Meet the New Boss 2 of 2
With the looming threat of dissolution on the horizon, the Omega men must find a way to save the Saints of Suffering Program.
Intro Music: Cyberpunk Underworld by Futant
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I really must admit that the perspective given within the Saints of Suffering is truly a major draw for me. Though the parallel Shadowrun series is also quite thrilling, hilarious, and chock-full of the awesome only Fandible can provide, the personalities of the Omega Men provide a more relatable circumstances. They are by and large ordinary people living in a quasi-dystopian future and brave the chaos of Dallas nearly every day. And they do this with meager supplies, inadequate armorments (with a few notable exceptions), and the mindset of persons whom are more or less law abiding. Yet, in the face of all this adversity, they pull through and achieve a victory as only they can!
Cannot wait for the next episode; I have a feeling it will turn out most interesting indeed.
Just thought I’d drop a comment about matrix perception. Matrix perception lets you find out a number of things about something in the matrix equal to your hits on the roll. The book actually gives a list of things you might want to ask in that reguard. I don’t have my book handy or I’d quote you the page with the sidebar on it. With that out of the way I wanted to discuss what matrix perception actually is, and to do so I will use the matrix as an example!
Everything you see in the matrix isn’t real. The woman in the red dress is really an agent. Looks can be deceiving… but code doesn’t lie. Matrix perception is the ability to peel back that facade in order to look at the coded structure beneath. Like an operator (or Neo once he embraces and transforms into the one), a hacker can see the markers in the code of the lady in red. He mearly has to have the suspicion to look for the right things and the skill to spot them in time.
Being able to detect encryption or a data bomb is not the same as breaking said encryption or data bomb though. Those are seperate actions in shadowrun. Again, if I had my book handy I’d give you page numbers and the correct action name, but I don’t. All I can tell you is that there is a section on matrix actions in the matrix chapter that should clear it up for you.
I have to admit, I had to re-listen to the job interview scene to fully understand the “deal breaking” portion of the contract. And while I still don’t understand why Doc Wagon would need that from their new employees, or how they can monetize it for that matter, I can see why it is such thunderous dealbreaker… of course now I’m terribly curious as to what Henis fuckery some of the other Corps have snuck into their New hire contracts.
Hi Steve! I’m glad you brought this up, because we’re using some home-baked hacking rules I developed specifically for the SOS campaign and I’m pretty proud of them. See, I’m of two minds when it comes to the normal hacking rules in Shadowrun: On one hand I love the complexity of the mechanics, since you’re learning to effectively become a wizard of the Cyber world, and what the game asks for in understanding these complex rules (Overwatch, noise, PANs, WANs, etc) it offers in the ability to do some seriously crazy things with a Cyber Deck and gumption. On the other hand, they can be cumbersome, at times needlessly complex, and bring the game to a screeching halt.
So I took the rules and boiled them down, ditching any overlap for the sake of simplicity and to keep the game flowing. I’ve been to too many Shadowrun games where the Hacker (who is supposedly working at the speed of thought!) picks up their dice and engages in pseudo-technobabble with the GM for way too long, killing the excitement of whatever else might be going on.
Here’s what I did: I narrowed it down to three groups of Matrix Actions: Attack, Stealth and Processing. So now Check Overwatch Score (which I haven’t incorporated into my setting yet) Matrix Perception, Snoop and Trace Icon are now just Matrix Perception. (As for disarming a data bomb, I don’t think we used Matrix Perception for anything like that. That’d be a huge flub on my part.) Change Icon, Crack File, Disarm Data Bomb, Erase MARK, Erase Matrix Signature, Format Device, Set Data Bomb and Hide are now “Edit File.” The difficulty changes depending on a number of circumstances, but the action is condensed into one die pool.
Finally, I limited the MARKs (Matrix Authentication Recognition Keys) that Dan’s character can use and gave him the Scorched flaw, keeping him mostly in the meat world with the other characters. Now the hacking roles are influenced by information gathered by the characters for the Hacker to use, leading to a scene like the one in the Coffee Shop, which I couldn’t be happier with.
So, if it seems like I misunderstand the hacking rules I can assure you it’s quite the opposite. I just took what I thought to be the most prohibitive and intimidating mechanics and made them more palatable while keeping with the “it ain’t great but it’s what we’ve got” feeling of the campaign.
Sorry for the TL;DR post, everyone!
Hack The Vatican!
#Hack5ed
Shadowrun has never had playable matrix rules…ever…in five editions…I won’t be so crass as to accuse the wonderful catalyst labs dev team of chem use, but goddamn, I have no idea how they thought their new matrix rules would help streamline deckers into the game.
So I applaud your house ruling! Much better than the flagrant handwavium incantations I invoked in the last SR game I ran.
Also, loved the session! It was as hilarious and brilliant as always 🙂
SR5 core book. Gamer accessory or lethal bludgeon? You decide!
Right on David. Have you checked out Shadowrun Anarchy? It breaks down hacking into only two types of checks: Do a thing & cybercombat. Rolls can either be against a difficulty or versus an opposing force. Either way, it is super simple.
Honestly, I think Anarchy is more your guy’s style. Character’s are simple and the entire game is stripped of extraneous junk. You’d probably end up using their more traditional hack (but maybe not) which is included in the book to centralize GM duties back onto a single person (where as the basic version shares that out more to the players to create a shared storytelling environment).
In true shadowrun fashion it’s both of course!
Good as ever.
1 thing. The shadowrun RC church is just as described. About 40 or 50 years ago. Then new, Pope new policies. Less fire and brimstone more embracing magic. Still not made up the lost ground but getting there. Plenty of internal dissent of course but it’s been a long papacy. Competition from new age and draconic religions. The Muslim faiths remained more fundamentalist and have been decimated as a result (dragon chow).
Does anyone else have a problem with part one linking to a YouTube video?
Fixed. Sorry about that.