(Shadowrun) Perfect Crime Matrix Rules [WIP]

[TheNotoriousAMP]

Notorious, can you shut the fuck up about your love of the legwork. Your position has gradually changed over time:
[*]It's not bad that hackers are too complicated to use in combat because they are useful at legwork
[*]Hackers should be worse at combat because they are good at legwork
[*]Hackers should require legwork for each and every hack they intend to do and should plan ahead for each and every enemy

What next? Hacking should be impossible during combat and hacking can only be done during planning a run?

I never said that every hack should require legwork. I said that major fluffy hacks, like making someone kill themselves with their own arm, should require research and be like an additional objective in a computer game. And I've always, let me repeat, always from the start of it mentioned that hackers should be useful on the tabletop. I just don't want them to overshadow everyone else, the way magic users did during 4th edition.

And maybe its just the way my group plays, but legwork has always been a critical, if not the critical part of Shadowrun. The tabletop is there to see if your detailed plan worked out. Which makes hacker's ability to prep and plan worth it, because they can neutralize those encounters from the start. Look at Missing Blood for example, 90% of it is legwork with the occasional encounter, which can be misdirected or intercepted if your smart in your planning. Shadowrun without legwork is just DnD with guns and that would suck.

[RadiantPhoenix]

A hacker doesn't need to do legwork to shoot someone dead with a gun, so why should making someone's arm kill them be more difficult? (From a game balance reference frame)

[TheNotoriousAMP]

A hacker doesn't need to do legwork to shoot someone dead with a gun, so why should making someone's arm kill them be more difficult? (From a game balance reference frame)

Because its a bit easier than shooting them. Hack, insta kill, compared to aim, shoot, dodge, armor, hp drain, ect. From a game balance perspective, the point of arm insta killing being tough should be because its untraceable, undodgeable and no one knows who did it. It gives a hacker the ability to accomplish a mission without having to fire a shot. Off the table this is an incredibly powerful tool, you could avoid combat all together. So it needs to be limited and require prep work to balance it out. Plus, damage dealing needs to be a protected role of the street sammy, if you make it to easy for a hacker to instakill someone, then you start making the sammy go down the path of the DnD fighter.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Well, if you're talking about hacking someone from a hundred miles away, sure.

I assumed you were talking about hacking them in person, during combat, when it would be pretty obvious that one of you {X} guys was the one whodunnit.

[Lokathor]

the point of arm insta killing being tough should be because its untraceable, undodgeable and no one knows who did it.

Except if they like, you know, run a trace program on who interacted with that PAN.

And you'd "dodge" it with Willpower+Firewall, or some other dice pool, but there'd obviously be a resistance test the same as getting shot at has a resistance test and getting a spell cast at you has a resistance test. And it wouldn't even be an instant kill, it'd be more like a melee attack, so they'd be able to fight back against it, and there might even be enough time for someone they know to stop the hack.

And anyone would know who did it if they run a trace on your connection records. You can try to obscure that data, sure, but they can just as easily try to recover the obscured files. If they're small time then they probably don't have a digital forensics expert, the same as they wouldn't have a physical or magical forensics expert. If they're a big time operation though, and they really care, they can probably call in an expert that's as good as you (say, 50/50 chance of recovering the data) or even one that's better than you. Again, just like with physical forensics (DNA evidence, footprints, biometric scans, video/audio, etc) and with magical forensics (residual astral auras on anything you cast a spell at or anything your spirits used spirit powers on).

Plus, damage dealing needs to be a protected role of the street sammy

Honestly fuck you. That's bullshit.

[OgreBattle]

The hacking in Ghost in the Shell is what I want, it's basically illusion and charm magic with the occasional "take over a guy's arms to make him point at himself/allies"


As for damage dealer as a protected role... that's an idea I disagree with (and one of my biggest complaints with D&D4e). Everyone should be dealing damage if they can, roles are more things like "Super mobile guy, tanking guy, guy that buff/debuffs folks", that compliments damage dealing.

[Username17]

The hacking in Ghost in the Shell is what I want, it's basically illusion and charm magic with the occasional "take over a guy's arms to make him point at himself/allies."

The thing is: Ghost in the Shell hacking isn't opportunistic based on the devices at hand. It's post hoc rationalizations all the way. It isn't just that it's written post hoc working backwards from the intended hack effects, it's presented post hoc as well. In Ghost in the Shell, when hacking happens, shit goes all crazy and then if they remember they go back and give a belated explanation of what the fuck just happened after the fact.

So first the thugs can't find Batou and shoot at shadows while he takes them down. Then Batou explains that he hacked their eyes and that's what they get for using shitty equipment. First the Puppet Master turns off all the lights, and then the technician announces that the robot body has its own internal power source as if that fucking explained anything at all.

-Username17

[OgreBattle]

The hacking in Ghost in the Shell is what I want, it's basically illusion and charm magic with the occasional "take over a guy's arms to make him point at himself/allies."

The thing is: Ghost in the Shell hacking isn't opportunistic based on the devices at hand. It's post hoc rationalizations all the way.

Yeah, I agree with your conclusions and think that would work great with GitS, I made the comparison to magic to step away from the "what does this item do?" issue. GitS explanations are retro-active, if they are ever explained. Ex: Batou is fighting the Major, he reaches for his gun and touches nothing. It was a phantom image the Major created after she picked up the gun herself. Later she tells Batou that his Ranger Eyes implant is vulnerable to that kind of hacking.

I remember reading an Assymetric Threat (Frank Trollman's Shadowrun heartbreaker) thread where you mentioned that things like "deal more damage in melee" should be an ability you pick up then you explain it's 'cause of your implants/robot hand/horn on your head.

Are you going to launch AT like you have After Sundown?

[TheNotoriousAMP]

Plus, damage dealing needs to be a protected role of the street sammy

Honestly fuck you. That's bullshit.

Poor wording, I don't mean the ability to do damage needs to be protected. I mean that Street Sammies need to be kept more lethal than the rest. With all the magical armor and the like running around, which has a nasty habit of making their roles as tanks useless, they need to be protected from obsolescence. As for the tracing and the like, that doesn't matter on the tabletop (and if you were on the tabletop, why wouldn't you just shut down his arm and then kill him when he's defenseless, if it was just another melee attack?) and off the tabletop, while the tracing idea is cool, it really comes down to how good the GM is to balance it. Unless he is willing to write adventures around it, that penalty becomes useless.

And I think the core problem for using GITS hacking is that GITS doesn't need to worry about BMX bandit syndrome. It seems like doing explanations afterwards would make hackers a bit too powerful.

[Lokathor]

As for the tracing and the like, that doesn't matter on the tabletop (and if you were on the tabletop, why wouldn't you just shut down his arm and then kill him when he's defenseless, if it was just another melee attack?) and off the tabletop, while the tracing idea is cool, it really comes down to how good the GM is to balance it.

Well, EotM has actual rules for tracing a target. So I'm assuming that in this theoretical other new ruleset there's actual rules being involved in a trace, not just "then the GM makes up bullshit".

[TheNotoriousAMP]

As for the tracing and the like, that doesn't matter on the tabletop (and if you were on the tabletop, why wouldn't you just shut down his arm and then kill him when he's defenseless, if it was just another melee attack?) and off the tabletop, while the tracing idea is cool, it really comes down to how good the GM is to balance it.

Well, EotM has actual rules for tracing a target. So I'm assuming that in this theoretical other new ruleset there's actual rules being involved in a trace, not just "then the GM makes up bullshit".

It's not the actual tracing I was talking about, it was the consequences of the tracing. Unless the GM is very good at working in hard consequences in later adventures for being caught doing this, you're stuck with an insanely good power that has relatively little blowback. Plus, unless the hacker is caught alone you drag the whole group into it too. So, unlike mage drain, the hacker powers backlash affects everyone, which I think would result in some wonky group dynamics.

[Username17]

It seems like doing explanations afterwards would make hackers a bit too powerful.

Unless the GM is very good at working in hard consequences in later adventures for being caught doing this, you're stuck with an insanely good power that has relatively little blowback.

I get people ranting along these lines every time I try to discuss Shadowrun hacking. What the actual fuck are you talking about? There's this weird idea that if hacking isn't keeping track of individual nodes and wired connections and different devices and data folders that it would somehow be too powerful. Why? What possible evidence would you have that would lead you to believe that?

A hacking action is an action. It costs the same kind of action as casting a spell or blasting away with a fully automatic weapon. It requires you to have a special skill and some expensive equipment. You roll your dicepool, and the target (or targets) get to roll their resistance check using a dicepool generated by some combination of attribute, skill, and equipment. How the fuckity fuck is that inherently too powerful? It's exactly the same procedure as casting a spell or shooting a gun.

Whether it's too powerful, too weak, or about right would depend on how good the actual effects were, how much the equipment cost, and what kind of resistance pools enemies were likely to have. How you, or anyone, could make claim that the hacking attack was too powerful without seeing that information is totally beyond me. It literally makes no sense at all. You're arguing that an attack is too powerful without knowing how much damage it does or how likely it is to work. What the fuck? How can you even make that argument without feeling like an idiot?

Are you going to launch AT like you have After Sundown?

Possibly once I move back to America. I would need to work with someone else to get that out, I can't do it on my own. And collaboration projects bigger than OSSRs are just too hard to do while I'm stuck in Eastern Europe and can't effectively talk to people in person or on the phone.

-Username17

[deaddmwalking]

If a hacker doing his leg-work can insta-kill an enemy with a cyber arm, nobody will have a cyber-arm. PCs won't, for sure.

What kind of game is that where you say 'NPC bad guy did his homework. You die'.

Why would it work for the PCs if it doesn't work against them?

And if it works at all, why does anyone make themselves vulnerable to it?

[RadiantPhoenix]

If a sniper does his legwork, couldn't he insta-kill a PC?

EDIT:

And if it works at all, why does anyone make themselves vulnerable to it?

And that's why Frank says that it can't be something you have to opt-in on.

[deaddmwalking]

I get that.

But if 'doesn't have cyberware' means you're immune to hacking, it is an opt-in system. Sure, there are benefits to having cyberware. But if the potential downside is 'die', you won't have cyberware.

But unless I'm getting confused on my posters, TheNotoriousAMP seems to be the 'no brain hacking camp', so not having cyberware makes you immune.

[Cyberzombie]

But if 'doesn't have cyberware' means you're immune to hacking, it is an opt-in system. Sure, there are benefits to having cyberware. But if the potential downside is 'die', you won't have cyberware.

But unless I'm getting confused on my posters, TheNotoriousAMP seems to be the 'no brain hacking camp', so not having cyberware makes you immune.

Unless you're a mage, not having cyberware seriously isn't much of an option in Shadowrun. Cyberware is what keeps you alive against guns. And while you can go for bioware, it's very expensive in comparison. Overall you're probably better off just spending a fraction of the extra cash you would spend on bioware for a good hacking defense. Even if you're not running wired reflexes and crap, you're probably still running some kind of AR that can get hacked anyway.

And at the end of the day, it's not even important if PCs are immune to hacking or not. What's important are the NPCs and there's more than enough reason for them to use cyberware. So even if every PC decides to spend their money on cyberware or be a mage or whatever, it's not that big of a deal.

[Username17]

And at the end of the day, it's not even important if PCs are immune to hacking or not.

Unless tech specialists want to feel at all valuable by providing hacking defense. In which case people being passively immune to hacking attacks shits all over the hacker even if you dangle hacking vulnerable shit for him to attack.

Which of course is the situation in Shadowrun. Characters are expected to provide defense against the things they specialize in defending against. Mages defend against spells with counterspelling, Hackers defend against enemy hackers with electronic warfare. And if the other players can get a better defense against spells or hacking just by closing their eyes and wishing really hard, that role has been shat upon. So you're wrong.

-Username17

[TheNotoriousAMP]

And at the end of the day, it's not even important if PCs are immune to hacking or not.

Which of course is the situation in Shadowrun. Characters are expected to provide defense against the things they specialize in defending against. Mages defend against spells with counterspelling, Hackers defend against enemy hackers with electronic warfare. And if the other players can get a better defense against spells or hacking just by closing their eyes and wishing really hard, that role has been shat upon. So you're wrong.

-Username17

Which is fucking stupid reasoning because characters getting better defense against electronic warfare also forces them to give up key upgrades and power-ups in the form of cyberware (which, as I mentioned, should be better than bioware). It's like playing a world war 2 shooter and arguing that tank destroyers are useless because the enemy can just use infantry. Which, yes they could, but it'd also royally fuck them over because they are useless against every single other class. Not to mention, make them ludicrously vulnerable to magic, since anti magic really should come from mages (dispelling) and cybertech (fucking it up). In short, there's a huge fucking trade off.

Plus, having only one class be able to fight itself is a stupid idea because then you get mages playing their own game, hackers playing their own game and what's left of the party doing something else. The classes should be a bit more dynamic than that. Each class should be able to defend against itself as well as having a hard counter or two outside of it. That way a party of players can afford to choose roles more freely and npc groupings don't randomly become invincible because the magic guy died.

[Cyberzombie]

Unless tech specialists want to feel at all valuable by providing hacking defense. In which case people being passively immune to hacking attacks shits all over the hacker even if you dangle hacking vulnerable shit for him to attack.

Which of course is the situation in Shadowrun. Characters are expected to provide defense against the things they specialize in defending against. Mages defend against spells with counterspelling, Hackers defend against enemy hackers with electronic warfare.

Hackers defend against building security. The spider's job isn't as a counter to the street samurai, it's to protect the formidable technological defenses corporations already have in place. Corporations have lots of technology that's designed to detect intruders and then call in wave after wave of reinforcements while relaying the attacker's exact positions on an AR display. The hacker is there to prevent security cameras pointing out your exact location so the enemy can fire 5 concussion grenades into the room before the party mage even has a chance to get line of sight to cast his spells.

Sure there's nothing preventing the spider from going on offense and try to hack intruders, but that's not his primary role, and I don't particularly care if runners pay lots of extra resources to make themselves hack proof, there's still guns and magic to worry about. And besides, the spider is some guy whose supposed to be sitting behind a desk at the IT department, he's not supposed to be a frontline member of the security team firing brain lasers.

[Heisenberg]

Wow, I am five pages behind this thread. Well that's what happens when you vanish for a month.

Edit:

Guns and drones do that job as well as you'd want a secondary offensive role to be. Damn man, leave something for the street Samurai to do.

Guns and drones are indeed fine things to use during combat. However, here's what they aren't:


See how that dude on the left is in combat, yet he is plugged into a wall and hacking instead of using a gun or a drone?


See how that dude on the right is in combat and yet he has an AR display and is hacking instead of using a gun or a drone?

Shadowrun is a skill based system. If you want to play a character who has skills from two different archetypes, you can just do that. So in abstract, it's not important if any particular archetype can't contribute in any particular phase of the game. If the face skills have no combat application, that's not a big deal - we can just tell faces to get some skills with guns or drones or spells or whatever.

But you know what? The Hacker is supposed to have hacking actions to do in combat. It's on the fucking cover of the god damned game. It is a fundamental betrayal of the audience if hackers have to branch out into other archetypes and use actions other than hacking actions in the middle of combat. It's not an unworkable game balance position - it's just a blatant bait and switch followed by shitting all over the reader and then wiping your smelly asshole on the book in their hands.

-Username17

I agree with this post. In fact, the fact that I agree with it is probably the primary reason that I decided to do SRPC. Which is ironic because Frank has taken every opportunity to shit all over me and/or SRPC even though we agree on this point that so many mainstream Shadowrun fans vehemently oppose.

My position is that hackers should be able to take offensive actions at all.

I realize you see anything short of brain lasers firing out of the commlink to be zero offense, but others don't see it that way.

I also agree with this statement.

And I am totally fine with combat hacking in Shadowrun working like this.:

Batou Takes On The Yakuza

Mmmm..."Legwork". I love Batou.

***

Anyhoo, unrelated to the ongoing high-level and theoretical discussions. My Matrix Chapter needs a lot more work. It's going to take me a while, because I'm a hobbyist and all that, but I'm not going away and neither is SRPC.

Next Time: Let's discuss "The Togusa Problem"...characters that are neither magical nor technologically augmented, and the people who want to play them.