The Shadowrun Situation

phlapjackage · Post by **phlapjackage** » Mon Feb 04, 2013 3:54 am

rdp? what competent hacker would need a desktop environment? ssh bitches

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Mon Feb 04, 2013 4:02 am

Well, I've been arguing that SR's TRON worship is stupid and self-defeating for at least 5 years and the general response is for the chorus to sing "But THIS time is different!"

Fucks · Post by **Fucks** » Mon Feb 04, 2013 5:57 am

Stahlseele wrote:
Fucks wrote:
kzt wrote: Accuracy might work, depending on they do it.
Seeing J. Hardys track record as LD so far...
Ahem . .!

Too subtle for you?

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Feb 04, 2013 6:25 am

Fuchs wrote:Being forced to go back to dragging around cyberdecks is bad. Commlinks allowed more stealth. And if you have to mark deckers by lugging around so much hardware, technomancers beat them out whenever you need to disguise yourself to infiltrate some compound.

Perhaps it could be like trolls with miniguns. There is the stealth option where you have little concealed guns or hand razors, there is also the open street warfare option. Like that, but for hacking.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Feb 04, 2013 9:51 am

@Fucks
Sorry, i ain't used to subtle from the Denizens ^^

@OgreBattle
It's a nice concept, but realistically even that would be like marching up against a Tank-Regiment with a Minigun . .

But i like the idea of Comlinks with AR for OttoNormalo User and Decks with VR for the professionals . .

Right now, with the comlinks, it's kinda like everybody runs around with some kind of pistol, some have a light, some have a heavy, some have an automatic, but everybody has one in terms of cybercombat . .

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Mon Feb 04, 2013 10:56 am

Stahlseele wrote: Right now, with the comlinks, it's kinda like everybody runs around with some kind of pistol, some have a light, some have a heavy, some have an automatic, but everybody has one in terms of cybercombat . .

Which is a good thing. Hackers need to be more, not less integrated with the team.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Feb 04, 2013 11:15 am

but not every joe shmoe needs to carry heat . .

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Mon Feb 04, 2013 12:26 pm

Stahlseele wrote:but not every joe shmoe needs to carry heat . .

There's a difference between carrying heat, and carrying a big "shoot me, I am the hacker" sign. Not carrying a weapon usually means "hello, mage here, shoot me first" - so, yes, everyone should carry.

But the main issue is that making hackers easily spotted is a bad thing. And if you can easily prevent this, by using decks remotely or whatever - then why use decks at all again?

Not to mention that having to carry an unwieldy and expensive piece of hardware around as your focus is a bad thing in itself - would anyone think forcing mages to carry a spellbook costing a fortune or being unable to cast spells is a good thing in Shadowrun? Then why is having a hacker needing expensive decks again a good thing? "Oh, look, my fairlight got shot up, guess I make a new character, that's all my money for the campaign down the drain" ring any bell?

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 2:11 am

It also pushes Shadowrun fairly strongly towards being "the future of the past" instead of, well, the future. Which is a line that it's already straddling, and I can see the charm of going full-on retro, but it does make it hard to take things seriously.

If anything, I could see visible computers being more of a non-hacker thing. If you're just someone who uses a computer normally, then probably you don't want some neural jack that might get infected or fry your brain, and you're through with AR glasses ever since somebody spammed you with goatse while you were driving. So you have a computer in your pocket with a tablet or holographic interface - maybe even a physical keyboard because air-typing with gloves isn't ergonomic.

But if you're wired, you don't need a physical screen or input device, so your actual computer could be very small. So small that what looks like the socket over your neural port is in fact the entire thing.

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 3:07 am

There is no reason to even have a visible port, and lots of reasons not (like to avoid dying of infection). You can get perfectly adequate EM transmission through skin. And with a fiber optic lead you can put the port wherever it's convenient for you.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 1:42 pm

visible ports and stuff go with the pink mohawks though

Having a thingie to hold in your hands that defines your archetype is also just cool and good for art. We're talking about a game with trenchcoat katana mirrorshade dudes,

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 2:12 pm

OgreBattle wrote:visible ports and stuff go with the pink mohawks though

Having a thingie to hold in your hands that defines your archetype is also just cool and good for art. We're talking about a game with trenchcoat katana mirrorshade dudes,

Not if losing your thingie means you're out so much money you can make a new character in most games. And don't get me started on how much money one made in the earlier editions by looting cyberdecks to fence.

If cyberdecks means you can't have implanted "decks" anymore (or not without prohibitive essence and nuyen costs), then it's a bad thing. And if you can have cheap implanted decks - why would you bother with external decks again?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 3:49 pm

it might be comlinks are to be joe shmoes every day carry while cyberdecks go more in the direction of portable nexus/nexi . .
i also had an idea that i would like to see done in the SR5 Rule-System, but i know i will get honest(if impolite) answers and comments for that here, so here it is

Skill can't be higher than twice the associated attribute and magic is an attribute like every other attribute too, meaning you can have a maximum of 6(9) magic, initiation allows usage of specific abilities such as using a power focus which acts like cyber/bio for Magic. No initiation, you can't bind the power focus, you can't get your magic attribute higher. Only way to raise magic attribute is a power focus, not karma rising anymore.
power-focus costs new magic attribute(base+focus)x3 karma to bind and new magic attribute(base+focus)x3000
(these numbers may need looking at)

(optional)
you start with magic attribute of 6 again, automagically, but if your base is reduced so is your maximum. so if you go down to 2 magic, your maximum magic using a power-focus is now 3

this will keep both power and dice pool size a bit more in check i think.
of course, if you hard max your elf to 10(15) attribute you can raise skill to 30 for huge dicepool again, but otherwise not.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 6:42 pm

Setting skill caps to attribute sizes is a bad idea. Attributes go down in addition to going up, and that's just a shitty thing to do to people.

Further, the fact that magicians can get their magic attributes up to the point where they can challenge a tank is pretty much 0% of the problem. In character, there are supposed to be magicians who can equal a tank. Hell, there are multiple magic-only factions that fight against factions that have tanks on a reasonably equal footing. Hard capping magicians at the point where they couldn't hurt a heavy vehicle is extremely out of character for shadowrun. The issue is 100% how easy or difficult or impossible it is to play a mundane character who is still relevant when the magician on the team has acquired enough advancement in karma and monies to do that.

And finally, Power Foci are kind of shitty for the game, and mandating that everyone have one is not the direction you ever want to go. They are a big pile of money and karma that you can permanently lose. That's like 1st edition "spending karma to influence die rolls" type bullshit.

-Username17

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 6:44 pm

you know, i actually did forget about attributes (aside from magic obviously) also going down . . big dumb moment on my side there . .

RiotGearEpsilon · Post by **RiotGearEpsilon** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 7:15 pm

Carrying a 'deck as an INTERFACE, i.e., basically just a keyboard, would make it disposable but no less iconic.

unnamednpc · Post by **unnamednpc** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 7:24 pm

Having your character carry around what basically amounts to a prop would be one of the weirder ideas to implement, to put it mildly.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 7:38 pm

I would honestly be happier if hackers rigs were.. things they put together, then disabled and destroyed as need be.

What a hacker should have is a fairly robust development 'system' that they use for building their own software. If it was possible for hackers to 'build' special little software and hardware tools for specific runs.. like 1 cheap one shot magic items.

On a run, a hacker should be using a fairly standard 'laptop' with some customized addons specifically for that job. At the end of the run, that laptop gets dropped in thermite.

The same with the rigger. Cars, bikes, drones.. should be cheap enough that they are easily disgarded.. hell, a car for a run might be stolen, and then have had 15K worth of modifications put into it to make it viable for the job. If the rigger is attached to Kitt, than any adventure where Kitt becomes worthless, the rigger just lost half his creation points. and that sucks.

K · Post by K » Tue Feb 05, 2013 8:47 pm

The "badass hacker deck" is really just a retro idea considering the growth of personal computer power and the lack of growth in programs that use that power.

The future really is in the disposable computer that hooks into the cloud when additional processing power is needed. The deck itself is just an interface.

Even headware to store programs seems too much of a risk since there is a chance of being arrested and having your headware be used as evidence to convict you while releasing your hacks to the authorities. Better to have it on the cloud somewhere and then loaded onto disposable decks that you can smash against a wall as needed.

It could even be a trope that some deckers use cheap computers like those Green Frog computers for kids software or decks lifted from internet cafes.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 8:55 pm

don't remind me of rigger/kitt problems <.<

yes, yes i did . .

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 11:54 pm

K wrote:The "badass hacker deck" is really just a retro idea considering the growth of personal computer power and the lack of growth in programs that use that power.

The future really is in the disposable computer that hooks into the cloud when additional processing power is needed. The deck itself is just an interface.

Yeah, it's hard to have a desktop with anything like the power of Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud. A fact that has been used in more then one attack.

RiotGearEpsilon · Post by **RiotGearEpsilon** » Wed Feb 06, 2013 3:24 pm

It's like having a really nice sword. Sure, it's nice, but it isn't irreplaceable. You aren't hot shit because you've got the deck; the deck is hot shit because you're wielding it.

unnamednpc · Post by **unnamednpc** » Wed Feb 06, 2013 3:51 pm

Yeah, but having a really nice sword is also not much of a viable concept in Shadowrun, because the only really nice sword (that is, roughly comparable with a deck in terms of sophistication) is a weapon focus. And losing that is also a big, frustrating hit to your ressources.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Wed Feb 06, 2013 4:13 pm

Im just wondering right now bit in real life what costs more, a nice assault rifle or a nice laptop

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Wed Feb 06, 2013 4:45 pm

RiotGearEpsilon wrote:It's like having a really nice sword. Sure, it's nice, but it isn't irreplaceable. You aren't hot shit because you've got the deck; the deck is hot shit because you're wielding it.

You do realize that currently, that statement is almost entirely false.

Your deck rating and the rating of the software have a significant affect on your ability to hack.

Your skill is at /best/ 6 dice of your pool. The other 20 come from hardware/cyber/software.