Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

I don't think he's talking about using Magic or the Magic Skill at all, merely using an equivalent to Ritual Magic for Decking instead of something as complex as the Cyberpunk article in Pyramid or the original Netrunning bit in 3e.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

That's only a couple of paragraphs too.

You have one Skill for each basic aspect of Decking such as Stealth, Hacking, Offense and Defense. Roll against the appropriate Skill to accomplish any decking function.

Exactly what the modifiers should be is the major question but the basic concept isn't hard.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Ah, I hadn't read those in forever either so I don't know which way would work better; which is why I'd have to read over each of the rules carefully to see which I liked better.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

This is actually not very far off from how that Pyramid article (in the #3/21 Cyberpunk issue) handles it, which is why it keeps getting recommended. :)

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

The last paragraph in my post is key. Well, also I have 45 programs rather than 12.

See, in standard GURPS netrunning (including the new article) your programs are affecting the computer. It's all about what's happening on the electronic side. While my version has some of that, it also has a lot of "make your roll and this real-world effect happens." So I don't need to say, "Well, I got my Breach off, but there was an Analyze program monitoring the system IC, so now there's a system alarm..." I just use Jedi Trick and the system's like "Ah, an authorized user. Let me get the door, sir."

But yeah, I'm currently mining that article for tweaks and ideas.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

I'd be more than interested to see what you come up with based on the article when you get it finished.

Although I've noted a tweak you may have missed on your Dwarf Template - the penalty to their gear should apply mostly to armor; Dwarves have normal sized hands and pretty much normal upper bodies, just stunted legs.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

That's actually intentional. In most SR art, dwarves look kinda like halflings. I like my dwarves a little more "dwarfy," so in my SR they're short but broad. This means that they have problems fitting into seats designed for all but the most obese humans (or trolls), their height means they have trouble seeing over the table with human-scale chairs, their hands are broad enough that they have trouble fitting them into most human-sized grips, etc.

They're not quite warhammer dorfs, but they're also not the size of a human midget or dwarf.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Actually, the netrunning in Pyramid 3/21 works very much like Ritual Magic already. A ritual mage has a few core skills (Ritual Magic, Symbol Drawing, plus one skill for each Path/Book/College he knows); each individual ritual is a technique based off of the appropriate skill, with a default penalty depending on the difficulty of the supernatural effect it seeks to create.

A hacker has a few core skills (Computer Hacking, Computer Programming, Computer Operation, and Expert: Computer Security); each program is a technique based off of the appropriate skill, with a default penalty depending on the difficulty of the task it's trying to accomplish.

The complexity that I think Crakkerjakk and Godogma are objecting to is all in the target network. Having a network with multiple computers, layered ICE, and security monitors is all a design choice by the GM ... if the GM decides he doesn't want all that hullaballoo, he can just have the hacker make one roll per computer (against, say, Breach -- as in Crakkerjakk's "Jedi Trick" approach), or even one per network. That's actually how the rules in Action 2: Exploits work: a hacking job is distilled it to a single, modified Computer Hacking roll.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

No joke. What is it with 4th editions of RPGs? I mean, I'm no fan of the d20 system, but at least it resembled the D&D of Olde ... 4th edition D&D resembles nothing so much as PnP WoW.

GURPS 4 is the only 4th edition that springs to mind which actually improved the system in question.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

See, the problem in my SR world is that everything and their mother has a computer in it. I don't want to design elaborate (or even slightly complex) networks that you need to get through to get someone's gun to eject it's magazine. I just want you to be able to make a roll and have that happen.

Oh, and here's the current version of Jedi Trick.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

And that totally works, especially for something as simple as "hack into that guy's Smartgun and make it eject the mag" ... call it Breach, Jedi Trick, or just a modified Hacking roll, it's a one-shot-one-kill hacking scenario. Even by the Pyramid Netrunning rules, it'd be two rolls at most: Breach (or Spoof) to defeat the smartgun's onboard security (which, if this is a common trick, all good smartguns are going to have), and then if the GM ruled it wasn't a total gimme, Control to drop the clip. Unless there's some good reason that a smartgun is being monitored for tampering by an outside computer, that's it.

For more complex hacking scenarios, you can stir in more rules complexity as desired. Say you want it to be more difficult to hack into the guns of the Elite Arasaka Security Response Squad ... you can either give the hacker an abstract penalty to his roll (the approach from Action 2), or you can elaborate on the in-setting details (e.g., the squad has a command vehicle which does monitor their smartguns, as well routes communication and synchronizes their tactical HUD readouts, so the hacker has to take out the command vehicle first ... or, he could hack in and insinuate false info into the tactical computer, trick the squad into shooting at each other, etc). The Pyramid rules are for those who prefer the latter approach.

Which way is better? The one that sells more PDFs, of course! Just to be safe, it's best to have both on hand... :)

EDIT: It occurred to me that I should mention, I wrote that article... I'm not saying any of this from a "don't be dissing my article, dog!" kind of place, but from the standpoint that the rules were designed to do exactly what you're saying -- provide building blocks for more detailed hacking, to whatever degree of detail you want!

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Could you explain _why_ you want this? I would strongly expect all the PCs are going to tell you that _their_ gun doesn't have a wireless connection to the net. Why are NPCs supposed to be so much stupider?

.....and yes, I know they did it (or at least hacking somebody's cybereyes during a firefight) on Ghost in the Shell:Stand Alone Complex. It didn't make sense there either.

It's the sort of thing that made me push the eject button of SR4e in the middle of reading the new corebook There were several other issues of course such as the new treatment of mages and shamans but this was important enough all by itself.

I mean if a fictional archetype doesn't work out as a character concept in group, tabletop play for a number of very good reasons you don't lower the IQ of everyone in the setting to try and patch that.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Exactly! I hate SR4 precisely because its so ****ing STUPID! Plus the fact the setting isn't even remotely technologically sustainable. How is the Matrix which is setup so much heavier on resources than our net somehow mysteriously so much bandwidth less intensive? Hell, there are times when my net is slow and I have 6mb downstream.

Every wireless service I've ever seen is prone to dropouts due to heavy weather, doesn't have even half the bandwidth of the comparable hard line infrastructure and how the hell you hack a closed system is beyond me. Much less hacking a Smartgun system or someone's cyber eyes.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

First, I'm pulling a lot of inspiration from this fan supplement. So that may answer some of your questions.

You have a variety of conflicting problems in SR.

First, in all the setting fluff (and we want mechanics designed such that the world described in the setting fluff naturally falls out of them) everyone and their mother has a datajack, and the most hard-core teams are wired to the gills. These teams also frequently have a skinny guy with about 10 more datajacks than anyone else and a deck tagging along physically with an assault rifle.

Second, a world without wireless connectivity feels dated and weird to new players, or people who aren't going for an "old-school" cyberpunk game.

If you actually use the SR 4E rules, the problem is your elite teams aren't wired to the gills with interlinking combat networks, because the threat from hackers is too great. Instead, you get neo-luddite teams where the wireless connectivity on every single peice of gear is dug out with a dikoted combat knife.

So, here's the goals.

a) Create a wireless matrix, because anything else feels weird to a lot of players.
b) Ensure that the hacker is a valued member of a shadowrunning team that can't just sit at home.
c) Ensure that the mechanics make it a better idea to be wired up than to not.

There's a variety of ways to achieve these goals. The guy who wrote that fan supplement, Frank Trollman, has an approach I like.

In the very first matrix crash, one super-virus brought the world to it's knees. Including all the air-gapped databases, research centers, defense sites, etc. So we have established that way back in 2029, air-gaps are no longer a viable defense against what computers can do.

Why is this? Who knows. But in SR it's been that way for a while, it's just a fact of life. The explanation I'm going with is that in SR by 2070 or so, it is trivially easy to effect changes in electronic media at a distance. That means even if you have no wireless capability whatsoever, if there's a computer in a piece of gear I can tell that computer what to do.

Now, given this, what defense do you have? Well, since not networking your devices is no longer a defense, the second-best defense is to link all the devices together and have them protected by the baddest, scariest, blackest firewall/security/hacker-go-away software you can find.

Now at this point you can say, "Option A, walk around with no computers on you at all and sacrifice all the sweet bonuses they provide. Option B, walk around with the must cutting edge tech to defend from the big bad hackers and get all kinds of sweet bonii from targeting computers, skill chips, etc. My work here is done."

Personally, I don't like the fact that option A is still an option. So in my SR (and in Frank's fan supplement) not only is it trivially easy to effect changes in electronic media at a distance, the brain is just another form of electronic media. What does this mean? If you don't run some software to defend your brain from it, any script kiddie with the latest end_your_****.exe downloaded from a pirate site can tell your brain to turn itself off. And it will.

Now, the defense against this is pretty simple. You wire the same computer protecting your gear from being hacked into your mind, and protect your mind with the same firewall you're using on your gun. Also, since signals can be jammed and you love your precious brain-meats, you don't just trust that link to a wireless connection that can be jammed. You actually drill a hole in your head and hard-wire your brain to the thing preventing people from implanting their ad jingles in your head at will.

The end result? People constantly connected to an electronic world. Everyone who can afford one getting a datajack to prevent some malicious hacker from rewriting their mind. Those who CAN'T afford a datajack and computer to run a firewall for their mind being crazy (and justifiably) paranoid and constructing improvised faraday cages in the decrepit house they're squatting in to keep out the mind control rays. And the decker running along with all the rest of the near super-powered (be it magic or cyber) bad-asses on the team, subverting pretty much anything mechanical and fighting off enemy deckers attempting to do the same, and occasionally shooting mind-control rays at people.

Mechanically, I want the hacker's domain to be more concentrated on the machine side of things, so while it's relatively easy to Black Hammer someone's brain into a pulp or lock them into an involuntary RAS Override, actually rewriting their personality, scanning their brain for information, etc is both difficult and time consuming, leaving it for something that can be done by a skilled hacker to a individual with no defenses, but is near impossible while trying to get around a firewall. Thus, if you can physically restrain someone, disconnect their brain from their deck, and have about a week, you can do some seriously scary **** to their mind. But then, the exact same thing is true for mages or skilled interrogaters.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

I ignore the wireless matrix crap and stick to 3e, whether or not the new players like it or not I base it in real world technology and even in 70 years from now I highly doubt that anyone will be able to rewrite someone's meat brain, we've been studying the human mind and how its put together for as long as people have been willing to cut into a corpse to see how it works. EDIT: And I doubt it'll jump that much in 60-70 years either, we still don't understand much chemically speaking and all brain surgery is a calculated risk.

Or that you'll be able to amplify the signal enough to work the matrix without giving anyone with the remotest electrical sensitivity fits where they can't sleep etc; since wireless broadband does that now (was on the news about a town in Scotland) as well as scrambling their creativity and a host of other documented problems that started when they covered the town in high yield wireless network capability.

Wireless connectivity to the point where you can actually run the Matrix has always required REALLY hard core hardware, and enough skill to be able to make up for the fact you aren't well connected; even Dodger had problems doing it and he had a stolen military satellite up-link at the time. Otherwise you had to run a basic icon instead of a personality and didn't actually experience it, you shopped or browsed just like regular people do today. EDIT: So it didn't fit the established system or setting when they did the rewrite either.

Combat decking is a whole different matter, you have to have enough EDIT: cyberware/hardware/skill that isn't for decking to keep up with the street samurai at least until you reach your insertion point into the closed network for their defense and the skill to keep yourself alive and perhaps multitask at the same time to keep an eye on your meat bod unless someone is tasked with watching over you (usually a necessity).

The super virus didn't bring down all the military infrastructure, merely that which WAS connected through the network (which was MOST of it and since the virus was able to break encryption it got any of it that was able to be connected to through secure channels from the machines that were already infected).

I'm still interested in your rules, but they'll definitely need tweaking if you're basing them out of SR4 - they simply don't fit any envisioning of cyberpunk that makes any technological sense and one of the most fun parts of a cyberpunk game is seeing all the what ifs... technological feasibility is a big part of enjoying that sort of thing in my experience.

EDIT: No offense to your vision of course, or insult to you intended. Merely my humble opinions on the matter backed up with a few real world facts.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

No worries, I didn't take it that way.

Basically, I want a middle ground. Something more complex that gives the hackers more options than "I rolled Computer Hacking and succeeded," but doesn't require as much prep work on my part to vary difficulty levels of the hack.

I want to give hackers a buncha approaches, so that the ewar specialized guy can hack into a system one way, while the hacking focused guy can get in another, but without me having to come up with conditional logic trees of programs that will trigger the next program. I want all the mini-game of hacking to be on the player's side, so that they have the fun of choosing which programs to use, but all I have to do is decide how high their opponent's resistance roll is.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Isn't SR a fantasy game with canonical mind control magic?

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

That's magic, not technology. If you want to control someone's brain in SR use magic (and I don't remember to what extent that was possible) but by UT terms I believe brain rewriting via technology and all of that is out of the stated TL for SR in any case unless of course the person has a neural interface and you've got a very expensive machine directly attached to it - and doesn't have a basis in the setting like vibroblades and monomolecular space crystal etc.

EDIT: And at TL 9 most of the equipment is the size of a large room and over 100k.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

What's the difference? Can't the principles overlap? Isn't mechanistic magic just another technology anyway?

It's not like cyberspace netrunning is at all hard science fiction anyway. The entire concept is ridiculous.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

*shrug* Look at it how you like, but personally I would say "next setting" if the GM brought up a setting that's essentially SR4 but with even more weird technobabble like being able to wirelessly rewrite someone's brain unless they installed a "firewall" and datajack. Or opt out if everyone else was enthused with playing it.

EDIT: Neural interfaces aren't actually all that scifi, and its only a step or two to saying Virtual World via the net here I come! Granted those are some pretty giant steps, but the neural interface technology already exists in rudimentary form. One of my roommate's aunts has some sort of neurological disorder and her doctor gave her a computer with clamps and electrodes that basically was operated via brainwaves and neural activity - nearly impossible to play Starcraft with, but it worked for the games it was designed for... Neat toy for the time, now its probably a hell of a lot more advanced.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Meh, I'd generally say "next setting" if it was ye olde skoole cyberpunke at all, and SR in particular. The entire VR netrunning concept makes absolutely no sense, combining it with some Snow Crash-esque namshub hacking doesn't seem any worse. YMMV.

If you want to be realistic about it, you should make "deckers" less effective than traditional intrusion, since they are running everything through their resource intensive VR interface.

Why waste resources on the VR at all? Wouldn't a hacker who eschewed the pretty VR-GUI be more effective? Aren't there AI in the setting? Wouldn't an AI hacker be logically much more effective than a human (elf/orc/whatever) running a VR emulation?

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

See my earlier response I've now edited about VR stuff and computers, to answer the first part of your statement (I was editing it to add more information when this post came though and its on page 10) but if everything was tailored for the braindance/VR way of computing going lower tech and trying to hack it without the interface would pose its own penalties* methinks.

Perhaps a better word would be problems, but in game terms it would impose penalties.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Oh, and as a REALLY off topic question - looking down at the bottom I see something called a Fnord that is turned off.

What is a Fnord in relation to this message board?

EDIT: Aside from the fact that if I recall correctly SJG produced (produces?) the Illuminati game? Is it a Spoiler thing?

Ah, NM its layovers to catch meddlers according to the FAQ.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Real world technology involves wireless networks. A reasonable extrapolation of computing trends leads one to believe that ubiquitous computing is fairly likely. If you'd rather not have either in your games, it's fine, but I'd say you're being pretty selective on what you're excluding due to your realism filter. Plus they had selective personality editing in 2XS via BTL (which is just running hot VR, basically), as I recall. Just never had game mechanics for it, just like I don't think they ever had mechanics for the fictional personality changes due to low essence.

I'm unconvinced this is actually an issue. I saw an article where a woman tried to sue her neighbor two houses down for having a wireless router because it was messing with her mind. I'm willing to call that horse pockey.

I think that in the decades since people first started carting around decks, it's reasonable that they've gotten smaller, cheaper, and more ubiquitous.

I think defending a limp body is okay occasionally, but should be an exception rather than the rule. If you have to do it every run, it gets old quick.

It's cannon that it wiped out all kinds of research, records, infrastructure, etc. Most of that stuff is air-gapped or has backups that are air-gapped in the real world precisely to avoid problems like that. Either you accept that people in alternate history twenty years from now become morons in computer security, or there's some kind of game-changer that circumvents common computer security precautions.

Yeah, I understand my version (especially brain hacking) isn't for everyone, but Fred asked, so I gave him my version. As for technological feasability, I'm with Sir Pudding in that netrunning in general isn't that feasible. I'm merely expanding the scope of the hand-waving that deals with netrunning in order to make "decker" a archetype that more players will want to choose.

Personally I think that if you have the human brain mapped well enough to have neural interfaces, RAS Overides, etc, you have the brain mapped well enough to do all kinds of crazy crap to it. I mean, it's cannon that Black IC can lock you into your connection so that you have to physically jack out, and lock your RAS Overide down so that you can't physically jack out either. It can also cause direct damage to your brain. It's not that much of a stretch to say that technology has improved a little. The stretch is really the "affecting electronic media at a distance," but personally that's the only way I can see the 2029 crash happening.

The big thing, I think, is what makes it "Shadowrun." For some people that's only stuff up to 3E. For me, all SR means is "Fantasy races and magic in a cyberpunk world with corporations with these names and this history leading up to current day." I don't sweat the details on the precise version of magic being used, or the precise technology available in the setting. If there's a change that I think will bring the game closer to my ideal of small criminal spec-ops teams shooting people in the face for money, I'm happy to implement it and still call it Shadowrun, but I understand some people are much more attached to some elements of the setting than I am.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

I'm unconvinced this is actually an issue. I saw an article where a woman tried to sue her neighbor two houses down for having a wireless router because it was messing with her mind. I'm willing to call that horse pockey.

^

Its not home wireless networking that is causing the problems its large scale POWERFUL wireless devices that are causing the problem - and they're arrayed around the entire town and provide enough juice for them to get high end internet out of it.

Standard wireless networking gives maybe 54mb to the next room, its not a powerful radio signal at all. We're talking apples and oranges here.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

If you're trying to argue that a hacker typing things in on a command line interface is going to be faster than one who can connect his brain directly to his computer, you've got an uphill battle ahead of you. The jist of traditional cyberpunk netrunning is that an interface which runs at the speed of thought is faster than one that runs at the speed of typing, or even point-n-click. And I think that's probably going to be the case, once DNI technology matures. (It's not pure sci-fi, by the way ... we've had working DNIs since at least the 90s, used mostly for disabled people. They're just not a viable mass-market product yet, although a few consumer-available devices have come out in the last few years.)

Also, there's Van Eck Phreaking -- a kind of wireless interface that doesn't require a specifically-designed transmitter (only a receiver), used in this case for "eavesdropping" on the contents of a monitor by reading its EM emissions. It's not too much of a stretch to think that future technologies will allow two-way wireless interfaces with electronic devices, whether or not they're outfitted with a discrete wireless interface device.


"Traditional" DNI/netrunning (Neuromancer, Hardwired, etc) isn't about a graphics-rich Second Life-esque VR world, but neon wireframes in space -- the VR interface isn't this huge clunky program that slows everything down with richly-detailed multi-media, it's a hyper-streamlined interface for executing programs instantaneouly, rather than having to type them in. So if you want to be realistic, you have to take a lot more into account than the assumption "VR = high bandwidth."


AIs are pretty much ubiquitously assumed in cyberpunk literature to be better at hacking that meat-world hackers.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

I can't find the article you're talking about. Linky?

This one?

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

I saw it running on television one morning but yahoo popped a news scroll on an IM message (the bottom of Yahoo! 10, now home to text advertisement you can't turn off yay! Glad its mostly news tickers they show down there... That and Dodge truck advertisements)... I've been trying to find it since I mentioned it, and I'm not having much luck.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

(Emphasis mine)

This, exactly. Based solely on what we can do now (see upthread, re: Van Eck Phreaking), it's reasonable to assume that any unshielded electronics (at least) will be vulnerable to EM manipulation, whether or not it has a wireless interface device.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

More important than whether it's feasible or not, it leads to a game paradigm that I enjoy, where the hacker can run and gun with the party, hacking on the fly in pretty much the exact same manner as the mage can toss out spells, although mechanically optimized to work on machines while the mage's abilities are optimized to work on living things and spirits. So long as it's internally consistent and leads to more compelling cyberpunk/action/etc gameplay, I don't care whether it's superscience or not.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

*shrug* I find it breaks my suspension of disbelief to have someone decking at the speed of thought, controlling his meat bod and ALSO effectively attacking cyberware (or what in SR is cyberware - namely shielded electronics like Smartgun circuitry) with his brain/cyberdeck.

Can you say massive multiaction penalties? Sure, *IF* I were to allow it thats the least of the decker's worries along with the prohibitive skill levels necessary.

On the topic of electromagnetics/wireless and health; here's the highly sensationalized Fox News version (it mostly focuses on what the Hippies are saying/doing about it) - which doesn't include any of the links to the doctor's that were worried about the effects of high yield electromagnetics on Health that the original article I read had in it. But its the only one I've found as of yet - the other one may have already been removed though I'm still trolling for it.

This http://ec.europa.eu/health/archive/p...rochure_en.pdf is a pdf where European doctors for the EU are doing tests to see the effects of electromagnetic fields on health, which is one of the crunchier links that I was able to find that directly relates to the issue.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,475206,00.html

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Absolutely. If we want to start paring out the "unrealistic" things about Shadowrun, or even Gibsonian Cyberpunk in general, VR and/or wireless netrunning is one of the smaller issues.

But it can still make for a helluva yarn.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Ew, That's a solution that's worse than the problem IMHO.

In particular the idea that idea that physical barriers provide no security but that software barriers work well enough to be trusted as standard operating procedure just doesn't pass my giggle test.

I've been messing about with computers only a casual basis and only for 12 years or so but I've definitely learned that software is unreliable. I'd put a Faraday cage in my skull before I trusted my brain to a software barrier. Brain software just lends a new meaning to "Blue Screen of Death".

Nope, not getting my SoD around this one.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Quoted for Truth my friend, software is much more unreliable than hardware as far as that goes.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Well, aside from the fact that I'd rule decking = hacking cyberware, I agree. I'm not saying that doing things like this is something a skill-12 script kiddie can do. But that's part of the point. To allow highly skilled spec-ops deckers to do all kinds of over the top ship just like the fireball tossing mage, wall-running phys adept, or jon woo style dual-weilding street sam.

Basically, in order to be able to do crazy **** like this you have to invest pretty darn heavily in decking. Which conveniently makes it a separate archetype distinct from mages, street sams, faces, etc to get the clear seperation you see in the fiction between these skill sets.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Having grown up around computers, studied computer science at university, and worked in IT for my entire adult life, I can safely say that hardware is every bit as unreliable and crash-prone as software, if not moreso. Indeed, a good 90% of BSODs (or the Mac/Linux equivalent) are caused by underlying hardware issues, which then propagate into the software.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Physical barriers provide no security, so the only thing left is software. Well, and an air gap large enough to keep most people out of signal range, enforced by armed guards. And yes, this means security is not all that effective, depending on the decker. Leading conveniently to corps with billions of nuyen still being able to be penetrated by small groups of professionals instead of getting smooshed like bugs.

A faraday cage only works if you don't have anything leading into or out of it. You'd need to implant it in your skin, and then it's only effective till someone shot you and broke the mesh. Plus you're stuck at manipulating computers using terminals. Still, I'd allow it. Just not an option I think any but the most paranoid security conscious would take.

I mean, yes, I can Blackhammer you to death by looking at you. But that's not gonna be any more legal (and significantly more difficult) than shooting you in the face. In SR it's cannon that a lot of people wear armored clothes precisely because getting shot is a problem. I'm fine with making getting hacked a similar problem.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

I'm not touching hacking people's firearms/cyberware etc without a direct link to the cyberware in question much less their brains with a ten foot pole much less willingly suspending my disbelief enough to think they can do it while also controlling their meatbods.

Especially at TL9.

Cyberware is generally Hardened for one thing, and for two has access ports for a reason. I found SR4 entirely broke my suspension of disbelief and that more or less is the showcase for the technology in question. I just don't believe the bandwidth is there, much less the capability to hack something in someone else without a link to them.

IF a decker is willing to spend enough money to buy uber L33T tools to hack something wirelessly sure, we can work something out - the military demonstrably had the technology even if it wasn't that great in SR. But hacking hardened targets inside someone else in wireless fashion or hacking what I would by necessity say is a hardened target in a firearm fast enough to matter? Good luck with that.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Gold & Appel Inc ran a GURPS Shadowrun game where we used the SR4 version of wireless hacking, and it worked out pretty well ... the PCs were built on 500 points, so the hacker was able to buy Compartmentalized Mind (the samurai, for comparison, had Enhanced Time Sense and/or Altered Time Rate). Lots of over-the-top hijinks ensued, and a good time was had by all.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

If everything is networked wirelessly, then it stands to reason you can hack it wirelessly.

Of course, that's a good part of the reason I wouldn't network mission-critical things wirelessly if at all avoidable. And the idea that you can hack arbitrary hardware (or wetware) by ranged induction effects...that sort of technology is usually associated with Culture ships with dubious ethics. And by modern metrics, the main difference between a Culture ship and a god would be that a Culture ship is smarter and has less limitations.

If you're really trying to play up the 'hackers are wizards' thing, which seems to be the idea, it's a fine bit of superscience. But I wouldn't buy it.

Also, if you're hacking a piece of hardware by induction rather than through intended communications channels, how is any sort of security software going to help?

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

I ran a 350 point game, and I may be running another soon that I think I'll tone down to 250. Minimum 150 on normal abilities/stats/racial templates, the rest can be spent on cyber/magic/etc.

I want to run a more street-level game this time around.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Have fun, and tell us how it goes. Were it being run online I might be interested in sitting in and watching - especially how you're handling the various aspects of SR that don't work at TL9 and to see this hacking thing of yours in action but I definitely wouldn't enjoy playing in the version of SR you envision.

Datajacks and such weren't in everyone in SR3, no telling if they are in SR4 - I skipped to the crunchy bits in that book and like Fred I pulled the plug on it because I couldn't wrap my head around the changes they made to the system. Or the short jump they made to technology that was way more than 10 years in advance when they went from 2063 to 2070.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Presuming that this technology includes a fine enough control of induction to send specific hardware-level commands to a remote piece of electronics, there will also be sensors capable of detecting such attempts, which can then generate a precise EM field to disrupt the incoming control attempt.

Or, as with any security software, a simple "real-time scan" process that looks for unauthorized commands and blocks them from executing at the software level.

The border between hardware and software is indistinct even now (q.v. firmware, flash-ROM, etc), and is only apt to become moreso as computing technology develops.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Some elements of SR are TL 9. Weapons, armor, transport, etc. Bioware, cyberware, and computing is generally TL 10. Or at least, TL 10 is available in those fields. I generally make it more expensive, since it's cutting edge. That said, by GURPS UT wireless neural induction fields are TL 11^.

Heck, I'd say guns in SR are actually TL 8 with some TL9 gadgets strapped to them.

But like I said, so long as I think it's fun, I really don't care what the TL is or whether it's superscience so long as it helps me tell the stories I want to in a fun way.

It's counter-hacking back at you. You induce some change, and the software is like "nuh-uh" and changes it right back. And it's widely distributed and redundant enough that you can't just change one thing to get it to stop working.

Well, unless it's connected to you wirelessly and the opponent has a jammer. That's why we drill holes in our temples, to make sure that doesn't happen.

EDIT: Or it's what CousinX said. Either way, it results in a certain style of gameplay. The "how" is up to whatever handwavium will satisfy your SoD.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Yes.
The door is closed?
the street sam put a bullet in the lock.
the physad roundhouse kick the door into next room
the troll smash the door
the mage goes astral and look behind the door
the conjurer ask a spirit to break the door
the rigger detonate the beetle drone that crawled into the lock
the decker override the lock
...
One idea, one skill roll, over.
having the decker play a separate game in a parallel universe is not fun nor easy for the GM. It is much easier to have (nearly) everything connected to the ubiquitous network so that the decker can interact in real-time with it.

Of course, there will be area/items that cannot be hacked. Like there are area where no gun can be smuggled in, area pumped so full of microscopic algae an astral mage will never get in, ...
But those area are exception. or there is no game.

And it even make sense in setting.
Why does the cybereye have matrix access?

-It is cheaper and easier to use a generic multipurpose component than to develop and build a short run dedicated circuitry.
Even today, lots of electronic box contain a generic board with rom, ram, a processor and an usb plug. car, plane, printer and copiers, coffemaker, standalone harddrive,...
It is much cheaper to buy a generic 50$ board and write a small program to have it do what you want rather than designing and paying for a small run of a dedicated circuit that would cost 1000$ apiece.
Even if it would be much efficient and secure.
Obviously, in SR4, the generic components all include matrix access.
-interconnection. If you want your cybereye to interface fully with your smartlink, forget about the biological nerve pathway. too slow. And besides, the move-by-wire system create too much electrical noise. So either you run a fiber optic between them, or you put them both in a (in theory secure) wireless network
-maintenance, upgrade and repair.
Speaking of wich, the runner did register his new cybereye, i hope.
And turned on the security feature, as described p4703 of the user manual(available only in japanese, sorry. And copyrighted, so the translation software refuse to touch it. )
And downloaded the latest software and security update.
And pray that there isn't too many bug in the software.
And if you think that is unrealistic, think of the millions of internet box shipped and installed -today- with unsecured wifi and administrator access by default, and a small notice in the user manual about how it would be a good idea to set up a password.
A few year ago, a phone company even shipped cellphones with bluetooth on by default and autoaccept on by default. So much easier for the user to connect with a car or earplug. Of course, the fact that anyone within a few meters could access the phone memory was a minor detail...
-beside, common cybereye are not designed for shadowrunner.
The people who design them are paid to care about getting great vision, interfacing with as many common augments as possible, smoothlessly delivering a great augmented reality experience, avoiding headache, ... Unless you are speaking mil-spec hardware, battlefield security is not a concern.
-And all cybereyes implanted in a xxx clinic to be used inside xxx archology by xxx workers must have a software back-door so that xxx security can tap in, in the interest of improving everybody security and in the strict respect of all privacy guideline, of course.

And for the 'unrealistic' objections to an ubiquitous wireless matrix...
I often wonder why most people accept that a mage can incinerate a foe by snapping his finger, thermodynamics law be damned, but start speaking of ubiquitous wireless, and someone will bring out bandwidth, closed system, concrete walls, ...
It is a 'fantasy' game world. it doesn't have to be possible. It just have to be internally coherent and have an apparently plausible explanation. And even that is optional.

In my opinion.

Celjabba

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

That's not software security, that's hardware security. I'm all for hardware security totally destroying this concept, though I probably wouldn't bother with active hardware defenses.
EM induction 'hacking' is going to be acting at the absolute lowest level, necessarily, since it's directly twiddling the physical hardware. If the only thing you do with that power is plug an unauthorized virtual terminal in, you're really wasting the potential.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Except for one little problem - you have the TL issue (in GURPS) also, you forget, technology is generally pioneered for military use FIRST then trickles down to the consumer market.

The first generation cyberware (what little we have now) aside from some specific things was made to repair battle damage. Smarlink - by definition military hardware, and if we're using the SR description its installed with connections between all the interconnected parts - its not wireless.

I could go on and on, mainly I don't find it feasible - thus I'm not willing to play in a game where its an ubiquitous part of the game and where I have to prepare and plan for it and install stuff that doesn't fit my character in his meat bod in order to stop it from wirelessly hijacking my eyeballs or my gun or any number of other things.

Yes, its hard on the GM to run a parallel virtual world for the decker - but the decker himself is going to need either Compartmentalized Mind or he can only take actions in one or the other; and it takes more than a second to break the security then make the gun eject the clip. In one second I can shoot him in the forehead. OR if he can make it happen in one second, just how many points in this skill does he have? 30? Since the penalties are going to be enormous without compartmentalized mind just for him to function and walk around and talk at the same time much less in a combat situation for which he'll get even more negative modifiers without some form of perk or advantage to mitigate trying to do a complex task on a computer in the middle of a firefight.

I don't equate technology with magic. Technology I can weigh, measure and investigate - thus it has to fit my suspension of disbelief. As much as I dislike the magic system in GURPS sometimes its an entirely different section of its own and is governed by its own rules.

Decker does not = technowizard.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Couldn't you just build a VR model of something and then use sympathetic magic to manipulate it? Then you don't need all this "induction" handwaving; deckers can hack your gun with electronic voodoo.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

That's the thing. If the item has no normal access channels how is adding software that limits legal access going to improve security?

So, yeah in a world of ultimate computer paranoia (except it's not paranoia if the fear isn't irrational) I'd jack out rather than jack in. I might shoot deckers on sight too.

I think everyone might. Rather than world where deckers and their computers rule I think these sort of ideas would lead to a world where they were burned at the stake like witches.

It may be a problem in future adventures that you can't just use your phone to dial up Google and search for a needed piece of information but it's also a problem if access by non-jacked devices works less well than it does in 2010.

Actually i'd say that it's not just the Shiawase Decision (or lack thereof) that marks SR as an "alternate future history" it's basic things about how computers and networks function.

Incidentally (and I'm not really trying to cause another discussion loop) my question was _why_ do you want this thing? What I got was a statement that you did want this thing and a long list of jump/hoop jump/hoop iterations designed (or perhaps the word is intended rather than designed) to result in the thing you wanted.

Why not just write-off the decker "class/archetype" as unsuited to group/tabletop adventures?

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Sure, if you're willing to spend enough points in the Magery statistic to make it viable and develop the necessary spells in game - then its a form of magic. But as a GM I'm definitely not willing to develop a school that's going to completely disrupt gameplay without any checks and balances.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

That just leads to electronics-free guns.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

So true.

I don't know SR4, i only played the earlier editions.
But i have trouble understanding peoples who say 'wireless netrunning' is too unrealistic for 'shadowrun'.

Magic,Spirits, dragons (and dragon POTUS), millenium elves, adult mutating in another race, shiawase decision, cyberzombie, move-by-wire, AI, shadowrunners, ... No problem.
But wireless networking. No. that's impossible.
Seriously ? Can someone explain?

In another setting, i would understand. But in shadowrun ?


Celjabba

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

No, it's hardware devices directed by a software algorithm (or decision-making apparatus). Software can't run without hardware to run on, and hardware doesn't do anything much without software to tell it what to do. See above re: the hazy distinction between hardware and software. At the level of smartgun electronics, etc, there's not going to be a lot of difference between the two ... the functions of the device will be mostly hardcoded in, and "software" will probably be more along the lines of firmware.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

I'm not saying it needs to be written off, but I obviously from my previous statements have pointed out an extreme case of DO NOT WANT! (excuse my Icanhazcheezburgerism) to wireless devices being everywhere and in everything just to make decking viable and less of a pain in the ass for a GM to run for.

The GM is free to rule that it indeed isn't suitable for desktop play if he doesn't want to do the extra work or somewhere in between. But personally, it'd be mighty rough on the Decker if I was around, it'd probably a shoot on sight or witch burning world indeed if a computer jockey could do the things that have been listed as a possibility with all this wireless decking talk that's been going around in here.

I just wouldn't find it fun to play and I honestly couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to want to run it - I turned my SR4 book in for store credit personally.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Why is that a problem? Just cause GURPS says it's TL 11^ doesn't mean I can't be like, "oh that? Invented in 2050 in my game. Yeah, freak breakthrough."

... the whole point is it doesn't matter if it's wireless. I can still hack it.

Yeah, I streamline the process by building equipment packages for players that don't want to deal with it. There's the low-cost, "Take my mind, please!" package, the "Security Conscious" mid-cost package, and the "Black Helicopters" premium package. They're not that spendy, like I said it boils down to giving you an unpenalized resistance roll, so it's not complex mechanically for non-deckers.

Well, yeah, I didn't want to make deckers better in a firefight than a street sam. I just want to let them make a difference via hacking. In the time it takes most deckers to eject one corpsec guy's mag or turn off his cybereyes or coopt a combat drone, the street sam has shot four people in the head. But that's because combat is his thing.

Except there's some technology that is magic. We call it superscience, but it's still magic. If you're telling me you never run games with superscience, well, okay, but that's all this is.

No it doesn't. I haven't mentioned technomancers yet, since both you and Fred have mentioned you prefer 3e, and I'm generally assuming you don't use Otaku. But Technomancers can do some genuinely crazy stuff.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Otaku were a 3e invention.

.......and I might actually prefer 2e.:)

3e got kind of tight-assed and dull.

Seriously I don't think I have Godoma's specific issues about wireless. My problems are more about 'No,no, no! You can't jack out! We have to preserve the viability of the Hacker class no matter what!".

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

So, it doesn't matter if its wireless you can still hack it... Alright, what are the skill penalties (in this example lets use the SR 3 cyberware - it's all custom purpose designed and doesn't have all this wireless stuff to communicate that leaves this nice little loophole) its hardened, because it was designed to resist (not nullify but resist) electromagnetic interference and it has its own custom firmware to interface with the neurological system of the human body.

How does this work? What are the penalties? (A link to an article with some indication of where the example is will suffice if you don't want to type it out).

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

That is the big problem with decking (wireless or not) and magic.
In book, it work very well because the character are restricted by the plot.
Around a gametable, a few imaginative players can ruin a game with such tools, unless the GM start blockading the setting with arbitrary restriction or witch-hunting.
Just take a modern world and access to some utility Gurps:magic spells, and player will found so many abusive but logical loophole the game will degenerate fast without extra care.
I am not sure i would allow wireless netrunning in any game i could run for that reason.
Not because it is unrealistic.
But because it is potentially far too powerfull and unpredictable.
Damage abilities are easy to balance.
Control abilities, not so.

Celjabba

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

I might actually prefer 2e as well, I kinda use them interchangeably because its been many years since I have actually played either but I still have tons of the books and such handy and I can't remember the differences.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

It's active, rather than prescriptive. It's not saying "deny all access attempts," it's watching for changes and then immediately acting to counteract them.

Capability is not culpability. I own a firearm, that doesn't make me a murderer. Lots of people own firearms but aren't murderers. But if someone uses their firearm to try to murder me, then yes, me and my friends might band together to get him first. I expect you'd see just as many lynch mobs as you get going after mages. But, just like mages, the reward is worth the risk. Except you don't have to have a genetic fluke to be good at computers.

Very true. Plus encryption, and quite a few other things.

Because it's a part of the fiction, it's a cyberpunk trope that I enjoy, and because it adds another archetype to give the players more options that they can choose to play.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Also, as a side question to all this decking talk going around - I'd like to see an example of how to handle a cyberdeck with GURPS; the TL9 computers that are portable surely don't fit the bill and they don't change all that much by TL as they advance so out of curiosity and possible game utility I'd like to see some prospective game stats on one and an example of how you put it together to make it work (so I can retroengineer the process and build different models and things).

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

I totally get that objection, and to some degree, I sympathize. Although, having played in a game where it worked out just fine (and was kinda kewl, actually), I don't think it's any bigger of a problem than magic -- it's a set of abilities that the PCs have, so the GM has to think of (a) ways for them to make use of the abilities, and (b) ways to keep the abilities from ruining the game. The GM just has some extra thinking-things-through to do. And I've never seen a game that the GM was too prepared for; I have, however, seen plenty of games that he wasn't prepared enough for.

The "can't suspend disbelief on technology that very nearly exists now" argument just doesn't hold water for me.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

The Pyramid Netrunning article has a few examples of pre-built cyberdecks, as well as rules for building custom decks from the computers in UT.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

The original trope doesn't require wireless hackers in the assault team with real-time combat effects. Case was a former military cowboy, even, and he didn't need to do any of this kind of stuff.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

You are saying that technology to hack anything wirelessly from a calculator to a pacemaker and anything in between very nearly exists now? Even if its hardened and or further shielded by being surrounded by human flesh/bone?

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

The original trope doesn't require it, but some people feel that it makes for more entertaining gaming.

And IIRC, Case was a punk-ass street kid who was good at hacking; he wasn't former military. Even the Dixie Flatline wasn't former military. Corso (Armitage) was, but he didn't do much hacking in the book.

Plus, Gibson had virtually no understanding of actual computing technology when he wrote Neuromancer, and even his flawed understanding was based on circa 1980 tech.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

See above re: Van Eck Phreaking. Also, look into the well-known effects of EMP on electronics. Now, give those technologies several decades (and maybe a few cyber-wars) to develop....

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

That doesn't mean that induction-based computer intrusion nearly exists now. It means that you can wildly extrapolate it from something that exists now, without actually worrying about such minor details as whether it's actually possible.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Van Eck proved you can interpret the data of a viewscreen as a tv image, I find it hard to believe you'd be able to interact with the terminal via a similar methodology. Related technology yes, actually able to change settings etc, no.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

It depend a lot on how you implement decking ...
Physically, i would say it is about the size of a modern keyboard. perhaps a bit more heavier. DR1 for basic model, hardened model exist.
A basic one allow computer hacking roll without equipment penalties.
Fine or very fine ones add +1 or +2 to the roll.
Compact, fast, high capacity TL9 personal Computer
It run a C6 decryption program, a c6 Virtual reality program, and a suit of c5 software tool for hacking.
A very fine one have the genius option instead of fast, and run a c7 decryption and a set of c6 hacking program.
100TB storage included
Does this help ?
(The decryption program should be a few complexity level higher, to handle real-time hacking ... perhaps consider that the encryption program run on a dedicated quantum chipset.)

Celjabba

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Van Eck Phreaking is the practical (real-world) application of that: with the right equipment, you can actually read a monitor without having line of sight -- you do so by reading the EM state of each pixel on the monitor.

That's the "receiving" end ... now check out EMPs for the "transmitting." The difference between frying electronics with an overwhelming EMP and manipulating it via precisely controlled EM induction is the measure of control over the EM field.

I'm not saying that there will be no countermeasures; in fact, I assume that there will be. That's part of what makes it a challenge rather than a gimme for the PCs ... they have this ability, but others have it too, and have countermeasures against it. The electronic version of the "Weapons vs. Armor" race, that's been a part of history since humans picked up rocks and sticks to kill each other with.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

And how are you producing this ultra precise electromagnetic pulse without frying your own equipment? How are you powering it? Definitely an ultratech superscience magic trick.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

I'm still tweaking all this, actually. I have a skeleton and rules framework in mind, but I don't have it finished with all the modifiers tweaked.

However, spitballing:

Say I have a completely off-the-shelf deck, and you have are a Will 10 person with a completely standard cyberlimb, networked along with your brain, complexity 4 deck, gun, etc. I'm trying this in augmented reality, I have a Electronics Operation(EWar) skill of 16, and the standard quality Impersonation program on my deck. Impersonation is ElecOp(EWar)-4 at default, and I haven't bought up my technique. The average quality program means I don't get any penalties or bonuses. Hence, I roll Impersonation-12 to slip in between your brain and your cyberlimb and convince it I'm actually your brain. Lets say I roll a 10, success by 2. My target rolls v. Will + Complexity of his deck to resist, he also rolls a 10, getting success by 4. I fail to convince your arm that I'm actually you. Next turn, you're like "Get out of my brain, freak!" and shoot me in the face.

Actual numbers may need tweaking, but the basic concept of "complexity = firewall and adds to your will to resist" I like, as well as skill around 16-20 being needed to reliably do stuff on normal people, with equipment providing program specific bonuses based on quality.

EDIT: I'd give higher quality cyberware the ability to resist all this. +2 for alphaware, +4 for betaware, +6 for deltaware, probably.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Well, since the tech doesn't exist yet, I don't know. (If I did know, I'd be rich!) But then, can you explain -- in full technical detail -- how a quantum computer works? They're real, not superscience, but that doesn't mean that everyone can explain how they work.

It's no more superscience than monowire or advanced holography. The distinction between "realistic" and "superscience" ultra-technology is arbitrary, based on a few people's layman opinions of what might be plausible in the future. If you don't understand how something works, it's easy to label it as "superscience." That doesn't mean it won't show up in the future.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Yeah, it's got exactly what you're asking for, Godogma. Highly recommended.

I wasn't talking about Gibson, I was more talking about SR. I like Gibson, but I think the genre has come a very long way since he wrote Nueromancer.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Of course EM fields can have effects on electronics.

That doesn't mean that it's even possible to build a device that uses induction to perform precise remote manipulations of arbitrary devices. Without pure superscience that allows you to remotely generate arbitrary EM fields, and superscience scanners to analyze the target so you know what fields you want to induce.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

As for monowire look up bucky tubes. Not superscience, monomolecular wire exists. Buckminster fullerine tubes? Bah, I can't remember what the full name of it is, but bucky tubes is what it was called last I checked.

If I'm not misremembering due to extreme lack of sleep.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

Shadowrun doesn't have wireless deckers either before 4e, which lacks the feel of SR and also is the cause of much of this discussion.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

They don't have anything like the characteristics of cyberpunk/sci-fi monowire though. For one thing, they're not gonna cut through your skin, they're just gonna hit you limply.

Re: GURPS Shadowrun
 

I believe that updating to a wireless virtual world is a worthy goal.