Cyberworld :)

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Or you have a NPC netrunner that's a contact or resource for the party.

Do this and your fictional models now come from Ron Goulart whose stories had all the props of cyberpunk except for the "Tron" netrunning 20 years before Gibson.

What multiple heroes of his did was go see "Steranko the Siphoner" who was this weird little guy who lived in an underground lair with lots of boxes of electronics and could get whatever info you needed out of computer systems.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

I was going to cite "Burning Chrome" (because you can't get more fundamental than that!), but skimming over it, I didn't remember it quite right. The two netrunners are really just a "we" that are together for the ride. The point-of-view character and his buddy aren't doing separate things. There are probably two characters just for technical reasons -- a foil, a way to have dialogue. So maybe this isn't such a great example of team netrunning.

Case and Molly in NEUROMANCER are a better matched team, and Theo from the DIEHARD crew of antagonists is an even better example of a netrunner/hacker who is integrated with the team so that they are always able to contribute.

[DemiBenson]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Yeah but at that point you have no need for actual netrunning rules and fancy VR dreamscapes. You can have an all netrunner party, but that means you basically have to make being a netrunner cheap. The best version of Netrunning I ever saw was Torg's Cyberpapacy, where you actually had a magic spell that would just teleport the whole group into the net. No messing around.

The Shadowrun CRPG that just came out last week does a pretty good job of making netrunners be a vital member of the crew. They do it by requiring a netrunner on the inside to hack various impediments - unlock security doors, find building plans, takeover sentry guns - and of course, get the valuable McGuffin from the no-outside-access servers.
The CRPG's mechanics make Netrunners a bit less useful outside the net than a Street Samurai or a Mage, but you could easily combine the Netrunner and Rigger (thought-controlled micro-drone swarm pilot) templates to get a techie who's equally good on the street or data-diving.