness of 10.

Quickness dosen't go away just because your arms and legs don't work. You mind still moves the same speed it did before, it just has less things it can operate.


-karma

The core book lits the average of quickness and inteligence as the compent of reaction. Go with the core.

But that's even more overpowered than riggers are already.

~J

VCR hijavck the midrain. The midbrain is above the cerbelum, and the ceberabelum, along with a stirp of grey matter across the very top of your brain (the technical name of which escapes me at the moment) and your cerebelum are the largest compenents of your dexterity, i.e. wuickness. The VCR bypasses the cerebelum, so it's all based on raw processing power. I suppose you could argue that for the purposes of rigging and decking, initiative ought to be based soely on inteligence, but an equally compelling arguemnt exists that the coordination of your brain is represented by your quickness attribute in the first place, whereas inteligence represents "higher" functions.

There are perfectly good arguments for both sides, and if you prefer to house rule it to "pure DNI" in the same way deckers do, just make sure the house agrees with you. But the canon answer is that being paralyzed does not absolve you of needing a good quickness to have a good reaction. You still have quickness, you just can hardly ever use it. This is one of the hardly evers.

And just to be perfectly clear, before some clown brings it up, by "pure DNI" we're all talking about using intelligence to determine reaction instead of quickness and intelligence, and no one is talking about giving them an extra +1d6 initiative for it.

I think I'll go with that system myself. However, I still will use ordinary reaction for the purposes of reaction linked skills. You know, karma and build points.

Good thoughts folks. Thanks for the input. I'll chew it over. (Originally I had written, "I'll munch it over," but that isn't exactly what I meant--though it may apply.) I suppose, much though I hate it, I'll end up going the conservative route and arguing that reaction is still the average because quickness is mostly brain power anyway. (But then the pure DNI thing for deckers . . . aw heck it doesn't get easy.) Thanks again for the comments.

Just to throw in my 0.02

I dont think riggers would (or really could) be using something approximating pure DNI, because rigging involves a completely different approach to simsense than decking does. Rigging involves a sort of immersiveness wherein you percieve the vehicle being operated as an exention (or the entirety) of your body, and you move the vehicle intuitively as if you were moving your own body, with the brain signals translated into movement of the vechicle via the protocols involved in the rigger adaptation and the VCR. This is why is uses the composite reaction You dont get the same sort of I AM MY ICON feeling as a decker - its more purely cerebral.

Now, if you pilot the car via datajack wihtout a VCR, I might be persuaded to allow a sort of pure DNI mode. But if I were to allow that +1d6 (which is far from a certainty) I would have to come up with pr be presented with some reasonable drawback.

Here is where I am veering off-topic a bit (though I think interestingly and, thus, forgiveably) - It strikes me that it would be possible to "rig the matrix," so to speak. To design a device that uses translates the matrix into signals interpretable by a VCR. It would be a rather different experience than normal decking for the sorts of reasons I described above, but as they both use the same fundamental technology there shouldnt be an inherent reason that the two wouldnt be compatable.

Thoughts? Is there something I'm missing that would totally invalidate the concept? Is this worth its own thread?

Related topic question to follow....

SR3 says that the Reaction Enhancer can effectively enhance any reaction boosting wares. R3 then says this does not enhance a VCR. Which is the official bottom line? Is this meant to cap the rigging pool, slow initiative, or both?

Actually, decking and rigging are considered very very different. Having a VCR screws matrix use badly. You have a global +1 to tests and your hacking pool is reduced by the level of your VCR. As pointed out by others, different sections of the brain are used and crossover is difficult.

What you're doing whilst decking isn't directly to-do-with activity. All you're doing are giving commands which are un-hampered by concerns such-as closed-loop feedback.

Rigging, however, is a very interactive process. Whilst rigging you replace your senses with the vehicle's and route your body's output (through your motor cortex) back to the vehicle. As there are aspects of quickness that aren't purely muscular, evidenced by how muscle replacement does not change reaction, part of the attribute is presumably found in the brain (which we'll assume is in the motor cortex for right now). Whilst pure intelligence is great for commands ETC, driving presumably needs to use the motor cortex as it is where closed-circuit control, nessecary for skillful driving, is evidently centered. As a non-mechanic piece of flavour text evidence, the Datajacks entry in SR3 says that deckers and riggers tend to have datajacks implanted in different places so the jack is closer to the relevant parts of the brain. Riggers installed their jacks around the lower brain and deckers installed theirs higher on the skull for proximity to higher brain functions.

*digs self back out of hole*

This explanation is exactly that, an explanation. It is not an argument as-to why part of quickness/reaction must be found in the brain but rather a plausable reason for the rules working as they are described in the book.

Anybody know what I'm talking about and care to phrase it better?