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State of 6e today

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Xenon

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« Reply #105 on: <06-15-20/1029:04> »
If an icon is inside a host, you can't do anything to it without being inside the host first.
In the case of the Edit File action it does not really matter since you need User Access.
You can't take this action with just Outsider access, anyway.

Once you have User access on the host the camera is part of it is just a minor action to enter the host, a major action to edit the file and another minor action to exit the host.



But if they do, I'm struggling to see what the new no-marks Spoof Command is really for.
You can use Spoof Command when you have a direct connection to the device.
Even if it is 'inside' a host (or 'inside' a 'nested host')
...or if the device is wireless disabled.

Without a direct connection you can also use Spoof Command on devices that are part of PANs.
And wireless enabled stand alone items that are not part of any network.
And devices that are on the public facing side of a Host.


are you suggesting that a direct connection to a camera (on host B) allows you to jump directly to host D, bypassing hacks on hosts A and C?
No, I suggest that a direct connection to a camera (on host B) let you hack (and enter) host B without first hacking host A (or any other outer onion layered hosts). Once you hacked host B (without hacking host A or any other outer onion layer hosts) you would already have access on all security devices that are also part of host B. Such as elevators, cameras, alarms, drones, gun turrets, maglocks, sensors.....

You could also ponder an architecture with Host A leading to your beefy Host C firewall and from C you go to either B and D. A direct connection to a device in host B let you hack host B without hacking host A and without hacking the heavy firewall host C. You get to bypass both of them.

But to get to host D you would still need to hack host C (in both scenarios).

Unless you can find a terminal or other device that is part of host D of course (which could be seen as incentive for the team to break in together with the hacker and then defend the hacker as he hack host D directly from that specific terminal, bypassing Host A and C).


Xenon knows this better than most of us , because he spends endless hours answering questions about it, on here and Reddit. For some reason he keeps insisting it's all fine, though.
I take that as a compliment. Thank you.

Wireless bonuses (and, depending on your reading, their matrix connectivity) was never affected by noise due to distance in 5th edition. Noise due to distance only caused a negative dice pool modifier to your test. Which meant you could make long distance phone calls just fine (as there was no test associated with the Send Message action).

Quote from: SR5 p. 421 Wireless Bonuses
If there is a Noise Rating from a situation that is greater than the item’s Device Rating, not including distance, the item temporarily loses its wireless functionality (see Noise, p. 230).

Not 100% sure on all the details in this edition yet...

But it seem as if you can still make long distance phone calls as long as you do it from within a global host that have a presence in both the city you are calling from and the city you are trying to reach.

Or perhaps by using a good commlink together with a satellite link.



6 new posts since I started writing this post. I'll just post now and reply to the others in a separate post.

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #106 on: <06-15-20/1034:22> »
On the subject of Spoof Command's relevance: "what's the point of Outsider access when it's protected by a host that doesn't happen to permit Outsider access?"


Because lots of times a device needs to be able to interface with people/other devices who are not inside that host.

Traffic Lights communicating to cars in the streets.
Vending Machines

but most of all:
Maglocks.  If the maglock accepts a signal from the RFID chip in the employee's ID badge, then it will accept a signal it *thinks* is coming from an employee's ID badge coming from your hacker's cyberdeck via the Spoof Command.
« Last Edit: <06-15-20/1036:35> by Stainless Steel Devil Rat »
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

Reaver

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« Reply #107 on: <06-15-20/1043:47> »
It's a wireless world.  You can struggle against it or you can embrace it.

For me, the "why would anyone accept the inherent risks" comes down to two things:

For Joe Pedestrians:  Are you flipping serious in that they're somehow more security minded than real world people who willingly walk around with smart phones 24/7? 
Remember: EVERYTHING is wireless.  Being some sort of "I don't want to be hacked" kook looks to people in the Sixth world like people who insist electricity causes the plague look to the rest of us in the real world.  It's at least as hard to go truly wireless in the Sixth World as it is to live without electricity in the real world.  Yes, it's theoretically possible.  No, not without fundamentally forsaking modern society entirely.

yea, see this is an issue....

AFTER 2 global computer viruses claim the lives of MILLIONS around the world. (remember the Crash? Remember the Crash 2.0??) And rendered tens of millions (if not hundreds of millions) as "non people" through the deletion of SINs...


You would think they would take matrix security seriously.....

but no.

Right AFTER the crash 2.0 the ever wise idiots in charge make a Matrix that can be hacked by a lobotomized potato....
(Remember the 4e rules... just a program and commlink and you were in like Fynn...  No skill needed!!  ::) )

you would THINK that after not one but TWO global economic collapses brought on by crappy matrix security, tens (hundreds) of millions of people suddenly deleted, and MILLIONS dead they would have.. I don't know... TIGHTENED security?


I mean, If I bought a brand new Ford Truck, twice.. and both times the breaks totally FAILED resulting in me getting into a life threatening injury, I can tell you I would NEVER drive an other Ford truck... Hell, you couldn't PAY ME to drive one again after that happening twice....

But, apparently in SR......


***

Yes, I know this is a game mechanic issue... but still... you see what I am saying?

(And I didn't even touch on the AIs that have turned people in wall paintings....) 


Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #108 on: <06-15-20/1051:28> »
I see your point.

I just happen to think that yes, people "stupidly" allowing history to repeat itself is quite believable rather than unbelievable.

Surely one can think of lots of other examples in the real world of the same incredibly dangerous, stupidly dangerous, attitudes being carried through events that "should" have smacked us in the face with a wake up call.
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

Xenon

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« Reply #109 on: <06-15-20/1104:03> »
It's the dreaded "verisimilitude" argument again.
So you need an argument why the camera have a physical port...?

Don't regular real life devices (such as cameras, access points etc) normally have some sort of network or USB port in addition to their wireless capability?

If not, how do you configure/set it up for the first time....?

(I am more of a software person so I might be totally off here, but with my limited knowledge it seems perfectly fine that a security camera also have a USB port of sorts....?).



"if you can plug into the port on the security camera, you can hack it more easily."
Note that in this edition the camera will still defend with the firewall of the host even if you connect to it via a cable!

(direct connection is not the same glaring security issue as it perhaps used to be in the previous edition, this got changed)



Aren't there tons of ways to become unhackable?
Not for the facility the team is hired to break into.

If they for example run a wired network the hacker still just need to hack the network and then have User or Admin access on all the wired devices inside that network (but it probably require that the network is hacked from the inside via a direct connection... or perhaps that someone attach a wireless enabled data tap so the network can be hacked from the outside).



Why doesn't the decker stay at home in their cosy apartment, and hack remotely?
He can do that.

But then he can't bypass outer onion layered hosts with a direct connection and he can't take outsider actions (like spoof command) to open a maglock with a direct connection without first gaining access on the network.

And he also need to fight noise due to distance and noise due to wireless inhabiting paint or whatnot.


Compared to rolling one Spoof Command action against an individual camera?
For a camera you probably need User access on the network the device is part of anyway (for the continuous Edit File action).


Because once the decker hacks the host, you have GOD on the table
If you use Brute Force then you have limited time before GOD come crashing down, agreed.
Quote from: SR6 p. 176 Overwatch Score and Convergence
Maintaining illegal access to anything on the Matrix: +1 OS/round for each host where you maintain illegal User-level access, +3 OS/round for each host where you maintain illegal Admin-level access.

But if you have time to spare then you would probably go for Probe+Backdoor Entry which is a lot more subtle.
Quote from: SR6 p. 180 Backdoor Entry
If the test is successful, you gain Admin access to the target, and it does not count as illegal Admin access


Quote from: SR6 p. 176 Overwatch Score and Convergence
Also, there's probably a lot more dice being rolled against the decker than a hack of a standalone device
Devices in 5th edition was typically not slaved to a host unless they could be physically protected (because of the direct connect exploit). They also had a firewall rating of their own and failed attack actions caused unresisted matrix damage back to the hacker.
Quote from: SR5 p. 233 PANs and WANs
because of the direct connection hack you rarely see more devices than can be protected physically.

In this edition the device will always defend with the firewall of the network they are part of, even if the hacker use a direct connection (or take an Outsider action such as Spoof Command). In this edition it seem as if devices (such as surveillance cameras) are typically part of a network (and not stand alone).


I read this post by Xenon:

In this edition direct connection let you ignore nestled hosts. This meant you could for example establish a direct connection to an exposed device, such as a maglock. Hack that to gain access on both the maglock and the host (but in this edition you also gain access on all other devices that are also part of the host). Then enter the nestled host (without doing a deep dive through all the outer layers of the onion) to gain a direct connection to the camera.
as suggesting you can move onto a host within B automatically, or even other nested hosts within host A, without it being a further hack. But that might just be how that post is worded and not what he meant.
If you use a direct connection to a device that is part of Host B then you can hack Host B (and enter it if you like) without first hacking Host A (still only having Outsider access on Host A).
Quote from: SR6 p. 185 Host Security and Architecture
Because you must hack each host in succession from the outside, having inside access to a site with a direct connection to the deepest host (if one exists) is valuable—especially when your Overwatch Score increases are based on all the hosts in which you maintain access at any given time, not just the one you’re currently using.


I'd add that another difference in 6e compared to 1/2/3e is that the hostmaps are much smaller and can be reserved for special occasions. As I recall the old days, even very small hosts had half a dozen nodes. My reading of 6e is that most places are still one host, and occasionally for really big stuff, the GM might throw in a 2-3 nested hosts. Which means GMs can reserve hostmaps for circumstances where they are confident they can pull off the spotlight management, as opposed to being faced with dealing with it routinely.
Yes.

One single Host seem to be the norm.



So Spiderless Hosts are a way to make it easier on Hackers while still having a big security stepup ready, while Nested Hosts are a good way to force a Decker to infiltrate a facility to reach the proper jackin-point, and counter '1 big move and out again' playstyles. More tools to balance Matrix toughness this way.
Yes. This is also how I see it.

And another incentive for going with the team is that you can use a direct connection to a device (such as a maglock) and then spoof a command to it. Without first gaining access on the host. Even if the device is 'inside' the host.

And, depending on your reading, Spoofing a Command to open a maglock might also be performed even if you access the matrix with a commlink or RCC rather than a cyberdeck (as Spoof command is not an Attack linked nor Sleaze linked action).
« Last Edit: <06-15-20/1121:49> by Xenon »

Reaver

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« Reply #110 on: <06-15-20/1135:59> »
I see your point.

I just happen to think that yes, people "stupidly" allowing history to repeat itself is quite believable rather than unbelievable.

Surely one can think of lots of other examples in the real world of the same incredibly dangerous, stupidly dangerous, attitudes being carried through events that "should" have smacked us in the face with a wake up call.

True, we repeat the mistakes of the past all the time....

But generally, not within the same generation. Usually what happens is there is a calamity of some sort, everyone gets wise and stops doing it for a while (and in some cases Laws will be passed to prevent it from happening again).. And people adapt.. Then, a generation or two later, someone starts to walk down that slippery road that originally lead to the original calamity again.... Usually with the same results... and the same consequences. 

From Crash 1.0 to now, we are barely a generation apart.  From the Crash 2.0 to the wireless matrix was only 18 months!
From an AI turning the Arcology into a slaughterhouse to the wireless matrix (which would have allowed the AI to cause CITY wide mayhem!) we were just 6 years...

At every step that proved the Matrix was dangerous on a Society wide level, the PTB have just made the system MORE accessible and MORE prone to cause society wide damage... not less...

***

Now, don't get me wrong. Behind the scenes I know this wasn't the intent. Nor would many pick up on this unless they have been around Shadowrun for a long while.

The Wireless matrix was a meta-game decision to bring the matrix more inline with the modern world.. After all, I can see the point a wireless matrix, especially given the fact we have wireless internet today. The Devs at the time probably figured it would create a disconnect between players that their "futuristic" game still needed a ethernet cable to work :P

And, there was the "decking mini-game" issue as well. Matrix runs in the early editions where almost solo run in themselves as just opening a door could take 20 minutes of rolls...

So, I can see the Devs saying.. "Hey, lets fix both these issues at once! Make the matrix wireless AND speed up the decking rolls".

And while I happily agree with speeding up the matrix side of things to keep all players invested and together (in a scene if not in action).. I'm just not sure if this was the right way to go about it.  (And this extends right back to 4e.. Its not a dig at the Devs who have tried to fix the issues in 5e and 6e. Heck, I have yet to read 6e)


I just think (personally) that the wireless matrix has created more headaches then it was intended to solve. Personally, I would have divided up the matrix into two separate parts.

1 A wireless (read only) matrix for the commlink. This is the matrix that 99% of the world uses. And while it allows you access to the world's knowledge, (much like the internet today) it wouldn't be open to wireless changes.
2: ported connection for root access for the cyberdeck. If you want to change the matrix, then a ported connection would be required. This is where the decker would go to gain access to that door or security camera...

5e (6e?) tried to make this distinction with cyberdecks and commlinks.. which quickly fell apart with "dongles" and other things that just confused the public for a while...


yes, this wouldn't allow a Decker to hack a players cyberware... but then again (speaking of 5e only)... only a GM that wanted a rule book to the head would do that given just how unclear what happened to said cyberware was! (was that half million, 5 essence wired reflexes turned to slag? Causing a complete loss of that half million and 5 essence investment? How DO you fix cyberware?!! [The CRB page number would be great thanks!], did a simple reboot work?


Wait a minute, I thought DNI gave piority to the hack, and cybewrware has DNI, which must override the DNI of the decker, Unless his DNI has piority over MY DNI, but how can his DNI have piority over my DNI when my DNI is direct wired and his DNI is wireless??? unless wirelss DNI trumps direct DNI, but then why have DNI direct if DNI wireles is better?


CAN WE AT LEAST AGREE THE TERM DNI (the term) NEEDS TO FUCKING DIE!?!?!?

call it something else... how about Wet Farts for DNi and Squishy Farts for DNi? <If you can figure out which DNI is which....>
« Last Edit: <06-15-20/1146:50> by Reaver »
Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

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Reaver

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« Reply #111 on: <06-15-20/1141:29> »
It's the dreaded "verisimilitude" argument again.
So you need an argument why the camera have a physical port...?

Don't regular real life devices (such as cameras, access points etc) normally have some sort of network or USB port in addition to their wireless capability?

If not, how do you configure/set it up for the first time....?

(I am more of a software person so I might be totally off here, but with my limited knowledge it seems perfectly fine that a security camera also have a USB port of sorts....?).




The really crappy (WalMart) ones do. However, they are located in the back/base of the unit that get mounted flush to the wall, thus to access the firmware port you have to physically remove the camera.

WHICH, can lead to you going up and down a ladder dozens and dozens and dozens of times, each time un-mounting and remounting the camera. Which is  good. You get the practice you need in changing the battery every 3 weeks in that WalMart quality camera...
Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

Teslan

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« Reply #112 on: <06-15-20/1150:11> »
It's the dreaded "verisimilitude" argument again.
So you need an argument why the camera have a physical port...?

Don't regular real life devices (such as cameras, access points etc) normally have some sort of network or USB port in addition to their wireless capability?

If not, how do you configure/set it up for the first time....?

(I am more of a software person so I might be totally off here, but with my limited knowledge it seems perfectly fine that a security camera also have a USB port of sorts....?).


There are some that don't have external ports and you set it up wirelessly.

However I would argue that even those that are just wireless, if you crack open the cover you can splice into the internal connection between the wireless module and the rest of the device to get you that direct access you want.

Shadowrunners with Hardware skill would have been trained on it and know how to spot it. The better it's made just increases the rating on the device making it more difficult.

Hobbes

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« Reply #113 on: <06-15-20/1302:42> »

But generally, not within the same generation. Usually what happens is there is a calamity of some sort, everyone gets wise and stops doing it for a while (and in some cases Laws will be passed to prevent it from happening again).. And people adapt.. Then, a generation or two later, someone starts to walk down that slippery road that originally lead to the original calamity again.... Usually with the same results... and the same consequences. 

From Crash 1.0 to now, we are barely a generation apart.  From the Crash 2.0 to the wireless matrix was only 18 months!
From an AI turning the Arcology into a slaughterhouse to the wireless matrix (which would have allowed the AI to cause CITY wide mayhem!) we were just 6 years...


Dotcom bust and Subprime Mortgage were, what, 10 years apart?  Arguably both were caused by poor Financial regulations / de-regulation.  Assorted currency crisis impacting the entire global economy to a vastly outsized degree compared to GDP?  We can take a deep dive on American Domestic policy if you need a few more egregious examples...

Humanity seems quite capable of meaningful macro level catastrophes with similar root causes one right after the other.  My willing suspension of disbelief has no problem with that as far as Shadowrun global disasters go.

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #114 on: <06-15-20/1330:10> »
Some more on the topic of "Why is everything wireless? That's unrealistic!":

I already mentioned that people in real life embraced the security threats involved in using smartphones (and social media, etc) so of course it stands to reason people in the Sixth World are fine with all that too.

But the security threats to hackers/shadowrunners can also be looked at as "features, not bugs!"  Manufacturing everything with an inherent, hard-to-disable wireless component serves the Corporations/Big Brother.  Imagine how much value there is in marketing and advertising if you know how often every gadget is used/worn, and in what combination with others, and where, and when.  Furthermore, Big Brother is going to want to be able to remotely push software "updates" for purposes both legitimate AND nefarious.

Hackers in Shadowrun are just living in the system the Corps deliberately engineered.  The corps didn't accidentally create the wireless world.
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

Annoch

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« Reply #115 on: <06-15-20/1452:27> »
Some more on the topic of "Why is everything wireless? That's unrealistic!":

I think part of the problem is that you are always going to have a harder time changing things that have common real world analogues for a game.  It reminds me a lot of 'the uncanny valley' for animation.  The farther away from reality it is the more your mind will happily accept it, the closer you get to realism the more your brain goes 'nuh-uh, this ain't right'.

That is why you can add dragons and fire balls and laser guns and all that stuff an no one bats an eye.  Magic fireballs aren't real...the author can say that they are whatever they want them to be and no one has any reason to argue.  So you could say that all fireballs are rainbow colored and take the shape of Danny DeVito's head...no problem!  And that doesn't just apply to fantastical/magical things; there is a laser gun shaped like a flintlock pistol in Firing line, and no one has any problem with that because we don't have common man portable lasers....our brains are not put off by this.

Wireless electronics/internet, on the other hand, is something that we all deal with in our day to day lives.  We see and often interact with building security on a regular basis.  We know what to expect from these things, and the version that the developers of the game included are too close to the real world analogues....our brains know that it is wrong and they fight back!

There seem to have be three options which would have made people happy with the setup.  You could either make the matrix work like the internet does today, you can make it sufficiently different from what people are accustomed to that they dont automatically compare it, or you could come up with a handwavy reason why it is the way it is (a la Sci Fi like Warhammer 40k...the tech is dumb and old because it was mostly all lost and they have to keep using the small portion of lost tech they have found again...a common sci fi trope). 

The matrix wars will rage as long as your game sits in the 'uncanny valley'... 

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« Reply #116 on: <06-15-20/1516:10> »
Some more on the topic of "Why is everything wireless? That's unrealistic!":

I think part of the problem is that you are always going to have a harder time changing things that have common real world analogues for a game.  It reminds me a lot of 'the uncanny valley' for animation.  The farther away from reality it is the more your mind will happily accept it, the closer you get to realism the more your brain goes 'nuh-uh, this ain't right'.

That is why you can add dragons and fire balls and laser guns and all that stuff an no one bats an eye.  Magic fireballs aren't real...the author can say that they are whatever they want them to be and no one has any reason to argue.  So you could say that all fireballs are rainbow colored and take the shape of Danny DeVito's head...no problem!  And that doesn't just apply to fantastical/magical things; there is a laser gun shaped like a flintlock pistol in Firing line, and no one has any problem with that because we don't have common man portable lasers....our brains are not put off by this.

Wireless electronics/internet, on the other hand, is something that we all deal with in our day to day lives.  We see and often interact with building security on a regular basis.  We know what to expect from these things, and the version that the developers of the game included are too close to the real world analogues....our brains know that it is wrong and they fight back!

There seem to have be three options which would have made people happy with the setup.  You could either make the matrix work like the internet does today, you can make it sufficiently different from what people are accustomed to that they dont automatically compare it, or you could come up with a handwavy reason why it is the way it is (a la Sci Fi like Warhammer 40k...the tech is dumb and old because it was mostly all lost and they have to keep using the small portion of lost tech they have found again...a common sci fi trope). 

The matrix wars will rage as long as your game sits in the 'uncanny valley'...

This is probably closest to the truth...

I just understand too much, see and install too much security equipment to allow for a cognitive disconnect on what is actually happening in SR by the mechanics given.
Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

penllawen

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« Reply #117 on: <06-15-20/1550:00> »
That is why you can add dragons and fire balls and laser guns and all that stuff an no one bats an eye.  Magic fireballs aren't real...the author can say that they are whatever they want them to be and no one has any reason to argue.
Except... wanna know something about Shadowrun’s history? Do you know why SR’s magic system stands out amongst RPGs as being one of the most “real feeling”? With a ton of interesting details, yet fitting within an over-arching, consistent framework that can be explained in a few dozen pages?

Because Paul Hume, one of the 1e/2e core writers, was a real-life scholar of Alesteir-Crowley-style hermetic magic. And he drew on that to make the astral space, summoning, and spell casting framework that - because it was so damned good - survives almost unchanged in SR to this day [1]. And yeah, it’s fiction, but also, it’s almost completely internally consistent. 

Look around any SR community and look at the number of “can a mage do...” versus “can a decker do...” threads. The latter vastly outnumber the former, even though we have real world intuitions for the latter that should help us out.

All I want is a decking system that makes as much sense as the magic system.

[1] Yes, we’ve had things like UMT, more for game mechanic reasons than for narrative reasons. And grounding is gone. But even UMT is a small change compared to what has happened to decking, which is on something like its 4th or 5th ground-up rewrite depending on how you count. (At least one splat changed so much to count as a new game, IIRC; maybe Virtual Realities 2.0?)

Xenon

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« Reply #118 on: <06-15-20/1832:46> »
Decking changed because it was originally based upon technology we had back in 1980, such as  wired AT&T telecom grids and predecessors to internet such as ARPANet, MILNet and bulletin board systems and whatnot. And also because the whole cyberspace thingy was basically invented by a guy that was not really computer savvy at all (he used a regular typewriter for the sprawl trilogy).

It simply felt vastly outdated to use land-lines once the real world caught up with stuff such as the world wide web. And WiFi. And cheap computing. And wireless smartphones. And Apps.

SR5 devices with their wireless bonuses etc are instead based on ideas grounded in something called Grid Computing (look it up), but on a world wide scale. This (the world wide scale part that) is mostly science fiction right now, but in a few years this might very well become science... and a few years after that it will probably feel seriously out-dated, similar to how calling a computer via a 28k8 modem feels out-dated today ;-)
« Last Edit: <06-15-20/1834:41> by Xenon »

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« Reply #119 on: <06-15-20/1837:15> »
That is why you can add dragons and fire balls and laser guns and all that stuff an no one bats an eye.  Magic fireballs aren't real...the author can say that they are whatever they want them to be and no one has any reason to argue.
Except... wanna know something about Shadowrun’s history? Do you know why SR’s magic system stands out amongst RPGs as being one of the most “real feeling”? With a ton of interesting details, yet fitting within an over-arching, consistent framework that can be explained in a few dozen pages?

Because Paul Hume, one of the 1e/2e core writers, was a real-life scholar of Alesteir-Crowley-style hermetic magic. And he drew on that to make the astral space, summoning, and spell casting framework that - because it was so damned good - survives almost unchanged in SR to this day [1]. And yeah, it’s fiction, but also, it’s almost completely internally consistent. 

Look around any SR community and look at the number of “can a mage do...” versus “can a decker do...” threads. The latter vastly outnumber the former, even though we have real world intuitions for the latter that should help us out.

All I want is a decking system that makes as much sense as the magic system.

[1] Yes, we’ve had things like UMT, more for game mechanic reasons than for narrative reasons. And grounding is gone. But even UMT is a small change compared to what has happened to decking, which is on something like its 4th or 5th ground-up rewrite depending on how you count. (At least one splat changed so much to count as a new game, IIRC; maybe Virtual Realities 2.0?)
The big difference is it's easy to predict where magic will go in the game, since it's all fiction.

The issue with decking is that, when they wrote the original rules, they tried to figure out where the payphone hackers and such were going to be in the future, and the only substance in mainstream media was War Games and Tron, so they had to build around that. Unfortunately, real life had a digital/wireless explosion that no one really predicted, and the writers were stuck with their rules until they could get a handle on the real tech that outstripped anything they had written. Hell, the DVD wasn't even released until 6 years after 1st Edition.