[Shamie]

Hello to all

Im starting to change to 5th edition and one of the things i like about it was the new matrix rules. So yesterday i play a one player matrix run, inspired by the first example of the matrix section (pag 224) to see what test my understanding of the rules and to see any problems that could come up in play.


The run went like this.
Mister Bones (the player, who use the archetype of decker in the book) was hired to find out whats inside of a safety box in a Bank, as a bonus he could retrieve whats inside the box for a nice extra fee.
On the back ally of the bank there is a maglock on the back door wich is slaved to the bank host. Bones use direct connection to avoid the firewall and put a mark on the bank host to access it.
After that I came into a couple of questions:

1)   In the example of the book it say the runner in a similar run could ignore firewall because he is in direct connection with the maglock but reading the rules about direct connect it only says the ignores any noise or grid modifiers.

2)   If the player  puts a mark on the slaved device, it also puts a mark on the master and if the master is a host, would that mean that all programs/devices on the host would get a mark too?

3)   How would he find the safety box and its interior? Would he need to do a matrix search?

4)   The player wanted to hack the safe of the bank and its ID scanner to recognize him as the owner of the safety box. Would the appropriate matrix action in that situation be Spoof Command? And would that change remain after he jack out?

5)   I put a patrol IC on the bank host. How would the IC detect the decker? On the rules it says that having a mark on the host is to enter it is not illegal (the action of putting the mark, is but after the fact is not) so how would a Patrol IC detect a Decker?

6)   Is there a way for the decker (a silent approach decker) to get rid of a IC without destroying it and thus alert the Spiders?

7)   During the run he was discovered and a probe IC put 3 marks on the decker, would that increase his Overwatch score? Would the deckers attack and defense against the ICs also increase his Overwatch score? And if so, how much?

8 )   Why would anyone jack out? For what I understand jacking out is just plugging out the cable, while switch interface is the secure way to disconnect, however jacking out is a complex action while switching interface is a simple. Why would anyone jack out and eat dumpshock damage?

9)   In the run I ran I said that the bank host had a clients area wich was a public place for anyone to enter and maybe talk in VR to employers and make a deposit or open and account etc etc. And a Door that had a sign that says “Authorize personal only” that was where they held the safety box data. In the run I put a virtual door that the decker had to spoof command. However is wasn’t a device per say. It was a virtual door, How would that be handle? A host inside a host?

Any help with this questions would be appreciatte

[Michael Chandra]

1)   In the example of the book it say the runner in a similar run could ignore firewall because her is in direct connection with the maglock but reading the rules about direct connect it only says the ignores any noise or grid modifiers.

To be exact, thanks to the direct connection he ignored the Firewall supplied by the Master Device, and the Slaved Device had no Firewall rating. Masters cannot aid Slaved devices that get attacked through a direct connection, whereas they still will receive the Mark when the Slaved device gets marked.

On the other hand, marking a Master will not auto-mark the slaved devices.

[Shamie]

1)   In the example of the book it say the runner in a similar run could ignore firewall because her is in direct connection with the maglock but reading the rules about direct connect it only says the ignores any noise or grid modifiers.

To be exact, thanks to the direct connection he ignored the Firewall supplied by the Master Device, and the Slaved Device had no Firewall rating. Masters cannot aid Slaved devices that get attacked through a direct connection, whereas they still will receive the Mark when the Slaved device gets marked.

On the other hand, marking a Master will not auto-mark the slaved devices.

Thanks for the answer

[thinklibertarian]

4) Spoof command is fine for one shot effects, like opening a safety deposit box. Longer running "scams", like removing himself from the ban's video feeds, uses Edit File.

5) Patrol IC is a Host's best friend. 

Lets say the hacker went in "after hours". Is he hidden? Then the IC is rolling on every host initiative pass to find him. Hosts are always hot sim, and roll host rating x 2 + 4d6 for initiative, so it usually gets three passes. It only needs one hit to know someone is hiding in the host.

Then it switches to the opposed test (Host Rating x2 [Data Processing] vs. his Logic + Sleaze) until it finds him.

Once found, it can scan him in detail (same opposed test) to find out all sorts of things about him (see the chart on page 235).

My favorites:
What programs is he running? Running hacking software, while not Forbidden, only Restricted, will raise concerns.
What was the last Matrix action he performed? Was it an illegal action (anything with attack or sleaze as the limit)? That will probably set off alarms...

6) Once the host considers you the enemy, you may be able to buy a pass or two by Hiding yourself again. You could try Crash Program if you still have the host marked. If you crash the IC on your first pass, the host can't restart it until the start of its next turn, and that may buy you an initiative pass or two. edit: You can't crash IC.

7) Just having marks on the hacker does not raise his OS, nor do his defense rolls. His actions, if they use Attack or Sleaze do affect his OS. His Data Processing actions (like matrix perception) would not.

8- Jacking Out is better than getting killed. The meaner IC do biofeedback damage, which is all physical damage to hot sim deckers. And if you are link-locked, you have to Jack Out and eat dumpshock.

9) If the device is "inside" the host, you could just use the host ratings.

Check out my sample Matrix Run post for other ideas: http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=12278.0

[Shamie]

4) Spoof command is fine for one shot effects, like opening a safety deposit box. Longer running "scams", like removing himself from the ban's video feeds, uses Edit File.

5) Patrol IC is a Host's best friend. 

Lets say the hacker went in "after hours". Is he hidden? Then the IC is rolling on every host initiative pass to find him. Hosts are always hot sim, and roll host rating x 2 + 4d6 for initiative, so it usually gets three passes. It only needs one hit to know someone is hiding in the host.

Then it switches to the opposed test (Host Rating x2 [Data Processing] vs. his Logic + Sleaze) until it finds him.

Once found, it can scan him in detail (same opposed test) to find out all sorts of things about him (see the chart on page 235).

My favorites:
What programs is he running? Running hacking software, while not Forbidden, only Restricted, will raise concerns.
What was the last Matrix action he performed? Was it an illegal action (anything with attack or sleaze as the limit)? That will probably set off alarms...

6) Once the host considers you the enemy, you may be able to buy a pass or two by Hiding yourself again. You could try Crash Program if you still have the host marked. If you crash the IC on your first pass, the host can't restart it until the start of its next turn, and that may buy you an initiative pass or two.

7) Just having marks on the hacker does not raise his OS, nor do his defense rolls. His actions, if they use Attack or Sleaze do affect his OS. His Data Processing actions (like matrix perception) would not.

8- Jacking Out is better than getting killed. The meaner IC do biofeedback damage, which is all physical damage to hot sim deckers. And if you are link-locked, you have to Jack Out and eat dumpshock.

9) If the device is "inside" the host, you could just use the host ratings.

Check out my sample Matrix Run post for other ideas: http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=12278.0

thank you for all the answer  About the 9) i reread it and i miss the part where it says that when you are link locked you cannot switch interfaces.

And thanks for the link, im reading it right now and its pretty usefull.

[xuewuyang]

There is almost never just one possibility, and you don't have the grounds for that sort of certainty.

[Palladion]

One thing I have found, discussing Matrix with other GMs, is that it is still very time consuming. Even with the streamlined rules, it takes a while to complete. This might partially be because of unfamiliarity with the rules, but Matrix legwork takes a good while longer than Social and discussion.

[Aaron]

One thing I have found, discussing Matrix with other GMs, is that it is still very time consuming. Even with the streamlined rules, it takes a while to complete. This might partially be because of unfamiliarity with the rules, but Matrix legwork takes a good while longer than Social and discussion.

Are you using Matrix Search, or are you making your hacker(s) do full-scale host intrusions to get info?

[Palladion]

Are you using Matrix Search, or are you making your hacker(s) do full-scale host intrusions to get info?

Full scale intrusions.  Mark the host, Search for relevant area, Crack into what you need, Edit to copy, realize it is not what you need, Search again, Edit wipe trail, etc.  The other characters physically entered the building and started asking questions.  It is much better than the old systems by far, we are just finding that all the rolls (and counter-rolls) are taking longer than a Social information extraction.  The GM had to pan away from the decker several times to let the rest of us get some face time in.  I am thinking to play it more like combat to see if we can speed up the pace.  And have GOD loom a bit more menacingly.  Heh.

(Note: This was a legwork heavy run and the player was unfamiliar with the Matrix rules.  There was a lot of talking about doing stuff, rather than just do, roll, and let the dice fall where they may.)

[TX_DM]

Are you using Matrix Search, or are you making your hacker(s) do full-scale host intrusions to get info?

Full scale intrusions.  Mark the host, Search for relevant area, Crack into what you need, Edit to copy, realize it is not what you need, Search again, Edit wipe trail, etc.  The other characters physically entered the building and started asking questions.  It is much better than the old systems by far, we are just finding that all the rolls (and counter-rolls) are taking longer than a Social information extraction.  The GM had to pan away from the decker several times to let the rest of us get some face time in.  I am thinking to play it more like combat to see if we can speed up the pace.  And have GOD loom a bit more menacingly.  Heh.

(Note: This was a legwork heavy run and the player was unfamiliar with the Matrix rules.  There was a lot of talking about doing stuff, rather than just do, roll, and let the dice fall where they may.)

Provide the Decker with an Option to buy part of his way into the system by paying off a fired employee, finding a backdoor to the program, or the like. I find that Deckers always, always, ALWAYS glitch at least 2 rolls on a system and get the IC on their tail, so this at least puts them a little further in before that happens. Also, most Decker players seem to be the kind who'd prefer to actually avoid combat, so it cuts down on IC fighting. Also, gets rid of their spare cash.

[Xenon]

think you got answer to all your questions. I just like to add on this one:

2)   If the player  puts a mark on the slaved device, it also puts a mark on the master and if the master is a host, would that mean that all programs/devices on the host would get a mark too?

If you get a mark on the host you also get a mark on all the host's IC and vise verse (they are the "same entity").

But as Michael Chandra said, you don't automatically also get a mark on devices slaved to the host.

It is actually a bit unclear if you automatically get a mark on files in a host or if you need to mark them one by one, the rules does not really say... and in the example BK does not seem to have to mark the file before he tries to crack the protection or copy it (but he did need a mark on the specific file that was located on the commlink earlier in the example). However, seeing as the example with BK already is up for errata for using a sleaze action to crack the protection the first time he tried it I would not be surprised if this is wrong as well.
- But until we get clarification I guess we should follow the example and treat all files as marked when you mark the host (or house rule that you have to mark them individually - i will probably house rule that you need to mark each file individually as I personally since i think that make more sense).

[deek]

From my understanding, unless the files are protected, the hacker (with a mark on the host), gets to read all the files. You only need an Edit to copy it, so that is a lot of rolls you don't have to make just to read through the data.  You could simplify that down to one Matrix Search roll to find exactly what you wanted (again, on unprotected files).

Once you have a mark on a host or device, you automatically see all the shared files and I would guess the majority of files would be shared.  The thought process is the firewall (and IC in a host) are plenty of protection (that is the general though of the setting, it seems), so people are not as paranoid as runners may be.

[Aaron]

Marks are by icon, so if you need a mark on a file to do something with it (copy or crack, for example), then you need a mark on the file. Reading a file is something I think you don't need a mark for (too lazy to go get my book at the moment, but I do know that if you don't want people reading your files you should protect them, so it stands to reason).

Full scale intrusions.  Mark the host, Search for relevant area, Crack into what you need, Edit to copy, realize it is not what you need, Search again, Edit wipe trail, etc.  The other characters physically entered the building and started asking questions.  It is much better than the old systems by far, we are just finding that all the rolls (and counter-rolls) are taking longer than a Social information extraction.  The GM had to pan away from the decker several times to let the rest of us get some face time in.  I am thinking to play it more like combat to see if we can speed up the pace.  And have GOD loom a bit more menacingly.  Heh.

(Note: This was a legwork heavy run and the player was unfamiliar with the Matrix rules.  There was a lot of talking about doing stuff, rather than just do, roll, and let the dice fall where they may.)

If this makes legwork too long for your group, might I suggest saving the full intrusion info for paydata and letting your hacker find out legwork info via Matrix search? If the information in question is part of a secondary or preliminary objective, perhaps you could make it a bit more secure, requiring the rest of the team's involvement as well?

[deek]

Reading through the matrix chapter again, I am not 100% clear you need a mark on a file, just the host or device the file is on.

[Aaron]

You need a mark on the file.