Group needs to get access to a location. A camera watches the door. The camera is not in Mutual Signal Range of anything except other components of the location's local network - a network which is separated from the rest of the matrix by a bottleneck, which has some irksomely-good IC on it. Guess what, being able to creep into the bushes a few meters inside the camera's Signal range and hack it directly? Major benefit to the hacker and the rest of their team.



Noone has to work with the hacker in AR or VR. Any more than everyone has to work with the B&E specialist while he picks the lock.

However, you aren't going to spend two or more hours as the Hacker slowly creeps from node to node within the target's entire network, looking for the Camera nodes, teeh Door nodes, etc., while the rest fo the group goes out to get dinner and see a movie. No, you're goign to have the group advance, discover a camera, pause for a minute or two or three while teh hacker deals with it, then advance some more, oh look a door, bit more hacking, etc.

IOW, the spotlight willl shift to, and away, from teh hacker multiple times during a single run. Not just once each way.


So the hacker goes VR for a couple combat turns, then pops back out when that hack is done. Five, ten minutes real-time - fifteen, tops.

Still not "see you next week" for the whole rest of the group.

Well in third you don't use attributes for any skill test so, no, I wouldn't call that a script-kiddie. But the mechanics are different so I can't comment on the 'feel' that woiuld have in 4e.


I just like the term. As mentioned, it's flavourful and sure I can call things what I want at my table but if I want to avoid confusing a new player I'm probably just going with the rulebook term, because it's what they'll use, and it would be pretty obnoxious to try and correct them. Much better the whole game be changed to suit my insignificant and largely irrellevant personal preference.

William Gibson disagrees.

They're not going to retcon wireless now, wouldn't make any sense unless you throw a giant deus ex machina at the matrix again. Aknowledhing that wired systems still exist would be nice though.
and yeah, call them Deckers again... Give them a keyboard to plug in their head if you must, but just call 'em by their true name.

The SR3/SR4 hacking issue, to me, seems to come down to a simple conflict:

If decking is involved, it's at the exclusion of everyone else, and so boring
If hacking is streamlined, it's a few dice rolls which add no real color or suspense to the game, and so boring

Clearly the solution is to make decking involved, but inclusive of non-deckers, or involved but broken up over multiple actions and mixed in with physical action, so the decker's actions blend in with, and directly impact and are impacted by the group.

Maintaining overwatch needs to be easy, but needs to let the GM provide suprises and a dynamic environment. Directly attacking another physical entity needs to be easy enough to be combat-relevant, but hard enough that the decker isn't God.

Precisely.

How is "simple" hacking any less colorful or involved than, say, B&E? Or combat?

I don't know... My Hacker had 3 Meat Passes, which is the same as IC. For those pesky Spiders, he had 5 VR passes. *shrug*
Though I rarely fought anyone myself... That is what a Baitworm and personal IC are for.

Simple B&E:
"I break in through the window" *Rolls dice: fail*
GM: "The window is stuck."
"I try the back door."

Simple hacking:
"I break...into the...system...through...uh...the firewall" *Rolls dice: fail*
GM: "Sorry, system kicks you out. Now it's on alert status."
"Game over, man, game over!"

The matrix has only one avenue of attack: the front door.* Breaking and entering does not. Combat does not. Social engineering does not (although you're still pretty limited, but it's still three times as varied as hacking).

Additionally, having companions can not and will not ever cause the hacker a greater chance of success. UNLIKE the dodge penalty for combat, or distractions caused by other players for social encounters or B&E.

*Hacking on the fly vs. Probing the target is not applicable, as they do not operate on the same time scale.

@Pax:
you do know that it does not have to be mutual signal range but only in the range of the hacker with the 2 (buuaah <.<) kilometer radius right?

Well, if the node only has a range of 3 meters, you must be in that 3 meters somehow to get a return signal. How you do that varies with the particular hacker. Any signal that connects will work, of course, but the originating node HAS to be a ble to connect back to you, in some way, as well.

Spoof is one directional.

Not to mention that back before wireless, that's exactly how things worked anyway.
(So in otherwords: the game added wireless for the sole purpose of having the GM take it away again)

Realistically speaking, yes, but as far as i remember not in the SR4 Ruleset. Single biggest reach is enough in there, if i ain't misremembering something here.
That was one of the main complaints when SR4A had come out i think.

*looks at Draco18's post*
or that, yes.

Which is my point. There was no real change, except for medium (wired vs. wireless). You still need to satisfy everything you had to satisfy with a Wired connection and Decking. You NEED a two-way connection either way. *shrug*

If you can imagine building with a front door, a back door and windows, I guess you can imagine that they're are several means to access a file or a device.

Want to take control of the camera network ? Try to hack the laboratory network. Fail? Try to hack any of the guard's comlink. Fail? Try to locate and hack the head of security's comlink while he's at home. Fail? Find the megacorporation's subsidiary who has the maintenance contract for the security systems and heck their system, or the regular maintenance crew's comlink...

Yes and no. As Tymaeus points out, the target node has to be in mutual signal range of something you can get into. And it does have to be mutual signal range - you have to get responses back from the target node, after all.

Now, if you can draw an unbroken chain of devices from yrou 2km-away location, to that camera? Great, you're in MSR.

But if the camera has a signal range of only 3m, and the nearest node accessible to the hacker is 4m away, or more? No hax for you. And in the barrens, or worse, a site located six or eight miles outside the city limits ... yeah, that's actually going to be pretty common. Heck, even in a built-up urban area, 3m may not be far enough to reach something the hacker can get into, without having to go knocking on the site's figurative Front Door after all.

Three meters just isn't that far.


Great. So, instead of (usefully) looping a couple seconds or minutes of the video feed, you just shut it off.

Which the guard behind the desk notices, since the "Camera Off" screen is set up on his end to be a flashing red-and-green alert. So he switches it back on, and OH HEY LOOK, someone breaking in the back door.

Nice goin', chummer. Real effective tactic, that.


No. Before Wireless rules, going in through the IC-laden front door would be the hacker's only option.

Now, though? He has the option to sneak up to within 3m of the camera - or have a team-mate do so, while the hacker maintains a subscription to that team-mate's commlink.

IOW, wireless makes it possible for the GM to construct a shadowrun so that the hacker has good reasons to be on-site, without being unreasonably harsh and without requiring that the site's security be entirely neutralised already.






Exactly.

Take the example location I've posited, with that camera beyond MSR of anythign not already part of the building's LAN. IT's a weakpoint, a back door, into that entire LAN. Get into the camera, get into the LAN ... without having to fight your way through that IC-laden bottleneck[/b] standing as a "front door" to the building's computr network.

QUOTE

Want to take control of the camera network ? Try to hack the laboratory network. Fail? Try to hack any of the guard's comlink. Fail? Try to locate and hack the head of security's comlink while he's at home. Fail? Find the megacorporation's subsidiary who has the maintenance contract for the security systems and heck their system, or the regular maintenance crew's comlink...

... or the system that maintains the lawn and grounds. Yes, the sprinkler system for that nice spread of grass (with it's networked sensors to make sure no executive gets soaked by walking down the wrong path from the parking lot to the offices proper), [i]might just turn out to be a security flaw for the entire site.

But only if at least some components of any network, and preferablyt he majority, are wireless. If it's all wired, then no such potential flaw really exists.

It's "the sensors detect you, it's GAME OVER MAN" just as well.

Thats why you have a chameleon coated microdrone, preferably a Flying Eye from Spy Games.

Whatever works to get you there. There are many ways to get that MSR.

My hopes for 5th are few as I liked 4th after a few home rules. My wish list is:

*The new edition does away with the skill cap which was at least hinted at in the later books of 4th.
*That 5th from the start does not make the whole game about street level play.
*That they do move the time line forward significantly (20+ years.) This was mentioned as an idea on the board with a hundred year leap but I just don't see them doing that.
*They introuce a significant long running foe other than the Mega's. I know the Horrors are out because of Earthdawn being owned by someone else but how about something like the insect spirits?
*The mentioned fix to hacking/decking.
*A return of the significance between mage and shaman would be nice.

That's one option, yes, Fisk. But not every hacker wants to also be a part-time rigger on the side.

This little bugger costs 2800 nY, and threshold 4 with a -4 DP mod to detect - just let if fly there itself, no need for a rigger (and because of stupid rules, when you triy to infiltrate, it is found more easily unlesse you get 4+ hits on the infiltration roll)

Actually for hacking... B&E used to be an essential part of getting access to systems without busting down the front door.

Normally there were direct wired access ports the decker could jack directly into to bypass the worst of the ice on the front door matrix connection (if there was one) or get quick access to things like security cameras or door controls or the like without much hassle. He just had to be on site to do it.

Wireless has absolutely nothing to do with it. Wireless is okay in it's own right... but making everything and anything and it's cousin wireless was just downright stupid.

What really should have been done is work wireless in with with the old matrix maps.. there's no good reason for everything to be wireless.

Other than the fact that no one liked the maps, I agree.

I was never a big fan of the 1e maps.... but later on it was more about egg shells and cracking them.... that wasn't so bad.

I liked the security tally system too

In IRL, of course you are correct. Hacking is the art of figuring out 'the other way'.

In our situation though, that doesn't quite apply, for a few reasons;
1) Very few players are computer experts. If I ask your average player how to get into a house, they will come up with a dozen answers very easily. If I ask them how to open a file, they will come up with one, maybe two.

2) Our GMs also aren't computer experts. Very quickly I can put together a long line of jargon that my GM can't understand, because it is pretend. How does a GM deal with a player who claims (or does) know more about the fundamentals of the world than the GM himself? Either the GM says "no it doesn't", he forces a familiar paradigm, or rolls cease to have any meaning.

3) Even among computer people, security is a very nebulous, abstract concept. Programming and hacking and data structures and ACLs and such are complex matters and usually get difficult to visualize very quickly. It's just not good story fodder. The reason why movies never show real hacking is because real hacking takes too much brain-work, and doesn't leave you with anything you can really grab onto.

4) Shadowrun uses Shadowrun's rules and paradigms, and that means the rules tells you how things work. If the rules say "you use a read/write program to open files", the assumption is that the only way to open files is using your read/write program. If that one avenue is blocked because of a failed roll, well sucks to be you.

5) There's really no challenge built into it. You buy the best gear you can, prioritize your targets, and make the dice rolls. Contrast this to B&E; you map out the facility, you think up different plans, play them out in your mind, select the strongest and decide where each person needs to be. Or combat; you're in a gunfight and you make tactical decisions about more combat pool for hitting that sniper, or with-holding it for dodging that spooky guy with the sword. There are choices built into B&E and combat that aren't built into hacking (and to be clear, the choice between the best program or best piece of equipment and the not-best is not a real choice).

6) It's lonely. Hacking focuses on one character. Even when the face is working, everyone else is making perception checks, doing background research, writing wishlists, etc.

So if you change it, hacking needs to be focused on things people can instantly grok (I think the SR1/2 matrix setup was very grokable, if a little simple. SR3 was not.) If you grok it, you can figure out how to 'break' it, and that's hacking.

It needs to be integrated with the team.

It needs to be fun (either because of what you can do, or because of how you can do it).

And because it takes ages, not some secondes-minutes (exept social engineering, or known software flaws)

And yet, in my opinion, all your points are covered by SR4A. It is a fun and fast system, at least at our table. *shrug*
Hell, actual combat takes longer than the hacks do.

The same applies to the rest of the aspects of the game. Most GMs and players are not specialists in firearms, combat tactics (especially combat tactics vastly different from what you can read in tactical manuals), economics, corp, govt and international politics, electronics and hundreds of other things that come up in a game.
To be fair, for fantasy it's even worse.

Hate to break it to you, but security-conscious RL design focuses on creating bottlenecks as well. And using SR rules, it's "succeed on this roll or have a major pain in the ass", too.

Have to agree here. Unwired tried to help with that by giving a hacker more options, but the basic algorithm stays the same.

I agree that hacking tends to become a single player side-game, but in what comes to other characters finding something to do, it's not any different from any other character hogging the spotlight for a while, be it a rigger in a chase scene or a mechanic constructing something, etc.

Frankly, that sounds like "it needs to be fun and good and not be boring and bad". I for one can't see any obvious ways to get there - and really, had there been any, they would've been used in the First Edition.

Thank you!
I wasn't able to articulate...things and so said nothing. But that, right there, is the problem.

(FYI: I'm a computer programer and I know jack-shit about hacking and computer security*)

*I firmly believe that computers are magic and that programming is just the casting of a spell. Because nothing else makes sense any more.**
**Had an issue a few months back where my browser would lock up loading a very specific website. In trying to figure out why and solve the problem, more sites started causing problems, and then the computer crashed. When it rebooted, the initial problem had gone away. Best guess is that a chunk of RAM wasn't freeing properly.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you ... a Com-Star Acolyte. (Or on a bad day, a WOBbly ... *shudder* ...)

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - Clarke's third law.

Only reason we don't think that. Is because we know that someone know how these things work. *shrug*

Actually, for modern computers, I don't think there's anyone who knows how these things work, from particular transistor to the entire chip or from particular line of code to a working OS.

Computers are magic! it's canon.

Yup.

Hence my insistence that computer programs are spells and that I am a magician! <|: )

Where's the difference between Solorun for a decker to a mage going astral?

I think the big complaints comes from the decker having to do so more often than the mage.

What Critias said.

Also, pre-SR4, I beleive the timescale for MAtrix actions was significantly different from teh timescale for meatspace events. Something like a 2:1 or 3:1 time compression - IOW, 2 or 3 matrix turns, for every 1 meatspace turn. Whereas, astral or meatspace, 1:1 time relation. Thus, easier to jump back and forth between the two.

There isn't any, but at our table, when a mage (or technomancer) goes on an Astral (Resonance Realms) Quest, the other players play supporting parts in the Quest.

They can just rename them. As it was with insect. Also, Horrors are already in the setting.

x2

So often I fix some computer thing for friends/family, and they ask how I did it. I'm unable to come up with any better explanation other than "magic".


I'd nominate Bunnie Huang as a person most likely to have this overarching knowledge.

I think that part of the problem is fundamental to the nature of computing.

If your Street Samurai decides to "back up" the infiltration expert in sneaking up to the guard shack and pooch-screws a stealth roll, it's not instant game over. He might manage to shoot the guard before the guard triggers the alarm. If a camera saw him, it might have a Deus Ex style grace peroid where it watches and analyzes to see if what it saw is authorized or if it was a figment before it sounds the alarm. Even if, worst-case scenario, the alarm goes off, there is always Plan B: Smash, Grab, and Run Like Hell.

The guards can be overcome with heavy weapons, astral security can be handed its ass on a silver platter by the team magician, and if you're lucky, you may manage to Pink Mohawk your way through.

In the Matrix, this just is not so. If you fail a Hacking + Stealth roll versus the system's Firewall + Analyze, it immediately knows you're there. It sounds the alarm immediately. All security spiders in the system are immediately available to kick your ass, all active IC is immediately available to kick your ass. It would be as if the building's entire security forces beamed in from the Enterprise right in front of the gates and rolled for initiative the moment you get spotted trying to break in.

And, of course, if you're capable of overcoming that, the system still has a fallback that you can't beat: it can shut itself down, ejecting you and Dumpshocking you if you were in VR. This would be equivalent to the building radiating a mystical pulse of energy that ejects your whole team from the mission and scrubs the run right then and there because an impenetrable forcefield just went up.



Thing is, I'm not entirely sure this can, or should, be "solved". I certainly don't want the Matrix rules rejiggered so only TMs can do the really good stuff and specializing in hacking as a non-TM is like specializing in Mechanics and Language. The meat hacker deserves to stay relevant.

The hacker does it more often, and, by the rules, has to do a lot of dice rolling (even more if he's a TM).

Two hours of flavorless dice rolls is not an improvement.


Because the opening info is usually public knowledge. Sure, you might set out for the team to follow up on leads, but the decker has to run them down first-- or more often, the team hands the decker a list of information they want, then leave for pizza. What it boils down to is, almost all the information is gathered by the decker, then maybe one or two important leads are chased down by the face.

Deckers are also the most likely to have virtual contacts, which as you point out, are often the most varied and useful. I've never, not in twenty-three years, seen a face take an Etiquette specialization in Matrix... but I've lost count of the decker-types with it.

It is for everyone else at the table.

What you're not getting - or are refusing to seriously address - is this: outside of Hacking, or Astral space stuff, teh Hacker is just as involved in the general RP of each scene as anyone else.

But in prior editions, once the Decker went VR? The game ENDED for every person seated at that table except the Decker and the GM. And it did so for at least an hour, possibly "all of this week's session".

A mage could go Astral for a few minutes' real-time gameplay, maybe making one or two Assensing roles. Then the game would immediately resume for the others at the table. But if the Decker went VR to hack into a system, that was pretty much it for the rest of the group, nine-and-three-quarters times out of ten.



Bullshit.

What gangs deal what drugs out of which locationin teh barrens? Not on the matrix. Probably not even if you're so suicidal (or overskilled for the job) that you feel confident decking/hacking into the Vice Squad's most-secure database(s).

And that's just the very first thing that pops to mind for me, when thinking "what might be found out, that isn't on the matrix".

If the group isn't looking over their list of contacts thinking "who might know something about this job - the target, the area, the client, whatever", then the players aren't trying hard enough.

If the GM hasn't already figured out which of the player's contacts might or might not have relevant information to provide, or might know someone who does ... then s/he's not doing their job.


Really?

So, what are we here on Dumpshock ... all or mostly deckers? Because, you know, this forum? Is a virtual contact. Sure, the Connection rating may not be high; I'd guess a 1, maybe a 2. Magical resources and even Matrix resources are thin on the ground. And it's got a very narrow field of interest. But, nonetheless, it's a virtual contact.

And ShadowSEA, formerly Shadowland? Is for all shadowrunners. And professional Johnsons. And pro fixers, for that matter. Mages, samurai, riggers, faces - oh lord, ESPECIALLY Faces - all are equally likely to be aware of ShadowSEA. Some may not cultivate their presence there (meaning, have it listed as a contact on their sheet). But anyone with, say ... Media Junky, at any level? Might just be a "forum junkie", and that's reason enough for an L1+ contact listing. No decker/hacker archetype required.

(FWIW? I would have Mild Media Junky, and if I were a shadowrunner, I would have a Loyalty 1 contact there. I generally figure ShadowSEA to be a good candidate for Variable Connection rating, by the by. Or ... there's this forum, as I just mentioned. L2, I'd guess, for myself - I'm not a fresh newbie, but I'm also not an instantly-recognisable "bright light" like others - CanRay for example would get an L3 or L4, easily, IMO.


Lack of a specialisation, doesn't mean you never go there.

Sometimes for the decker player as well. I've had to make serious changes in the assumed approach.


I have a bigger problem with this under SR4.5 than I ever had under previous editions. Mainly because there is more for the decker to do, they want to do it unless I discourage it.

Who needs the most secure, when you can look up recent reports of recent busts? Or better yet, use the matrix to look up people who know?


I'd personally call us script kiddies.

But are you serious? If every forum I was on was a virtual contact, I'd be worth at least 500BP. Sorry, but contacts are only those who carry useful information. Your momma isn't a contact, no matter how loyal she might be to you.

Yeaaaah. You really aren't familiar with Shadowland, are you? Or the decking trials they put people through, to prove they were 1337 enough to join?


No, but it means it's not as useful to you. Just like most virtual contacts aren't useful for non-deckers.

I haven't played SR3 (or any earlier editions), but I'm curious. What did deckers do when not breaking into things? Did things just shift between "now the decker can't participate" and "now the non-deckers can't"?

Honestly, when you investigate, everyone can play. It's nothing related to your profil. And that remains 80% of the game IMO.


Now personnally, if the player is experimented into the game, I let him do what he want. If he's not, I advice the player to pack some bioware along in order to be able to fight as a second class fighter in case of action.

... explain people like Hatchetman, who were not deckers, yet were regular contributors to teh Shadowtalk in all the books, then ...?


I dispute that claim, vehemently.

Just because a network uses the Matrix to stay connected, does not mean that only or mostly deckers have such things, or find them useful.

The way most deckers were built?

Yes, pretty much.

Deckers usually were Dorfs or Squishies, sometimes Fairies.
So, good mental attributes usually made them Face and general Techie for electronics and stuff too.
First Aid and the such were not unusual on their sheets either.
General Legwork and aquisition of gear.