Running it Old School (OOC)

My character is the ex-secretary. I threw that in there to point out the contrast, which I find humorous.
I don't see the others as 'average people.' I mean, they're not... based on the definition of the word 'average.' That's fine, mind you! I'm perfectly fine with ex government killers and ninja assassins and pirate robots! But come on... they aren't normal for the setting. Wage slaves are normal.

Yeah, I'm taking microeconomics so I know what government outlawing of a product does to a supply/demand curve, and I agree with you: prices should be much higher. And they are. Already. Like, in the book. Based on their listed price. A good hacker program costs as much as a month of a medium lifestyle. Guns too. In fact, your quoted difference of ten times more expensive is reflected mechanically in the price difference between common use programs and hacker programs. So yes... they are more expensive. You pay for it when you get an illegal good... more BP spent in gear. Yup. Costs more because producers are rarer. Supply goes down, demand goes down, equilibrium price goes up, and equilibrium quantity goes down. Less people have it, and the ones who do paid more for it. That's realism, and that's what's already built into the prices in the book.

Ex Army is completely normal. I know more ex-army than secretaries today, even if you include "Executive Assistant". Ex-special forces is a little less normal, but perfectly normal even in today's society, and in 2072, there are likely to be a LOT more armed forces of any given designation than in today's world, since there are so many more things to protect against. So, yes, they are average. Entirely average. And, most of the ex-army I know also own firearms. They would ALL be equiped, both from a skills and a tools perspective to become 'runners. And they are quite normal, average, and ubiquitous.

As for the second statement, the lack of mass-manufacturing covers the cost difference alone. The illegality is not a factor. That's why there are rules around getting them, in game, illegally. Again, if you have them on CG, there has to be a reason, and the reason, which can be logical and appropriate, is ALSO something that you have to pay for with a quality. I know, in real life, one person with a sniper rifle. It is legal, and registered, and both the Federal Govt. and the local Govt. know about it. If there were a sniping in town, he would be the first to be questioned. Hence, the BP cost for having it, because it is so far outside of any normal situation that in order to have it, you have to have extenuating circumstances, and if you are willing to have undergone them to attain the restricted or illegal equipment, then the BP cost is warranted. That is the "karmic" representation of the effort undertaken to obtain your illegal or restricted equipment, outside of what can be reasonably expected of a normal person.

BTW having any sort of military background requires covering several years where one would have gotten the training. Given that SR4 is set in 2070 and the Coup attempt was in 2064/65 that's not a lot of time to both get military training and get established in the shadows as a starting runner. And regardless of how you put it, if you use an Ex-Mil background from the UCAS and served during that period you'd have seen deployment one way or another. Maybe not actual combat, but you sure as hell would have gotten dragged into the whole mess from one side or the other. This was an event that affected not just the UCAS, but surrounding countries as well and is well documented in Emergence which was the last SR3 book to be released and acted as the introduction for SR4

I simply took spending a few years in the military into account and that would have put my character serving prior to, and during the Coup. Which means he had to have gotten involved at some level and it let me neatly explain off a few of the negative qualities. The character isn't ex special forces or anything of the sort. Demo expert sure, and good with a wide range of weapons, but that's about it, and at least I had a reason for having access to gear over avail 12 that most would not have.

Hacking programs in the 6th world are no different than the guns. So yeah, while it's ultimately the GM's call if you can go over availability limits, one shouldn't just because some other GM lets them do it all the time.

Hacking programs like black Hammer are high availability for a good reason. They are extremely illegal, highly complex and rare enough that it's a boogyman of the digital world. Also program options are not 'useless' just because you can't get them right out of CG. You can program your own common use and hacker programs, or you can buy better ones than the 'stock' variants that take options into account. Some you can get right out of CG no problem, others you can not. The availability is there to show just how hard something is to get a hold of.

Even perfectly legal items are not always easy to get. Limited edition cars, or really expensive items you cant just pick up in any old corner store. Also the book prices do NOT take into account added cost for being illegal etc. You pay the same price in CG as you would otherwise. Added cost due to 'street prices' went away in SR4 and is no longer present the way Street Index was in prior editions. There is however an optional table GMs can use to increase or decrease the cost of illegally obtained goods.

Geez, double you tee eff, you guys! I wasn't trying to sneak in anything! I hadn't even considered it because I never bothered to learn the availability rules. As soon as it came to my attention I brought it up! I mean, I was late to my lab because I saw the post and decided to point it out before I left for class. Digital Doom's been doin' this for a while, I don't think I'm smart enough to pull anything over on him, and if I was I certainly wouldn't be posting in here to point it out!

The conversation about prices and stuff is purely academic because it's fun and interesting.

And that brings me to address Gala's point here:

Quote :

As for the second statement, the lack of mass-manufacturing covers the cost difference alone. The illegality is not a factor.

Do you know how supply-demand curves work? They're not independent of each other. The reason they aren't mass-produced is because of the illegality, which lowers demand (due to the cost of breaking the law) and (if it is illegal to make/sell as well as own/buy) lowers supply (due to the cost of breaking the law). The price goes up as a result, and the quantity provided goes down.

They don't take place separately of each other. They're both caused by the same thing and they both happen at the same time. The illegality isn't a factor, it's the underlying cause.


I'm obviously not going to be able to convince you that soldiers aren't average. I don't doubt you know the entire army but statistics aren't based off of who you know. They're based on the entire population. As in all the people... not just the interesting ones. And again (Kesslan), I never once said there was anything wrong with a military background. In fact, I said that Shadowrunners aren't average people and PCs should be even more special. So please don't defend your reasoning to me because I don't have a problem with it.

Well PCs are not intended to be entirely average people at 400BP that's true, but their only slightly above average at best. The only way they'd be really special is if you built something that was a prime runner (Say.. 6-700bp to start). Most NPCs have skill and attribute ratings between 3 and 4. Though obviously some are lower. Any professional at the very least, regardless of what they are doing has a 3 in a given skill and the average human has a 3 in every stat. Security and military personnel are incredibly prevalent in SR. For one there's a lot more hostility on the whole out there, between runners, terrorists, spirits, dragons and no really large countries left anymore (With maybe Russia as the exception land mass wise.)

And I'm taking this as a largely academic argument to be honest. I understand the intent of the rules though surrounding the whole availability system, and I do agree that sometimes you cant pull off that 'special something' without relaxing the availability on some things. That said I'm pretty sure a good chunk of why some of that is there is ensure there is more room for character improvement in both equipment, as well as skills etc.

Spec ops wise though I don't (personally) feel you can generally pull off a good solid spec ops build on 400bp unless you were just freshly picked or something. Any vet Spec-ops is going to have most if not all relevant skills at 4-5 as well as higher than normal attributes and most likely access to at least alpha grade cyberware, R3 wires and so on.

That said, they never did offer anything that I've ever seen that explains what is basic fare for given troops and what sort of cybernetic advancement line they may follow. While I'm sure specialists get to individualize heavily, I'm equally sure the average grunt would get very set packages and the like. IE Here is your issue biomonitor, flare compensation, vision mag, smartlink and wired reflexes.

Hrmm... you bring up some very good points. I wonder how much BP it would cost to have a 3 in everything. That'd be expensive if all skills were at level 3... and it'd be pretty awkward too! I mean, 'runners are missing a lot of skill points if that's normal, but I guess it's supposed to be average so... huh.

Also a very good point about the whole spec ops thing. It would be kind of awkward to have a background about being a badass soldier with a long history of service and then only have 400 BP to fill in the character sheet.

Um, but the rule book does give some sample soldiers, although they aren't really military soldiers. But in the Friends and Foes part, under NPCs it has a section on Sample Grunts with some good examples of what enemy combatants at different difficulty levels would be like.

Not really, a 3 in every stat (including Edge for a human) only costs 170 BP.

That gives you 18 free skill points for knowledge and leaves you with plenty more for skills.

If you add in:
Close Combat Group
Firearms Group
Athletics Group
Dodge
Heavy Weapons
Infiltration
Throwing Weapons
Perception

All at 3 your still only at 308 BP. Assume 250k for issued gear/augmentation and your at 370.

That's still more than enough to present a fairly capable opponent.

Using a troll and leaving Edge at the base of 1 would take that same character up to 400bp but they would have a base body and strength of 7

Good to see you're coming around to the SR side of the story. It's nice to know that I am not standing alone on the argument that Ex-Army is normal, and that the 'runner characters, at start, are basically a normal (if somewhat special, solely in that they chose to be a 'runner). Also, good to see I am not the only standing on legality. Good point, Kess, that the cost tables were dropped. I just checked up on that. The only cost factor, as Duran pointed out earlier, is for expedience. However, my previous argument that a new runner can't have had that expedience in their past, thus qualifying the BP cost of the quality to allow it, still stands.

Kesslan's "Average" Mil-Grunt character below is precisely correct.

Also, Kess, there is a section in Runners Companion where they discuss grunts. You can check 'em out there.

Yeah I'm aware, but there's still no really solid 'baseline'.

Then again that's a lot more realistic too in many ways. They do offer up some 'threat raitings' for various forces though from Lonestar SWAT to Tir Ghosts. I suppose in some ways I just don't like that they only lightly touch on it. Lonestar at least once got it's own book (SR2 I believe? I own it and should dig it up again as much of the information is still relevant)

Blech, terrible luck. Hrm... data searching is an extended test, interval 1 minute. So I guess the data search will be running concurrent to the conversation. Should I role multiple times to see how much time it takes? Or is it just kind of assumed to succeed after a while since there's no sense of urgency here?

To Duran: Yes, that is how extended tests work. But, you should wait for him to ask you to roll the concurrent tests, since there could be other things happening in the background. Say, for instance, the "bad-guys" have a decker working to keep people from finding this information out... then if you don't hit a certain threshold in a certain number of tries, he locates your search, and starts actively opposing you.
That is just one example of things that could go wrong; but either way, he will let you know if/when you need to roll again.

FYI, I will always ask you to re-roll if nesicary for any extended tests. If the threashold is low enough and you say that you want to do the test, I will check your rolls. Remember there is an optional rule for automatic successes. I beleive it is 1/4 of your total pool. Say the roll calls for 3 sucesses and you get two, the next roll would be an automatic success...

Then there is what Gala was saying, if someone notices or is working against you, I will have you roll the tests (or the opposed tests) to see what you can find. I won't tell you what is going on unless your rolls are high enough to notice the opposition, (matirx), but I will always work to make it fun for us...

Yhea buying hits is a 4:1 ratio but only for non combat/opposed tests

According to Arsenal, the GM is encouraged to buy hits at a price of 4 dice per one automatic hit in vehicle combat, when Body + Armor can be a ridiculously huge dice pool.

I don't think a data search of the entire Matrix can be 'noticed' by an enemy hacker. If I was on a specific network then yeah, sure... I know data can be obscured, but that would just raise the threshold or lower my dice pool.

Actually if a company or hacker is running a bunch of agents out keeeping an eye on searches against a specific list of key words etc they could notice even a generalized search of the matrix. Such things are already done by most governments, police and spy agencies.

That does not mean that back tracking another hacker is easy but it is possible in most cases. At the very least it's more than possible for them to at least get a heads up anytime such a search is run.

EDIT: For that matter, it may not even be a hacker tracking you or some AI. It could be your pet iguana, or that stray cat outside your window.

Lol... and there is always the fly on the window!

Actually the insects are some of the more dangerous random things to encounter on the matrix if you ask me when it comes to netcritters.

In either case, technomancer critters are certainly an interesting thing (If relatively rare)

Then there is the shadow traffic. People have to know that there are hackers out there who just track searches, gather infromation, and anything else they find that is interesting, they sell to the highest bidder. They also sometimes just post it on shadowland. It is harder to track hackers now that they are wireless, but they can do it if they are good enough.

Everyone has to watch their back; hackers, mages, faces, and more, just know that we are all being watched...

Yep, all the time.

Durandana is correct in assuming that there is some annonymity in the massive data flow constantly being pursued. She was not correct, however, with the assumption that anyone who wishes to protect themselves wouldn't be able to locate a search involving specific parameters, of which a selection of "most likely keywords" would be a portion of the search. A lot of information can be collected, parsed, and "threat flagged" without a human even needing to touch it. With that said, even today, it isn't hard to manage the flow of data in a somewhat logical fashion to catalogue any increase in threat from a specific signature type.
As a hacker, wireless or not, the signature type moves with you, so once your annonymity has been cracked as a result of your search parameters, your every move is catalogued, recorded, and a database of your actions is maintained.
And that is all passive.

I know how you can track people through their datatrail, especially if they don't spoof their commcode or edit the access log. Once you've been identified it's rather easy to find your PAN and by extension your physical location (or at least Matrix connection point).

What confuses me is how a hacker or agent would know that someone is searching for info about a specific topic. There's no Google of the Matrix to hack into to see what people are searching for and who is searching for what. It's all handled by a Browse program which follows data pointers like modern spiders do. So, if that data was only available in one or a very few nodes or networks and the hacker had them 'staked out' then yeah, someone hunting around would end up within their area of watch and alert them. But data on the Matrix tends to exist in numerous places, which is how it can be found in the first place and how its veracity can be confirmed. So, how would a hacker be able to have every instance of a bit of data scoped out, watching all the nodes where they exist to be able to see when someone looks for it?

I get that the idea of hackers watching data searches is very in tune with the 'feel' of Shadowrun, it matches the atmosphere very well. Don't get me wrong, I like the dystopian big brother feel and it makes sense to extend it to the Matrix. I'm just trying to figure out how it works according to the rules, mechanically.

Well, there are two obvious answers to those questions. The first is this: The very way you are able to find all the information, is the way in which a "rival" hacker, shall we call it, can track your search. They have programs that run searches, and then they write sprites, or watcher programs, or whatever, to watch the nodes with the specific search parameters. Now, of course, for the easier to obtain data, they will have a large number of "false positives," and your anonymity will be that much more protected. For the harder to acquire data, with fewer sources, they will have a narrower search parameter, and a narrower base for comparison. That is part of the reason that I pointed out that quick success is less likely to gather attention. If you show up in one one node, logically, of their parameters, you are more likely to be written off as a "false positive," or a stumbler, who didn't really mean to be there.
The second is this: "They" had preparation time, knowing the "you" are coming, and used that time to make sure that they had as many of the potential sources of information tagged and waiting. The preparation is invaluable in any engagement.

In terms of game mechanics, there might be a double-threshold test, where achieving the first threshold gives the information you are searching for. But in order to avoid detection, you must also break the second threshold. Usually, the second threshold is either a higher absolute difficulty class, a shorter time period, or both.

Again, this is purely theoretical. A GM may use my above method some of the time, and not others. It is entirely based on the GM, and what the GM's goals are at that particular moment. As you say, not every source of information can be guarded and watched at all times. Sometimes the opposing hacker was faster, and better prepared than you. Sometimes the opposition was not faster or better prepared. Either way, you don't know ahead of time, and your character may not know at all.

Uh Oh... all this OOC discussion about Opponents in the Matrix is causing Zee to upgrade her tactics... Next subject: The vagaries and intricacies of casting battles!

Nah, I've read through Unwired. I know the dangers of traveling through nodes and the need for either editing the access logs or spoofing your own signal. I just think it's silly to extend that to data searching but whatev!

I'm an expert at breaking things. You need something broke, come to me. I can also repair things. I keep duct tape handy at all times.

Remember, if duct tape don't fix it, you're not using enough.

Durandana wrote:

Nah, I've read through Unwired. I know the dangers of traveling through nodes and the need for either editing the access logs or spoofing your own signal. I just think it's silly to extend that to data searching but whatev!

Knowledge is Power.

People always covet power, and thus knowledge.