That's my whole point though. B.B., no matter how veteran he is, is only going to know 80% what he's doing in even the best case scenario. Even the very best of the best hackers are going to encounter details of a system which they didn't plan on encountering or which they may have some troubles with. System security personel are always gonna be changing shit up and adding new levels of security and no hacker, unless he totally detailed a system's security with reliable and very recent paydata (which could need a run all by itself), is gonna know everything he's gonna have to do before-hand when hacking a system. Of course part of this is embodied in the abstraction of a single roll being made to "hack" a system...(we only loosely play out HOW it's actually hacked, and that's only if there's time).....but part of this also needs to be embodied through actual role-playing in the meta-game strategy. Especially with the almost infinite computing power of the matrix the level of complexity would make it so that there would be processes, systems, protocols and pockets of the matrix which are completely new and un-explored for even Fastjack himself. This is not even talking about Resonance which is pure craziness. What I think you're basically saying is that you think there should be no surprises on the meta-game strategy side of things. I feel you should as a player have a certain amount of uncertainty in the meta-game strategy and basically plan that there are occasionally gonna be some rolls that the GM just pulled out of of his/her ass .....and that will reflect the character's uncertainty in what life (or the shadows if you will) will pull out of it's ass and throw at him/her. I mean, B.B. being totally certain of how much time it's gonna take him to shut off an alarm he accidentally triggered while hacking in just doesn't seem realistic for me.
I'm not changing the game mechanics....if your character's got good skills, then he'll do well at any of the rolls that I call for, even if those rolls are un-expected. The problem with SR4A is that they give a lot of detailed rules, but then they simultaneously give a lot of lee-way to the GM in making the calls...So at first it seems structured in a balanced way similar to DnD 4e where it's basically table-top WoW and the meta-game is totally laid out, and you should just stick with RAW cuz it's been play-tested and is balanced.......but then there's so many holes in the way it's laid out through-out the books, even blatant contradictions....that you soon realize that you gotta take RAW with a bit of a grain of salt since it's not very mutually consistent. So on the forums and with friends it's fun to argue about rules because they are quite detailed and deserve to be heatedly debated, but realizing that ultimately the only way SR4A (and of course any other tabletop rpg for that matter) can make sense, and why it's way way funner than any other type of gaming is because the number of possibilities is truly infinite and goes way beyond what any one game designer could conceive of before-hand.
Just looking at the SR4A sections on the matrix and Unwired....they never lay down a structure and layout for modern wireless matrix systems of nodes. It's quite open, and i think purposefully so. Even the section about "backdoors" and such is called "Hackers Handbook" really making you feel that it's a mere introduction that only includes a handful of useful tricks. I believe that writers actually want you to make up your own shit using the template of Skill+Program (threshold or opposed) or Skill+Program.
The other big hole in unwired is the complete ambiguity in the RAW is the complete open-ness they give to what privileges each access level gives....which is not bad...it reflects what's realistic. One systems User access level might be very equivalent to another systems Admin access. It totally depends on the architects of the system....and thus in metagame it totally depends on what rolls the GM calls for.
Just felt like ranting
