(Shadowrun) Perfect Crime Matrix Rules [WIP]

[Grek]

Counterpoint: If brain hacking in Shadowrun worked by broadcasting ancient Sumerian magical incantations into people's brains like it did in Snow Crash, people would have way fewer problems with it.

[Chamomile]

Also: If the problem with hackers is that brainhacking gives them too much overlap with a mage (which is not what Cyberzombie said in that last post but I think it's been brought up before), then that is clearly not an issue that applies to Snow Crash. Although I don't actually know whether or not it applies to Shadowrun, either.

[Cyberzombie]

I feel quite strongly that if you are making the argument that Snow Crash and fucking Tron are not cyberpunk or hacking enough for your tastes that your tastes are stupid and should be ignored.

You feel strongly that anyone who has an opinion that isn't the same as your own should be ignored.

[Username17]

I feel quite strongly that if you are making the argument that Snow Crash and fucking Tron are not cyberpunk or hacking enough for your tastes that your tastes are stupid and should be ignored.

You feel strongly that anyone who has an opinion that isn't the same as your own should be ignored.

Oh stop it with your multi-thread butthurt whining. You're a little bitch who can't stand it when people don't concede that you're right when you make retarded arguments. The problem isn't other people, it's you. You make stupid arguments.

Right now you are arguing that it is incompatible with the flavor of Cyberpunk to emulate... the classics of the Cyberpunk genre. Brainhacking is a ubiquitous trope, while voluntary direct neural interfaces are not. Snowcrash, Tron, Lawnmower Man, and so on. While there are a few movies where people actually plug things into their heads before computer crap can take them over (notably: The Matrix), it's nothing like standard.

If you want people to take you seriously that brain hacking shouldn't happen, you need a better argument than genre emulation. Because it's well fucking established that the genre goes all in on no-datajack brainhacking all the fucking time. If you can't make an argument that at least acknowledges that you are saying that Snowcrash is bad, you can't be taken seriously. And that's really the end of it. And your perpetual whining that I'm being inflexible for laughing at your bullshit gets you zero points.

-Username17

[TheNotoriousAMP]

I feel quite strongly that if you are making the argument that Snow Crash and fucking Tron are not cyberpunk or hacking enough for your tastes that your tastes are stupid and should be ignored.

-Username17

And I feel quite strongly that we are talking about the Shadowrun RPG, not the Snow Crash RPG or the Tron RPG. Its a bit like saying Star Wars should have Cylons because its sci fi too. Snow Crash falls strongly under the "corporate anarchy" school of cyberpunk, which is much more focused on the changing flow of information than that of the rise of technology and humanity's choice in giving up their souls. For example, the plot itself is driven by powerful people within the world itself, and the corporations primarily serve as a backdrop and secondary players who come in at the end to support the primary players. In Shadowrun, on the other hand, the individual runner is a relatively powerless individual who only impacts the world maybe by chance, and the plot is driven by countries and companies, large institutions, if you will. Its much more in line with works like Johnny Mnemonic.

When you give hackers the ability to fuck with other people's minds, you suddenly turn them from a counterculture movement with the ability to steal information from others into a powerful force who can take over the world, basically. The Shadowrun hacker cannot create power in and of itself, they need to take or disable that which others have already created. This fits perfectly in the setting, the hackers are not able to take power themselves, because they cannot create power. Only a corporation or large entity can lead the way. This, on the other hand, would not fit into a Snow Crash RPG, because there the main guys were behind the creation of the net in the first place and occupy high positions of power and hold the ability to create new power blocks. Same genre, two different flavors of it.

While the sumerian meme system would be cool as a metaplot item, it should be a technomancer conspiracy thing, if at all.

[Username17]

And I feel quite strongly that we are talking about the Shadowrun RPG, not the Snow Crash RPG or the Tron RPG.

Well in that case: Brainscan happened. So did Psychotrope. The end.

That was sure a short fucking conversation.

-Username17

[Nath]

Brainhacking is a ubiquitous trope, while voluntary direct neural interfaces are not. Snowcrash, Tron, Lawnmower Man, and so on.

But doesn't brainhacking put the fate of the world at stake in each of these stories?

[Username17]

Brainhacking is a ubiquitous trope, while voluntary direct neural interfaces are not. Snowcrash, Tron, Lawnmower Man, and so on.

But doesn't brainhacking put the fate of the world at stake in each of these stories?

I have no idea why that would be an objection, but actually no. In Tron, the fact that you can shoot someone into a computerized nightmare world against their will with a laser is kind of a side issue. The big threat to the world is that MCP plans to take control of the Pentagon and the Kremlin and go all Skynet on our asses.

-Username17

[TheNotoriousAMP]

And I feel quite strongly that we are talking about the Shadowrun RPG, not the Snow Crash RPG or the Tron RPG.

Well in that case: Brainscan happened. So did Psychotrope. The end.

That was sure a short fucking conversation.

I have no idea why that would be an objection, but actually no. In Tron, the fact that you can shoot someone into a computerized nightmare world against their will with a laser is kind of a side issue. The big threat to the world is that MCP plans to take control of the Pentagon and the Kremlin and go all Skynet on our asses.

-Username17

NONE OF THOSE INVOLVE MUNDANE BRAIN GODDAMN HACKING. Seriously, your chucking a bunch of references out without any relation to the core argument, which is "should hackers be able to fuck with unconnected people?". The whole Deus/AI hacker brain fucker up stuff was an AI messing with the brains of people who chose to connect their brains to the same information network. Its not Snow Crash real world meme stuff, its hacker to hack, aka people who have chosen to embrace the world of information fighting bascially what is akin to a god of information. Deus was not using matrix magic to attack people in the real world, he was striking them in the cyber world.

And Tron falls into the same domain, MCP's power in the TRON world was to be able to hurt people who were in the same tron world. He couldn't magically take those powers out of the computer. In both cases, information capable of only hurting those who are in the world of information.

The big objection is that giving people the power to brainhack mundanes, which in all of these cases was a huge, world threatening event, destroys the fudamental basis of Shadowrun which is that individual metahumans are weak and institutions are powerful. Even Lofwyr is powerful because of what he leads, not who he is. He's strong as fuck, but as the setting shows, Dragons+Tank rounds= bad news.

And fuck, I'm becoming a Dennizen, thanks.

[Nath]

I have no idea why that would be an objection, but actually no.

Well, I would hazard that it is not a smart move to install rules that give every hacker PC an ability, with the idea that that they absolutely need it to be relevant during the game, but at the same time threaten the entire setting existence.

It's like making game setting centered on seafaring adventures, and then introduce a character whose only ability is to teleport people and objects at will. It works as a villain, less so as a protagonist.

[Whipstitch]

destroys the fudamental basis of Shadowrun which is that individual metahumans are weak and institutions are powerful.

This is a super dumb thing to say. Brain hacking isn't all-powerful, it's just another front in an already adversarial world. Brain hacking the president is hard for essentially the same reasons that shooting the president is hard--if you try it, men in dark suits are allowed to shoot you until you stop trying. Pointing out that the balance of power is maintained by a social contract built on the promise of reprisal isn't even dystopia fiction, it's just reality as we fucking know it.

[RadiantPhoenix]

I would assume that countermeasures would be somewhat in place.

e.g., in order to be trusted with much of anything in a MegaCorp, you have to have a "firewall" installed in your brain. So, everyone has a certain level of defense.

Second, methods of detecting anomalous behavior consistent with a brainhack exist, and it is possible to reverse the hacking given some combination of time, resources, and knowledge of what was done.

The quality of results would depend on how much time, resources, and knowledge are used, but "freezing" someone for future evaluation and virus removal would be something your victims' friends could do.

---

Mages would need some other defense if they're not allowed to install adequate Faraday cages in their skulls.


===

EDIT: Oh, BTW, this is assuming "hack someone's brain" works like (Hollywood) computer viruses and not like BLITs from that story whose name I forget about the "two kinds of darkness" or just seizure-beams.

[TheNotoriousAMP]

This is a super dumb thing to say. Brain hacking isn't all-powerful, it's just another front in an already adversarial world. Brain hacking the president is hard for essentially the same reasons that shooting the president is hard--if you try it, men in dark suits are allowed to shoot you until you stop trying. Pointing out that the balance of power is maintained by a social contract built on the promise of reprisal isn't even dystopia fiction, it's just reality as we fucking know it.

I'm not saying that Brain hacking in and of itself, within a cyberpunk context, is a bad idea. Look back at my posts and the continual point is that if this were a new IP, brain hacking would be a great addition. However, within the context of Shadowrun, and its well established classes and roles, brain hacking fundamentally alters the balance of commitment. And within the context of every other cyperpunk IP which used brain hacking, it was all powerful. Snow Crash brain hacking, which is basically the foundation of it, was end of the world, fucking deadly powerful. AKA, the toys runners aren't really intended to have.

And plus, in Shadowrun, there is an unspoken promise regarding technology. The contract is that its powerful, its deadly and the decision to engage with it is (usually) a free one. No one forces you to cyber up, but Sammies do it to gain uber powers. No one forces a hacker to go all in, but they do to maximise their information stealing potential. People choose to sacrifice things and accept the dangers of tech, exposing themselves and their brains to the risks and rewards of the system. You can just as well choose magic and avoid it all. Its your choice. Brain hacking forces technology's dangers unto people without them having a choice in whether or not they want to engage with it. As I mentioned a while back, you shouldn't be able to brain hack a hippie "back to nature" shaman.

It also robs mundanes of what makes being mundane so promising, the choices in front of you. The choice to embrace magic (if you have the potential) or technology, or neither is at the core of Shadowrun character creation and Shadowrun playing itself, and brain hacking removes that choice. There is a reason why the tag line is "where man meets magic and machine". Each of those three things needs to be distinctive to keep Shadowrun's atmosphere.

[Username17]

And plus, in Shadowrun, there is an unspoken promise regarding technology. The contract is that its powerful, its deadly and the decision to engage with it is (usually) a free one. No one forces you to cyber up, but Sammies do it to gain uber powers. No one forces a hacker to go all in, but they do to maximise their information stealing potential.

What choice do you make to enable a Street Samurai to shoot you or a Mage to turn you to goo? What choice do you make to enable a stealth adept to sneak past you or to enable a face to lie to you? Every other archetype in Shadowrun, and I do mean every single one has their ability to act enabled by default. It is up to their potential victims to attempt to protect themselves however they can.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but the defense against all the other archetypes is to have someone of that archetype on your team! You defend against Mages by having your own Mage to counterspell their curses and ward important areas. You defend against Street Samurai by having your own muscle to shoot back.

Hacking is literally the only thing in the entire game where people throw a shit fit when the ultimate defense against it isn't to close your fucking eyes and pretend it doesn't exist. Seriously man: what the actual fuck? The way to deal with astral threats is with an astral specialist. The way to deal with physical threats is with a physical specialist. Why the fuckity fuck are people even entertaining the notion that the way to deal with Matrix threats should be to simply take cede that entire battlefield and not have any Matrix users at all? It's antithetical to the entire class structure of the game.

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

I'm not saying that Brain hacking in and of itself, within a cyberpunk context, is a bad idea. Look back at my posts and the continual point is that if this were a new IP, brain hacking would be a great addition. However, within the context of Shadowrun, and its well established classes and roles, brain hacking fundamentally alters the balance of commitment.

One of the premises of the OP was that the role of decker is non functional and needs redefining to be able to "Make sure hackers can contribute meaningfully in meat combat, by hacking things in no more combat time than it takes to fire a gun or cast a spell". Regardless of other concerns, brain-hacking is definitely one way to accomplish that.

The choice to embrace magic (if you have the potential) or technology, or neither is at the core of Shadowrun character creation and Shadowrun playing itself, and brain hacking removes that choice. There is a reason why the tag line is "where man meets magic and machine".

Whenever we played Shadowrun "neither" was not really a choice. You either got your super powers from Cyberware or Magic, or you were a chump. I don't know that the uncybered, non-magic character is really that sacrosanct.

[Cyberzombie]

Hacking is literally the only thing in the entire game where people throw a shit fit when the ultimate defense against it isn't to close your fucking eyes and pretend it doesn't exist. Seriously man: what the actual fuck? The way to deal with astral threats is with an astral specialist. The way to deal with physical threats is with a physical specialist. Why the fuckity fuck are people even entertaining the notion that the way to deal with Matrix threats should be to simply take cede that entire battlefield and not have any Matrix users at all? It's antithetical to the entire class structure of the game.

Well first, hackers can control drones and shoot guns, so it's not like they have zero offense.

Second, as to hacking itself. A big benefit of hacking is that you can hack things from afar. Unlike shooting a gun or firing a mana bolt you can hack something you can't see, and you can do so secretly.

There are things in a high tech setting that only a hacker can do, like shut down the security system in a facility. Sure the Street samurai can shoot cameras, but having a camera go dark is just going to draw security on you. The hacker is a very powerful archetype, and he really doesn't need to be a combat powerhouse because of all the awesome utility stuff he's doing.

Shadowrun is a game of avoiding combat, and the majority of the cool noncombat stuff, the hacker can do. Want fake IDs? Hacker's got it covered. Want the security drones to not alert anyone you're coming? Hacker's got it covered. Want to cancel the alarm call for reinforcements? Hacker's got it. In fact, the majority of stuff you need done is probably done by a hacker. It may well be an NPC hacker you pay (mostly because PC hackers slow the game down immensely), but you certainly need one at some point.

Most of a hackers combat victories are averting combats entirely, not blowing up people's heads with microwaves.

If you play Shadowrun D&D-style where you kick down the door and start shooting down everything in your path, then yeah, the hacker is going to come up short. He's not designed to wreck things in combat. Mages and Street Samurai fill that role.

And again, it's not like the hacker has nothing to do in combat, even if he can't hack the enemy's gear, he can still shoot a gun. Sure he's not as good as the samurai, but the samurai isn't as good at hacking either.

[TheNotoriousAMP]

And plus, in Shadowrun, there is an unspoken promise regarding technology. The contract is that its powerful, its deadly and the decision to engage with it is (usually) a free one. No one forces you to cyber up, but Sammies do it to gain uber powers. No one forces a hacker to go all in, but they do to maximise their information stealing potential.

What choice do you make to enable a Street Samurai to shoot you or a Mage to turn you to goo? What choice do you make to enable a stealth adept to sneak past you or to enable a face to lie to you? Every other archetype in Shadowrun, and I do mean every single one has their ability to act enabled by default. It is up to their potential victims to attempt to protect themselves however they can.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but the defense against all the other archetypes is to have someone of that archetype on your team! You defend against Mages by having your own Mage to counterspell their curses and ward important areas. You defend against Street Samurai by having your own muscle to shoot back.

Hacking is literally the only thing in the entire game where people throw a shit fit when the ultimate defense against it isn't to close your fucking eyes and pretend it doesn't exist. Seriously man: what the actual fuck? The way to deal with astral threats is with an astral specialist. The way to deal with physical threats is with a physical specialist. Why the fuckity fuck are people even entertaining the notion that the way to deal with Matrix threats should be to simply take cede that entire battlefield and not have any Matrix users at all? It's antithetical to the entire class structure of the game.

-Username17

Frank, please read the posts you are responding too before lambasting them. If you went back through the thread, time and time again I said that Shadowrun classes need some tweaks in general, all of whom would help make the hacker far more viable in meat combat. I never said matrix should be dropped or hackers should not be changed. So let me repeat them for hopefully the last time.

You can already stop a street sammie from shooting you by having the hacker fuck up his cyberware. That doesn't happen because the rules are clunky and it takes too long in game. In short, the role is already there, it just needs to be improved. The same can be applied to riggers and the like. Matrix users should be crucial on the battlefield and they can be, thanks to tweaking the other people too.

As I mentioned, classes should be removed from the current "need a tank to beat a tank" system, to a better, "need a helicopter to beat a tank" system. Which is why, I repeatedly said, Street sammies need buffs. Riggers are already uber strong, but Street sammies need a counter niche too. Its why I suggested extrapolating the existing mechanics making it harder to heal those who've lost essence to almost all magic. Someone who is cybered the fuck up should be like a blank in 40k when it comes to magic and the like. That sacrifice of so much humanity should be messing with more than just healing magic.

So here's a repost of what I had said before. Mages>Adepts>Mundanes>Hackers>Street Sammies and Riggers> Mages. Circle of life.

By class:
Mages and Hackers are needed for legwork because of their respective fields of information retrieval. They also serve as debuff/buff machines. Mages buff and debuff the human parts, hackers fuck with tac nets and cyberware. Actual hacking mechanics should be on a "loadout" system. AKA, they should be able to give or remove so many dice from enemies/friends per turn respectively. Giving dice comes from hacking enemy tac net (phoenix suggested adding in a tactical net thingy to the game, IIRC), taking dice comes from shutting down street sammie shit and fucking with enemy tac nets (smart guns and the like). Hacker's weakness comes from the fact that they need LOS for their device hacking, so they aren't as good against mundanes. With no cyberware to disable, a good mundane should waste them. Plus, they can be countered by other hackers too.

Adepts are funky as always, mages should be given a strong advantage vs them, and they lack the same legwork advantages. I'd reduce their ability to buff others, but they are the hardest to figure in.

Mundanes: mundanes should have the advantage when it comes to being the face of the party. Cyber shit freaks people out. Their advantage comes from being the most buffable members of the party. They can take advantage of hacker tac net buffs, which magic would fuck with and can take advantage of magic buffs. They could also take advantage of bioware (which should be worse than cyberware, but still decent) to max out their human potential). In short, the mundane is the jack of all trades, with an added bonus to talking to other blokes. He also has the combat advantage of not being reliant upon cyberware, while still not having points sucked ot by hacking and magic spending.

Street Sammies: Sammies are the end of the line of technology. They shouldn't be as good as a face, since their lack of humanity makes it harder to connect with people. With no hacker around to counter them, they should be a tornado of destruction. Magic is fucked up by them (boost to counterspelling, maybe give them a walking dispel field) and when non debuffed mundanes have trouble. On the other hand, with hackers on the field suddenly they can find themselves stripped of their powers.

Riggers: relatively similar to sammies, powerful, though maybe trade magic messing for the increased flexibility of drones. Hackers fuck with em.

So, to summarize, here's why a party needs a mix of blokes. Sammies and Riggers bring the pain. Mages and hackers bring debuffs to magic and tech respectively as well as buffing. Adepts are good for infiltration, but are vulnerable to mages and sammies. Mundanes make the best faces and are also off the grid, so they are very good vs hackers. In short, combat between two balanced parties should consist of trying to strip away their tech and magic support, which would then strip the powers of sammies, and adepts maybe, away. Mundanes are insurance policies, pretty good in combat but also are harder to mess with tech wise, so hackers aren't overpowered if there is no anti hacker support.

Thank you Travis county, there will be no encore. Outlaw country! Danger zone. Peace.

[Nath]

This is a super dumb thing to say. Brain hacking isn't all-powerful, it's just another front in an already adversarial world. Brain hacking the president is hard for essentially the same reasons that shooting the president is hard--if you try it, men in dark suits are allowed to shoot you until you stop trying.

It's not hard because the men in dark suits will be shooting back at you. It's hard because some of the men in dark suits will shoot first as soon as they see you drawing a weapon. It's hard because other men in dark suits will put themselves in front af your target, and the car they'll push him in is armored. Official security is built upon the assumption that a reasonable number of threats will be stopped before they become effective.

To clarify one thing, the issue of "brainhacking" depends a lot on what the term encompasses: Causing brain seizure for a few seconds? Outright instant kill? Controlling movements? Thoughts? Access to memories? Erasing or altering memories? Planting ideas? Is the victim aware of the attack? Can it be detected by any other mean? Can the effect be reversed?

[Zaranthan]

Well first, hackers can control drones and shoot guns, so it's not like they have zero offense.

I think this might be the end of the argument. SR4 really blurred the lines between Hackers and Riggers. I would argue it's been blurred to the point where they're no longer separate archetypes.

If I make a melee-focused sammie, but don't even OWN a firearm, my mates are well within their rights to call me an asshole. If I make a support-focused mage, but don't take ANY combat-time applicable spells, my mates are well within their rights to call me an asshole. If I make a Hacker, and then show up for the run without a doberman in tow, my mates should be well within their rights to call me an asshole.

Given the way skills are arranged, and the fact that adding a full-power combat drone to a hacker costs like 5 BP, I'd say the separation of the computer nerd and the driver has become a sacred cow.

[JesterZero]

Hilarity.

Ah yes. Because making changes to one archetype destroys the setting when Frank does it, but making changes to all the archetypes...and inventing some that haven't existed for 25 years...totally preserves the setting when you do it.

That makes sense.

The part where you claim that being a Shadowrunner who eschews all technological augmentations AND all magical ability is at the core of Shadowrun?

Tell you what...let's look for that guy. I've got 5 Shadowrun corebooks in front of me. I'll look on the cover of each one for Mr. (or Miss!) Anti-Magic-Anti-Tech.

• 1st: Decker, Mage, Street Samurai
• 2nd: Decker, Mage, Street Samurai
• 3rd: Decker, Shaman, Street Samurai
• 4th: Decker, Mage, Street Samurai, Pointy-Eared Ninja
• 5th: Decker, Mage, Street Samurai, Rigger

Oh yeah. That dude gets around. He's synonymous with the setting alright.

Pro tip: Notice which ones show up every single time though?

Then you claim that brain-hacking removes the choice to be...that guy who doesn't exist? Even though brainhacking already exists in Shadowrun in both technological (simsense) and magical (control thoughts, control actions, influence, etc.) varieties?

Anti-Magic-Anti-Tech Guy has never been the linchpin of Shadowrun. The fact that you try to redefine "mundane" as a guy stuffed to the gills with bioware...and/or stuffed to the gills with health spells...and/or stuffed to the gills with TacNet...is an admission that it's not a viable archetype unless you start by redefining your terms. Which makes sense...since Anti-Magic-Anti-Tech Guy was never an archetype in the first place.

[TheNotoriousAMP]

Ah yes. Because making changes to one archetype destroys the setting when Frank does it, but making changes to all the archetypes...and inventing some that haven't existed for 25 years...totally preserves the setting when you do it.

Frank was suggesting much more than changing one archetype, he was suggesting a fundamental change in how the balance of power within the fictional world of Shadowrun works, as well as a revoking of a core in character choice. When it comes to the game table, Frank and I are actually a lot closer together in goals and general path to said goal. And if you look at my changes to the archetypes, the only really radical one is the adding of more anti magic capability to the street sammie. Even that isn't really a new thing out of the blue, its just an extrapolation of a rule that already exists for health spells. In short, most of those changes are just tweaks and added benefits or harms to the role and abilities they already possess. Brain hacking mundanes is completely new and out of left field for the game.

The part where you claim that being a Shadowrunner who eschews all technological augmentations AND all magical ability is at the core of Shadowrun?

Aww, baby learned how to make a strawman, that's adorable. Never said he was at the core of Shadowrun. Actually said, the choice between man, magic or machine was at the core of Shadowrun. Yes, to be a viable character you do need to choose right now. Its why I suggested ways to make mundanes a bit more worthwhile in game, to really maximize that character choice. If you look at my mundane description, he was basically an insurance policy. Bit of a boost while chatting, which is based on how the fluff in the world actually works. And the rest was mostly to play off of the increased roles of hackers on the tabletop.

The fact that you try to redefine "mundane" as a guy stuffed to the gills with bioware...and/or stuffed to the gills with health spells...and/or stuffed to the gills with TacNet...is an admission that it's not a viable archetype unless you start by redefining your terms. Which makes sense...since Anti-Magic-Anti-Tech Guy was never an archetype in the first place.

Tactical net is just the communication network that links a team, and it was someone elses idea to begin with. I liked it because it serves as a sort of team wide buff, while also giving hackers the ability to mess with the enemy team, or buff the friendly team en masse, rather than mages who need to select more individually. As for the bioware, the idea was, I mentioned this a while back, bioware should be worse than cyberware. Bioware is just a way for mundanes to reach the peak of human potential without embracing the machine. In short, nowhere near as good as a god tier street sammy, but enough of a bonus to let a mundane PC develop over time and be a force on the table top. The mentioning of health spells was to point out that street sammies already mess with magic a bit, and that the advantage of mundanes is that magic affects them more. So a mundane is slightly balanced vs a sammy in that his upgrades are non hackable and he can be buffed by more things. Which then places hackers in a crucial role, as they are the ones who keep sammies protected from enemy hackers, or bring them down. Yes, mundanes at the moment are playable but not ideal, but there is plenty of potential to put them in focus, and to do so would make a lot of sense fluff wise.

[Leress]

To be fair Jester, there was an archetype for the people who didn't have magic or cyberware and that was the Detective one. Now no one I knew ever played one.

[Username17]

If your idea for the hacker to participate in the run itself is to have him pilot a drone or draw and fire a pistol, you have in effect conceded that the hacker isn't a major archetype at all. You've just written the concept out of the game.

Now I could certainly see an argument that you might want to make "hacker" be a downtime side-role like fixer or mechanic when designing a cyberpunk roleplaying game. But if you think preserving the "flavor of Shadowrun" is important at all, then you can't fucking do that. Mid-battle hacking is on the cover of every single edition of Shadowrun. Even first edition. Even fifth edition. All of them. Deckers decking during the action sequences of the run was front and center before Adepts even existed. You could literally just cut Adept powers completely from the game and it would be less disruptive to Shadowrun than writing off combat hackers.

-Username17

[JesterZero]

Never said he was at the core of Shadowrun. Actually said, the choice between man, magic or machine was at the core of Shadowrun.

Oh really?

The choice to embrace magic (if you have the potential) or technology, or neither is at the core of Shadowrun character creation and Shadowrun playing itself...

Emphasis mine. Words yours.

Explain to me how picking "neither" there results in anything except Anti-Magic-Anti-Tech guy? Because "neither" eliminates...you know...magic and technology.

[Username17]

To be fair Jester, there was an archetype for the people who didn't have magic or cyberware and that was the Detective one. Now no one I knew ever played one.

Also the Tribal warrior. Back in 1st edition there was an attempt to get "guy who is totally outclassed but has guts and/or friends" to be a viable archetype. It was never a major archetype and never got put on the front of books or got listed when they had space for only a handful of characters to talk about. But it was there. The big three was always supposed to be Mage/Samurai/Decker, but the low tech mundane was in the lists when they had space and threw everything at the wall. Gets listed after the semi-supported archetypes like Rigger down with the obscure crap like Rocker.

Of course, unlike the Rocker, the low-tech mundane never got any support. It was a non-viable concept from the start. There was a Rigger Black Book in every edition, but no one ever made a mundane detective book for any edition.

-Username17