The Shadowrun Situation

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 6:08 am

I'll agree it's not completely intractable using solid state digital signal processors to get gigabit speed transfers as you describe. But the subject under discussion is not using solid state electronics, it's using umm, sodium cations in solution? So I'll further unconstrain my question: provide a "hand-waving but reasonably convincing explanation as to how a human being's brain can naturally send and receive gigabit data rates".

But generally the technomancer offends me about as much as a cyberware Magic 6 implant would.

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 6:42 am

So, why can't Technomancers just be a supernatural mutation of humans that can only be produced within a mana field? An absolutely minimal amount of magic in them, and once they're born the fact that they're alive and that living things produce mana fields keeps them fed enough off of themselves to let them go into space and crap without caring like normal mages do.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 7:15 am

kzt, your basic question is extremely irrelevant in the frame of actual data transfer protocols. You might as well be asking how a book could convey the information on a website considering the low bitrates of paper.

Data transfer isn't required to operate at the same frequencies as the target processor; nor are they required to use photons whose frequencies employ whatever frequency is being deployed. The radio that travels between devices does so whether any technomancer was present or not, so if there were any harmful effects of this radiation, thy would be born by every metahuman on the planet regardless of hacker status.

But for your basic question: a human body doesn't have the limitations of a single wire antenna. The whole thing is emitting, and the whole body is emitting at a hundred watts - two orders of magnitude higher than the antenna on a wireless router. And that's being made of many tiny synapses, which are each emitting separately instead of a single antenna sending photons out at whatever rate. And by "many" I mean five hundred trillion synapses.

So getting a "billion" little amplitude peaks in a second isn't a problem. The human brain is at every moment putting out about five orders of magnitude more than that. The problem is actually compacting the data stream somehow so that you get a single really visible amplitude peak for every hundred thousand tiny spikes, so that it resonates into a signal that is slow enough for a computer to understand. Rather than being a cacophony of tiny pulses so rapid that it is discounted as noise.

In short: while technomancers are pure science fiction and will never actually happen, your specific complaint is virtually the opposite of the actual problems such a scenario would have. If you're bothered by the notion of a human brain putting out pulses rapidly enough to interact with computers, you seriously need to do a cell count sometime. That's not the problem.

-Username17

Sashi · Post by **Sashi** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 7:34 am

kzt wrote:The most common frequencies today used for wireless networking is, oddly enough, the exact same as what microwave ovens transmit.

You are an AMAZING idiot.

Your argument boils down to "The wi-fi radiation passing harmlessly through my skull every second of every day would fry a Technomancer's brain because he's emitting it."

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 8:16 am

Don't be a fool. Power level/intensity/dose determine whether something is harmless or not. The main difference between a channel 6 G band transmitter and a microwave oven magnetron is power level. If you are far enough from an unshielded microwave oven magnetron it's going to be a harmless as a wireless access point a few feet away is.

But that's an itsy bitsy part of the problem I have with them. If you feel the uncontrollable urge to write peons to how wonderful technomancers are that's fine, but I would write them out the game without a second thought.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 8:53 am

kzt wrote:Don't be a fool.

OK. I'm going to start by not mistaking dielectric heating for... whatever the heck you think microwaves do. Without the presence of a steady, alternating electromagnetic field, there is no heating. Information baring pulses could be in any bandwidth and not boil anything.

Power level/intensity/dose determine whether something is harmless or not. The main difference between a channel 6 G band transmitter and a microwave oven magnetron is power level.

No.

If you are far enough from an unshielded microwave oven magnetron it's going to be a harmless as a wireless access point a few feet away is.

Uh... while the wattage on a microwave oven is 7 times the wattage on a human being, that is not why microwaves boil water and humans don't. Seven humans next to a potato still won't bake it.

Your arguments make no sense. Stop comparing wireless signals to microwave ovens. It's a very stupid argument. Also: there is no reason to believe that 2070s computers use the same Wi Fi bands that we use in 2011. They could use any electromagnetic bads or even several different bands.

-Username17

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 5:16 pm

That was all pretty fascinating stuff guys. I learned a lot.

My response? Keep Technomancers in the game. Don't make them magical. (If we want to make their abilities even more directly analogous to magic, that's fine.) And don't make them FRONT-LINE content. Their status in 3E (do they go back as far as 2E? I think they do) as sideline content accessible in a sourcebook makes more sense to me. They are too damn WEIRD to be one of the basic Shadowrunner archetypes. If we have X sample characters in the core rulebook for fifth edition, then not one of every x runners should be a technomancer.

Also, they need to be seriously rebalanced, from the ground up. From what I've seen at my table non-optimized technomancers are pretty awful (or at least hard to play) but I also hear that optimized technomancers are broken.

Figuring out exactly how they do or do not work, technically speaking, is not that interesting to me. I just think that they don't need to be made magical because Magic in Shadowrun has a large enough domain and a far enough reach already. It shouldn't be able to effect the Matrix. It historically never has been; the Astral and the Matrix do not touch each other, but both touch the physical plane, and that's how it is supposed to be.

You know what I can flat out do without? Playable AIs and playable Free Spirits. No. Just no.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 5:42 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:kzt, your basic question is extremely irrelevant in the frame of actual data transfer protocols. You might as well be asking how a book could convey the information on a website considering the low bitrates of paper.

Data transfer isn't required to operate at the same frequencies as the target processor; nor are they required to use photons whose frequencies employ whatever frequency is being deployed. The radio that travels between devices does so whether any technomancer was present or not, so if there were any harmful effects of this radiation, thy would be born by every metahuman on the planet regardless of hacker status.

But for your basic question: a human body doesn't have the limitations of a single wire antenna. The whole thing is emitting, and the whole body is emitting at a hundred watts - two orders of magnitude higher than the antenna on a wireless router. And that's being made of many tiny synapses, which are each emitting separately instead of a single antenna sending photons out at whatever rate. And by "many" I mean five hundred trillion synapses.

So getting a "billion" little amplitude peaks in a second isn't a problem. The human brain is at every moment putting out about five orders of magnitude more than that. The problem is actually compacting the data stream somehow so that you get a single really visible amplitude peak for every hundred thousand tiny spikes, so that it resonates into a signal that is slow enough for a computer to understand. Rather than being a cacophony of tiny pulses so rapid that it is discounted as noise.

In short: while technomancers are pure science fiction and will never actually happen, your specific complaint is virtually the opposite of the actual problems such a scenario would have. If you're bothered by the notion of a human brain putting out pulses rapidly enough to interact with computers, you seriously need to do a cell count sometime. That's not the problem.

-Username17

...And they're not operating on binary either. There's like 2 dozen neurotransmitters. Withg sensitive sensors and crazy signal filtering, you could seriously scan the shape of the waveforms to get thousands of states off each peak. Just to throw a whole extra order of magnitude on there.

And really, if you have that big a hard-on for frequencies, look at your eyes. That's interaction with THz frequencies right there. Audible/vocal spans four orders of magnitude, and tops out well above the absolute refractory period.

The takeaway is that this is seriously a non-issue. There are some ways you definitely can't do it (and a strict definition of "direct" neural interface is propably one of them), but saying "adaptation" and "poorly understood" enough times is really enough.

JongWK · Post by **JongWK** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 8:34 pm

In my games, the nature of technomancers is less important than whether they make other characters completely obsolete or not.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 4:35 pm

The problem with technomancers is not that they can receive and interpret matrix traffic. Although that is.. a bit on the odd side. The problem is that a matrix computer can receive and interpret technomancer traffic in a meaningful way.

Kot · Post by **Kot** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 1:31 pm

That's the reason why the megas hunt technomancers and vivisect them, isn't it?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 9:01 pm

Kot wrote:That's the reason why the megas hunt technomancers and vivisect them, isn't it?

Pretty much, yes.
They failed at cloning the magical ability and using it to produce more stuff.
Now they are, of course, trying to do the same with the technomantic abilities.

unnamednpc · Post by **unnamednpc** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 7:27 am

So, is there any insight to be drawn from the fact that it's basically the end of february, and CGL has just struck a deal with Ulisses Spiele to publish Battletech in Germany?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 11:38 am

Wait . . wat? O.o

Otakusensei · Post by **Otakusensei** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 5:13 pm

Yeah, I saw that the other day and didn't pay much attention. CGL has a lot of practice acting like a legitimate company so you can expect them to keep on keeping on as long as they can. The license is most likely still in negotiation because they haven't come out and posted anything about it.

Give them a few more books to hang themselves. I'm hoping the registered letter that were sent to Topps will open some eyes.

unnamednpc · Post by **unnamednpc** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 5:13 pm

Says so here (en allemand)
and here (straight from the horses mouth).

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 6:40 pm

ei je . .

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 7:56 pm

Food for thought:

Catalyst does about a million a year in business according to court documents.

To put that into perspective, North Star Games pulled in 1.5 million in 2010. What do they publish? 3 titles/products:

Wits & Wagers (and Wits & Wagers Family)
Cluzzle
Say Anything

That's it. 3 party games that most people have never heard of. And they do more raw business than CGL does with two venerable IPs.

It seems to me these products are languishing. I don't see BT being published in German being a particularly huge boost to the line, namely because BT is now competing directly with 30 years of war game evolution, and it's a clunky system compared to some of the other wargame solution/offerings out there. It's also competing with the relative Euro game renaissance happening right now.

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 8:12 pm

TheFlatline wrote:Food for thought:

Catalyst does about a million a year in business according to court documents.

To put that into perspective, North Star Games pulled in 1.5 million in 2010. What do they publish? 3 titles/products:

Wits & Wagers (and Wits & Wagers Family)
Cluzzle
Say Anything

That's it. 3 party games that most people have never heard of. And they do more raw business than CGL does with two venerable IPs.

It seems to me these products are languishing. I don't see BT being published in German being a particularly huge boost to the line, namely because BT is now competing directly with 30 years of war game evolution, and it's a clunky system compared to some of the other wargame solution/offerings out there. It's also competing with the relative Euro game renaissance happening right now.

I'm not sure about the recent years, but grossing a million a year in the mid 2000s sounds bogus to me. They've always been a bit shy with releasing any sales number but I think I remember a 15,000 claim a few years back on a Battletech core rulebook, which would be about 700K in itself.

I think the game lines are languishing, I'm a pretty avid Battletech fan but they didn't release anything in the last two years that even tempted me to buy it. I think the franchises need a capital infusion, to actually pay for talent, but with Coleman around I doubt that's going to happen. Come to think about it, work seems to have stopped on nearly all of their actual paperback products. They where going to release a trilogy of books, Total Warfare for tactical combat, Tactical Operations for special rules and Interstellar Operations for strategic combat. They've been pushing that last title back for maybe two years, it's a big book but it makes them look like an operation that doesn't have their act together.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 9:48 pm

I wasn't going by sales figures, I was going by what they filed in court documents with the forced bankruptcy thing. They said they pulled in about a million in a year. Maybe they lied to the court. Who knows. But I'm going off of that number.

My point though is that they're nearly irrelevant compared to even a tiny, tiny game publisher that only has published 3 titles (4 if you count the family edition of W&W) in almost 10 years.

Of course, North Star Games is growing significantly, and the games it has are absolute gems of games, and the owners pimp their company harder than almost anyone I know. But still, brand recognition for BT & SR *must* be orders of magnitude larger than Wits & Wagers.

Otakusensei · Post by **Otakusensei** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 10:27 pm

So do you think CGL has hobbled themselves enough to pick up the coveted "indy" distinction?

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 11:27 pm

Otakusensei wrote:So do you think CGL has hobbled themselves enough to pick up the coveted "indy" distinction?

Not really. SR and BT aren't "indie" titles. They're mainstream, and in the case of BT, they're relics of a previous era of gaming. Indie companies usually have a connotation of "doing it differently", and CGL doesn't bring anything new or innovative to the table.

Juton is dead-to-rights though, they're letting their product lines languish. I don't know what the agreement between Topps and CGL is (Topps may just want X dollars per year for the licensing rights, or they may want a percentage of the sales too), but I doubt the IPs are earning as much as they could be earning. That's due to a lot of different things, from playing Old Boy's Club with BT to the "enhanced borrowing scenario" to the company just not really apparently caring much to actually pimp their product and get it out there.

Further comparisons: Fantasy Flight Games is roughly in the 10-15 million a year range (3 or 4 years ago before they picked up the Warhammer licenses and went through their large growth surge they were doing 7 million a year). For IPs such as BT and SR, I'd expect 2-3 million a year in revenue from an aggressive publishing company.

Otakusensei · Post by **Otakusensei** » Sat Feb 26, 2011 3:55 pm

We have a pretty strong RP contingent where I play, and an ok miniatures crowd. Shadowrun is seeing new players, old players coming back and new GMs because of the new and much better ruleset in SR4/A. Battletech sees no play at any store in the region. While I know of one standing AD&D game, I'd be hard pressed to find someone willing to play a round of Battletech.

Between D&D and Pathfinder people are hungry for an RPG that isn't the standard fair. Shadowrun fills that niche perfectly while being not too far out of the norm for them. You can even attract players who are still on a fantasy kick because the system can totally support that. Right next to the guy who wants to play the Major from Ghost in the Shell.

I made the indy comment because it's effectively what CGL wants to do. Indy publishers tend to be small, the successful ones frequently composed of talented and driven individuals who are in the game to see their dream shared. And maybe make rent.

CGL lost a ton of talent and if recent work on Shadowrun is any indication they have yet to properly replace it or get the talent on hand up to speed with the setting. They lost most of their infrastructure as they adapted to less people and resources to run the company with. Part of that though was not investing in the company and growing the product during the salad days when Coleman was saving up for his house instead.

But CGL can't go indy at this point, not without becoming something they are not. And let's face it, they already refused to become a company not owned and operated by a thief; so we can't expect many radical changes.

Both licenses are languishing, and what makes me so angry about that is that work of the talented and dedicated people who put the effort into bring Shadowrun back. CGL is pissing on that work and on the fans they both made and brought back. It's a testament to this game that after this long of the current CGL's bullshit I can still feel myself getting this mad.

I'm going to go work on my character and calm down before I start posting on the official forums again...

adamjury · Post by **adamjury** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 5:26 pm

Juton wrote:I'm not sure about the recent years, but grossing a million a year in the mid 2000s sounds bogus to me. They've always been a bit shy with releasing any sales number but I think I remember a 15,000 claim a few years back on a Battletech core rulebook, which would be about 700K in itself.

Only if they sold those 15K directly to customers would they get 100% of the purchase price.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 5:42 pm

adamjury wrote:
Juton wrote:I'm not sure about the recent years, but grossing a million a year in the mid 2000s sounds bogus to me. They've always been a bit shy with releasing any sales number but I think I remember a 15,000 claim a few years back on a Battletech core rulebook, which would be about 700K in itself.
Only if they sold those 15K directly to customers would they get 100% of the purchase price.

Yeah, it's important to note that when they said they had $1.8million in sales for a year (which they did a few years ago), that doesn't mean that CGL products sold at retail for a grand total of $1.8million, it means that they sold materials to distributors for a total of $1.8million.

Things could be languishing on gaming store shelves or sold for full price, but since IMR doesn't own the books anymore at that point, it doesn't affect the company's sales figures (excepting that stores would order more in the future if the last books had sold well).

Now you might want to get excited and finger pointy about the fact that a few years back they reported $1.8million, and last year they went to court with "over one million". But this isn't a "hundreds of thousands" moment, $1.8million is over a million dollars. All we rally know is that they didn't grow enough to boast over $2 million (which we knew anyway). That really isn't firm evidence that sales in late 2009/early 2010 were $800k less than sales from late 2008/early 2009. It was less, but not that much less.

-Username17