[ZeroSum]

As a result of this discussion, several points of view have been raised regarding Matrix Search.

In the interest of public discourse, I'd like to propose some examples of information and ask the community to discuss what kind of information they think it should be (public vs private) and why. To set the stage, let's first review the objective facts we know about Matrix Search from the CRB.

1. As per SR6 page 183, Matrix Search is an Extended Test with an interval of 10 minutes and no pre-defined threshold
2. Matrix Search is not opposed; any hit on the Extended Test is applied towards an accumulated total
3. Matrix Search states that the Legwork Results table from page 50 should be used "as a general guideline for what is uncovered"
5. The Legwork Table has a threshold from 0 to 10, with 0 being "No useful information", 1 being "basic, broadly available background information, and 10 being "deep secrets others are actively trying to hide"
4. Matrix Search states that it is used to "search the publicly accessible grid for information"

I hope that we can all agree that the above statements are 100% factual; I've tried to take care to only state relevant facts as presented by the book without making any assumptions.

Before we move on to some sample scenarios, I'd like to point out that Banshee, the author of the Matrix chapter, has made a few relevant statements regarding Matrix Search. To save you from having to review those quotes I will add them here for reference. Note that some of these may be somewhat out of context, so if you're uncertain go back and re-read the thread, please. Also, thank you once again Banshee for providing your input on the forums. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that your engagement with the community is massively appreciated!

As for the matrix search ... I feel that is a case where wites got crossed and really should just be a simple test that takes longer than a single action

Should 10 hits on a legwork roll via the Matrix turn up the same value of information as 10 hits on a legwork roll via a contact? [...]

I would say absolutely not, a matrix search should never be a simple replacement for legwork. It should only augment legwork. A matrix search doesn't represent much more than a Google search which can uncover quite a bit, but is still no replacement for actually talking to people. There should always be information that is not available online. That's why published legwork tables have different thresholds for different information and not all of it is available via the matrix

EDIT: also to add..  getting deep dark secrets from the matrix should be a matrix run involving getting inside a defended host and  not a search at all

[...] However, if matrix search is treated as an extended test with a zero threshold then even someone with such a small dice pool as 10 dice will pretty much automatically find deeply hidden secret information that only a select few know about and that is actively being erased from the matrix. [...]

No ... not really. If it is a deep dark secret that has been erased from matrix you could perform a matrix search for years and never find it. A search will never find anything that has been deleted or hidden behind any kind of firewall out of the public realm ... that is what electronic forensics and hacking are for

Just one example... you may be able to see things find out about a person from social media post or public matrix posts but unless you hack them you would not ever gain access to their private text messages

OK, so now we have a both a summary of the rules as written, as well as a frame of reference for what the author intended when writing the rules. This alone is great information (and one of the reasons why I keep suggesting that Designer's Notes are a good idea), but let's elaborate a little on how this could be treated using guidelines from previously published content.

SRM 04-01 "Hiding in the Shadows" has several legwork tables where Contacts and Data Search have separate thresholds. For example, if the runners try to look up information about Johnny Torinni, an NPC in the mission, the table looks like this:

Contacts...	Data Search...	Information
0	0	He is the new host of Late Night Seattle?
1	3	I think he's an ork businessman
2	6	He runs some businesses in the Underground
3	10	He's one of the richest businessmen in the Underground
4	18	He's a major supporter of the Ork Underground. Really popular down there. Does a lot for the community.
5	-	He's come into a lot of extra money lately, but he's just pouring it into the rebuilding effort.

As we can immediately tell, the last piece of information can only be obtained through contacts and not a Data Search. This pattern is reused in several other published adventures, including Sprawl Wilds, Prime Missions, and Season 6 and 7 of Shadowrun Missions to name a few. There is some variance in what the thresholds are and at what rating the information is not available through a Matrix Search, but they mostly follow the above pattern so I'm not going to quote others.

Now, the challenge for players that are new to Shadowrun 6th Edition is that the only rules information available to them are the facts from the CRB above. In addition, what is and what is not public information is a judgement call that could vary wildly from GM to GM. Finally, being new to the rules they will not have the benefit of previous publications to reference.

With all of the above in mind, I'd like to ask you to consider the following pieces of information and comment below whether you think this should be public or private, and why. Feel free to add suggestions of your own, and I'll keep adding them to this original post.

Personal Information:
1. The name, commcode, and picture of a private citizen (for instance, John Smith, a UCAS citizen who works for a non-extraterritorial corporation)
2. The name, commcode, and picture of a corporate citizen (for instance, Jane Smith who works for a AAA rated corporation like Ares Macrotechnology)
3. The name, commcode, and picture of a non-citizen (for instance, ZeroSum, a SIN-less runner who works the shadows in Seattle)
4. The name, commcode, and picture of the Fake SIN used by the character in the previous example

Location Information:
1. The street address of a bar in Chicago
2. What kind of specials the bar serves on a daily basis
3. The fact that the bar remained open during the Chicago Quarantine, but no information about how or why
4. The fact that this particular bar is a common place for Mr Johnsons to meet runner teams
5. The fact that the bar owner is secretly a sentient ghoul, and that he has a soft spot for other sentient infected

Paydata:
1. A file containing conspiracy theories about the current UCAS President
2. Information suggesting that the file is actively being removed from the Matrix, and is getting harder to find
3. Confirmation that the file was compiled by a specific individual
4. Information about who the individual who compiled the file is
5. Specific information about the origin of the file, including specific node/host/VPN and author

[Michael Chandra]

To respond to a post made in the other topic:

"professional knowledge that is not publicized" or "deeply hidden secret information": If it's not publicized, or deeply hidden, it won't be on the public grid. And Matrix Search explicitly only applies to that. The two sections mentioning it use "the publicly accessible grid" and "publicly available information and databases". Basically, what very clever Google searches and combing through pages, such as Stack Overflow and tutorials and Wikipedia, can obtain you.

Jackpoint's not publicly accessible, and neither are other Hosts. If you want that info, you need to either get into the Host or find someone in the know.

With that in mind:
- Most citizens won't have their commcode publicly online to begin with. If your profession requires a publicly available commcode, sure. But is your own phone number publicly available online? I know all of mine aren't. Now names and pictures, that's different, since we have P2.0 and everything.
- Corporate citizens? Locked down further if they're working for a megacorp.
- SINless? As if those will be on the public grid.
- Fake SINs: Nope, those will be controlled so your picture, maybe, but that's about all imo.

- Locations: Sure.
- Specials: Yeah, because you want that on the public info-page about your bar, so people know what they can get.
- Bar history: Makes sense.
- Johnsons: Maybe on gossip forums.
- Secret owner: Sounds like something you want squashed, which will only be in private Hosts, not publicly online.

- Conspiracy theories: Hah, plenty of those!
- Scrubbed data tends to be scrubbed, so nope.
- Compiler of file: Not if the compiler can help it.
- Origin of file: Locked down like crazy, you'll have to hack to follow that trace.

[Xenon]

1. As per SR6 page 183, Matrix Search is an Extended Test with an interval of 10 minutes and no pre-defined threshold

But is it...??


Puzzle piece number one:

In SR6 an Extended Test seem to have the following format:

Code: [Select]

[Skill] + [Linked Attribute] ([Threshold], [Interval]) Extended test
Example of Extended Tests from the book include, but is not limited to;

Code: [Select]

Astral + Intuition (5, 1 hour) Extended test
Charisma + Magic (10 – target’s Essence, 1 minute) Extended test
Magic + Intuition (5, 10 minutes) Extended test
Engineering + Logic (10, 1 hour) Extended test
Engineering + Agility (lock rating x 2, 1 combat round) Extended test

While in SR6 Simple Matrix Actions seem to have the following format:

Code: [Select]

([illegal or legal]) [Skill] + [Attribute] ([Time])
Examples of Simple Matrix Actions from the book include, but is not limited to;

Code: [Select]

(legal) Electronics + Logic (Major)
(illegal) Cracking + Logic (Major)

If you combine the two then it seems (at least by my reading) that if you wanted to describe an Extended Matrix Action Test (rather than a Simple Matrix Action Test) with a Threshold of 0 and an Interval (rather a Time) of 10 minutes then it seem as if you would write it in the following format:

Code: [Select]

(legal) Electronics + Intuition (0, 10 minutes) Extended testor perhaps like this:

Code: [Select]

(legal) Electronics + Intuition (10 minutes) Extended test

However, if you want to describe a Simple Test, but where the Time is not a Minor nor Major action - instead it have an Extended Time of 10 minutes, then it seem as if you would write it in the following format:

Code: [Select]

(legal) Electronics + Intuition (Extended, 10 minutes) or perhaps like this:

Code: [Select]

(legal) Electronics + Intuition (10 minutes)

Going back to SR6 p. 183 we can see that Matrix Search in fact have the following format:

Code: [Select]

(legal) Electronics + Intuition (Extended, 10 Minutes)


Puzzle piece number two:

In SR5 Matrix Search was a regular Simple Test (not an Extended Test).




Puzzle piece number three:

In SR5 you picked one out of three different thresholds depending on the type of information you were looking for. Matrix Search in SR5 was also not a Simple or Complex action, it had a set Time that was dependent on the type of information / threshold you picked.

Code: [Select]

Threshold 1: General Knowledge or Public Information          (Time: 1 minute)
Threshold 3: Limited Interest or Not Publicized Information   (Time: 30 minutes)
Threshold 6: Hidden or Actively Hunted and Erased Information (Time: 12 hours)
Threshold N/A (require breaking into a hosts): Protected or Secret Information
In SR5 your Data Processing Rating also came into play (threshold 1 and threshold 3 could be done with a rather cheap commlink / RCC / Cyberdeck while threshold 6 searches required a high-end commlink / RCC / Cyberdeck, at least if you look at it from a chargen point of view).

Getting Threshold 6 information required that you had a dedicated decker with a 200.000+ nuyen cyberdeck, 12 hours to spare and probably also possible also thrown Edge on the test.

Hidden Information (threshold 6) used to be Hard to achieve.


Hits gained from the Matrix Search In SR6 (no matter if it is a Simple or an Extended Test) are used on the Legwork table on p. 50. When you use Contacts for legwork they also use this table. Contacts take a Simple Test (and not an Extended Test) where they roll Contact Rating x 2 and count net hits. Contacts that are famous people that regularly show up on the news have a connection of 11 or 12.

A contact with connection 12 would roll 24 dice.

If Matrix Search is resolved as an Extended Test then even a hermetic magician with a few points in electronics (let us assume a small total dice pool of 8 dice) would roll more than a connection 12 contact!

Code: [Select]

(8+7+6+5 ... = 26+ dice)
A mediocre decker with a dice pool of 13 dice would roll over 80 dice!

Code: [Select]

(13+12+11+10+9+8+7+6+5 ... = 81+ dice)
A decker with a dice pool of 16 dice would roll over 120 dice!

Code: [Select]

(16+15+14+13+12+11+10+9+8+7+6+5 ... = 126+ dice)
If Matrix Search is to be treated as an Extended Test (and not a Simple Test) then you only need as little as a total dice pool of 8 dice (our hermetic magician with a few points in electronics character above) to even take the Buying Hits rule to gain 6 hits on the Legwork table (which let them find "Hidden Information", which seem to be similar to the "Hidden Information" threshold 6 we had back in SR5).

Hidden Information (threshold 6) is still Hard to achieve if you treat it as a Simple Test.

Hidden Information (threshold 6) is Super Easy to achieve if the test is to be treated as an Extended Test.



Conclusion:

If you put all the above pieces of information together (and does not have any prior knowledge of the discussions made by the Author in that other thread you linked to) it seem plausible that Matrix Search in the CRB is actually a Simple Test with a Time of 10 minutes (rather than an Extended Test with an Interval of 10 minutes).

[Xenon]

Is it perhaps a conscious design decision and that matrix search is supposed to be super easy to complete in this edition?

That the difference between a dedicated decker with a dice pool of 16 dice just need 10-20 minutes to find Threshold 6 Hidden Information while a hermetic magician with a point of two in electronics and have a dice pool of 8 need 30-60 minutes to find the same level of information...?

[Banshee]

Or Matrix Search does have a threshold and it varies by what your searching for and is not open ended but the author (that's me in case you didn't know )did know or have access to legwork thresholds at the time of writing it so it appears to be open ended.

Regardless Matrix Search was never meant to be an opened ended answer that just takes a matter of time to unearth all answers.

[ZeroSum]

1. As per SR6 page 183, Matrix Search is an Extended Test with an interval of 10 minutes and no pre-defined threshold

But is it...??

Yes, it is.

We already know that Matrix Search and Probe do not follow the usual guidelines for extended tests on page 36, but it clearly says "Extended" in the description, thus it is an extended test. So, let's move past this and discuss what is and what is not public information instead.

Or Matrix Search does have a threshold and it varies by what your searching for and is not open ended but the author (that's me in case you didn't know )did know or have access to legwork thresholds at the time of writing it so it appears to be open ended.

Regardless Matrix Search was never meant to be an opened ended answer that just takes a matter of time to unearth all answers.

Is this something that should be posted to the errata thread, then?

For now, I think this discussion is still valid as I do not see the "publicly accessible grid" parameter of Matrix Search to change even if the type of action changes.

[Banshee]

1. As per SR6 page 183, Matrix Search is an Extended Test with an interval of 10 minutes and no pre-defined threshold

But is it...??

Yes, it is.

We already know that Matrix Search and Probe do not follow the usual guidelines for extended tests on page 36, but it clearly says "Extended" in the description, thus it is an extended test. So, let's move past this and discuss what is and what is not public information instead.

Or Matrix Search does have a threshold and it varies by what your searching for and is not open ended but the author (that's me in case you didn't know )did know or have access to legwork thresholds at the time of writing it so it appears to be open ended.

Regardless Matrix Search was never meant to be an opened ended answer that just takes a matter of time to unearth all answers.

Is this something that should be posted to the errata thread, then?

For now, I think this discussion is still valid as I do not see the "publicly accessible grid" parameter of Matrix Search to change even if the type of action changes.

I think it's more of an FAQ situation since there is nothing to really errata since we are not talking about how to use it .. just what you can find with it.

The publically acceptable parameter is a very key component to limiting what you can find. The variable threshold should be used to determine how hard it is to find, original intent factored in much higher thresholds than what was ultimately established. Hard to find stuff should take even a good hacker a few hours to dig up. However with the lower thresholds as established in the legwork section makes this almost obsolete...

Two possible solutions if you want to change it either limit it to a simple test or use much higher thresholds. Example above in the OP from the 04-01 SRM a matrix search for the best you could find was a threshold of 18!

[ZeroSum]

I think it's more of an FAQ situation since there is nothing to really errata since we are not talking about how to use it .. just what you can find with it.

That's fair. I definitely think an FAQ or Designer's Notes document is a good idea in addition to Errata. One deals with straight up incorrect information, the other deals with expanding upon RAI.

The publically acceptable parameter is a very key component to limiting what you can find. The variable threshold should be used to determine how hard it is to find, original intent factored in much higher thresholds than what was ultimately established. Hard to find stuff should take even a good hacker a few hours to dig up. However with the lower thresholds as established in the legwork section makes this almost obsolete...

Two possible solutions if you want to change it either limit it to a simple test or use much higher thresholds. Example above in the OP from the 04-01 SRM a matrix search for the best you could find was a threshold of 18!

Thanks!

All right, with that out of the way, back to the topic at hand. What is, and what is not, publicly available information in people's mind. Thanks Michael Chandra for your comprehensive response. Much appreciated.

[Plan_B]

Honestly, what is or is not publicly available needs to be an open-ended question that is up to the discretion of the GM. Putting boundaries on it means that someone is going to try to rules lawyer the crap out of it for some advantage. That said, something like "Examples of publicly available information about a person may or may not include commonly available details such as name, home address, comm code, social media information, employer, or citizenship. Publicly available information about a site may or may not include address, ownership, management, office hours, comm code, Matrix host, or work performed on site." Basically, if you can get it by using a search engine it might be available but there are not guarantees. Sometimes there's just nothing, which is itself a kind of information.

[ZeroSum]

@Plan_B
I think that is a fair approach. Even just a general two-sentence paragraph like what you put together would go a long way in directing players and GMs who are new to Shadowrun, and that is at least partly my point.

Perhaps this thread should have been in the General Discussions thread instead, as I was more interested in getting the views and opinions of you, the players/GMs, as opposed to a strict reading of the rules. Let's face it, RAW doesn't really give us much regarding what is public and what is private information.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Throughout 5e there was a disconnect between Matrix Searches in the CRB rules and how it they were implemented in published missions. Yeah 6we didn't appear to change this, but then again neither will the disconnect be new to this editions if published missions for this edition are written like 5e's.  The onus is on the missions to conform with the CRB; we'll have to see.

[Xenon]

We already know that Matrix Search and Probe do not follow the usual guidelines for extended tests on page 36...

Yes, we do. Now at least.
After clarification by the author in this and in that other thread :-)


It would have been indisputable if the format in the book had actually been "(0, 10 Minutes) Extended test". Not using the correct format make this ambiguous. There will be more people than me that will read it as a regular Simple test that have an "extended base time of 10 minutes" (also remember that most people don't read this forum).


Also, resolving Probe as a regular Opposed Test that take 1 minute to complete make far more sense and is far easier to explain.

(rather than resolving it as an unprecedented unique and undocumented opposed extended test with a threshold of 0 that, unlike regular extended tests, will also fail in the middle of the test if an individual roll fails).


And resolving Matrix Search as a regular Simple Test that take 10 minutes to complete make far more sense and is far easier to explain as well.

(rather than resolving it as an extended test with a threshold of 0 and then use every single net hit directly the existing Legwork table as this will pretty much trivialize any matrix search).

I'll shut up about this now :-D

let's move past this and discuss what is and what is not public information instead.

Agreed.

I would say that Legwork threshold 0 to 6 (or so) might contain information you may find via matrix search. This could include, but is not limited to;

• Information that is general knowledge
• Publicized information found in news articles, journals, studies or white papers
• Limited (but not protected or secret) information
• Not publicized (but not protected or secret) information
• Hidden (but not protected or secret) information
• Information leaked to the matrix but is since actively hunted and erased
• Hints about specific non-public hosts that might contain protected or secret information on the topic you are looking for

Or Matrix Search does have a threshold and it varies by what your searching for and is not open ended but the author (that's me in case you didn't know )did know or have access to legwork thresholds at the time of writing it so it appears to be open ended.

Regardless Matrix Search was never meant to be an opened ended answer that just takes a matter of time to unearth all answers.

Matrix Search on p. 183 state: The number of hits generated gives you more information regarding the subject. and then it point to the Legwork Results table on p. 50 and this table explicitly state: Note that knowledge of one level comes with knowledge of all the levels with fewer hits which will be read as if the test is open ended :-/

Since this does not seem to be intended I think it should be addressed somehow...

Glad to hear that the intent clearly seem to be that Matrix Search should not be trivial in this edition. Also glad to hear that the threshold is not supposed to be open ended :-)

Two possible solutions if you want to change it either limit it to a simple test...

Matrix Search as a Simple Test House Rule (borrowing game mechanics from SR5 until thresholds and game mechanics for both Probe and Matrix Search will be properly clarified):

Resolving Matrix Search as a Simple Test with a fixed threshold and base time depending on the general availability of the information in question. And that extra hits can be used to reduce the base time. Failed test still spend the full base time.

Code: [Select]

Information is:                    Threshold    Time
General Knowledge of Public            1       1 Minute
Limited Interest or Not Publicized     3      30 Minutes
Hidden or Actively Hunted and Erased   6      12 Hours
Protected or Secret                   N/A        N/A

or use much higher thresholds. Example above in the OP from the 04-01 SRM a matrix search for the best you could find was a threshold of 18!

Matrix Search as an Extended Test with higher thresholds House Rule (again borrowed the table from SR5 but in this case with x3 thresholds):

Electronics + Intuition (Matrix Search Table, 10 Minutes) Extended test

Code: [Select]

Information is:                    Threshold 
General Knowledge of Public            3       
Limited Interest or Not Publicized     9     
Hidden or Actively Hunted and Erased  18 
Protected or Secret                   N/A

[penllawen]

A matrix search doesn't represent much more than a Google search which can uncover quite a bit, but is still no replacement for actually talking to people. There should always be information that is not available online.

I have quite different headcanon for what sorts of places deckers look for information on people when they're doing legwork. At my table, they're not just looking at on-the-up-and-up stuff like the Sixth World versions of Facebook and LinkedIn. They're also running down rumours, reading archives of screamsheet writeups that mention the person, gossip sites, news clippings, snippets of paydata for sale on underground sites, dark forums like ShadowLand, etc etc. Reliable? Not at all. Complete? Not remotely.

Are these "publicly accessible"? Perhaps debatable for dark forums. But I think most deckers should know the seedier side of the Matrix quite well, and if they can find them, why wouldn't they be looking in places like this?

I think of Neuromancer:

The Hosaka had sorted a thin store of data and assembled a precis, but it was full of gaps. Some of the material had been print records, reeling smoothly down the screen, too quickly, and Case had had to ask the computer to read them for him. ...
The Hosaka rattled through police reports, corporate espionage records, and news files. Case watched Corto work corporate defectors in Lisbon and Marrakesh, where he seemed to grow obsessed with the idea of betrayal, to loathe the scientists and technicians he bought out for his employers. Drunk, in Singapore, he beat a Russian engineer to death in a hotel and set fire to his room. Next he surfaced in Thailand, as overseer of a heroin factory. Then as enforcer for a California gambling cartel, then as a paid killer in the ruins of Bonn. He robbed a bank in Wichita. The record grew vague, shadowy, the gaps longer.

SRM 04-01 "Hiding in the Shadows" has several legwork tables where Contacts and Data Search have separate thresholds. For example, if the runners try to look up information about Johnny Torinni, an NPC in the mission, the table looks like this:

Contacts...	Data Search...	Information
0	0	He is the new host of Late Night Seattle?
1	3	I think he's an ork businessman
2	6	He runs some businesses in the Underground
3	10	He's one of the richest businessmen in the Underground
4	18	He's a major supporter of the Ork Underground. Really popular down there. Does a lot for the community.
5	-	He's come into a lot of extra money lately, but he's just pouring it into the rebuilding effort.

This approach is fine, but I think we should be clear-eyed about the fact that 6e's RAW doesn't work like this at all. It explicitly puts the information found from Matrix searches on the same footing as the information found from contact-based legwork, right down to the same levels of information for the same numbers of hits. Perhaps that is unintentional and perhaps it needs an errata, but that's what it says right now.

EDIT: also to add..  getting deep dark secrets from the matrix should be a matrix run involving getting inside a defended host and  not a search at all

Sure, but again, for whatever reason, that's not what the current state of the 6e CRB says.

[penllawen]

1. As per SR6 page 183, Matrix Search is an Extended Test with an interval of 10 minutes and no pre-defined threshold
2. Matrix Search is not opposed; any hit on the Extended Test is applied towards an accumulated total
3. Matrix Search states that the Legwork Results table from page 50 should be used "as a general guideline for what is uncovered"

To put my objection more succinctly:

The outcome of the above is you have two circumstances against which you roll against this table. One of them is (Connection x2) dice, typically 6-8 dice for starting characters, theoretical maximum of 24 dice. The other is 90-120 dice, depending on the decker's skill level, with a theoretical maximum of at least 275 dice. That's just silly, regardless of anything else.

[ZeroSum]

@penllawen
Noted. Once again, however, let's move past the discussion of what Matrix search is and is not (because we're just going in circles at this point), and focus on what each player/GM thinks is and is not public information.