Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Rules and such => Topic started by: UnLimiTeD on <12-26-15/1913:30>
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Quick question as I'm away from some books (Din't save all the pdfs I thought):
What exactly constitutes a person in the matrix?
Aka, if I have multiple SINs and multiple comlinks, can I be online multiple times through different devices, or no device at all, as the case may be?
Or is there a limit to that for probably good reasons?
Thanks in advance.
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The concept of a Persona seems to have been left purposely nebulous and vague. Kinda like how they left the idea of Hosts undefined, until Data Trails came along and made them even more intangible.
Your Persona belongs to "you". It's not tied to any of your SINs, which means no matter how many fake SINs you have, you'll always use the same Persona. And b/c it's always the same Persona, you cannot log in on multiple devices at the same time.
And yet, if you are always the same you when you get online, it should be pretty easy for GOD to pin you down for illegal activites time after time. Yet for some reason, simply logging out and back in again is enough to reset your innocence.
It may have made more sense to tie Persona to a SIN, and make Overwatch Score a lingering rating. If you get Converged, it burns the SIN when it gets flagged for illegal activites, and you have to get another.
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Hmm, if I'm always "me", then what happens to identical twins?
And is there even any sense in using a burner comlink for risky calls then?
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Well, the logical sense in why things work the way they work is...
Identical twins aren't 100% clones of each other. Even 100% clones aren't 100% after conception. If nothing else, their brain waves will be different, which may be all it takes since Personas are mostly applicable to VR when you're using DNI to interact.
The Persona is the profile you're using to log in. But you're still logging in with a certain device, which will have certain things associated with it as well. MAC address and the like. When you reboot and clear your OS, you're probably resetting the fake MAC and IP you used to get online. And apparently GOD doesn't really pay attention / isn't able to keep track of the Personas that do bad things, they're tracking the MAC address you were coming from. When you reset, they lose track. Even though it's the same Cyborg-Ninja Persona standing there a few minutes later.
So using a burner Comm is good for a few reasons. They are cheap, so you can physically throw them away when you're done. And you're not using your very expensive Cyberdeck if they happen to get in a few pot shots before you log out. Matrix damage is a bummer, and repairing your Deck would be time consuming. Plus, the Comm-code associated with each device doesn't change, so tracing the phone call to a Commlink in the trash can means they won't be tracing the call to your Cyberdeck in your backpack.
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Your Persona belongs to "you". It's not tied to any of your SINs, which means no matter how many fake SINs you have, you'll always use the same Persona. And b/c it's always the same Persona, you cannot log in on multiple devices at the same time.
Yeah ... I don't buy it. Each Persona is a specific person in the matrix. To be a person in the sixth world is intimately tied to being a SINner. A high quality device like the PULSE Wave will create your base "personal icon from data" and a theme that corresponds to the "user’s home space". Lesser devices will have various themes, until you reach the simple Meta Link, which creates a base persona that looks like a "plain metahuman", ie; your SIN data, unadorned. Probably with your GSR trid mugshot pasted on, too.
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I'm not saying it's a good system, or that I endorse it at all. I'm just saying that this is how the system behaves, given what we know from the rules.
There is nothing in the book tying a Persona to a SIN. There is nothing tying a Persona to a device. Yes, there are thematic appearances based on the item you're using, but that just means the default avatar looks like a pirate or whatever. You can use Change Icon to alter that whenever you want. But the appearance of your Persona is irrelevant.
What we do know, is that Ownership (capital O) of devices is associated with your Persona. If someone steals your car, with your Commlink in the passenger seat, you can go into your office or the nearest public library, and log into the Matrix. You will log in with YOUR Persona, which will automatically be able to claim 4 Marks on both the car and the Commlink since you are the Owner of those devices. Then you will be able to Trace Icon on both, giving the authorities the location of your stolen property. Or you could simply Control Device on the car, forcing it to pull over and shut off. Heck, if you don't mind the mess, you could drive it into a brick wall and rapidly vacate the driver's seat.
So like I said, the idea of what a Persona really "is" and how it really works, seems to have been left purposely vague and nebulous. Kinda like how Hosts were some ominous, unknown "thing" that defied normal Matrix definition. And now that we've heard about the cloud computing and the underlying Foundation dreamscape... I kinda wish they would have just done some sensible stuff instead.
Go ahead and tie the Persona to the SIN. That way if you get Converged, you have to burn the SIN and get another. That identity is gone, reported for being a hacker.
Go ahead and call a Host a server. Give it a mainframe in a basement somewhere, with an antenna powerful enough to reach anywhere (thereby justifying the no-distance rules) but let it be a device instead of bogus cloud nonsense. Then hackers can hack it just like a device should, and Technomancers won't be completely useless since it's mystically impervious to Resonance (even though the Foundation sounds exactly like Resonance and TMs should be Gods in there).
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The hacker archetype in the CRB doesn't have any SINs, real or fake. How do you justify tying persona to SINs when the most relevant character doesn't have one?
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The archetypes are often horrible and unreasonable.
That in itself doesn't make much of a difference.
The question I wonder about is: Can I reasonably be online with two Personas, over two comlinks, in AR,using different Input devices like contacts+ gloves for one and DNI for the other?
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I could say the same thing about the rest of the rules and be equally valid. We're trying to find an explanation that is consistent with all the data.
You can't simultaneously access the matrix under two persona with the same device. The persona absorbs all the devices it is using into itself. You can have multiple persona though. And a device can access other persona through as yet undefined magic of digital persona knowing who the flesh and blood owner is.
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I feel like the Persona is supposed to be as unique and, in some ways, as much a part of you and unique as your aura pattern in the astral, or your DNA.
Not that this makes much sense when translated into your internet avatar.
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It's imaginable that having trodes or a datajack will transmit your unique brain setup to form a unique persona.
But yeah, if you are only using gloves and image link, you should theoretically be able to form an alternate persona.
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The hacker archetype in the CRB doesn't have any SINs, real or fake. How do you justify tying persona to SINs when the most relevant character doesn't have one?
I don't attempt to justify or support using the CRB archetypes. The best thing you can say about them is that they help new players learn how the rules don't work.
@MG
A persona is more or less what it sounds like: a person in the Matrix.
In 2075, you’re just a number. A SIN (or its international equivalents) is what makes a mere metahuman into a real person.
No aspect of modern or legal life can function without a SIN. Those who don’t have one can’t get a job, can’t buy food, can’t even walk down the street. To the system, these people don’t exist.
As yet, I don't think I've seen anything suggesting the various physical methods of sixth world authentication (keypad, swipe card, proximity card, memory string, biometric, or any
combination thereof) aren't in use for proving your identity. That said, in most cities you could likely perform a (partial) authentication through a dozen corporate or government owned cameras and other sensors from any street corner. That it works is as concrete as the minutiae of logging in / loading your persona need be.
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It's imaginable that having trodes or a datajack will transmit your unique brain setup to form a unique persona.
That would be cool, though it would be nice if the book included any level of clarity on the subject, even a throw-away one-liner.
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I feel like the Persona is supposed to be as unique and, in some ways, as much a part of you and unique as your aura pattern in the astral, or your DNA.
Not that this makes much sense when translated into your internet avatar.
I think this is the RAI... Your Persona is your very unique and one-of-a-kind Matrix aura / astral signature. You can't have more than one at a time, b/c you are still you regardless of what device you use to get online.
If you want another Persona to act with you online, run an Agent. Or play a TM and compile Sprites.
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Yeah, I feel the writers screwed up with the whole Device vs Persona thing. What happened to good old commcodes being tied to the device? Why is your Persona unique, but GOD can't use information about it to find you if you log in with a different device? The Matrix really just doesn't make too much sense.
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So, to sum it up, there's multiple Options:
A) Your Persona is tied to your SIN. This allows you to find someone who stole your car with Comlink, though identity theft could be a problem.
No Idea why GOD gets none of that info, though. It might explain why adspam due to various Qualities can't be removed by switching devices.
B) Your Comlink is inherent to you, maybe due to biological setup or some sort of magic. This allows the same advantages and raises more or less the same Questions as A, though there's the question where that data come from when using DNI, ad it raises an even bigger question about GOD. Also, it might allow Identity theft just by hacking the device your persona is on, theoretically. It would be interesting how that interacts with technomancers with and without device, since their points of access are so different.
C) It is based on your device, and thus you could have multiple. This is the only way a throwaway burner comlink makes any real sense, but if someone stole your car and your comlink, you'd have to go through more work to get them back.
Currently B seems to be the favourite for reasons unknown, which is kind the problem about B as a whole.
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Option A and C are not options supported by any of the rules in the book. That's the dilemma.
(A) would be a good idea for a house rule, justifying people having a SIN of some kind, and Deckers having multiple fake SINs.
(C) would be a reason to justify burner Commlinks, but I think they're somewhat useful anyway. When you have Marks on a Persona, you really have Marks on the device they're using. When you get 2 Marks on an Icon (the digital representation of a device) then you can use Trace Icon to find the physical location of the device itself.
Now, SR4 had rules for Proxies, whereby you could run your Matrix traffic from one device, to another, to another, before you finally hit the target. When they traced it back, they had to deal with those hops before they found your real hiding spot. It's like the movies, when they say "The call is coming from New York... No, wait they're in Los Angeles... No, now they're in London?" So you could strategically place burner Comms all over town, bouncing your traffic in circles around the city and making the cops chase their own tails before they find you.
SR5 doesn't do anything like that (yet), although it's somewhat implied by the Sneak program. But one thing you could do is get online via AR with your burner Comm in the middle of the mall. Then when you get Traced, leave the Comm turned on and toss it in the nearest trash can. While you're walking out the door to the parking lot, cops are pushing past so they can get inside. They get to the food court and find a 100¥ Comm in the garbage, and no evil hacker in sight.
(B) is the only option supported by the rules as written. Somehow, no matter what device you use, it's always the same Persona. It may not look the same depending on whether you've customized or if you stick to the default appearance for the device you use. But it's the same Persona that all your devices recognize as Owner. And yet, while all your devices recognize you, GOD has no way of telling that you are the same hacker they almost Converged on 5 minutes ago, before you rebooted and wiped your OS counter clean.
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Regarding proxies. Enter a host, then make the call. Voila. You can still communicate in and out of hosts, but you can no longer be traced.
Hosts, Page 246:
The virtual space inside a host is separate from the outside grid. When you’re outside of a host, you can’t interact directly with icons inside it, although you can still send messages, make commcalls, and that sort of thing. Once you’re inside, you can see and interact with icons inside the host, but not outside (with the same caveat for messages, calls, etc.).
Trace Icon, page 243:
This doesn’t work on hosts because they generally have no physical location, or IC programs because they are confined to their hosts.
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Maybe some of this can be resolved by what you can do to a persona. Can you damage it in cyber combat?
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CitizenJoe
Only if you're a technomancer.
Page 228, Matrix Damage
Matrix damage is always resisted with Device Rating + Firewall. When a persona is hit for damage, the device it is running on takes that damage (except technomancers, who take it as Stun damage).
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Ok, that creates some issues. When you bring another device under your control, it gets absorbed into your persona. I.e. the device stops displaying as its own icon and becomes a part of your icon. You could log in from multiple commlinks (or toasters for that matter), so how does the damage get assessed? Do all connected devices take damage? Does it get divided amongst the devices?
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You can only be logged on (i.e. have your persona formed on) a single device at a time.
Page 235
Personas are the “people” of the Matrix. Some personas are actually people, users and hackers who are connected to and using the Matrix. When a person uses a device to connect to the Matrix, the device’s icon is subsumed by the persona’s icon, so it’s basically gone from the Matrix until the persona jacks out. You can only run one persona at a time; switching requires you to reboot both the device you’re currently on and the device to which you want to shift your persona.
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The device you form your persona on takes damage. The commlink or the deck.
The complication you refer to would be if you have multiple commlinks. But jo matter how many commlinks are in your PAN, only one of them is "forming a persona" at any given time.
It's also notable that you can do a lot in the Matrix without having an active persona (as you can slave devices and such to your deck and they appear solely as device icons but the master slave connections are removed when you form a persona on the deck). I want to say the persona as a concept is only relevant if you're in VR? In that regard it would work like an astral form.
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Whiskeyjack
You still form a persona on a device to use AR, nothing in the books suggest otherwise. Note how the quote from page 235 talks about using "a device to connect to the Matrix". It doesn't specify AR or VR, but simply talks about using the Matrix. User Modes on page 229 and 230 deals with AR vs VR, and that whole section starts with the following: "When you interact with the Matrix, you can do it in one of three modes."
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Well, so let's assume a SINless kid from the Barrens gets his hands on two pristine Metalinks in their factory packing, and it turns them both on at the same time. What happens?
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Generalist analogy two things are needed to access internet/matrix a MAC address (think VIN or device serial number) and IP address (or licence plate number) one is inherently tied to the device (vehicle) used another is assigned based on the system (license plate) when one reboots their device the will get another ip address (a new license plate) you will generally not broadcast your MAC address but you could potentially broadcast your ip address (license plate/commcode) so when you are legally surfing the internet/matrix people think you are a legitimate user its only when you dont want to be found out (run silently) that you are driving without lights or a license plate on your device/car
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Well, so let's assume a SINless kid from the Barrens gets his hands on two pristine Metalinks in their factory packing, and it turns them both on at the same time. What happens?
it asks for owner identification default setting is whatever company made them and they need to go to an authorized or illegal retailer to activate it under a new ownership (which is why you generally buy from your deckmeister arms dealer fixer) as they already scrub/filed off the serial numbers so to speak
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Well, so let's assume a SINless kid from the Barrens gets his hands on two pristine Metalinks in their factory packing, and it turns them both on at the same time. What happens?
In terms of the core rules; one of them forms the kids persona, and the other just boots up.
ETA:
Rooks does have a point; assuming they were in original packaging they wouldn't have an owner, so you'd need to change ownership of the device first.
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A few things...
Personas are a type of Icon, which is a digital representation of a user logged into a device (unless you're a TM in which case it's a digital manifestation of your grey matter). When you damage a Persona, you're really damaging the device they're running on.
If you simply power up a device, it appears on the Matrix with its own Device Icon. Only when you start actively using it for things, does the Device Icon get replaced by the Persona Icon. And in a case like this where you're talking about someone just letting both Commlinks take incoming calls, there's no reason for there to be a Persona involved.
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It says you can only have one active persona at a time. It doesn't say you can't have multiple devices accessing it at the same time. In fact it specifically absorbs other devices into the persona.
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You're mixing up some of the concepts...
When you link several devices together in a Master / Slave PAN relationship (which has nothing to do with Personas)... you can opt to have their Icons merged with the Master device's Icon. That's just for viewing clarity though, like filtering search results. You haven't literally absorbed those Icons into your own. If a cop wants to look you over and see if you have any illegal devices or weapons, you can't "hide" them inside of your Commlink's Icon.
The Persona however, specifically says it can only operate on one device at a time. In order to move it to another, you have to reboot both devices.
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That's not what the rules say. They say if you want to change persona you need to reboot.
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CitizenJoe
Page 235:
When a person uses a device to connect to the Matrix, the device’s icon is subsumed by the persona’s icon, so it’s basically gone from the Matrix until the persona jacks out. You can only run one persona at a time; switching requires you to reboot both the device you’re currently on and the device to which you want to shift your persona.
Notice how the text mentions "a device", and if you want to shift your persona to another you have to reboot both devices. You can have other devices slaved to your PAN, or just operating wirelessly and filtered with the rest of your PAN.
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Oddly enough, CitizenJoe's interpretation of that passage as allowing a persona to use multiple devices could make sense. It says you can only have one persona, but it never expressly mentions that you can't have two devices be a part of the persona - just that adding or removing a device from the persona requires rebooting the devices in question. The word "shift" strongly implies a one to one correlation, but does not require it - if your persona were formed on devices A and B and you decided you wanted to shift it from B to C, you would remain on A but reboot B and C in order to vacate B and subsume C. It's not the way I would interpret it, but it works after a fashion.
However, other parts are clear, most particularly p. 228 on Matrix Damage where it states (emphasis mine) "When a persona is hit for damage, the device it is running on takes that damage". The "the" makes the device hosting the persona unique, and even if it did not, there are no rules presented for distributing the damage among multiple devices forming a persona, which would be pretty critical.
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so in other words you can run a commlink with decent firewall but be spotted almost instantly by an attacking hacker or you can make your devices owner your teams decker and have the option of running silent but probably have crap firewall but not be instantly spotted by an enemy hacker or you can when you think are being hacked turn off you commlink lose your wireless bonuses
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Rooks
Or, you can add a Sleaze Dongle and hardware mod a program carrier so you can run Smoke and Mirrors for a total of 6 Sleaze and run silently on your own...
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Again, changing persona requires rebooting. It doesn't say shifting devices or adding devices requires rebooting.
Let's say I've got the persona 1337Haxorz69 but I've also got the persona Tony the Legitimate Businessman. I log in with commlink 1 as 1337Haxorz69. I cannot then have Tony come in on commlink 1 without first rebooting. I could have Tony come in on commlink 2 though. I could also access Tony through my car, which gets subsumed under the Tony persona. Now I activate the wireless on my fashion armor as Tony and it too gets subsumed under the Tony persona. Not wanting my smartgun to be attached to Tony, I activate it without attaching it to a persona, in fact, I have it running silent.
I now have two persona running on two different devices, with one persona running with multiple devices and a third device icon running independently. Meanwhile, I haven't even activated my underwear yet.
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The problem with that, Joe, is that the current rules don't support it. Go read the persona section again, in particular where it says the persona is part you. Nowhere in the books are multiple personae mentioned, and if you asked this question of Catalyst I'm relatively confident what the answer would be. And with that I'm out, because all that needs to be said on this topic already has.
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Again, changing persona requires rebooting. It doesn't say shifting devices or adding devices requires rebooting.
Let's say I've got the persona 1337Haxorz69 but I've also got the persona Tony the Legitimate Businessman. I log in with commlink 1 as 1337Haxorz69. I cannot then have Tony come in on commlink 1 without first rebooting. I could have Tony come in on commlink 2 though. I could also access Tony through my car, which gets subsumed under the Tony persona. Now I activate the wireless on my fashion armor as Tony and it too gets subsumed under the Tony persona. Not wanting my smartgun to be attached to Tony, I activate it without attaching it to a persona, in fact, I have it running silent.
I now have two persona running on two different devices, with one persona running with multiple devices and a third device icon running independently. Meanwhile, I haven't even activated my underwear yet.
Nowhere does it refer to changing Persona, anywhere in the book. Because as far as the book is concerned, you can only have YOUR Persona. Singular. As in Mages can only have THEIR Astral Form, THEIR Astral Signature. It's not multiple choice.
Nowhere in the book are Persona associated with SINs, or fake identities, in any way, shape, or form. When you, whoever you are, whatever you call yourself, log into a device... it's your Persona that appears. Whatever that Persona looks like, whatever AOL screen name you choose to call yourself. It's the same Persona, always and forever.
The rules do state that if you want to operate your singular and unique Persona on a different device, since it can only operate on one at a time, then you have to reboot both devices in order to complete the migration. Which means, that you cannot log into the Matrix with multiple devices at once. Multiple devices can be online, but only one of them will be represented by your Persona. The rest will be represented by their own Device Icons.
so in other words you can run a commlink with decent firewall but be spotted almost instantly by an attacking hacker or you can make your devices owner your teams decker and have the option of running silent but probably have crap firewall but not be instantly spotted by an enemy hacker or you can when you think are being hacked turn off you commlink lose your wireless bonuses
You don't need to give Ownership to the Decker. You just need to Slave to their PAN.
If you Slave your Commlink to the team Decker, you gain access to their Sleaze rating which means your Comm can hide that much better. But you are not forced to use their Firewall rating, if your Commlink's Firewall rating is better. Master / Slave gives you the option to choose the better stat, it doesn't mean you're required to use the Master's ratings.
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I think I see the issue. I'm reading this:
You can only run one persona at a time; switching [personas] requires you to reboot both the device you’re currently on and the device to which you want to shift your persona.
And you are reading:
You can only run one persona at a time; switching [devices] requires you to reboot both the device you’re currently on and the device to which you want to shift your persona.
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I think I see the issue. I'm reading this:
You can only run one persona at a time; switching [personas] requires you to reboot both the device you’re currently on and the device to which you want to shift your persona.
And you are reading:
You can only run one persona at a time; switching [devices] requires you to reboot both the device you’re currently on and the device to which you want to shift your persona.
Very true. And this whole discussion only serves to highlight the fact that the writers did a poor job at explaining their intentions. Persona are painfully vague and nebulous. And what's worse, is the transitional sentence between paragraphs, which makes everyone think that logging into a device magically polymorphs it into something other than a device.
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I'm willing to table the discussion on the grounds of bad grammar.
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The core book was pretty vague when it comes to issues like ownership and personae. Ownership is defined (and I'm away from my books right now, so I'm paraphrasing) as a relationship between devices and grids. Fast forward to Data Trails. One of the things I wanted to do was hammer out the questions about ownership, SINs, and the Matrix. Tying ownership to a SIN (real or fake) would create a pretty disastrous situation for a game in which criminal activity is the norm. Losing a few licenses when a SIN gets burned is manageable. Losing your cyberdeck, less so. This is also why being able to deduce a device's owner simply by looking at it is a no-go. So DT makes a clearer distinction between avatars and persona, a distinction that wasn't quite as clearly defined in other books. If we accept, a priori, that ownership is a relationship between devices and grids, then devices must be able to distinguish between avatars (in the event that two people are using the same stock avatar) and not be fooled by changes to your SIN. First off, I still assume the majority of shadowrunners are SINless, so having a key mechanic hinge off of a SIN is bad design, but people swap fake SINs , get assigned criminal SINs, or just generally find ways of screwing around with SINs. SINs are fluid (for characters) whereas ownership, while not entirely static, is pretty rigid and there's plenty of incentive to create a world in which the players' cool toys don't automatically rat them out in the second session.
The exact mechanic is left deliberately vague, but when you use a device to create a persona, the ones and zeros of the Matrix assemble something that is undeniably you at some level. Your gun knows you, even if you change your clothes. Right now, this element of personae isn't very well understood by the Powers That Be and it can only really be used as a benefit (it makes it harder to steal your stuff or track you down) and not as a weakness. In a very pedantic way, you can't change persona--you can change your avatar and you can change the device you're using to generate your persona (which will make your persona weaker or stronger), but the digital thumbprint of your persona is fixed.
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Man, I liked the Matrix so much better when it was solidly based on actual, real computing tech and not this quasi-mystical, "no one really knows how it works"... thing... it has evolved to. Heck, even Astral space and Magic makes more sense to me, and that is not a good thing.
Anyone know if efforts have been made to rewrite the 5th Edition Matrix rules into something that actually makes sense and works without some serious handwaving? If not, that's one more thing on the list of things to houserule for a home game in the making.
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So, regardless of how many fake IDs you have, you will immediately be recognized if you ever log on to the matrix?
How about instead your persona is a husk created by the matrix when you log on which you then fill with the data you want. When you log out, that husk disappears. When you log on again, a new husk is created and you repeat the process. In order to facilitate things, normal people store their persona data on their commlink and have it populate the datafields automatically.
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I found Data Trails to be so off putting that I avoid the matrix at all costs. I've even posited ways to tear down the wireless matrix and GOD with respect to technomancers and CFD.
I'd love to see a rewrite of the Matrix in a way that makes sense.
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The Matrix has never been "current tech + 62 years." The guy who wrote the Matrix chapter in the core book teaches CS and more than a few other folks work in cybersecurity. The problem with tapping into that (as opposed to "will it make for a fun game?") is that players lose all the time and no one has fun. The problems created with ownership were basically, "How does it work in a world with professional criminals?" and, "How does it work so stealing a wageslave's commlink doesn't give you access to his entire garage, thereby destroying any incentive to sign up for dangerous jobs?" These are questions of game design, not computer design. Just about every technology in Shadowrun (computers, guns, whatever) gets glossed over after a certain point because it's a game, not a simulation. A smart 15-year old is presumably supposed to be able to come up with a plan to break into a multi-billion nuyen research facility--or design its security, if he's GMing. That's not realistic, but it can be a lot of fun.
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So, regardless of how many fake IDs you have, you will immediately be recognized if you ever log on to the matrix?
How about instead your persona is a husk created by the matrix when you log on which you then fill with the data you want. When you log out, that husk disappears. When you log on again, a new husk is created and you repeat the process. In order to facilitate things, normal people store their persona data on their commlink and have it populate the datafields automatically.
Your stuff will immediately recognize, but that's it. If it didn't, you would have to parcel out different pieces of gear to each fake SIN you had and the system couldn't really handle the neo primitive street shaman who happened to own a Rating 2 commlink. Shadowrun doesn't need an additional layer of bookkeeping.
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So, regardless of how many fake IDs you have, you will immediately be recognized if you ever log on to the matrix?
How about instead your persona is a husk created by the matrix when you log on which you then fill with the data you want. When you log out, that husk disappears. When you log on again, a new husk is created and you repeat the process. In order to facilitate things, normal people store their persona data on their commlink and have it populate the datafields automatically.
Clearly, GOD is unable to keep track of a Persona, even if it is the same Persona every time regardless of appearance. That's why your Overwatch Score resets just by rebooting. So you won't be recognized by GOD at least.
You could alter the appearance of your Persona, making yourself look like a Ninja one day, and an Elven Warlock the next. From a fluff perspective, you could say that the appearance is enough to fool casual inspections, so you may have to remind people who you are. Like playing an MMO with an alt, and having to tell everyone "Oh, I'm usually JimBob123 but today I'm playing BobJim321." But even though they're alternate characters, they're on the same account... the same Persona.
The important thing is that your devices, the ones you Own (capital O) will always recognize your Persona no matter what screen name you use. So when you reboot a dozen times a day, you can always reclaim Marks into your own gear. You can always Trace or Control your devices, even if you borrow someone else's Commlink to do it.
I found Data Trails to be so off putting that I avoid the matrix at all costs. I've even posited ways to tear down the wireless matrix and GOD with respect to technomancers and CFD.
I'd love to see a rewrite of the Matrix in a way that makes sense.
I agree completely. From Commlink dongles that make all those painfully expensive Cyberdecks obsolete... to the Host "cloud computing" and Foundation nonsense... there's way too much "no one quite understands" excuses still going on. That may have been alright for the Core book (not really, but whatever). But the official Matrix sourcebook STILL can't explain Matrix stuff? How's about you just use real world analogies, and things will become sensible.
I still think Hosts should be a mainframe in a basement somewhere. Give them uber stats, let them use IC, blah blah blah. But this gibberish about cloud computing that makes them impervious to hacking and Resonance, it's crap. Especially when you look at the Foundation stuff more closely, which looks like Deckers stumbled upon a way to glimpse Resonance. Technomancers should be RULING Hosts and Foundations, especially since "no one quite understands" how any of it works... sounds like magic to me. Technological magic. Techno... mancy.
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The problem with real world analogies is that not everyone who plays Shadowrun understands them and you'll inevitably hit a point at which real world function interferes with having a fun time. If someone describes SIN broadcasting as a one-way hash, great, but what percentage of players know (or care) what that is? Is there going to be some player who's fantastically conversant with IT who comes up with a way of screwing with one-way hashes that would totally work IRL but runs counter to RAI? You can't write "This works just like [general concept] does in real life with the following exceptions" because you'll inevitably miss an exception. The metaphorical relationships in Shadowrun--hosts are kind of like servers--are always inexact. They need to be for the game to accessible to a broad range of people.
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Interesting isight, though that runs into some problems elsewhere.
Like an amnesiac being able to find out most everything about his digital life just by going online.
Though how's the practical application?
Can I use two scratch-built junk RCCs and run drones off eah of them?
Do comlinks not work until they have been activated in GOD knows what way?
And isn't not being anonymous in the chesspool we call the Matrix a pretty hefty disadvantage for criminals?
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The problem with real world analogies is that not everyone who plays Shadowrun understands them and you'll inevitably hit a point at which real world function interferes with having a fun time. If someone describes SIN broadcasting as a one-way hash, great, but what percentage of players know (or care) what that is? Is there going to be some player who's fantastically conversant with IT who comes up with a way of screwing with one-way hashes that would totally work IRL but runs counter to RAI? You can't write "This works just like [general concept] does in real life with the following exceptions" because you'll inevitably miss an exception. The metaphorical relationships in Shadowrun--hosts are kind of like servers--are always inexact. They need to be for the game to accessible to a broad range of people.
Except that you're simplifying concepts for players who wouldn't care anyway. If your player is the high school quarterback or prom queen, with no idea how computers work in real life, then they probably aren't going to start caring how pretend computers in the future will work either. But the players who do understand computers today, are more likely to ask questions about the Matrix. And they're the ones complaining when the only answer is "Ooh... spooky magic!"
If the writers keep real world analogies in mind, like Avatars and Profiles, like Server racks and one way hashes... they can convey that in simpler terms in the Core book. If the quarterback or the cheerleader get it in their mind to play a Decker, they'll be able to grasp the mechanics easy enough. And if someone picks up The Official Matrix Sourcebook for an in-depth look, they'll have actual concepts to grasp instead of "no one really knows".
Interesting isight, though that runs into some problems elsewhere.
Like an amnesiac being able to find out most everything about his digital life just by going online.
Though how's the practical application?
Can I use two scratch-built junk RCCs and run drones off eah of them?
Do comlinks not work until they have been activated in GOD knows what way?
And isn't not being anonymous in the chesspool we call the Matrix a pretty hefty disadvantage for criminals?
1) An amnesiac going online isn't going to learn much. The Matrix doesn't keep track of actions and events past rebooting. That's why GOD forgives you of all illegal transgressions after 3 seconds of being offline. So unless you happen to go online, and find a message board or someplace, which is "mysteriously" Inviting you Marks. And then people inside recognize you and fill you in... Being online won't answer any questions. But it may put you in touch with people who can.
2) You can totally Slave a group of drones to one RCC, and another group of drones to another RCC. They'll each be protected by their assigned RCC's Firewall and such. And they'll each be able to look to their assigned RCC for shared Autosofts. The problem arises when you want to Jump In to any of those drones. You can only use the quick transition stuff if you're logged into one of the RCCs. If you want to Jump In to one of the drones in the other group, you have to reboot both RCCs and transition your Persona over. Then you can access that group of drones.
Picture having a console hooked up to the TV in the living room, and another console hooked to the TV in the bedroom. Each has a stack of games sitting next to it. You can only play the games in the living room, when you're in the living room. If you want to play the other games, you have to walk down the hall to the bedroom.
3) Run Faster got further into detail on Grid Subscriptions. Grids are basically like cell carriers / ISPs. Everyone can get onto the Public Grid, but it's painfully slow wifi full of spam. When you subscribe to AresNet, you can still take phone calls and get online. But now you get less adverts.
4) Getting online is anonymous. Again, that's why GOD loses all track of you when you reboot for 3 seconds. The only things that remember you from one login to the next, are your Owned (capital O) devices, and places that have outstanding Invitations towards you. Even then, they don't recognize you until you come asking for entry.
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Interesting isight, though that runs into some problems elsewhere.
Like an amnesiac being able to find out most everything about his digital life just by going online.
Though how's the practical application?
Can I use two scratch-built junk RCCs and run drones off eah of them?
Do comlinks not work until they have been activated in GOD knows what way?
And isn't not being anonymous in the chesspool we call the Matrix a pretty hefty disadvantage for criminals?
The amnesiac is a really good example of exactly why I don't like to dictate fluff. It's a great question, but it's extremely niche, so it would be hard to cover it in the text. Page counts and discussing dozens of niche examples that will be irrelevant to most of your readers isn't a good mix. Different GMs could handle this in different ways and all tell cool stories that, from a mechanics standpoint, contradict one another. One GM may want to leave some devices as breadcrumbs while a strict GM may want to sever any connection the character has to his previous life. As long as the fluff of a single story/table is internally consistent, I don't mind if it differs than the fluff of a separate story. For a million reasons, amnesia only really works at tables where there's a fair amount of trust between the player and the GM, so this (imho) falls under that umbrella.
Commlinks don't work until they're used by someone to log onto the Matrix. Thankfully, GOD isn't involved. That's the real key to ownership: not a SIN, but having generated a persona. If your character has gotten to the shadows without ever logging onto the Matrix for a single moment (which would be weird and problematic for a lot of metagame reasons, so I don't recommend it), then s/he can't actually be the owner of a device. You can still carry and use devices, but there are a lot of security holes to consider. Which you probably don't know about since you've never logged into the Matrix.
You are essentially anonymous in the Matrix--your gear won't rat you out and no one/nothing else can tell the difference between you and an identical avatar. People always ask why they can't trace an owner from a device. What do you think someone will do once they find your stealth tag? Or that one time you had to ditch a piece of gear? There's an entire storytelling element to this as well ("I need you to find the owner of this commlink..." "Done."), but really it's about preserving the verisimilitude of the setting. You're criminals. The setting needs to, at some level, allow you to be criminals. If everything you own can be traced back to you, this breaks down.
The RCC question is a little trickier because the answer is "kinda," which isn't especially satisfying. Assuming you're using one RCC to generate your persona, the drones slaved to RCC #2 would be outside your PAN so you wouldn't be able to jump from drone to drone or give shared commands to RCC #2 as described on page 267. RCC #2 is essentially an unattended device with wireless on and a bunch of dog brain drones slaved to it that's fairly cumbersome for you to use. It's worth rereading that sentence before deciding to try this in-game. You own them, so you can still send them commands and they're slaved to something with a presumably higher Firewall, but there's a lot of pitfalls to this idea. I'm sure there is some scenario in which this will be an asset to you, but man I would think three times before trying it.
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Don't even get me started on the implementation of Ownership. The fact that a married couple can't both own their car(s) but have to transfer ownership back and forth, or the fact that a security guard would have to have literal ownership of his equipment to be able to slave it to his PAN, or however ownership works when you're dealing with hosts is such a mess I don't eve know where to begin dealing with situations like that.
And honestly, Kincaid, previous editions had plenty of mechanics and fluff grounded in reality enough so that one didn't completely have to divorce ones concept of computer science to even begin dealing with the Matrix. Yes it was more cumbersome, yes it had a steep learning curve, but to say the Matrix was never based on real science is something I find to be more than a little naive. Until 5th Edition there was a clear sci-fi feel to the Matrix with some callbacks to actual networking principles and real computing tech. This seems to have been completely thrown away in 5th for the mystical matrix that no one quite understands, and I for one think this made even the simplified system we now have harder to deal with than what we had in the past.
Is it more efficient? Yes, by leaps and bounds. Does it even remotely make any sense? Not to me, that's for sure. The number of threads asking the same questions over and over again indicates to me I'm not alone in feeling this way, which is why I'd rather house rule a lot of the inconsistent material away than try to force it all to make sense.
In short, the Matrix is in my opinion the absolute weakest part of the current edition, to the point where even the simplified rules aren't enough to make it an attractive option.
Maybe I'm just an old fogie, but I loved the depth of the Matrix in 1st through 3rd.
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Do we want to start a new thread to rewrite the matrix from scratch?
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So, regardless of how many fake IDs you have, you will immediately be recognized if you ever log on to the matrix?
How about instead your persona is a husk created by the matrix when you log on which you then fill with the data you want. When you log out, that husk disappears. When you log on again, a new husk is created and you repeat the process. In order to facilitate things, normal people store their persona data on their commlink and have it populate the datafields automatically.
Clearly, GOD is unable to keep track of a Persona, even if it is the same Persona every time regardless of appearance. That's why your Overwatch Score resets just by rebooting. So you won't be recognized by GOD at least.
You could alter the appearance of your Persona, making yourself look like a Ninja one day, and an Elven Warlock the next. From a fluff perspective, you could say that the appearance is enough to fool casual inspections, so you may have to remind people who you are. Like playing an MMO with an alt, and having to tell everyone "Oh, I'm usually JimBob123 but today I'm playing BobJim321." But even though they're alternate characters, they're on the same account... the same Persona.
The important thing is that your devices, the ones you Own (capital O) will always recognize your Persona no matter what screen name you use. So when you reboot a dozen times a day, you can always reclaim Marks into your own gear. You can always Trace or Control your devices, even if you borrow someone else's Commlink to do it.
I found Data Trails to be so off putting that I avoid the matrix at all costs. I've even posited ways to tear down the wireless matrix and GOD with respect to technomancers and CFD.
I'd love to see a rewrite of the Matrix in a way that makes sense.
I agree completely. From Commlink dongles that make all those painfully expensive Cyberdecks obsolete... to the Host "cloud computing" and Foundation nonsense... there's way too much "no one quite understands" excuses still going on. That may have been alright for the Core book (not really, but whatever). But the official Matrix sourcebook STILL can't explain Matrix stuff? How's about you just use real world analogies, and things will become sensible.
I still think Hosts should be a mainframe in a basement somewhere. Give them uber stats, let them use IC, blah blah blah. But this gibberish about cloud computing that makes them impervious to hacking and Resonance, it's crap. Especially when you look at the Foundation stuff more closely, which looks like Deckers stumbled upon a way to glimpse Resonance. Technomancers should be RULING Hosts and Foundations, especially since "no one quite understands" how any of it works... sounds like magic to me. Technological magic. Techno... mancy.
Except how does watched by GOD make sense then if your overwatch score is less than other people?
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Do we want to start a new thread to rewrite the matrix from scratch?
um why? just make it so that commlinks can be slaved to cyberdecks while allowing people to slave devices to their own commlinks using the commlinks firewall for defense and using the decks sleaze for running silent boom done solved 90% of the problems of matrix
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just make it so that commlinks can be slaved to cyberdecks while allowing people to slave devices to their own commlinks using the commlinks firewall for defense and using the decks sleaze for running silent boom done solved 90% of the problems of matrix
Not sure what problem that's addressing, but I wouldn't see it as a solution. Just an extra layer of cheese.
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The core book states that a persona is a user of the matrix. This includes people, IC, Agents, technomancers, sprites, etc. so device does not equal persona. A SIN is broadcast by a device. So obviously we can't link the two. We know from data trails that there are default personas associated with devices. You can change the look of an icon (which a persona is) with a simple action. A matrix perception test will reveal it is the same icon as before, just different looking now. What does this tell us?
There is a unique identifier that an icon (and thus personas) have. When a thing creates an icon, it owns it in a sense. Thus you can get ownership of a file by making a copy (because you made that copy). The same happens with a persona. When you log into a device and go matrix active your device has a unique ID. When you enter the matrix (I'd assume by activating ar or vr) your persona replaces the device icon. At the core is still that same unique ID. Every time you restart and make a new connection to the matrix you generate a new unique ID (remember this version of the matrix is based around shifting code, thus why script kiddies no longer cut it).
You can only get ar/vr input from a single source at once. Most of the time this is a device that sits at the center of your PAN. If you want to switch devices you have to sever the link with the old device (turn it off or reboot) and then sync up to the new one. Think of this like syncing a blue tooth device. If you want to answer your burn phone, but your headset is linked to your other phone, either you have to swap it or answer it the old school way (or make it a conference call with your other fun, thus eliminating the point of a burn phone).
In simplest terms for the average runner, your persona is where you will go into vr. Load your persona on a Comlink and that is where you will go if you 'jack in'. If you want to change what device you go vr from, you have to disconnect and than reconnect to the new device. Just like the headset above.
The only wonky part in this whole thing is ownership (in a matrix sense). Physical access should still be king. If you have the password or other authentication means of the owner, you should be able to transfer ownership the legit way. If not than you are messing with the hardware via the illegal way. A decker could hold a person hostage via link lock, demanding a transfer of device ownership before releasing the lock. A runner with a gun to a persons head could do the same thing.
Ownership is really just a way to keep people from picking up every iota of gear that they find. Stealing a KE officers gun is a fast way to end up behind bars. Thus you have to buy the gear you want and ¥ matters.
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you have to buy the gear you want and ¥ matters.
Except when your a magic user, specifically an Adept, and suddenly it does not. That's another topic, though.
We've come to a point where Magic works like Technology, but technology works like magic. Even in a pool of 20 people, I'd be hard pressed to see someone who actually understands the Matrix.
And very few people play it, as well.
I can totally see the compromises that had to be made, but I'm not sure the right target group was picked. I for one would dig having to cover virtual traces and working with more throwaway gear, which in turn would limit the loot value as well. Same as I use different accounts for various online services on every single device I own so they will not be linked in some database.
There is a hurdle to understanding rules, but there's also a hurdle to suspension of disbelief and SR stretches it whereever it can.
I can totally live with the matrix being based on an underlying network of cloud computing with hosts equaling virtual servers being fragmented over the globe, it's a cool concept; it just falls short in some instances.
And again, thanks for sharing the intention.
As for the RCCs: It cheaply allows additional drones to be run that can be issued commands in AR, so that is definitely an option to bring more metal to the table.
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Not too sure what being awakened has to do with ownership?
Personas and Owner id's are pretty temporary affairs in any case. If you spin up an agent, or anything independent on the matrix it grabs a new persona and away it goes.
There's no conception of sin identity on the matrix, just temp user id's.
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Hey, that's actually interesting in it's application;
Can I slave a device to an agent?
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Fraid not, p. 233: "Only devices can be slaves, masters, or part of a PAN."
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Do we want to start a new thread to rewrite the matrix from scratch?
Ok well my question is this, what did 4th edition do for matrix rules that 5th edition didnt to make it less ambiguous
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Are persona persistent? Does it exist when you are logged off? Is it the same persona when you log back in, or is it a clone of the original? Is it even close to the same, i.e. is it just an arbitrary ID given each time you log in?
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Is it more efficient? Yes, by leaps and bounds. Does it even remotely make any sense? Not to me, that's for sure. The number of threads asking the same questions over and over again indicates to me I'm not alone in feeling this way, which is why I'd rather house rule a lot of the inconsistent material away than try to force it all to make sense.
That's really the long and short of it. It's not necessarily super internally consistent from a fluff standpoint but it works at least ok from a gameplay standpoint.
"How does this actually work using technology" isn't ultimately important to whether mechanics are playable. I'd rather have generally workable mechanics that don't force non-deckers to take a 2 hour pizza breaks every session than something that adheres to some arbitrary verisimilitude standard. Remember those days? I do, and not fondly, and I was the one playing the decker even. It's great that 3rd and 4th "made more sense" from an IT viewpoint or whatever, but it wasn't fun to play, so how is that a superior state? The mechanics were truly awful, and SR is, in the end, a game, not a reality simulator.
I will take derpy efficiency over convoluted attempts at accurate portrayals any day of the week when it comes to game mechanics.
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Can I slave a device to an agent?
Not to an Agent exclusively, since they are just a program that generates a Persona. However, you can Slave a device to the Deck that the Agent is running on.
Master / Slave is a relationship between devices. It doesn't have anything to do with the users or personas associated with those devices. It's just networking the gun with the Deck so when someone tries to hack the gun, it can use the Deck's stats for defenses.
Are persona persistent? Does it exist when you are logged off? Is it the same persona when you log back in, or is it a clone of the original? Is it even close to the same, i.e. is it just an arbitrary ID given each time you log in?
The Persona is just another type of Icon. Only instead of looking like a cell phone, it looks like a person. When you log into your Commlink, the cell phone icon gets replaced by the person. When you log off, the cell phone icon comes back. When you log back in, the same persona reappears, unless you use the Change Icon action to make it look different. So maybe today you're feeling very anime, and you make yourself look like your favorite cartoon character. Tomorrow you're feeling very Star Wars'y, so you make yourself look like Yoda.
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I'm not asking if you can change your avatar, I'm asking if your persona is persistent. Is it the same persona each time, or is it just a fresh copy? And does it even need to be a copy instead of being something completely different?
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I tend to think of personas (and by inference ownership id's) as the equivalent of website logins. You'll probably use the same one each time (CitizenJoe), but you can create as many as you want (CitizenJoe2, CitizenJoe3, etc), and use whichever one you want each time.
There definitely does need to be persistence, because personas are also used for ownership id's, which would need to be persistent for ownership to actually mean anything.
To get on the matrix, you need marks on a device (usually thru ownership), then a persona from that device to make the connection onto the matrix. This also applies to IC, agents, etc.
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Your Persona is always your Persona, no matter what it looks like. When you register Ownership with devices, it's an association between the device and your Persona. Which is why you can log in from anywhere, with anything, and still claim Owner's Marks on your devices. If you logged in with a new and different Persona each time, you couldn't do that.
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Hmm, I'm not sure I can find anything that confirms that. Personas always have the same owner, but I'm not sure there's any restriction on have multiple owner id's, and hence personas.
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Can I slave a device to an agent?
Not to an Agent exclusively, since they are just a program that generates a Persona. However, you can Slave a device to the Deck that the Agent is running on.
Master / Slave is a relationship between devices. It doesn't have anything to do with the users or personas associated with those devices. It's just networking the gun with the Deck so when someone tries to hack the gun, it can use the Deck's stats for defenses.
Are persona persistent? Does it exist when you are logged off? Is it the same persona when you log back in, or is it a clone of the original? Is it even close to the same, i.e. is it just an arbitrary ID given each time you log in?
The Persona is just another type of Icon. Only instead of looking like a cell phone, it looks like a person. When you log into your Commlink, the cell phone icon gets replaced by the person. When you log off, the cell phone icon comes back. When you log back in, the same persona reappears, unless you use the Change Icon action to make it look different. So maybe today you're feeling very anime, and you make yourself look like your favorite cartoon character. Tomorrow you're feeling very Star Wars'y, so you make yourself look like Yoda.
Except that if an Agent start forming a Persona on a Device, matrix faeries stop it from accepting master/slave relationship because it stops being a Device!
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Is your persona the collection of all the things registered to you, which you have pass keys for and access? Or is your persona a disposable digital flag placed on your gateway device which tells other icons that this is an autonomous icon and not an inert computer process?
One is a concept and the other is a label.
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Do we want to start a new thread to rewrite the matrix from scratch?
Ok well my question is this, what did 4th edition do for matrix rules that 5th edition didnt to make it less ambiguous
Short answer: A LOT! I really can't condense the depth of information about the Matrix architecture in 4th (and even more so in 1st through 3rd) in a single paragraph, so I'd really recommend reading Unwired if you're really interested. The differences in scale should be immediately obvious to any reader who's familiar with 5th Edition Matrix.
Is it more efficient? Yes, by leaps and bounds. Does it even remotely make any sense? Not to me, that's for sure. The number of threads asking the same questions over and over again indicates to me I'm not alone in feeling this way, which is why I'd rather house rule a lot of the inconsistent material away than try to force it all to make sense.
That's really the long and short of it. It's not necessarily super internally consistent from a fluff standpoint but it works at least ok from a gameplay standpoint.
"How does this actually work using technology" isn't ultimately important to whether mechanics are playable. I'd rather have generally workable mechanics that don't force non-deckers to take a 2 hour pizza breaks every session than something that adheres to some arbitrary verisimilitude standard. Remember those days? I do, and not fondly, and I was the one playing the decker even. It's great that 3rd and 4th "made more sense" from an IT viewpoint or whatever, but it wasn't fun to play, so how is that a superior state? The mechanics were truly awful, and SR is, in the end, a game, not a reality simulator.
I will take derpy efficiency over convoluted attempts at accurate portrayals any day of the week when it comes to game mechanics.
That's a fair point, and one I partially agree with. I just can't stand the derp factor in 5th Edition Matrix, because so many concepts make my brain go "Wait, wot?". Hence why I just wrote a significant post in this thread (http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=22918.msg421872#msg421872) explaining what I think we could do with the current SR5 Matrix rules to make them less derpy, while retaining the streamlining. For me it really boils down to very simple yet effective changes that if anything are more about concept and implementation than actual complex rule changes.
That being said, I never had an issue with the decker thing being a whole mini-game in and of itself. I loved the complexity and depth of it all, but that's just me. That doesn't mean I dislike the 5th Edition streamlining, because I certainly don't, I just think they made too many concessions towards the mystical matrix for my liking. I think there's a way to bridge reality and scifi which means the Matrix can still be futuristic while grounded in actual computing science the principles of which makes sense to a large number of people. Chances are that the people who doesn't understand such a system wouldn't understand the abstract 5th Edition Matrix anyway, so it's a win-win as far as I'm concerned.
Is your persona the collection of all the things registered to you, which you have pass keys for and access? Or is your persona a disposable digital flag placed on your gateway device which tells other icons that this is an autonomous icon and not an inert computer process?
One is a concept and the other is a label.
Your persona is not the collection of all things registered to you, that would be your PAN. You could equate it with a flag of sorts, but that is just the part of your persona that represents ownership of devices. Your persona is much more according to the abstract concepts in 5th Edition, but we have no idea how that works as Kincaid pointed out earlier. In essence, it's a digital representation of yourself, a sort of digital DNA, but GOD can't use it to track you and yet all your owned devices recognize it. It doesn't make sense on a very basic level as far as I'm concerned.
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I think anyone with a background in a particular subject finds attempts to gloss things over jarring. One of my graduate degrees is in history and what Facebook has done to the public's perception of the field is staggering. Long-time Shadowrun players may remember Raygun's modified firearms rules for Second Edition. Raygun liked (and knew a lot about) guns and Shadowrun has, since time immemorial, glossed over guns. He created a lengthy compendium of extra rules (caliber, different mods, etc.) to make guns in the game more realistic. And it largely worked; I liked the rules and used them in some of my games. But some of my tables just didn't care or know enough to figure out which of their guns took .45 ACP so we used the core rules. From a marketing standpoint, there's really no way FASA could have released a supplement that mirrored Raygun's work. You're narrowing your target market unnecessarily and adding layers and layers of complications to an already complex system. I don't mind these things, but I can't assume my preferences are typical--I liked the "gun minigame" aspect of previous editions, but a lot of people did not.
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Thanks for the reply, Herr Brackhaus. I get where you're coming from, it's not a big issue for me, though the rules-related questions that seem tied in with the loose, poorly-written concepts certainly show themselves to be a problem. I'll take a look at your other thread shortly.
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For those that get bored of the matrix minigame, all the archetypes have their minigames. You think you're helping when you butt into a choreographed discussion your face is having with a contact? No, you're not. That means face time is pizza time for the rest of you. You think it is fun to have one action with a pea shooter when razorboy gets five actions with his hand cannon? You think people don't get bored when the rigger has to do an evasion sequence to get everyone out safely? What about the Astral Magician? The infiltrating spy? The sniper on the roof? It is not a minigame, it is the spotlight. Everyone should get a chance to shine.
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By minigame I don't mean doing your thing during the session, I mean getting to a point of system mastery at which you can build the "best" gun/cyberdeck/whatever so as to outperform characters of the same archetype played with less system mastery. Like I said, I don't mind the mini-game aspect of games, but they aren't especially popular.
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Hope this diagram helps to make things clearer :)
#/ Owners are not personas (although the wording on p. 237 is pretty confusing)
#/ Owners are anonymous (they can represent companies, or anything else)
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I think one of the biggest problem with how things are is that no one really knows how it works, and most GMs would like to know that so they can create believable worlds.
I've had precisely ONE game so far, single session, where the Matrix played a significant role.
In Pool games, the GM can just say "needed for the job are", and "Deckers" is very rarely on the list, and if it is, he has to hack cameras or open a plot-critical door.
When playing in groups, general consensus was to get a contact that we'd pay to do the job and just not bother with it.
I can't exactly explain why, but it just doesn't seem popular, and I feel most people understand the metaplanes better than hosts.
That said, I'd like to thank everyone who helped to answer the original question.
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Hope this diagram helps to make things clearer :)
#/ Owners are not personas (although the wording on p. 237 is pretty confusing)
#/ Owners are anonymous (they can represent companies, or anything else)
Add a gun pointed at the person's head.
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I think Brasso has it right. I've imagined personas/ownership working like this:
Shadowrun assumes that you have already created your persona (i.e. that you have accessed the matrix before), but lets step back and observe the first timer. His (or her) parent's have just given him (or her) a new commlink - his (you get the point) first. He doesn't own it, his parents do. He can't own it because he doesn't have a persona to own it with. But, you don't have to own the device to use it, and for basic functionality you don't even need to have a mark on it (which is fortunate, because our newb can't have a mark without a persona).
He powers on the phone and it tries to authenticate him. Authentication is highly complex, but fast. It uses a matrix of hundreds or thousands of pieces biometric data and sanity checks to near instantly identify the current user, tying in to nearby sensors/devices as needed. Facial recognition, stride, voice recognition, body heat, fingerprints, skin charge, brain waves (if using DNI), grip, etc. Sanity checks might include location (you last logged in from New York 2 minutes ago and are now trying to log in in San Francisco? Fail). These are weighted and then used to come up with a confidence. For the purposes of the setting, it is near perfect - it cannot be fooled, and it's never wrong, except by GM fiat. This may seem like magic, but it is essentially the culmination of 70 years of multi-factor authentication and highly networked devices. Okay, calling it multi-factor is a bit of a stretch as it is only biometrics, but it's a bunch of them. No passwords, so key-fobs. And way too many to fake easily - or, for our purposes, at all.
He has no persona, so authentication fails. The commlink helpfully offers to assist him in setting up his new persona. This process takes only a few seconds. The persona is like a cross between LastPass and Dropbox, storing all of your access credentials and files, including preference files and SIN(s). Ownership is an access credential, and is this stored with your persona. After setting up his persona (effectively by doing little more than saying "yes" to the question of whether you want to set it up and answering a few quick questions), the commllink stores the profile/persona online in the cloud encrypted with a key formed from the child's biometric data. It is registered with the grid - which one depends on answering one of the few questions asked during persona setup. It is encrypted so that even GOD cannot access its contents. Again, for our purposes, this system is foolproof and un-crackable except by GM fiat. The child is now free to add stuff to his persona - customize its shape, add files, add access and ownership tokens and so on. The math involved in forming a key form varying parts of the users biometrics is left as an exercise for the mathematicians. I'm sure it is heinously complex and probably considered impossible with today's knowledge, but just like bitcoin, we have to assume that the problem is solved. I'm not a mathematician/encryption expert, so this might earn eye rolls from that crowd. Also, as the child ages, the biometric data that changes will be updated so that authentication continues to work.
Now, it is time to take ownership of the commlink. The parents transfer ownership by using their ownership to tell the device to accept a new owner. By the rules, only one owner can own a device at a time, but I prefer to allow multiple owners. The next step is the only part that changes depending on if you choose to houserule that particular point. The device invites four marks on itself from the child's newly minted persona, and the child accepts, either becoming the new and exclusive owner, or an additional owner.
Also, by the rules as written, you can only have one persona. There may be niche reasons when you might want another and you should be able to create as many as you need, but your ownership and SINs stay with a persona. Allowing multiple personas per PC would be a house rule.
Some possible issues and solutions:
SINs - if they are just a file, then you could copy them among your personas, or share them with friends. This could be a problem, but I don't see it as one. Just like I could hand my driver's license to anyone I choose, the risk of burning the SIN would prevent SIN sharing in most cases. And the identifying information tied to the SIN would make it less likely to be useful for others, moreso for high rating or real SINS than cheap ones.
Losing a logged in device - if someone has you log in and hand them your commlink, or steals it from your hand, they have all your stuff. This doesn't work (or at least not easily) because the commlink (or whatever you are forming your persona on) is constantly authenticating you. Within milliseconds of losing control of the device, it would lock itself.
GOD can find you even after logging out - The identifiable portions of your persona are largely defined by the device you form it on (like a unique MAC). Your appearance might be a preference tied to your persona profile, but that is cosmetic and easily changeable. Any professional criminal worth his salt (aka Shadowrunners) knows how to cause a device to generate and use a new ID (like a modern day MAC) when it reboots, so GOD now has no clue you are the same person they just almost converged on.
Multiple logins - I don't have a good reason why you could not log in multiple times. I agree with the restriction for game mechanics, but finding a fluff reason is tricky. You can claim that the grid only allows one device to access the profile at a time, but this breaks if you allow multiple profiles. So, if you choose to allow multiple profiles, you just have to handwave this. That's what you get for breaking RAI.
"Inviting Marks" - You might think to yourself "The device doesn't constantly scan the Matrix waiting for your avatar to log in so it can offer you access. You don't go to a device on the Matrix and say "hey, I'm Joe Blow" and it says "here, have some marks" and then you use those marks to log in - every time you go online. Invite Marks works initially. The device Invites Marks, which allows you to claim an access token for some level of access to a device (or host). Then you have them. Next time you go online, you use them to gain access to the device - no new offer of marks required." But, game mechanic wise, there has to be a penalty for logging off to clear overwatch, and so "marks" are ephemeral, going away when your persona goes offline. How and why this happens is simple to explain. Most people in the Shadowrun world never go offline. As an added security measure, marks (or access tokens) are tied to the unique ID of the device forming your persona. Even if you are a wage slave rigger and constantly log into the Matrix on various devices, rebooting them all day long, they always come online with the same unique ID, so the mark still functions. But a savvy Shadowrunner always changes his unique ID in order to hide form GOD, and so the token is no longer valid. If you log back in with that same Unique ID, your OS is restored where it left off, so it's unlikely you want to do that. This differs slightly from RAW and RAI and so is a houseruled interpretation and potentially opens up some additional flexibility. However, OS continues to accrue even while the device is offline (though perhaps at a slower rate at GM discretion) as GOD pores over the trail left behind, so you might log in to a Convergence, making this a bad strategy for getting marks in advance of a run. Marks can also be granted that are not tied to a device ID (such as for most gear) so that it continues to work regardless of what device you log in from or how many times your "unique" ID changes. Only a device owner can issue such marks, so they cannot be hacked.
Ownership and hacking - Why can't you hack 4 marks? Well, because it isn't really 4 marks. It's a special access token stored in a special part of the device's memory that is like a TPM chip. It is simply not accessible remotely and requires physical proximity to the device to gain and offer. Basically, marks are for remote access to a device when the device can't authenticate you via biometrics. To form a persona and gain/transfer ownership, you must be authenticated via biometrics.
Multiple Owners - In this thread we have used the example of the husband and wife sharing the car. This is not really a problem under the current rules requiring multiple owners as one of them could own the device and grant the other three marks, but lets say that we decide to make them both owners anyway. Now, let's say marital bliss turns sour. Can one Owner take away Ownership from another Owner without them being present or without their consent? My gut says no. When the divorcees split assets, they'll have to voluntarily resign ownership on the devices going to the other party or have the authorities get involved. There may be a way for the authorities to change ownership without the consent of all parties, perhaps by taking advantage of the fact that device ownership is also registered to the grid. Or maybe you have to hack it the same way a Shadowrunner would. I leave that as a GM call.
I think that covers most scenarios, but if you spot an issue, let me know and I'll try to address it.
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See, I take the completely opposite view to that, Malevolence, which is what previous editions did as well. Your persona isn't tied to your SIN, or even biometrics. That would make it far too easy for GOD to keep an eye on your comings and goings. Instead, the persona is simply made up of your access ID and your commcode, both of which can be spoofed. Previous editions didn't have MARKs, they had privileged access systems ranging from simply authenticating your access ID (not very secure, as any hacker could spoof an ID in seconds if not minutes), through web of trust and simple password protected passkeys, all the way up to almost-impossible to fool nanotech and alchemical passkeys that cost an arm and a leg.
This separation of access rights and identification makes the Persona actually work in the system it was designed for, unlike the current implementation which simply cannot meet two very critical performance metric; to both be anonymous enough that GOD can't instantly trace you, yet be secure enough that all your gear recognizes you. This is my biggest issue with SR5 persona by far, as it fails the most basic litmus test for what it's supposed to do without some serious handwaving.
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I mean, Marks are an easy parallel to 4th's User/Administrator/Root access levels for hacking (though there was never a point not going Root, which was a problem, just as there are few reasons to try for 3 Marks, because it's too hard to do and too easy to notice).
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The Persona is not tied to your SIN, your SIN is simply an element of your persona that can be added or removed at will. Mostly, it is kept there as a matter of convenience so that you have access to it even if your commlink is lost, stolen or destroyed. One problem with this is that if a SIN is merely a file than it can be stolen, so perhaps the SIN will have to be something else, either still stored in your Persona, or not. Since GOD cannot see the contents of your persona, they cannot tie your SIN to you any more than they can tie your persona to you. Your biometrics are used to form a key to access your persona, but they aren't otherwise a required part of it, similar to storing a one way hash as opposed to a password. GOD cannot track you through your profile any more than they can track you through a commcode. And even if they could see your persona (as it is stored on grid resources), they cannot determine your biometric data from the security measures any more than one can reverse a (good) hash. The persona is not decrypted until it reaches your device, so biometric data is never transmitted over the matrix and the unencrypted contents of the persona only ever exist on a device under your control.
Personas/profiles are anonymous. You'll note that the child in my example did not even require a SIN to create one.
One thing I did fail to mention is commcodes. Commcodes would be tied to a commlink, but could also be "forwarded" to an account where the access token for that account is in your persona/profile. So, the commcode might be the original unique ID of the commlink which would of course be offline pretty much forever since you likely changed it long ago. But it is registered with whatever grid you activated the commlink on and that grid will hold messages on your behalf if they cannot be delivered. Again, while access to the account is stored in your persona, the commcode is not "linked" to your persona. All the access stored in your persona is one way. They are fingerprinted to only work with that persona (so you can't share marks), but it is again similar to a one way hash where it cannot be used to tie that persona to the account for GOD to trace any more than an account with a random user name and password could be traced back to a LastPass account that holds the credentials to access it.
Realistically, would many of these things require a SIN when they were set up, especially considering the level of control the corps/government wishes to exert? Maybe, but the assumption in this case is that because there exist a significant amount of SINless, core services like personas/public grid access and commcodes simply don't. Or you could say that as professional criminals you can somehow obtain them on the black market, or everyone just has a rating 1 SIN they use to create these anonymous, unburnable things and don't keep track of that SIN on their sheet because they are disciplined and don't use it for anything else. Looking at today, you can buy burner phones anonymously and you can use free wi-fi or an Internet Cafe to access the Internet where you can sign up for all sorts of things anonymously - Gmail, Dropbox, and Lastpass included.
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I disagree with the idea that Inviting Marks means the system is constantly looking for you, hoping you'll come see it again like a desperately clingy date.
(http://imgur.com/KypE5Uf)
To me, Invite Marks is just fancy slang for "create a user account" and the Invitation stays open for some duration as decided by the Owner. When you knock on the website Icon the first time, it says "please register before continuing", so you shake hands and pass over your credentials, and it Invites you a Mark for entry. Then next week when you come back, you pass your credentials again and the system says "Oh yeah, I know you. Here's that Mark we promised you."
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If a comlink could easily create a persona from the user using it, we would have to assume SIN- and Biometric Scanners are foolproof. They aen't, so I'm doubtful.
If they really just try hard, on the other hand, it should be possible for a person to create multiple personas.
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Biometric scanners are add on for devices. If you posit that you are constantly verifying biometrics, then you can't exercise ownership unless you have a biometric scanner attached.
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It'd also mean that exposure to radiation, implants, geneware, or becoming infected would void your ownership of everything, and it'd exclude using SINs in any way with it or it'd find out he biometrics don't match.
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It'd also mean that exposure to radiation, implants, geneware, or becoming infected would void your ownership of everything, and it'd exclude using SINs in any way with it or it'd find out he biometrics don't match.
This is why the exact mechanism of what forms your unique digital thumbprint is deliberately vague. Shadowrunners are exposed to things that might change their biometrics with alarming frequency and losing all of your devices because you got a Cerebral Booster would be lame. The decision wasn't made out of an aversion to thinking too hard, it was made with an eye towards keeping the character/gear relationship cohesive.
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Cyberware and bioware wouldn't affect your DNA, though. Some Geneware would, as would getting a cyberarm or hand to the point where you no longer have fingerprints.
I'd say go back to previous editions and just make the persona a combination of access ID and commcode. That would handily explain how the persona can both be uniquely recognized by your gear, yet almost impossible for GOD to track down. Runners change their access IDs and commcodes more frequently than they do socks by some accounts, so the whole mechanism can be easily handwaved while actually making sense if that is what you're looking for, or expanded upon to be part of game mechanics if that's your wish.
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Some of the elements in SR5 are functionally similar to what existed in SR4. The passcode/Firewall authentication process described on page 53 of Unwired is very similar to what happens in SR5, just with different terminology. A lot of the descriptive changes in SR5 stem from the change in Matrix architecture in the post-De La Mar world. As a game mechanic, passcodes and access IDs are fine, but SR5 deliberately moved away from that model in an effort to rebrand the Matrix.
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Right, and my issue with that is that no mechanics nor explanations were presented as replacements. So we're left with a whole lot of handwaving that makes some players, myself absolutely included, go "Wait, what?". Instead of something tangible and easily relatable like access codes (hardware ID) and commcodes (phone numbers) forming the basis of your persona, we're left with a semi-mystical "Your persona is you, somehow" with no further attempts at an explanation. That's what aggrevates me; I get that the system was simplified but I personally think it got taken a bit too far, that's all.
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There still seems to be some confusion between personas and owners.
#/ Afaik, personas don't own anything, owners do. On p. 237, the terms are confused "...transfer ownership to another persona..." If you change this to owner, then it does make sense. A persona is something owned by an owner.
#/ Both owner accounts and persona accounts are secured by nothing more than username/ password.
Eg. A couple, Mr and Mrs Johnson each have their own owner accounts, MrJohnsonOwner and MrsJohnsonOwner, for their respective personal belongings. However, they also have a joint owner account FamilyJohnsonOwner. Their car, jointly owned, is registered to the shared account, FamilyJohnsonOwner - to which they both have the username/ password. Notice, to this point we have not introduced personas at all.
When Mrs Johnson gets into the car, she accesses it using the shared owner account FamilyJohnsonOwner. The shared owner account, owns two personas: FamilyJohnsonMrPersona and FamilyJohnsonMrsPersona. So, when Mrs Johnson wants to start up the car and access GridGuide (ie. go onto the matrix), she will need to fire up her family persona FamilyJohnsonMrsPersona, and away she goes.
Notice, there are no biometrics involved here, no SINs, nothing, the accounts are created and secured impersonally. This is necessarily the case. If a security guard's gun has an owner of BigCorpX, then biometrics become meaningless - corporations don't have biometrics. What about personas? Likewise - an agent needs a persona - agents don't have biometrics either.
Afaik, this system is fully compatible with the RAW (with only the minor edit to p. 237). Please treat this theory as just that - a theory! But as it stands with my current knowledge of the SR5 rules, it does seem to fit the facts.
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If a commlink could easily create a persona from the user using it, we would have to assume SIN- and Biometric Scanners are foolproof. They aen't, so I'm doubtful.
If they really just try hard, on the other hand, it should be possible for a person to create multiple personas.
This is a valid concern. I can only offer that SINs are more than just a collection of biometrics, and unlikely to be as extensive a collection of biometrics as that used for authentication, mostly since the biometrics tied to a SIN would have been gathered when the SIN was created and not updated with the frequency of your profile (which would be updated multiple times a day).
Here are the constraints for an authentication method that we have to work within:
1. It has to work - This one is obvious, but I'll put it here for completeness
2. It has to be fast - From power on to being logged in and using the device takes less than 3 seconds. Many people can't even type their passwords in that quickly and many of the devices you form your persona on don't have keyboards. Making it passive not only solves the speed problem, but is also cool and futuristic.
3. It has to be constant - the rules effectively state that you can't steal someone's persona ("it's unique to you", blah blah blah), so it has to recognize instantly when you lose control of the device.
4. It has to be secure - again, since the rules don't allow people to steal your persona, it has to be something you can't share or give away, ruling out things like passwords or key fobs (not that they couldn't still be part of a multi-factor authentication scheme).
Biometric scanners are add on for devices. If you posit that you are constantly verifying biometrics, then you can't exercise ownership unless you have a biometric scanner attached.
True, which is why the device ties in to other scanners in the area to perform biometrics. Also, keep in mind that most devices you can form a persona on have a camera (commlinks, and RCCs and decks which state that they have all the functionality of commlinks) which can be used for a number of biometrics. A commlink, for instance, also has a complete set of sensors like modern day smart phones (and then come) which can be used to measure all sorts of things (minute tremors in your hand, for example). Vehicles would also presumably have a number of sensors in the cabin that they could use (even though cameras are an addon, and thus not guaranteed).
Ownership is a different beast. Ownership is a a unique owner key in your persona plus physical proximity, so the number of biometrics needed can likely be reduced, thus allowing more reliance on external sensors to provide them, or even eliminated. There is likely a physical switch of some sort on the device that must be activated in order to allow this transfer. Press the switch without the owner's persona present, no dice. The exchange of ownership (or, slightly modified, addition of a new owner) likely involves the owner's persona using the owner token (after placing the device in "owner rights mode" with the physical switch) to access the device. The device then sends information to the owner's persona requiring the owner to respond (a handshake of sorts), then the owner provides the ID of the new owner's persona, which the device then contacts, gets a response from (another handshake), then provides a new owner token to. This means that spoofing the transaction would require a number of attempts and would alert the actual owner in the process. The ownership exchange would also likely be registered with the grid.
It'd also mean that exposure to radiation, implants, geneware, or becoming infected would void your ownership of everything, and it'd exclude using SINs in any way with it or it'd find out he biometrics don't match.
Not necessarily. There are hundreds or even thousands of discrete biometrics that the system uses, so if a few change it will simply use others to perform the authentication, then immediately update the values for the ones that failed. This is one of the things that separates the biometrics used in persona authentication from those used in SINs. Since you are expected to use your persona daily, a number of more ephemeral biometrics can be used and changes to them constantly updated. For a SIN, the biometrics it uses to verify your ID have to be things that never change throughout your life. Assuming that things like genemods necessitate an update to your SIN (probably done in conjunction with your doctor at the time of the surgery), DNA would still probably be one of these biometrics. But things like hair or eye color, while perhaps recorded, would not be expected to be useful as a means of verifying a SINners ID as they would change frequently. Really, aside from DNA, retinal scan, and fingerprints, one has to wonder what sorts of biometrics are safe from change in a world where common cosmetic surgery can be very transformative.
#/ Afaik, personas don't own anything, owners do. On p. 237, the terms are confused "...transfer ownership to another persona..." If you change this to owner, then it does make sense. A persona is something owned by an owner.
Ownership (capital O) is a Matrix association. This is why a device must be online in order to change owners. There aren't "accounts" on the Matrix other than those abstracted out into marks and personas. So, the person owns the persona, the persona owns the device. It's really best to think of a persona as a collection of access keys (or accounts that you can access, if you prefer) that is gathered under a single sign on. So your MrJohnson Owner and FamilyJohnsonOwner accounts would be keys in Mr Johnson's persona. Though each device would have a different key so they could be managed separately (don't reuse passwords on multiple accounts kids!), so these would likely be more along the line of MrJohnsonCar1Owner and MrJohnsonCar2Owner and FamilyJohnsonCar1Owner, etc. By "logging in" to his persona he now has access to every thing it holds a key for - which could be thousands of things.
Something that is missing in the rules is a way to mass assign ownership. I can't imagine Stuffer Shack having warehouses of people transferring ownership device by device every time they receive a shipment from Ares. And I can't imagine the average wageslave waiting 1 minute per item to take ownership every time they go shopping. So, there is obviously some short of shortcut that doesn't require touching every device, but I'm not going to address that here other than to say groups (like your FamilyJohnsonOwner account) would simplify taking ownership on behalf of multiple people just like groups are handy for streamlining permissions and rights in modern computing.
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the person owns the persona, the persona owns the device.
From p. 236, "Every device, persona, host, and file has an owner" (emphasis not mine)
I think the confusion of owner and persona is getting the cart before the horse. It's fairly clear from RAW that an owner owns both the persona and the device. A persona is not an owner.
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However, the only way that you can interact with anything on the matrix (and hosts, personas, and files are ONLY matrix entities) is through your persona. A device might have physical controls, but most people will still interact with it through the matrix. A device has no clue who you are except through your persona. While you might be able to say, shoot a gun without being connected to the matrix (and thus without a persona), you can only do so by virtue of the gun allowing anonymous access (wireless off). It doesn't know who you are unless you are logged in (and thus interacting through your persona), at which point it may provide additional functionality or access.
ETA:
Think of it this way; if you log into your computer using your personal account and access the files in your Documents folder, do YOU as a human have access to them, or does your account? You may own them on a theoretical level, but without your account and the permissions assigned to it, your documents are merely an arrangement of magnetic charges on storage media that are practically useless to you.
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Hmm, I'm still lost I'm afraid - under this paradigm can you tell me what an "owner" is? (p. 236-7)
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Under the paradigm that Malevolence is describing... the Owner of a device is an account / profile which technically anyone could access if they know the name and password. Which really... isn't a good idea. Since that's what hacker do all day long, is fake names and passwords to get into places. So under this setup, they can totally steal all your stuff by stealing your name and password and validating themselves as the Owner.
Under the RAW Matrix stuff, the Owner is a Persona, and there is no way to Spoof being a Persona to quite that degree. You can Spoof a single command to look like it came from the Owner, but you can't just outright claim Ownership.
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the Owner is a Persona
But aren't personas owned by owners? How can a persona own itself?
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That particular section of the rules deals almost exclusively with Matrix Ownership (with a big O). As it states, "Owning a device and being its owner aren’t necessarily the same thing." Also, "Ownership, at least in the Matrix, is something that is registered with both the device (or other icons) and the grids," emphasis mine. Now, Owning a persona in this way doesn't make much sense as you can't have any marks (much less 4) without having a persona - pg 236 states (under Recognition Keys) "Only personas may mark icons." So, you'd have to have a persona in order to Own a persona ("same as 4 marks"). I'd have to think, then, that the owner of a persona is itself. It satisfies the requirement of all matrix icons (including personas) having Owners, and it still allows only you to use your unique persona (if there were another owner, then they'd be able to kick you out and/or use it as well). It's perhaps a little daft, but some things are like that in computing, like a circular linked list of one.
An owner (little o) is simply the same as today in meatspace. You own a car because it is in your possession and the necessary paperwork says so. You own a cell phone because you paid for it and lay claim to it. If you give it to someone else, they own it because you gave it to them. In most cases, there isn't a way to prove that you own something, so it's mostly just a conceptual process. In the Matrix, you have a digital lock on everything you own that makes your ownership unambiguous. But like locks in the real world, you can't look at the keyhole and determine who the owner is, but the owner can certainly use his key to access it. In similar fashion, your marks allow you to access things (and prevent others without marks from accessing them) but can't be traced back to you. Because your digital keychain is in turn locked up safely in your persona, unlike a real keychain, you can't be compelled to show someone your keys and thus allow them to prove a link.
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Thanks for taking the time to respond M, this is getting crunchy, even for SR5!
There are some important quotes here:
p. 236, "Every device, persona, host, and file has an owner"
p. 236, "owning an icon is the same as having four marks on it"
since a persona is an icon and,
therefore as (matrix) owner, I have 4 marks on my persona (from the owner)
now this would seem to contradict the quote "Only personas may mark icons."
So on one page, we have 3 sentences which contradict each other :S
So, from here on in, everything is assumption...
I think we've each taken a different approach to try to resolve the paradox:
#/ Make "owner" and "persona" synonymous. Which I think is your approach (please correct me if I'm wrong)
So changing owner, would be changing ownership to another persona.
This would take a little rewording of 236 to something like,
"Every device, host, and file is owned by a persona"
#/ Separate out "owner" and "persona", so that owners own personas.
This would need some rewording on 236 to something like,
"Only personas may mark icons. Only owners may mark personas."
I really hope we're near the end now...
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Actually, the term "root object" might be a useful term here.
I think the two approaches differ in the view of the root object, either:
#/ Persona
#/ Owner
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I'm going to suggest that the persona is just a quality assigned to a device when it is hosting a user. For example, Air Force One is assigned to any aircraft which the president is currently riding. Prior and after that, it just has some sort of tail code. It is just a designation which means that the device is being controlled by someone and not just a computer process.
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Thanks for taking the time to respond M, this is getting crunchy, even for SR5!
There are some important quotes here:
p. 236, "Every device, persona, host, and file has an owner"
p. 236, "owning an icon is the same as having four marks on it"
since a persona is an icon and,
therefore as (matrix) owner, I have 4 marks on my persona (from the owner)
now this would seem to contradict the quote "Only personas may mark icons."
So on one page, we have 3 sentences which contradict each other :S
So, from here on in, everything is assumption...
I think we've each taken a different approach to try to resolve the paradox:
#/ Make "owner" and "persona" synonymous. Which I think is your approach (please correct me if I'm wrong)
So changing owner, would be changing ownership to another persona.
This would take a little rewording of 236 to something like,
"Every device, host, and file is owned by a persona"
#/ Separate out "owner" and "persona", so that owners own personas.
This would need some rewording on 236 to something like,
"Only personas may mark icons. Only owners may mark personas."
I really hope we're near the end now...
That opens another can of worms: if only owner can mark a persona, no one can be traced! (Trace icon needs 2 marks on the persona) and so on; anyway, how can a corp (the owner of a host, let's say), be a persona?
The truth about the matrix is that no one understands it. (Quite literally from SR5Core)
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CFO of a AAA corp: We're about to invest 10.7 Giganuyen into Matrix trading after the big Crash. Explain to me how the Matrix works so I feel confident in signing off on this investment.
Matrix Security Expert: Sir, nobody really understands how the Matrix works, it just does.
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*checks to see if he somehow got the warhammer tech priest thread of explaining technology instead
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Hail the Omnissiah! He is the God in the Machine, the Source of All Knowledge!
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"Only personas may mark icons. Only owners may mark personas."
That opens another can of worms: if only owner can mark a persona, no one can be traced! (Trace icon needs 2 marks on the persona) and so on; anyway, how can a corp (the owner of a host, let's say), be a persona?
I don't think there's a solution to this... :(
The only way around it is if the "owning an icon is the same as having four marks on it" is the equivalent of having 4 marks, but no actual marks are placed by an owner. I know it's just a semantic hack, but I'm not sure if there's any other way it could work.
As for the owner of a host, it would have to be a (matrix) owner, rather than a persona. An owner account can be anything.
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After giving this whole thing some thought, this is how I'll explain the whole thing at my table:
The first time you enter the matrix you either have to use a datajack, trodes or answer a whole host of questions - not unlike a Voight-Kampff test. This registers your personality in the foundation of the matrix and assigns you a unique hash function. Since it's foundation based no-one actually has direct access to this information - baring a really deep dive.
Afterwards whenever you enter the matrix to do anything you are instantly recognized by your mannerisms and subtle reactions to subliminal cues to verify your identity - even if you use only an image link and an AR glove. That's why you need to reboot completely to shift your persona from one device to the other: You have to be present as a user to be verified.
This persona is your virtual computer which you can access through persona-capable devices and that you can connect and disconnect with identities like SIN's, ownership of various devices and all the other funky stuff.
Burner links are the exception to this: You can communicate with those, but you can't form your persona on them. This makes it impossible to be connected to them but also won't allow you to access any of your other gear through them.
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So, you're saying it is magic.
Here's the thing, I don't feel the need for persona to be persistent things. It can literally just be a few extra data fields that get appended to the device you use to form your persona. Persona exist to let other people know that the icon is controlled by a person. I have zero problems with persona popping into and out of existence as people log in and out. I also have no problem with someone controlling multiple persona on different devices at the same time.
To me, ownership is registering pass keys with the grids. This device is legally authorized to use this grid. If a person tells a device the correct pass key, then it will check with the grid to verify it and access the virtual cloud brain portion of the device. Pass keys can be as simple as a 4 digit PIN or as complicated as peripheral device with biometric scanning. All of this happens in the hardware level communications rather than at the application level where matrix activity occurs. Most people never see it except during ownership transfers so to them it may as well be magic. Now, you'd think you can hack the system to access those keys... and you're right. That's what Grid Overwatch Division does. They have access to the keys and thus your devices.
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Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic and vice versa.
The whole matrix mesh network concept is seriously flawed if you don't accept the fact that there must be an element that can't be reproduced with real life physics. (Not to mention Technomancers)
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Then it is seriously flawed. I think we can agree to that.
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I've got a technological explanation for technomancers too.
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So, you're saying it is magic.
Technological magic...
Perhaps you might call it... Technomancy =)
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As long as it isn't cybermancy. *shudders*
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Technomancy is the equivalent of stage magic. It is the equivalent of saying "You're not smart enough to know how it is done, thus 'Magic!'."
It bugs me because the developers are calling me stupid. Actually, they're saying "Turn off your brain and enjoy the show." If I was watching passively, I might be able to do that, but when you're taking an active role in the event, it comes off as condescending.
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I'm certainly not saying that and I sincerely hope others aren't. (Also, I'm not a developer by any stretch, I'm just one of the more active freelancers in the forums.) At the end of the day, it's more important to me that the game be fun than that it be simulationist. Obviously, the degree to which Shadowrun has been/should be simulationist is something that's been debated for years and years and you can find a variety of well-argued points. The Matrix chapter in the core book was written by a CS teacher and much of Data Trails was written by other folks (my substantive writing there was fairly limited, a chunk of Mastering the Matrix was essentially it), so I'll defer to their field expertise on these matters. I'm simply offering my own perspective, which is largely informed by game design, not LAN design.
There are lots of elements to the Shadowrun universe that, in the face of it, don't really make sense. Shadowrunners possess extremely useful skills and sell those skills for comparatively meager pay and considerable risk. Multi-billion nuyen corporations secure their research with something a smart 15-year old could overcome. Shadowrunners can develop assets in minutes when it takes a field agent months or years. (At some point megacorps would just stop having manned nighttime maintenance crews with all the shadowrunners pretending to be janitors.) All of these contrivances exist not to make the world more believable, but to make the game more playable. I'm a huge fan of slow, le Carre-inspired Shadowrun, but that certainly doesn't translate to a four-hour block at a con.
The Matrix needs to work as a plot element and as a resource for the players. It's always been slightly daunting from a rules perspective, so if the structure of the Matrix is a giant security hole for its user--I'm thinking of the stranger's commlink dilemma that was just mentioned in a separate thread--then you've either made it too dangerous to use illegally or, on the flip side, you've removed incentive from the game to actually go on a shadowrun since everyone will be mugging mid-level execs and stealing their stuff. That's essentially the needle to thread from a design standpoint: you have to find the right equilibrium so that players are willing to take risks and be challenged instead of simply opting out of elements of the game. Design and realism are always going to be in conflict with one another at some level. It bugged Raygun to no end that ammo was interchangeable, but it made for far easier bookkeeping. Neither side is right or wrong in that equation, they just value different things. Defining something--and I should stress that just because the pinpoint definition isn't defined in game mechanics doesn't automatically mean that it's also an unknown in the Shadowrun universe--is a risky proposition. You give Tiamat stats and suddenly everyone's killed her. The Matrix is a playground and pretty much every player who goes there abides by the same set of rules. If one player uses his/her real world knowledge of the real-world foundation for the Matrix and builds a TOR to forever avoid GOD, then different people are playing by different rules and the playground is decidedly less fun for some people. Leaving certain parts of the Matrix vaguely defined also gives people (GMs, freelancers, etc.) flexibility and freedom when it comes to fleshing things out later.
For example, to return to the ownership thing, the core book defines it as a relationship between grid and device. So let's take that as irrefutable. Or at least I will since I'm loathe to override other people's work. That means that grids and devices must, in and of themselves, have the capacity to recognize their owners. There are few branches you could go from here. For example, ownership is linked to a user account/passcode. That makes sense, but it also means some record of the passcode exists in the device, which makes owners much more traceable--not a great thing for professional criminals. It also means that different SINs using different passcodes will have separate lists of owned gear. Do you need to buy a different everyday carry for each fake SIN? And I know this makes me sound old fashioned, but there are still quite a few shadowrunners out there who are legitimately SINless (real or fake). If you do get that exec's commlink can you spoof his passcode and drive off in his nice car? Finally, you have to take into account the pretty radical change from 4e to 5e Matrix when it comes to ease of access to the Matrix. Returning to the idea of threading the needle of utility vs. complexity, it gets tricky and can quickly add complexity to a famously complex game system.
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I keep seeing the 15 year old straw man. Just old do you really think shadowrun audience really is? 15 seems kinda young to me. I could see some parts as PG13, but A LOT of it is NC17 content. I want to say that the loyal fan base, the ones buying the books, are the ones that fell in love with the setting back in the 90s. So, when you say that a 15 year old couldn't figure out how to pull off a run, I see several problems. First is that they probably shouldn't be playing without parental guidance. The second is that you're assuming that they can't come up with something clever... trust me when I say that you aren't giving some of them enough credit. Even if they aren't genius level intellect, dumbing down the game so there is no challenge, or worse, obfuscation the rules to that they are incomprehensible, is hamstringing a young mind that needs problems in order to grow.
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I believe Kincaid is referring to the fact that, in-universe, a 15 year old with some smarts and a decent commlink (in 4th, anyway, much harder to do in 5th) could easily circumvent multi-million dollar security systems.
I don't agree with the argument, or the GM is going way too easy on the security systems implementations... My opinion only.
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I'd guess, based on my very small sample size, is that the average Shadowrun player skews older than your average gamer. I'm 40 and the youngest person at my table. From a marketing perspective, any game should be trying to broaden its playerbase to include smart 15-year olds. If Shadowrun just published books targeting people who have been playing since 1e, that's a real problem. One of my main criticisms of the core book is that it reads like it was written for people who have already played Shadowrun--we all know what happens when your Stun Condition Monitor is filled, right? It's not so much that a ton of 15-year olds are playing Shadowrun, it's that ton of 15-year olds should be playing Shadowrun and, more generally, that we can't assume any level of expertise by our playerbase when it comes to mechanics. Given the amount of YA dystopian fiction out there now, and its various media tie-ins, Shadowrun should be pretty appealing.
15-year olds can be plenty clever, but they still aren't breaking into the Pentagon. I don't think I've suggested anything that makes the game easier. Hell, the chapter I wrote for Bloody Business was basically an exercise in making mundane guards a challenge by making them smart--I'm all for challenge. And to clarify, exactly where a persona comes from is a game concept. How a persona interacts with the Matrix at large is governed by game rules. I'm all for over-explaining rules and making them as clear as possible and I'll readily admit there are spots in the rules that don't meet this standard. For most tables, the concept of a persona probably doesn't get far beyond, "You, in the Matrix," which is fine. I don't think that's incomprehensible in the least.
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For most tables, yes. There really shouldn't be more than one matrix specialist in a group. And in order to not overly hog the spotlight, the matrix rules need to be fast, straight forward and clear.
I've found the matrix rules to be so muddied, that I avoid it at all costs, especially when I'm playing a matrix specialist. When I'm running a game, I try to black box the matrix and have my players simply get the decker to the connection point safely. The rest I just make up as the story requires.
My point being that the Matrix rules have made the games either matrix light or non existant.
Now, in a hypothetical heavy matrix game, everyone needs to know how the world works, especially the GM. And by world, I mean the Matrix. Whether or not your persona is persistent can be important. What it is can determine if you can be identified by it. What ownership is can also determine if you can be identified. Who has access to that info determines if you can be tracked. Those little details become important when the game shifts focus.
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Yeah, I gotta agree with Joe on this one.
Magic is easy to relate to. "It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy t..." Wait, wrong sci-fi/fantasy reference.
I think the inherent issue is that many, like myself, find it difficult to relate to the Matrix as "magic", when it so clearly is based on the internet but amped up to 11.
Magic, well, you can make shit up as you go and most players will go "hmmmm, all right". But when you try doing that with the Matrix, a lot of players in my experience have a propensity for going "Woah wait, it doesn't work like that". This was easier, believe it or not, in earlier editions, because the rules were complex and the descriptions of the Matrix were much more detailed. In 5th, players and GMs both lack that intrinsic understanding of how the Matrix works because even in-game people don't know. Thus, as Joe points out, it's easier to just discard it or handwave it. As the many, many threads on the rules board here show there seem to be a lot more people asking questions like " how do I do x" where the Matrix is concerned vs magic or combat.
It's a shame, because the Matrix s been my favourite part of Shadowrun for a long time. As it stands, I've had to house rule quite a lot just to make the Matrix sensible in a day to day kind of usage, and I haven't even gotten close to deciding what Technomancers need to be ... I won't say viable, because they can be with a great deal of effort, but how about just plain old fun...
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That's exactly what I was trying to voice earlier, but didn't voice very well.
In an effort to make the matrix faster and easier to use without obvious loop holes/logic failures, which is an honourable endeavour, it has been handwaved to the point most just avoid it altogether.
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They can get away with handwaving the Magic rules b/c we have no idea how Magic really works otherwise. If Harry Potter and his friends sat down, they'd probably gripe just as much.
Luckily, we do know how computers and networking work. Which is why it's pretty insulting to see so much being handwaved "for the sake of gameplay." As I said (here or another thread, not sure)... the people who wouldn't understand true IT, aren't going to be asking questions. And the people who are asking questions, don't appreciate all the handwavium. Especially when The Official Matrix Sourcebook comes right out and says "no one understands how the Matrix works, it just does."
Kincaid keeps saying that the Matrix sections were written by CS and IT professionals. And yet... the rules look like either they forgot how to anything, or they got really baked before sitting down to write.
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Hey, I'm im absolute agreement in terms of what the Matrix rules should be and I'll certainly acknowledge that they aren't all of those things. Changing something on the scale of Matrix action economy is well beyond my pay grade, however. Since complete system mastery probably isn't realistic, I'd love the norm to be for each table to have "the Matrix guy" who plays the hacker and handles that aspect of the game. A lot of tables do the NPC decker and hand wave it. I get why that happens, but it bugs me from a "make it better" perspective. Doimg that, of course, is a fairly complicated process.
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They can get away with handwaving the Magic rules b/c we have no idea how Magic really works otherwise. If Harry Potter and his friends sat down, they'd probably gripe just as much.
Luckily, we do know how computers and networking work. Which is why it's pretty insulting to see so much being handwaved "for the sake of gameplay." As I said (here or another thread, not sure)... the people who wouldn't understand true IT, aren't going to be asking questions. And the people who are asking questions, don't appreciate all the handwavium. Especially when The Official Matrix Sourcebook comes right out and says "no one understands how the Matrix works, it just does."
Kincaid keeps saying that the Matrix sections were written by CS and IT professionals. And yet... the rules look like either they forgot how to anything, or they got really baked before sitting down to write.
Well, I didn't write any of the Matrix rules, so I can't speak to their states of mind at the time ;)
Slightly tangential question: My current playgroup probably has 5 guys in the NRA and at least 2 different FFLs, but aside from the occasional magazine/clip joke, none of them seem to care about the tremendous amount of gun hand waving that goes on "for the sake of gameplay" and on the rare occasion someone in these forums introduces something like caliber rules, most people generally agree that it's too complicated to make it worth the effort. Why do people seem totally at ease with some hand waving and brace themselves against it in other circumstances?
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Slightly tangential question: My current playgroup probably has 5 guys in the NRA and at least 2 different FFLs, but aside from the occasional magazine/clip joke, none of them seem to care about the tremendous amount of gun hand waving that goes on "for the sake of gameplay" and on the rare occasion someone in these forums introduces something like caliber rules, most people generally agree that it's too complicated to make it worth the effort. Why do people seem totally at ease with some hand waving and brace themselves against it in other circumstances?
Different audiences, would be my first thought.
As I said, the people who are asking all the big Matrix questions, are the type of people who ask the same things when they build a new PC. They want to know how it works, and how to make it work better.
The people who are playing Street Sams have chosen to play an archetype that emulates "the best parts" of action movies. Mythbusters has demonstrated that a single shot at a car will not make it explode. Even if the gas tank were hit "just so" and the wind conditions were "just right" it's just never going to happen. But... the movies say you can always take out the escaping villain with a single well placed shot. And so... Street Sam takes his shot and the crowd goes wild.
Aside from the clip vs magazine stuff, which... I've known Infantry veterans who don't give 2 flips about the name. The people who argue are the same ones who argue Imgur pics without "trigger discipline" b/c they think it makes them sound more pro. Anyway... there are players who still argue for combat changes too. For instance, why can I shoot 2 guys standing on opposite sides of the room, 180 degrees apart, without much of a challenge. But I can't aim both guns at the same guy, and shoot him twice for double damage? "Game balance" says we can't just split our dice pool and deal double / triple / quadruple damage in a single volley, or else the fight is over too fast and the GM has to escalate things next time so far that everyone else dies.
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Hey, I said I knew the rules. I didn't say I knew the answer to the Riddle of the Shadowrun Sphinx: Can I shoot two guns at the same target?
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Well, I didn't write any of the Matrix rules, so I can't speak to their states of mind at the time ;)
Slightly tangential question: My current playgroup probably has 5 guys in the NRA and at least 2 different FFLs, but aside from the occasional magazine/clip joke, none of them seem to care about the tremendous amount of gun hand waving that goes on "for the sake of gameplay" and on the rare occasion someone in these forums introduces something like caliber rules, most people generally agree that it's too complicated to make it worth the effort. Why do people seem totally at ease with some hand waving and brace themselves against it in other circumstances?
My opinion, Kincaid, because even dumbed down the rules and mechanics for guns are close enough, and we're talking about low-tech stuff.
So what if there are no distinct calibers, modifications are vastly simplified, and rules are streamlined. Does the gun fire when I pull the trigger (or in some cases, issue a mental command)? Cool, done.
But the Matrix is high tech. Let's apply it to guns, and this is based on actual discussions at my table when we started getting into 5th.
" Wait, so if my gun is wireless, hackers can mess with it, right? In that case, I'll just run a wire."
"Yeah, you can't do that."
"What? Why?"
"Uhhh..."
That same scenario cropsbup again and again when it comes to the Matrix.
- I can't just steal his link and access his files?
- Wait, so how does direct connections bypass host ratings?
- What, if I use a device to access the Matrix it can no longer be the Master in my PAN?
- Huh, so if I want to steal this thing I have to keep it online for hours and hours while changing ownership, and it would take the owner seconds to track me? What!?
If you want another example of people having a hard time with handwaved fiction, look at the Excalibur manatech project and how many threads that spawned to the effect of "there's no way a single bad project could ruin Ares".
Bottom line, the Matrix is a vastly abstracted concept. Guns are simple. To my mind, that's all it boils down to; we're willing to accept simplified rules, but they have to make sense. And right now, by the books own admission, the Matrix just doesn't.
PS: As a veteran of OEF-A I'd also like to point out that being a member of the NRA does not necessarily equate to having a thorough understanding of how real life firearms work... Just saying ;)
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My personal gripe with that is what it does compared to what it's supposed to be.
With guns, it plain says "They all use the same ammo for bookkeeping", and some things are described in more detail than they are played in the game. With the Matrix, it comes down to handwaving here, handwaving there, and whatever I try, I can't find a logic construct that makes the two match.
It's like trying to fit quantum theory into classic physics; It's not that easy. But the matrix was supposedly built by someone, and so someone, at some point, needed to know how it works.
After a variety of books, I feel I understand the metaplanes better than the matrix;
The flow of mana, where and how it is/comes from, though not why, how things are influenced....
he matrix works only unless you think about it; It's fun and sounds finebut once you think about it, like if you are a G M or you plan to play a Decker, it feels off.
It's like the Writers openly admit "We wanted this and this, and when we found out we couldn't logically connect the two we decided to just canonize our inability and hide it behind a lot of mumbojumbo".
My problem isn't that I don't know how it works, it's that I don't see how it could possibly work.
That said, I am content with just omiting the matrix whereever I can. It's a bit sad for all the work that potentially went into it, and the options it could have opened, but it's for the best to leave it to the realm of NPCs.
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Speaking of personas, is there a limit to how close you have to be to your device to use it?
If I form my persona on a commlink and I have DNI, I can control the commlink mentally. But over what distance is this control possible? It's definitely wireless, so if I get separated from my commlink how far away does it have to be before I lose my signal?
Same goes for a Decker. If a Decker forms their persona on their deck, what's stopping the Decker from going full VR in his van and having the team B&E guy carrying the deck into the facility to exploit direct connections?
I know this us cheesy as he'll, but it just occurred to me that I have no idea how this would work...
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My main complaint about the matrix, and this extends to much of the rules for 5th, isn't so much that they abstracted real concepts into simple rules and some edge cases were lost in the translation - any combat simulation has that issue, which included every RPG ever. You have to accept that you can maybe move one square diagonally and it still only counts as 5' of movement. Or that your sniper rifle is only good out to 500m. Sure, you can account for those (every other diagonal counts as an extra square, double the range for sniper rifles) but you still have to draw the line somewhere. I get that.
I can even get behind much of the matrix - I came up with some more grounded descriptions for how ownership and personas work that I posted earlier, and I'm happy with them. They aren't perfect, and they don't exactly match the rules as provided, but they provide a consistent and applicable description of that aspect of the matrix that is also playable and provides enough detail to allow rulings for many edge cases that might come up. The whole concept of the matrix being a mesh network (I've started working on a more technical explanation (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C7gCM5D_xk5MhtOCmOEQr6F0X0Q4KQHUPrq8kEeKBIs/edit?usp=sharing) in an attempt to clear up some gaps and remove some of the "magic" but it's stalled due to lack of time) and so on are even fine, and indeed not bad ideas from a technical standpoint and very likely possible with improvements to battery life, computing power and some mathematical breakthroughs. No, the true issue with the Matrix is that the writers themselves don't seem to understand it because the framework is too vague, so it changes dramatically form one table to the next because we (the players and GMs) are left to fill in too many holes. You can't expect something to work the same at one table as the next, times a hundred. If there were the occasional rule that a GM had to adjudicate, that would be fine. But almost every play session there's at least one thing that comes up (sometime over and over again) that the rules are unclear on that aren't just a judgement call, but a house rule in order to fix.
In the matrix, it's "how does matrix perception work outside 100m?" Or "If there are dozens of icons nearby running silent, can I look for a specific one?", or "Does a device stop being a device if it is subsumed by a persona?". Or "Can I see the icon in AR for a device that I can see physically, properly associated, without having to Trace Icon?" Or "What exactly are the pieces of information you can use to spot a device past 100m?" There are countless others, and this extends to Rigging, even after Rigger 5.0 - "What attribute is used with Gunnery when Jumped In (among other scenarios)?", "Does the 'Remote Operation' specialization apply to piloting while Jumped In (again, among other scenarios)?", and so on. Many of these are fairly common things that can occur multiple times even in a single game session, and they aren't clearly addressed, even in Errata. Simplifying is fine so long as things are internally consistent. Going vague is not okay, especially when there seem to be contradictions all throughout. For example, being Jumped In requires VR, which means your body is a lifeless lump. Why are Agility or Reaction (physical attributes) even brought up for performing any actions while Jumped In? If a RCC has "all the features of a commlink", why can't it take commlink accessories? HB covered many more of the Matrix WTFs in his post.
And the "we have to make it easy enough for a 15 year old", or even appropriately aged non-expert, to break in to a multi billion nuyen corps security is bullox. When I play a Wizard in D&D, they aren't making fireballs so easy a child can do it. The character I am playing has spent a lifetime learning to cast spells, all I'm doing is directing him to do so. Same with bypassing the security of a AAA. My hacker has skills that make him an expert in the field - he is perfectly capable of bypassing matrix security. People like that exist today - look at the news of successful hacking attempts against Target and the Office of Personnel Management, among many (http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/security/300077563/the-10-biggest-data-breaches-of-2015-so-far.htm). There are assumed to be countless little details that our characters are handling in order to make the attempt successful that we don't explicitly call out. The cameras of the 6th world probably use any number of techniques to recognize people - facial recognition, gait analysis, body heat distribution, and so on. Any criminal has to have tools in his arsenal for fooling these systems, and it is automatically assumed that they are applying them as appropriate in order to keep them from being busted. As the player, we handle the broader strokes and the exceptions to the norm.
As for why they've decided to take their skills to lower bidders, that's handily explained by their conscience or circumstances. It's different for each runner, but the game world has plenty of reasons built in - they are SINless (or have a criminal SIN) so the corps won't look at them twice. They have an aversion to working for "the Man". And so on. Highly skilled people today choose (or even "choose") to work for any number of organizations for less than what they could make elsewhere. Some work for non-profits, some work for criminal organizations, some work for terrorist organizations, and so on. The dystopian future that Shadowrun is built on makes many of the criminals more ethically robust than the people that work for the organizations, and certainly more so than the organizations themselves. The world has more consistency than you give it credit for.
I just think that if there had been an attempt to describe the matrix in more detail before the rules were written (or hand in hand with the core book rules at least) there would have been a more consistent and more playable set of rules that were just as easy, but provided more flexibility to build from and apply to edge cases consistently across tables. There would have been a logical, extensible core to use going forward and something that made sense for players to use happily while waiting for the expansion books.
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Speaking of personas, is there a limit to how close you have to be to your device to use it?
If I form my persona on a commlink and I have DNI, I can control the commlink mentally. But over what distance is this control possible? It's definitely wireless, so if I get separated from my commlink how far away does it have to be before I lose my signal?
Same goes for a Decker. If a Decker forms their persona on their deck, what's stopping the Decker from going full VR in his van and having the team B&E guy carrying the deck into the facility to exploit direct connections?
I know this is cheesy as hell, but it just occurred to me that I have no idea how this would work...
I look at it like Bluetooth stuff today. Your Datajack lets you be "wireless" to your Commlink or Deck, but very short range. Basically you want to be in the same room at least. More appropriately, you want to have it within arm's reach. The wireless function is only so you don't have a cable trailing down your shirt and into the Commlink in your pocket. It doesn't mean you can get online and check your email or make phone calls using JUST your Datajack.
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I suppose this is a good time for my monthly disclaimer that I'm not on the rules team, these ideas are unofficial, etc. etc.
These are all excellent examples because they exist on the intersection of "believable Matrix" and "playable game." As this thread illustrates, exactly where that line is drawn can be a matter of personal taste. The best non-Matrix mechanic/fluff inspection I can think of that is similar is Legality codes. If a GM wants to be harsh, he can be, but the game suffers at some point because it becomes impossible to actually go on a shadowrun. Conversely, if Legality is only loosely applied, the game can become too easy since the runners will generally outgun their opposition. Tables vary tremendously on this.
One of my guiding principles is that GMs should be able to determine the tone of their own games. Pink Mohawk, black trenchcoat, slow building character-driven drama, comic books brought to life, whatever. Shadowrun lends itself to so many different styles of play (Witness all the "What Does an Attribute of 1 Mean?" threads) and there's no One True Way of playing it, so I deliberately leave space for GMs to define their own worlds in ways that work best for them. Players should have a sense of how things work--that is, actual mechanics should be clear--but when we're asking abstract questions like, "How Big Brother-y is the new Matrix?" the exact answer will vary from table to table.
I can't just steal his link and access his files?
Well, it's a good first step since you can directly connect to his device, making it easier to get at them. I see a lot of, "I can't just steal his link and access his owned gear?" as well. The short answer is no, but I'll delve into things a bit more.
Since Shadowrun doesn't have a level system, character advancement is largely dictated by karma and nuyen payout, with different archetypes favoring one over the other. It's important for GMs to have control over both of these so he can control the pace of character advancement, especially when contrasting a karma-centric build vs. a nuyen-centric build. Allowing one to spiral out of control while controlling the other leads to table imbalance. As a result, Shadowrun's basic premise works on the premise that, unlike games like D&D, looting isn't a major source of income. This is enforced through fluff (it's sometimes unprofessional, it brings more heat down on you), mechanics (changing ownership is hard), or dealt with more explicitly in open play (Missions). Now some GMs may want to set a different tone at their table and say go for it--that's totally cool too, but this creates a situation in which the GM is being permissive, not restrictive, which generally makes for a more pleasant table dynamic. As long as the Americar Gentleman's Agreement is maintained, most tables focus on income from jobs (and/or Day Jobs, etc.) even though asking, "While we're here for the rifle prototype, how about we grab the supercomputer too?" makes sense. That's the basic assumption of the setting.
Allowing commlinks act like keys to the kingdom flips this assumption on its head. Shadowrunners come into contact with rich folk all the time and could pretty easily steal at least a few commlinks. If commlinks allowed for cascading ownership, shadowrunners would pretty quickly retire from shadowrunning and become pick pockets. So from a design standpoint, I look at that and think, "That's not something I want to happen because it subverts the game." So we end up with an idea of ownership that isn't tied to the device that generates the persona, but the persona itself.
Wait, so how does direct connections bypass host ratings?
This is a much better question for Aaron to answer and it all pre-dates me, but my educated guess would be that the Matrix paradigm of 4e proved problematic. Not so much from a mechanical standpoint, but from a thematic one. Anyone who's played the earlier editions know the problem of the decker session followed by the everyone else session. My sense is one of the goals of 5e was to get the decker out of the van and onsite with the rest of the team to make for easier and more dynamic storytelling. Having the decker onsite makes things feel more like a team rather than specialists siloed off from one another, creating a more communal experience for the players.
What, if I use a device to access the Matrix it can no longer be the Master in my PAN?
A fair question! Wondering about that and a few other things is what got me to apply to become a freelancer in the first place. Anyway, what happens is that the device's icon disappears and is replaced by your persona's icon. The processing power of the device still exists (obviously, you're persona's icon will vary in strength based off of the device you use to generate it), so the "borrowed" attributes of the master still apply to the slaves.
Huh, so if I want to steal this thing I have to keep it online for hours and hours while changing ownership, and it would take the owner seconds to track me? What!?
Steal when you think it won't be missed or the theft won't (or can't) be reported. Again, from a thematic standpoint, this is to discourage rampant looting and skewing table dynamics, but I think Michael Chandra crunched the numbers and something like 14 dice in Hardware gave you an excellent success rate over the course of an evening. For the non-handy types, taking a chop shop contact (who would obvious have a lot of teamwork dice available to it) might be a good idea.
Again, if a GM wants to be more permissive with looting and ownership, it's a fairly simple change to make, but the decision should rest with the GM. If looting is easy, then players will understandably appeal to RAW to justify their hauls.
And the "we have to make it easy enough for a 15 year old", or even appropriately aged non-expert, to break in to a multi billion nuyen corps security is bullox. When I play a Wizard in D&D, they aren't making fireballs so easy a child can do it. The character I am playing has spent a lifetime learning to cast spells, all I'm doing is directing him to do so. Same with bypassing the security of a AAA. My hacker has skills that make him an expert in the field - he is perfectly capable of bypassing matrix security. People like that exist today - look at the news of successful hacking attempts against Target and the Office of Personnel Management, among many. There are assumed to be countless little details that our characters are handling in order to make the attempt successful that we don't explicitly call out. The cameras of the 6th world probably use any number of techniques to recognize people - facial recognition, gait analysis, body heat distribution, and so on. Any criminal has to have tools in his arsenal for fooling these systems, and it is automatically assumed that they are applying them as appropriate in order to keep them from being busted. As the player, we handle the broader strokes and the exceptions to the norm.
My point isn't so much about the age of the player (although let's not lose sight of marketability) but rather about the overlap of in-game and out-of-game knowledge. If we sharply define any aspect of the game universe (Matrix, for this example), then someone with out-of-game knowledge of how it works will be at an advantage over someone who doesn't have that knowledge. Your decker is a better decker than mine because he rolls more dice/is a more efficient build/has better qualities. All of those are perfectly reasonable. If my decker is a better decker than yours because I happen to work in IT and I can describe what my character is doing with more detail, even though my plan is "reasonable" for a Log 6, Hacking 6 character, we've moved outside the game system and created an imbalance. In the decking rules in particular there's a ton of room for creativity since so many Matrix Actions are fairly open ended, but resolutions need to ultimately be determined by mechanics.
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What, if I use a device to access the Matrix it can no longer be the Master in my PAN?
A fair question! Wondering about that and a few other things is what got me to apply to become a freelancer in the first place. Anyway, what happens is that the device's icon disappears and is replaced by your persona's icon. The processing power of the device still exists (obviously, you're persona's icon will vary in strength based off of the device you use to generate it), so the "borrowed" attributes of the master still apply to the slaves.
This is one of my pet peeves; when I see someone take that single sentence "When is a device not a device? When it's a persona!" and they think that loading a persona immediately makes the Commlink / Deck stop counting as a device for any and all instances. And since "only a device can be Master or Slave in a PAN" then the Decker can't protect the team so long as they're Decking...
People can't seem to grasp a "transitional sentence" that leads from the Device paragraph, into the Persona paragraph. I'm pretty sure it means to say "When is a device icon more than just a device icon? When it's a persona icon!"
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A persona is the combination of a user and a device that gets the user onto the Matrix. The fact that the device has a user overrides the device’s normal icon status, turning it into a persona.
When is a device not a device? When it’s a persona!
It's not just one sentence.
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A persona is the combination of a user and a device that gets the user onto the Matrix. The fact that the device has a user overrides the device’s normal icon status, turning it into a persona.
When is a device not a device? When it’s a persona!
It's not just one sentence.
No, but it's all referring to the Iconography. And yet some people think that the physical device literally stops being a device when you log in. That's why I try to point out that Slaving is more on the physical device level, where personas are on the digital icon level.
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Kincaid
While I do appreciate your comments on the hypotheticals I posted, I do fear you missed my point. Those questions are repeated over and over and over again, and over the past year as I've played with people who are new to Shadowrun the Matrix irrevocably seems to come up as an almost insurmountable obstacle in terms of basic understanding of it.
Again, I'm quite capable of making my own house rules in order for the system to make sense to me. The problem, as Malevolence so eloquently put it, is that there seems to be no common framework of understanding where the Matrix is concerned, forcing players and GMs both to constantly redefine the workings of the Matrix almost from table to table. This isn't a bad thing in and of itself, some variance is expected of course, but I consider it more than a little ironic that the fictional consensual illusion that is the Matrix has no consensual real-life analogy.
Also, Kincaid, I cannot agree with your statement about "better" [insert Pc archetype here] not being influenced by player knowledge. Of course an IT professional will have an advantage in role playing an IT professional, just like a soldier will have an advantage in terms of having knowledge of battlefield tactics and strategy, and just like someone used to dealing with people and who's got an agile mind and a quick tongue will have a leg up over someone who doesn't where role playing a social character is concerned. That doesn't make them "better" players by any stretch, and in my opinion a good role player considers the difference between character knowledge and player knowledge. In all of these cases, however, someone who knows the game mechanics intimately will have an advantage even over someone with real world knowledge.
But, and this is of critical importance to me; there's no such thing as an "advantage" in playing a fictional character in Shadowrun. We're all playing the game to have fun, so who cares if the soldier knows CQB tactics in and out, or if the real life hacker could break into the Pentagon systems if he so wanted. This is a cooperative role playing game focused on having fun; I dare say that is the cardinal rule of the game. So I don't think it's too much to ask for that the Matrix system, an integral part of the game in my opinion, not only make some sort of sense in-universe, but is also consistent with itself.
In closing, Wakshaani highlighted something that I find highly disturbing for the future of Shadowrun when he informed us that he wasn't aware of what was in Hard Target while he was writing Rigger 5.0. If the writers aren't aware of what other writers are doing and how other content is structured, then it's no wonder there are such discrepancies between rules and mechanics from book to book. I can only hope that the line designers take comments made in threads like this to heart and work on consistency. And while I know there is no money in Errata and FAQs, please, please, please consider that for some of us this is a critical consideration in determining whether or not we continue supporting the products you put out. I love the effort that goes into the creative writing, but when fiction isn't backed by a solid and believable core rule mechanics I can't justify buying nearly pure fiction pieces like the Shadows in Focus series. I've enjoyed Shadowrun for over two decades, but my confidence isn't exactly at its highest at the moment. And with that, I think I've said all that I need to on this particular topic in this thread.
Marcus,
I agree that the concept of device and persona gets frustrating, though for me it's for different reasons. I am not a native English speaker, though I consider my grasp of the English language to be quite adequate. That being said, I shouldn't need a degree in English to be able to make heads or tails of the rules, especially given Kincaids comments above about marketability. I personally house ruled that aspect of device and persona immediately after reading the sentence, choosing my own interpretation since I could not figure out what the official intention was. That doesn't stop me from wanting concise, well written rules that can in fact be understood even by 15 year olds, however. The fact that that question keeps coming up should tell you that while you may know what a transitional sentence is, a lot of people may not. So to me, it really comes down to expecting writers to work on creating rules with less room for interpretation, because there certainly is a lack of that currently. Look at the FAQ thread specifically and the Rules forum in general for plenty of examples of rules ambiguity causing the same questions to be asked repeatedly.
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No, but it's all referring to the Iconography.
Which is where the user interaction takes place. There's nothing to indicate you physically knock the devices against each other (example! insert physical device level protocols here) to initiate a master / slave relationship.
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No, but it's all referring to the Iconography.
Which is where the user interaction takes place. There's nothing to indicate you physically knock the devices against each other (example! insert physical device level protocols here) to initiate a master / slave relationship.
No, but my point is that Slaving has more to do with the physical devices themselves networking together, than it does with the digital Icons networking themselves together.
When people see that single innocent sentence at the end of a paragraph, at the end of a page... suddenly they jump to the conclusion that as soon as the Decker logs into their Cyberdeck and manifests their Persona, they are no longer able to provide Matrix defense for the rest of the team. Since "only devices can be Master or Slave in a PAN" and since "when is a device not a device" must clearly mean that it stops counting as a device. So as soon as the Decker tries to do their job, they are no longer able to do their job anymore. Their Deck no longer provides Firewall or Sleaze benefits to the rest of the team, b/c they logged in.
That... is what I'm talking about. Stupid interpretations like that. Thinking that something that significant would just be a single sentence buried in some fluff. Instead of realizing that it is mostly just fluff detailing the difference between how an unattended Device Icon is viewed and behaves, compared to how much more active a Persona Icon is out on the Grid. It doesn't mean it stops doing it's job, it just means it looks different.
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It is silly - but I don't see a problem in the interpretations of interacting sentences. I see it in the clarity of the rules.
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I agree that the core book isn't clear on some important issues and there are various stylistic problems (When is a persona not a persona...is this meant mechanically or idiomatically?). So, ideally, we'd have clear rules so the different tables wouldn't be facing the same sets of questions. I'm not totally against having some sort of framework. In many ways, clear rules circumvents the importance of this, but it's always handy for GMs to have a basic If X, Then Y formula in the back of his head. I think where we diverge isn't on whether or not there should be a framework, but whether or not that framework should be based on current technologies. I'll grant you that basing it on current technologies would make it more comprehensible to some percentage of the playerbase, which is great, but I think there are downsides as well. It restricts what is possible in a fictional world and, more practically, it limits the number of people who can write on Matrix-related projects, making them much more difficult to assemble. Some of the more trippy aspects of the Matrix, like Foundations, aren't really explicable in a technological sense but absolutely fit the "in his hubris, man builds something that gets outside of his control" trope that's common to the genre.
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I think that the analogy falls into the programming layers and our peripheral view of the Matrix.
From the programming point of view, on the top level we have things like programming spreadsheets and databases. A different offshoot is HTML programming, or markup languages on forums. This is a very high level program and works across multiple platforms.
Below that, you've got applications. These are either assembled from development kits or programmed in something like C or Pascal. Applications are usually specific to one platform, or group of platforms, or maybe operating system specific.
Below that are the compilers. These take the natural language programs like C, and convert it into something that a machine understands. These are definitely machine or operating system dependent.
We, as people and not machines, understand the programs in real time only from those upper levels. Sure, we can step through the command codes, but that is a slow and tedious process. So, to the Matrix USER, it is very much a black box where you put something in and something else comes out. Software skill is just operating those programs and maybe combining them as modules. As far as the software skill is concerned, things really are just the icon they show on the matrix. This blurs a bit with the computer skill, however the line I draw is software stops at cross platform, or matrix programming.
Once you get into Matrix protocols and operating systems, that is the realm of Hardware Skill. To an extent, there is some cross polination with electronic warfare. Hardware isn't as sexy as software or cyber combat because it takes orders of magnitude more time to complete. This is where IT guys come off as bookish and needy because hardware takes long periods of focused attention. Hardware guys are also the ones that roll their eyes when people say there's no wired matrix anymore, everything is wireless. Hardware guys have looked below the surface of the matrix and have a first level grasp of how it works. They know how to get devices to talk to each other with matrix protocols and understand that somewhere out there a physical device is doing calculations or storing data. While they recognize the existence of machine code, they certainly don't read it fluently.
As we go deeper, we get down to the magical realm of Foundations. Here, the people that understand fluently what is going on have had to have their eyes replaced with cybereyes because human eyes are in cable of rolling as hard as they need to when dealing with the USERS. They are perfectly happy saying foundations are magic so as to save battery life on their cybereyes. Foundations are literally that, the basis for all of the programming on top of it. Foundations hold the rules that say ADD (1, 1) OUT (10). Take a look at Human Resource Machine for an adequate visualization of a Foundation. Now the Foundation is more than just assembly language, but it gets stacked up to that foundation's matrix protocol standard. So, you do get some more complex stuff happening, but it is a very static place, since the core rules rarely change. It is also generally the stuff up around Matrix protocols where the activity is.
And all of that doesn't amount to a hill of beans if you can't perceive it. How does all of that get translated into comprehensible iconography for the user? For the most part, it doesn't. For the most part, the USER doesn't need to know this stuff and there's no money in making it understandable. The people that design and build sleeze and attack modules do know how that stuff works and all the loopholes to get by the protocols. At the USER end, it is monkey presses the button, but at the matrix protocol level there's a lot of jumping through loopholes. So why don't they close the loopholes? Because then the terrorists win. The government and corporations want to be able to snoop on the "bad guys" for "security" reasons. Then, all they have to do is not tell the "bad guys" about these loopholes and back doors and they have an advantage. Which also enforces the "Matrix is Magick and nobody understands it" idea so that the goverments don't have to disclose those loopholes.
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Some of the more trippy aspects of the Matrix, like Foundations, aren't really explicable in a technological sense but absolutely fit the "in his hubris, man builds something that gets outside of his control" trope that's common to the genre.
I think "We don't know how it works, but it does" is fine when there's a multitude of options.
But when it comes to "there is no way this logically should work, but it does", it becomes somewhat questionable.
Whatever we have assumed to far has, at some point, ran into a wall of "nope, this doesn't match".
I totally se your point, but it'd be nice if there were at least one or two in-fluff assumptons that theoretically could explain things.
If, say, the Foundation was really a hardware network with sufficient processing power to border on sentience (which explains why host foundations "dream"), then it's perfectly reasonable for it to assume that it can generate and manage more complex data, say, personas, then GOD ever could.
And all that'd need to happen to make that make sense is to fluff Comlinks to contain basic Biometrix scanners.
Maybe say that some functions requiring ownership are limited in areas withbad connection as an insufficient amount of data can be veryfied.
Those two italic sentences, or something similar depending on the tried explanation, are what is missing in my book. Or the book.
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You know, the more and more we talk about all the handwaving going on with the Matrix rules...
The simplest way to bring it all back under control, would be to print the details in the Technomancer book that is (supposed to be) coming out before long.
Data Trails was written mostly from the perspective of a Decker. And to them, the Foundation really is a mystical place out of Alice in Wonderland. How could something like that just happen? How do some of these things work, when everything about them seems to defy logic?
And then a Technomancer walks up, gives the blue Caterpillar a high five, takes a swig off the Mad Hatter's teacup, and wanders into the distance chatting it up with the White Rabbit.
Of course, they'd need to clarify that Hosts are not immune to Resonance abilities, since at that point they would have established that Hosts are really made out of Resonance. Since the Foundation is basically just a publicly accessible Resonance Realm.
BTW... if this does actually happen, I would not be adverse to having a ridiculously powerful Technomancer named Marcus Gideon take some of the credit. =)
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Actually, that architecture may not be a coincidence.
This is a long rabbit hole.
First, let's explain technomancers. My hypothesis is that ambient nanites, used in just about everything, build up in some people. In a small portion of them, they become sensitized to radio waves, i.e. wifi. There's stories about people hearing radio broadcasts in their fillings, this is a similar concept. Nanites are used to bridge the gap between the nervous system and cyber interface. Those nanites were developed by TranSys Neuronet, the ones that made the first orchestra grade cyber hand. Remember that name for later. The human brain has amazing language abilities as well as capability of rewiring itself around damage. The stories about blind people getting better at hearing, as well as mirror glasses getting people to flip their perception of up and down. The assumption is that some of the few sensitized people were able to perceive wifi, or digital signals in general. While merely sensitive people would get headaches, represented in game as wifi allergies, those that could make sense of the signals would become technomancers. Now, having the nanites isn't enough, there's genetics and just plain luck involved, but most importantly, there has to be something to perceive, i.e. the wireless matrix.
Now we need to go back in time again to the Otaku. They were and still are a tribe in the PCC with technological ties rather than spiritual. Back in the 50s they were being marveled at for being able to deck naked, i.e. without a cyberdeck. Back in the day, the main system for the PCC was believed to be an ultraviolet host. The great Deckers of the day couldn't crack that system. Those that got close believed that there might have been an AI in there, perhaps the first. Maybe it was just Otaku spiders, but the point is that it was a tough crack. Back then, Renraku was interested in a little PCC company called Iris Firmworks. After a demonstration in Seattle, Iris seemed amiable to the idea and by 3rd edition, Iris was a subsidiary of Renraku. While the obvious project would be the SCIRE's AI, Iris was known for something else. They did the Athabascan grid, which is pretty much the prototype for the wireless matrix. Skip ahead to Dunkelzahn's will and you've got Lanier leaving Renraku to join up with Villiers in Novatech. Obviously, he was spying, but what did he steal? Wireless matrix specs, if not prototypes. Skip ahead to the Crash, and subsequent merger of Novatech, Erika and TranSys Neuronet. Miraculously, NEOnet has a working wireless infrastructure to drop into the wrecked matrix.
So, assuming Lanier stole the architecture, it was based on the Renraku / Iris architecture. That was in turn based on the PCC / Otaku architecture. So these "magical" foundations and such spawned from the same source as the Otaku / technomancers. Half life 3 confirmed!!!
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Holy moly, 146 replies...
I don't personally have an issue with the matrix rules having a parallel in 2015 IT, just that they are inconsistent and poorly worded. Having said this, our table has no issues with running the matrix in our adventures, some of them (eg. splintered state) being heavily matrix based. Wherever there is an inconsistency (eg. the original post), we simply make an assumption and move on.
From thinking of the various concepts, I can think of a fair few parallels in the modern internet/ IT world, but obviously it's been heavily abstracted.
#/ Re personas not as masters in a PAN - we've always assumed that they can, and that it's just down to wording.
#/ Stealing someone's commlink nets just that - a commlink. The owner account is what confers ownership of all their other belongings. Even if a commlink is the master in a PAN, this doesn't confer ownership.
#/ Hacking transfer of ownership takes a while, as you're essentially hacking the ownership database (in 2015 caravans, cars, guns, etc. all have their own registration databases, SR ownership is just extending the concept)
#/ Range of user to wireless device - I'd probably rule about 2 or 3 metres? 2015 RFID's have various ranges depending on frequency, but if you think of the keyless entry to your car, that's a good parallel.
Note: All my posts are *assumptions* - not "right" or "wrong", but my current working model of how the system works.
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If, under your ruling, a persona may be a Master because a devoce is still a device, what stops a persona from being a slave and benefit from higher firewall?
Let's say, if I have a cyberdeck I based my persona upon, may I slave it to a Firewall 6 commlink and dump Firewall on my deck?
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Since a device is still a device even when it's a persona, I'd say slaving a deck to a high rating commlink (or a commlink with a high rating firewall at least) is completely legit. Yes, this has weird mechanical effects on other parts of the game.
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When you use a device to form a persona, its stats are derived from that (and only) that device so dumping Firewall won't work. This has more to do with the "forming a persona" aspect of things than it does devices vs. personae side of things.
Once you form a persona, the device's processing power is still present on the Matrix--other devices that may have been slaved to it can still use its ratings for defense tests. It's icon is gone, however, so the "device = persona" equation that gets thrown around isn't quite that clean. The device is doing stuff. One of those things is powering your persona. Another one of those things may be defending your gun. But your persona is only ever powered by a single device.
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*sighs*
So a device isn't always a device and a persona isn't always a persona? Y U NO MAKE SENSE, Matrix rules!?
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A persona is a persona. A persona is something fueled by a device (or Resonance or hosts).
A device is a device. It's a really broad umbrella, but it includes things used to create personae.
A 3D printer isn't the thing it creates, it's still a 3D printer. Its product is related, but distinguishable.
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So a device remains a device when used to form a persona, which means you can still have devices slaved to it (i.e. the device the persona is formed on can serve as the Master of a PAN).
But at the same time, the device does NOT remain a device when used to form a persona, which means that it cannot be slaved to another device (i.e. the device the persona is formed on cannot serve as a Slave in a PAN).
(http://cdn.playbuzz.com/cdn/e30e515b-f09e-4c05-8904-f4d560fe9d20/9ac8d9a9-3188-4688-ab8e-c94d685af236.gif)
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So a device remains a device when used to form a persona, which means you can still have devices slaved to it (i.e. the device the persona is formed on can serve as the Master of a PAN).
Yes.
But at the same time, the device does NOT remain a device when used to form a persona, which means that it cannot be slaved to another device (i.e. the device the persona is formed on cannot serve as a Slave in a PAN).
No, or at the very least I'm not sure I understand the distinction you're making. The device used to form your persona can, in theory, be slaved to another device but since you only use the attributes of the actual device you use to create your persona, the slaving doesn't do your persona any good. Something can't be both a slave and a master (no daisy chains), so if you did this, there couldn't be anything else (guns, etc.) slaved to the device you're using to form your persona.
Slaving helps devices with defense tests. You are using a device to form a persona, but they are distinct entities.
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Aka, if you use X to form a persona, and X is slaved to Y, then X could receive help from Y for it's defense, theoretically, but the persona on X can not, and you can (to my understanding atm) only attack the persona of X, which uses X's stats no matter what.
Edit: Couldn't the Ownership problem with expensive electronics have been partially solved by making the bloody things cheaper?
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Why no daisy chaining? A slave would use the defense attributes of it's immediate master rather than the top of the chain. This would allow a teired defense setup where more critical devices are slaved higher in the tree.
Edit: While my comment would lead you to think a daisy chain is a top down tree I also don't see the problem with a loop provided it has three or more links (it wouldn't make sense for two devices to be both a slave and the master toward each other).
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Aka, if you use X to form a persona, and X is slaved to Y, then X could receive help from Y for it's defense, theoretically, but the persona on X can not, and you can (to my understanding atm) only attack the persona of X, which uses X's stats no matter what.
Edit: Couldn't the Ownership problem with expensive electronics have been partially solved by making the bloody things cheaper?
Right. The device's icon isn't around to target. If it were, it would still receive the slaved benefit. And I agree with the pricing thing. Like I said in Wak's thread about cyberdecks, I don't mind the initial cost of cyberdecks too much, but they should be cheaper to upgrade. I'm toying around with the idea of upgrade trees atm.
Why no daisy chaining? A slave would use the defense attributes of it's immediate master rather than the top of the chain. This would allow a teired defense setup where more critical devices are slaved higher in the tree.
As a design concept, it ensures that the cap on slaved devices is meaningful. With marks running upstream and direct connection running downstream, daisy chaining could actually make for less secure PANs/WANs. It's not a horrible idea and I'm sure it's a fairly common houserule, but I'd rather give players meaningful choices to make. If Matrix security boils down to "slave your stuff to your link and your link to the deck," it doesn't really reward thinking outside the box or capture the difficulties of deciding between your eyes or your grenades when there are only a few slots left.
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Devices slaved to you commlink which is slaved to you deck would only benefit from the commlink's defenses. if a hacker targets your slaved devices he wpuld face the commlink's firewall. Should he succeed, he gets a mark on the device, your commlink, and your deck. The meaningful choice is whether you slave your device to your commlink so you benefit from it's wireless bonus and put a weak spot in ypur matrix defense or turn off its wireless so you have one less thing to worry about. If there's a daisy chain the marks propogate to all the devices in the chain.
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Hmm. The upshot of all of this then is that even if the decker is protecting your gun, in order to use the wireless functionality you have to have a persona. If you have a cheap 'link, the decker can't protect your persona, so the weak point of any Street Sam will be his commlink unless he paid for top of the line (so kids, don't skimp on your commlink), in which case he probably doesn't need the protection of the decker.
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You can have your devices in your pan but slaved to the decker. Put your commlink in silent running and deck yourself out with a handful or two stealth tags. It'll take the enemy decker forever to figure out which silent running icon is your persona.
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You can have your devices in your pan but slaved to the decker. Put your commlink in silent running and deck yourself out with a handful or two stealth tags. It'll take the enemy decker forever to figure out which silent running icon is your persona.
Depends on whether you are using Data Trails or not. and who you are going up against.
There was a brief time when hackers thought they could
confuse security by flooding hosts with dozens of RFID
chips running silent, but once they figured out that demi-
GODs knew enough to design their scans to screen for
icons that were running silent and were not RFID chips,
the days of that trick were numbered. That’s the part of
Matrix security that too many people overlook—it’s not
about just looking at reality, it’s knowing how to define
reality so that what you want to see comes to the fore.
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Nice find, Sendaz. I'll have to remember that the next time someone tries it.
Although... That doesn't solve the problem with Wrapper; if the RFID tags are made to look like commlinks, or even other personae, how do you just filter for those? Unless GOD's filters can discern between device icons that look like commlinks and device icons that look like commlinks but actually are rfid tags, in which case, Woah...
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wrapper always could be beaten by matrix perception.
And the GOD filters may be good, but this just means you have to step up your game:
Give every Stealth RFID chip the ability to run a persona through a modification with two packs (cannibalized from other RFIDs) and you suddenly have dozens of stealth commlinks.
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Give every Stealth RFID chip the ability to run a persona through a modification with two packs (cannibalized from other RFIDs) and you suddenly have dozens of stealth commlinks.
They're still tags. What you would need is a persona to load into each and every one of them.
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Personally the way i tend to justify things is to pretty much handwave Personas as unfakable as others have suggested.
For the rest, I think of the matrix pretty much this way (partial disclosure - day job for last 20 years has been IT, currently dealing with Cloud, new to Shadowrun in 5th) :
Extension of the "Internet of Things" principle of wireless internet for everything, most areas end up getting so many wireless devices that you end up with more bandwidth connecting them to each other than bottlenecking them through routers. This is the "Matrix".
Grids are largely just a shorthand for traffic priority, public grid always gets least priority, though they use something like current day VLAN technology to separate the traffic. Hackers jumping Grids are effectively just hacking the 'VLAN tag', which is why it isn't too challenging. Going between grids does involve going via some kind of router, hence the reduction in effectiveness hacking between grids.
'Noise' is either signal degradation reducing Bandwidth, lack of devices reducing Bandwidth, or amount of traffic saturating bandwidth, all reducing connection efficiency.
Again with the "Internet of Things", there is so much spare processing power with all these devices around going to waste. The ability to allow other devices to use this for their own processing is huge, allowing devices to perform better with less heat output and lower power requirements. There are downsides, though, such as having to be wireless to be anything other than dumb on many devices (pretty much the way that voice control of your smart TV is processed on a server somewhere, not in your TV).
Of course, this also impacts GOD. How do you track down and control the Matrix when illegal activity is distributed? Essentially you can't tell GOD everything that happens, but devices report if they think they are doing something that could be illegal (they won't know, as they are processing only some of the instructions). So once GOD starts seeing several devices reporting in a smallish geographical area, it starts investigating, and narrowing things down. This is why Overwatch score takes time and activity to build, and why GOD don't have records of everything that happens everywhere.
Without going into detail, that's pretty much how I justify it to myself for the basics.
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Give every Stealth RFID chip the ability to run a persona through a modification with two packs (cannibalized from other RFIDs) and you suddenly have dozens of stealth commlinks.
They're still tags. What you would need is a persona to load into each and every one of them.
Is a tag still a tag if you could run it like a commlink?
Otherwise, if they automatically filter out the tag, you could use it to commit digital crimes without gaining overwatch score.
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wrapper always could be beaten by matrix perception.
While that is true, wrapper states that you have to know to look for something to see through it. So if I see a swarm of 20 commlinks, is a single hit on an MPT enough to reveal all of them as wrapped RFID tags? Or, as the text seem to suggest, do you have to pick randomly which icon to look at.
And that is the power of Wrapper and tags. Nothing in the Data Trails entry seems to counteract this, which makes a 250 nuyen program way too valuable since you can effectively conceal your presence in a cloud of digital chaff, for lack of a better term.
And it gets even worse if, like Jack suggests, you make the tags run as a device that has the capacity to host a persona. At that point, it is for all intents and purposes a mini commlink.
Or, you buy 10 burner links and you're no longer talking about tags from a hardware perspective, but actual commlinks. Wrap them as simply higher end devices, and how does your opponent know the difference except to look at each one.
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Is a tag still a tag if you could run it like a commlink?
Otherwise, if they automatically filter out the tag, you could use it to commit digital crimes without gaining overwatch score.
A device shows up as a device when it's being run as a device.
The fact that the device has a user overrides the device’s normal icon status, turning it into a persona.
There is no default where you can use a tag to commit crimes and still have it show up with a device icon.
While that is true, wrapper states that you have to know to look for something to see through it. So if I see a swarm of 20 commlinks, is a single hit on an MPT enough to reveal all of them as wrapped RFID tags? Or, as the text seem to suggest, do you have to pick randomly which icon to look at.
And that is the power of Wrapper and tags. Nothing in the Data Trails entry seems to counteract this, which makes a 250 nuyen program way too valuable since you can effectively conceal your presence in a cloud of digital chaff, for lack of a better term.
And it gets even worse if, like Jack suggests, you make the tags run as a device that has the capacity to host a persona. At that point, it is for all intents and purposes a mini commlink.
Or, you buy 10 burner links and you're no longer talking about tags from a hardware perspective, but actual commlinks. Wrap them as simply higher end devices, and how does your opponent know the difference except to look at each one.
This is why I believe bug scanners are more common in secure locations than is otherwise presented. It's the simplest way for security to pick out suspicious clumps of wireless devices and pinpoint what they need to inspect.
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Well, you can slave your stuff to tags to benefit from their 3 points of sleaze without forming a persona on them.
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Instead of wrapping stealth tags to look lite personas, why not wrap your persona to look like a stealth tag?
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Rather than Wrapper all the Stealth Tags to look like anything, why not just Wrapper the few pieces of Gear you and your team have to look like Stealth Tags? Then you have 110 "Stealth Tags" to sort through, with 10 of them being real stuff.
Speaking of which, lemme ask the class a question.
When someone sets a device to Silent Running... do you think ANY of the device's functions or features should be visible / detectable before you make the focused Matrix Perception check to scan it?
Since the book says if there are several Icons nearby and they are all Running Silent, you have to scan each one at random to reveal it. Which would suggest that it's impossible to say "show me the hidden Icons that are not Tags" to filter out the chaff. Until you scan each one, they all look like featureless grey blobs.
If you do let players see features, then it completely negates the point. Why bother trying to Run Silent and hide from detection, if someone can say "Show me the hidden Icons that are Cyberdecks" and suddenly there you are.
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Wrapper is a fantastic tool, especially if you know the host's iconography ahead of time. It's not too hard to defeat if you do something suspicious (which you'll probably do at some point), but it can give you a decent amount of lead time.
And yeah, bug scanners are weirdly powerful. All my fly spys have them.
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Since the book says if there are several Icons nearby and they are all Running Silent, you have to scan each one at random to reveal it.
"If you know at least one feature of an icon running silent, you can spot the icon" is the order of the day. Most commonly this will be "I know there are icon(s) running silent" followed by "let's go through them at random!", but if you have certain knowledge of an icon's features other than the fact it is running silent, you can work from that starting point instead. This is where bug / radio signal scanners step in.
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When someone sets a device to Silent Running... do you think ANY of the device's functions or features should be visible / detectable before you make the focused Matrix Perception check to scan it?
Since the book says if there are several Icons nearby and they are all Running Silent, you have to scan each one at random to reveal it. Which would suggest that it's impossible to say "show me the hidden Icons that are not Tags" to filter out the chaff. Until you scan each one, they all look like featureless grey blobs.
If you do let players see features, then it completely negates the point. Why bother trying to Run Silent and hide from detection, if someone can say "Show me the hidden Icons that are Cyberdecks" and suddenly there you are.
This goes back to the fluff bit about Demi-gods seeing through stealth tags.
How are they able to screen through the horde of blobs that is a pile of running silent icons to find the actual working devices in in such short order?
Remember when a normal device is running silent, it is still interacting with the Matrix, just in a very limited way.
The stealth tag is just a silent icon sitting there, it has a presence but not much else.
Your wireless gun running silent mode is still pulling in data or requesting weather updates although in a stealthier manner.
Maybe the Demi's are not looking at the individual silent icons so much as seeing who is pulling and putting out a certain level of data off the matrix.
So to the Demi the stealth tag looks like a rock, yeah it's there but its input/output is pretty static while your gun in silent mode is requesting and getting a weather update every 0.1 seconds so it gets a tiny pulse every so often.
They don't know what that data packet was, but that alerts the Demi this is not just another stealth tag.
Still doesn't answer a lot of things though.
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How accurate would you consider this 4e setting info in 5e?
When a wireless device needs to pass information to another device in mutual Signal range, it simply sends the data. If the destination is not within this range, for example when you are in the UCAS and trying to speak to Mr. Johnson in Lisbon, the information travels from device to device in a process called routing.
When information is routed between devices, it is non-sequentially sliced into a number of pieces and sent to the recipient via multiple paths; this makes it almost impossible to intercept the traffic except within Signal range of the sender or the receiver, the only places the information is in one readable piece.
The routing functions of a device are handled by a separate component of hardware than the other functions of the device. This makes the routing process invisible to the user, and allows the device’s node to connect to the Matrix even when it is operating in Hidden mode.
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How accurate would you consider this 4e setting info in 5e?
When a wireless device needs to pass information to another device in mutual Signal range, it simply sends the data. If the destination is not within this range, for example when you are in the UCAS and trying to speak to Mr. Johnson in Lisbon, the information travels from device to device in a process called routing.
When information is routed between devices, it is non-sequentially sliced into a number of pieces and sent to the recipient via multiple paths; this makes it almost impossible to intercept the traffic except within Signal range of the sender or the receiver, the only places the information is in one readable piece.
The routing functions of a device are handled by a separate component of hardware than the other functions of the device. This makes the routing process invisible to the user, and allows the device’s node to connect to the Matrix even when it is operating in Hidden mode.
I thought we'd already established in the other thread, that SR4 was based on real networking, which is why that description of Routing sounds sensible, logical, and basically how Routing really works. SR5 has gone completely off the reservation without looking back. The books say that distance based Noise is based on the antenna of your device, to the antenna on the target. So there is no more Routing, no more hops. It's straight from you to them.