[Man Who Walks At Night]

I find it highly enjoyable to both craft the story but to also experience and be a part of it, like a director acting in his own film.

See, this part I don't quite get. I mean, if I'm the GM, I KNOW the fragging plot, I mean, I made it!, I think I would develop a split personality disorder to truly be able to enjoy my own plot. Its not just like being an acting director, its like being the writer, the directer, the actor AND the git who pays to go see the movie when its done - And somehow still be amazed at every step despite it being the same story all the time

[The Seven]

Call me dumb, call me names for not being a natural English speaker, hell, call me what you want, but I never allow a hacker or a rigger PC in my campaigns. The rules are, personally, too difficult, and imo, they slow the game down.

Maybe it's a bad C2020 experience with hacking turns taking 45 minutes (of which the action part of the group would just play PS2), maybe it's just my difficulty with the rules. In any case, I always portray the group's hacker and/or rigger. They prefer it that way, too, and I can simplify the rules, so it's a win-win scenario.

</rant>

[Man Who Walks At Night]

Call me dumb, call me names for not being a natural English speaker, hell, call me what you want, but I never allow a hacker or a rigger PC in my campaigns. The rules are, personally, too difficult, and imo, they slow the game down.

Maybe it's a bad C2020 experience with hacking turns taking 45 minutes (of which the action part of the group would just play PS2), maybe it's just my difficulty with the rules. In any case, I always portray the group's hacker and/or rigger. They prefer it that way, too, and I can simplify the rules, so it's a win-win scenario.

</rant>

For Deckers in previous editions I have done the same, and same goes for Hackers/TM's now, Riggers are fine however.

[Bradd]

Call me dumb, call me names for not being a natural English speaker, hell, call me what you want, but I never allow a hacker or a rigger PC in my campaigns. The rules are, personally, too difficult, and imo, they slow the game down.

Maybe it's a bad C2020 experience with hacking turns taking 45 minutes (of which the action part of the group would just play PS2) ....

You get the same problem in reverse any time a fight breaks out where not everyone can participate (either because they're out of position or because they're not hitters). Basically, all Shadowrun combat is slow, regardless of whether it's physical, virtual, or astral. It gets even slower as you introduce more minions like agents, sprites, spirits, and drones. It's tough to deal with. You can encourage everyone to generalize so that they're useful in any situation, although that still doesn't help when the group gets stuck split up.

[Chaemera]

I alleviate the "hacking takes forever" portion by allowing people with extended tests to roll "in the background" until they reach the threshold. Or getting them to roll once & divide the threshold by the number of hits, this is now how long it takes to accomplish the goal (hacking, lockpicking, vehicle repair, weapon modification).

This isn't always the case, it depends on the current pacing, how interested everyone is in the outcomes, level of risk, etc.

As to combats where the party is split up & not everyone is involved, while there's no avoiding it sometimes, I generally take a card from movies & TV and have something requiring initiative happen at each site, simultaneously. No one seems to mind that the devil rats in the sewers appear to be coordinating with the guards in the alley, since it means everyone's engaged & part of the action.

Obviously, these strategies don't work every time, so you'll sometimes have one group sitting and waiting.

[Dead Monky]

I haven't had too many problems with hacking taking too long.  Of course I "forget" a lot of the steps and whatnot and generally try to have something else going on at the same time so the other players have something to do.  Like shooting at the people trying to kill the hacker or rigging demo charges.

Once, back before my memory got so conveniently bad, the rest of the group got kind of pissy during the hacking and the player of the troll weapon specialist decided "Screw this boring shit." and had her character tear the entire database out of the wall.  The team then dragged it back to the Johnson and told him to hack into it on his own time.  Fun times.

[Man Who Walks At Night]

Of course I "forget" a lot of the steps and whatnot and generally try to have something else going on at the same time so the other players have something to do.  Like shooting at the people trying to kill the hacker or rigging demo charges.

Player 1: I start hacking the computer system
Player 2: I take cover!
Player 3: I start laying out suppression fire near the door on the north wall.
Player 4: I get ready to cast heal on the hacker

Problem with your approach is eventually players WILL notice the synergy between hacking and action happening shortly after and start preparing for it

[Dead Monky]

Player 1: I start hacking the computer system
Player 2: I take cover!
Player 3: I start laying out suppression fire near the door on the north wall.
Player 4: I get ready to cast heal on the hacker

Problem with your approach is eventually players WILL notice the synergy between hacking and action happening shortly after and start preparing for it

They should be preparing for such complications anyway. 

But I just used those for examples.  I find other things for them to do too.  Even if it is just having them hold a conversation in character while waiting for the hacker to finish.  That gets pretty funny when he's in full VR.

"Anyone want to paint penises on him?"
"Let's put fire crackers in his pants."
"I know!  Let's put a dress on him."

EDIT
Fixed tag error.

[farothel]

One of the 'problems' we had in our group was that the GM wasn't all that familiar with the hacking rules and I, as the hacker, was using them for the first time as well.  So what I did was made a hacking cheat sheet, with all the possible matrix actions, from datasearch to hacking and cybercombat so we could find things back very quickly.  That already made it faster as we didn't have to go through the books all the time (I put book pages with it as well, so we can go back if necessary).  It's something that has proven very useful (if I find a way to post attachments here, I'll post it somewhere).

[The Seven]

Once, back before my memory got so conveniently bad, the rest of the group got kind of pissy during the hacking and the player of the troll weapon specialist decided "Screw this boring shit." and had her character tear the entire database out of the wall.  The team then dragged it back to the Johnson and told him to hack into it on his own time.  Fun times.

That sounds exactly as something my group would do. Fun times indeed, and with a group of muscle/specialized combat/arcane hitters, why do we need a hacker, amirite?

[The Seven]

I find other things for them to do too.  Even if it is just having them hold a conversation in character while waiting for the hacker to finish.  That gets pretty funny when he's in full VR.

"Anyone want to paint penises on him?"
"Let's put fire crackers in his pants."
"I know!  Let's put a dress on him."

Man, our Russian Vory combat mage once threw a Fireball on our Elf samurai dude for doing some of those things on your list on him as he was in Astral mode. He overcharged it for Force 10 and got 7 hits.

[CanRay]

"Anyone want to paint penises on him?"
"Let's put fire crackers in his pants."
"I know!  Let's put a dress on him."

Man, our Russian Vory combat mage once threw a Fireball on our Elf samurai dude for doing some of those things on your list on him as he was in Astral mode. He overcharged it for Force 10 and got 7 hits.

Never do to someone something when they're unconscious that you wouldn't do to them when they are conscious.  Eventually, everyone wakes up.  Even if it is to wake up dead.

[The Seven]

"Anyone want to paint penises on him?"
"Let's put fire crackers in his pants."
"I know!  Let's put a dress on him."

Man, our Russian Vory combat mage once threw a Fireball on our Elf samurai dude for doing some of those things on your list on him as he was in Astral mode. He overcharged it for Force 10 and got 7 hits.

Never do to someone something when they're unconscious that you wouldn't do to them when they are conscious.  Eventually, everyone wakes up.  Even if it is to wake up dead.

Yeah, Yoshi-san learned that the hard way.

[CanRay]

Really lit a fire under his hoop, eh?

[Dead Monky]

Man, our Russian Vory combat mage once threw a Fireball on our Elf samurai dude for doing some of those things on your list on him as he was in Astral mode. He overcharged it for Force 10 and got 7 hits.

Hah!  Nice.

What I listed and more has happened in our group.  The face drew penises all over the hacker when he was in VR once and as revenge he forged a bunch of false purchase orders from her for bulk granny panties and incontinence medication then 'leaked' them to the network of her favorite club.

The weapon specialist dressed up the mage in a frilly dress while he was astral projecting and later found her place inhabited by a water elemental that turned her basement into a swimming pool and a bunch of watcher spirits that proceeded to follow her around announcing to everyone that she was "Lady Stinky Britches, Queen of the toilet."

And what happened to the poor adept after she pulled a prank on the technomancer is best left unsaid.  *shudder*