[The Madadh]

Hi folks!

I've been running Shadowrun since 2nd Edition, and while I've never really found an amazing way to run the matrix, but I've always managed to make it an interesting and engaging experience for the deckers at least. But I'm struggling with 5th Ed. This isn't a thread to flame 5th ed (in point of fact, I think it fixed a lot of stuff that needed fixing) but I am REALLY struggling with the matrix.

Contrary to prior editions, it's not that it's too complicated to understand, but rather a bit too vague for me to really dig into. Enough context though, here is my problem.

I have a decker in my party, and to be fair, he's not a great decker. His character concept involves him taking up decking as a hobby, supplementing his role as a street sam (I use the term loosely). But say he wants to hack a host. Now, barring any direct linkage to a device, first, he needs a mark on this thing to start interacting with it in a meaningful way. So, being the stealthy sonofagun he is, he starts making hack on the fly roles, except, unless I am really lowballing the host, he seems to fail around half the time or more, giving the host a mark on him and alerting them to his presence. Fine, whatever, no big deal, right? But there goes any attempt at stealth. Unless he aces that first roll, he's given up the ghost. Now, maybe he keeps hacking, and maybe it takes the host/ic/security decker a round or two to spot him and launch IC etc, but in the meantime he just gets nervous (what with GOD and Convergence and all) and frustrated (because he wants to be stealthy) so he just jacks out at the first sign of trouble.

This is what happens EVERY time. Again, I realize that a good decker, built from the ground up to be a decker would probably fair 100% better, but in my game, with this decker, it's boring as heck.

Not only because of how hard it is for him to accomplish his goal, mind you, but just the mechanic of the rolls themselves. He rolls a decent Hack on the Fly of 10 dice. I roll the Host's/Device Firewall + Rating of usually similar amount (usually a bit less just to give him a better chance at success), and if he succeeds, great. If he fails, then the WHOLE MATRIX RUN is fubar. It seems very unforgiving, even for a decker fairly well kitted out. And he burns through a lot of edge just trying to succeed on that first hack on the fly roll.

To add to this blandness, I'm struggling to picture the new matrix topography. Specifically, the part where if you get a mark on a host, you have a mark on EVERYTHING the host is connected to? Or is it the other way around? Either way, it's hard for me to imagine. It all seems so ambiguous and amorphous.

And I know this has been touched on numerous times on these forums, but I really have a hard time figuring out what to do with Patrol IC, mechanically. And really, matrix security in general. That is, once he get into the host unnoticed, does he have to make these hack on the fly rolls for each device or file that he wants access to? or does getting a mark on the host give him marks on all of that stuff too? This version of the matrix comes off as very "all or nothing." Either he triggers the alert and counts down to getting link locked and traced (my favorite threat) or he sneaks in, completely unnoticed, and has a really disproportionate amount of control for the risk he has taken so far in my opinion.

So, I know this is a lot, and I hope it doesn't come off as whining about new rules (I really want to drink the kool-aid), but I really need some help to make the matrix fun in this edition. Whatever tricks you guys have, I'll take. Examples of play, house rules, correct my perceptions and understanding of rules. Whatever. I just want to have fun with the Matrix!

Thanks a bunch!

[QuantumZeruul]

This is probably what you are thinking of. On page 233 it says "If you get a mark on a slave device, you get a mark on the master" but it says in the same paragraph "If you fail a sleaze action against a device, only the device's owner gets the mark on you, not the master." It also references where multiple devices are slaved to one host.  On page 236, it mentions that if you fail a sleaze action that the target gets a mark on you, or the owner if the target is a device. 

This is the way I think of Marks in current day terms: Authentication keys. Bear with me, as sometimes I cannot always get this across the way I want to.

Ok, the way I see the matrix myself is that any action that an outside entity wants to do on something else requires authentication that said entity has proper access to perform the action. In modern day terms, it would be, for instance, saying that the person that logged into a computer with Username X and Password Y has sufficient access to get basic read/write on the system. In this example, Username X is the Decker, and the backend authentication that they are given tied to that username/password combo is their "mark." If the login does not have sufficient rights, they fail to do any action outside of their allowed subset of actions.

So, in this viewpoint, when a decker puts a mark on something, they are in effect sneaking into that system's database an entry indicating that Entity X (the Decker) has sufficient rights to perform an action, and the more Marks the Decker puts on something, the more rights they have, up to having almost full admin rights with 3 marks.

Because most things are slaved to something else (like a music player being slaved to a comlink, for instance), when Entity X wants to perform an action, it passes that up the ladder to the higher power to perform the authentication. What this means is that when you place a mark on a slave, you are in effect sneaking the authentication into the database of the master themselves since the slave device itself does not perform the actual authentication. On the opposite side, when a mark gets applied against you, it is not the Master that is requesting authentication in many cases, but a specific device/entity and you would only grant authentication to that one specific device. Since your deck is typically the master in any connection, it would allow that one device owner/entity to act against the Deck and anything he has slaved, but since it was not the Host/Master making the mark (unless you are acting against the host itself) you have not given the Host/Master permissions.

In this analogy, scrubbing oneself of marks is in effect equivalent to having your computer run an analysis of its database of authorized users and scrubbing anything that seems weird. .

So to simplify, when you give something a mark, you have given yourself various operator permissions in that something's database, and thus you have those same permissions that use that same database to authenticate (this all the things slaved to it).

Ok, that is how I see it at least. This probably did not help, but there you go 

--QuantumZeruul

[Csjarrat]

if physical security is too high for him, you could always drop hints that most hacks in real life exploit humans as the weak link, for example:
physcially hacking into a company's server is very difficult, it is much easier to make a website that loads malicious code onto a company's server and trick a user on the companies network to visit that website, automatically loading the code and giving the hacker the access. Or sneaking into the facility and inserting a keylogger onto the user's keyboard to capture their password so they can log in as that user, or pretending they are tech support and asking the users directly for their login info etc etc. in SR5, they could pull off a similar scheme with which they get people inside the host to invite marks, giving them access, but there might be some houseruling involved.

it sounds to me more like the kid just inst that tooled for decking though. corporate hosts are a whole league ahead of hacking someone's low rating commlink and listening to their phone calls. they should represent the biggest challenge to a decker's life. i'd say they need to either build harder for decking or get smart about it. its much easier to point a gun at an employee's head until he gets you the file off the server than it is to fight through scores of IC yourself for example.

[The Madadh]

it sounds to me more like the kid just inst that tooled for decking though. corporate hosts are a whole league ahead of hacking someone's low rating commlink and listening to their phone calls. they should represent the biggest challenge to a decker's life. i'd say they need to either build harder for decking or get smart about it. its much easier to point a gun at an employee's head until he gets you the file off the server than it is to fight through scores of IC yourself for example.

This is true, but we are finding the mechanics of hacking pretty boring, even when hacking a schmuck's commlink. The aquisition of marks is so all or nothing. I kind of miss the days of the pre-run slow exploit. It added a strategy to the run I feel is missing from this iteration of the matrix.

But, just in writing this, I'm beginning to see the error of his ways. So, he's not good enough yet to hack on the fly, set off zero alarms and get in and out of a host. If they get a mark on him, he can scrub the mark and hide, go loud with a brute force and then his matrix run is about eluding the ic being launched every turn. Not pretty, but good enough for a street sammy come decker.

But I still need help with matrix topography (the master vs slave vs device vs owner thing still confuses me. Once he'shacked a host, does he need more marks on each file or device he wants to mess with? And lastly, what are somefun and Iiinteresting matrix encounters? This is cyberpunk! The matrix is supposed to be a mysterious and powerful place. Right now it's a hassle.

Thanks!

[Csjarrat]

it sounds to me more like the kid just inst that tooled for decking though. corporate hosts are a whole league ahead of hacking someone's low rating commlink and listening to their phone calls. they should represent the biggest challenge to a decker's life. i'd say they need to either build harder for decking or get smart about it. its much easier to point a gun at an employee's head until he gets you the file off the server than it is to fight through scores of IC yourself for example.

This is true, but we are finding the mechanics of hacking pretty boring, even when hacking a schmuck's commlink. The aquisition of marks is so all or nothing. I kind of miss the days of the pre-run slow exploit. It added a strategy to the run I feel is missing from this iteration of the matrix.

But, just in writing this, I'm beginning to see the error of his ways. So, he's not good enough yet to hack on the fly, set off zero alarms and get in and out of a host. If they get a mark on him, he can scrub the mark and hide, go loud with a brute force and then his matrix run is about eluding the ic being launched every turn. Not pretty, but good enough for a street sammy come decker.

But I still need help with matrix topography (the master vs slave vs device vs owner thing still confuses me. Once he'shacked a host, does he need more marks on each file or device he wants to mess with? And lastly, what are somefun and Iiinteresting matrix encounters? This is cyberpunk! The matrix is supposed to be a mysterious and powerful place. Right now it's a hassle.

Thanks!

tbh mate, this is quite a common comment. because the matrix is very different to our own computer networks its quite hard to envisage.
I'm sure it'll be a lot clearer when the new matrix splat book comes out but until then, just keep reading up on it and figuring out how you want to roll things in your game. you could maybe use unwired's 4e topography as a starting point for your 5e networks if you have those books but it'd be a bit of a hack.

[The Madadh]

Yeah, I've gone back through my 4ed stuff for help, and will continue to read the matrix section of sr5, but in the meantime I'd like to hear about how other GMs are handling the new matrix.

[Rainslicker]

Hey there.

Well it would take me a long time to explain how I run the matrix since I have it kinda... built up.. I will write that post one day.
But what I can offer to do for you is to show you how I run the matrix, maybe talk over skype and use roll20?

If you are interested send me a PM with your skype and we will set up a date and time.

[ImaginalDisc]

You have to ignore the problem that using humans as a fuel source doesn't work because of entropy and thermodynamics. It's a little hard to see past the incredible theft of entire sequences from Ghost in the Shell and on reflection some of the "heroic" characters are less than admirable, but if you just relax and accept it as an attempt to make a visually arresting movie where the cinematics mirror the themes of the plot, it works.

What, wrong Matrix?

[Reaver]

Sadly, the Matrix has always been one of those areas they have never really gotten right (but I feel 5e is a better balance of all factors)

if you remember way back in the day of 2e.... matrix runs were quite literally a solo affair. The GM and the decker would spend about 30 minutes real time for about 5 seconds in game time, while everyone else played the N64.

4e cleaned it up an bit... but there were still large periods of time that everyone else played games on their smartphones while the hacker "did his thing"..


5e shortens that time yet again... but at the cost of the "flavor" of the matrix..... but at least people are not stuck waiting 20 minutes for 1 guy to do something so they can proceed with the adventure.




In truth, I have never really had many players play deckers/hackers due to them feeling that it is just too confusing and time consuming.... but for those few times that I have had a decker, I take the time to describe the topography of the host he is in (like a Feudal Japanese Castle for Renraku's Host... or a Monolithic ivory tower for SK... or a pyramid of gold for Aztechnology.... just to give the player a sense of what he is seeing and interacting with.

he still has to do all his rolls... I just take the time to describe what is happening to him and how things look on the host. (files might be butterflies... a IC program a buzzing wasp... etc)