[Shadowrun 5] On the playability of Matrix

[Antariuk]

Thanks guys.

I don't have a problem with changing things, but I wanted to make sure to at least understand the standard model of the Matrix (if there is such a thing) before going all homebrew on the matter. So apparently I can throw all kinds of quasi-technical terms at the players and still claim to staying true to the material? That's... worrying.

I think in that case I'll stick with The Ends and add some bits and pieces where I see fit, since at least I kinda understand how that model is supposed to work.

[Longes]

I think the simplest way to go is to hammer on the SR4 matrix system, where everything is basically a giant TOR network minus all the security and anonimity.

[Username17]

The SR5 Matrix is indeed very poorly concepted. Aaron is a shit weasel and a failure as a designer, and the architecture he describes is very unclear and almost certainly nothing like it appeared in his head. Bull is of course on record as saying that people who actually do anything with the architecture described should be killed with orbital cow bombardment. It reads like a computer setup created by imbeciles and assholes because it was.

But basically you have devices, programs, and users. Those are the physical things that actually generate the matrix. Everything in the matrix is an icon, whether it's one of the devices upon which it runs, one of the programs that runs in it, or one of the users who stands outside the matrix and interacts with it. And the icons are organized into ad hoc groupings called networks and grids. Things in a network are all up in each others' pockets and can be considered the same thing sometimes in ways that aren't in any way consistent, clear, or not-retarded. Things on the same grid are being carried on the same wireless carrier and can thus interact with each other slightly easier than if they were on different grids.

Also, for no particular reason, each grid has omnipresent anti-hacker task forces dedicate to throwing lightning bolts at people who use too many hacking actions while logged into a single grid. How they are able to police grids that are literally secret, how they are able to lightning bolt black hat users, why they content themselves to throwing solitary lightning bolts rather than showing up and wrecking shit for real or reporting illegal activities to meat space cops is anyone's fucking guess. The whole Grid Overwatch Division is rather explicitly just the GM's personal secret jenga game where he gets to shout "It explodes!" if he feels the player characters are taking too long or being insufficiently careful.

It's difficult for me to imagine making a matrix system for Shadowrun that was worse than the one proposed in SR5. It's fractally bad. Where every part of it is as bad as the whole thing. Which of course is why silva loves it. Because he's a chuwero who eats shit and fucks shit.

-Username17

[TheFlatline]

As an IT professional I will say that while SR5 is Battlefield Earth levels of bad, SR4 is Hackers levels of bad.

In it's way it's worse than SR5, who at least mumbled into their hand when it came time to get specific about the infrastructure of the matrix.

SR4 they flat out tried to describe the matrix in such a way that it makes an IT professional's head explode by creating a "full mesh" wifi network (hey their words not mine) that has no infrastructure and can use any node as a routing point.

I *guess* they were trying to portray the Matrix as a kind of synthetic neural network but they fucked that up.

I guess in a way it's more offensive to me because they pretend like they know what they're talking about.

[pragma]

I have a brief defense of some specific aspects SR5 GOD and overwatch, which shouldn't be construed as an endorsement of the SR5 matrix:

I make players count their own overwatch scores and it makes them worry about conserving 'matrix ammo. ' I consider that a desirable outcome to prevent dick waving contests between players and spurious hacking attempts: they think about when to deploy their hacking tools. They seem to enjoy working with limited resources because it makes my job ratcheting up the tension easier.

Of course, this only works because I heavily house rule overwatch score dissipation. By RAW, a one round reboot cleans any players slate and more or less totally invalidates the way I use the rule. I think the design intent was for people to watch their 'matrix ammo' in combat but otherwise ignore it. That could maybe work, but I haven't even gotten to the point of considering if the RAW does work out if played that way: even if there's a kernel of corn wedged into the SR5 matrix there are many, many other things that render the RAW unplayably bad.

[pragma]

Though the lack of routing infrastructure in SR4 is disturbing, the idea that every device would be connected to the matrix is pretty good, if shortsighted, futurism. I'm in integrated circuits and I know a lot of people thinking hard about how to get a useful suite of sensors and radios into everything from refrigerators to car wheels.

In short, I'm proud of SR4 for predicting iPhones and smartwatches like, three years early. The SR4 rules were terrible and the science was inevitably, maybe necessarily, shaky, but the ruleset felt futuristic to me at the time