Some give bonuses to standard matrix tasks, some allow you to do tasks that would otherwise be impossible. Some ratings give dice pools, others set thresholds. Obviously, if everything is reduced to a single test and it's something you're incapable at, you've just lost the game while if everything is reduced to a single test and it's something that you are beyond mundane hacking potential dice pools because you have beneficial sprite powers and they don't, then you've just won the game.īut the matrix isn't just way too many die rolls, it's also way too many unique bullshit mechanics. It's really very possible that you're basically going to be making a single hacking test to see how good your hacking is. In fact, you aren't going to be rolling even one percent of the die rolls the book actually calls for.īut which tiny fraction of the tests in the book you are actually going to need to do is completely up in the air. Obviously, in actual practice you aren't going to be called upon to take all the actions or roll all the dice the book tells you that you have to. So even if those analysis actions always worked (which they do not), we'd still be looking at dozens or hundreds of whois queries before any meaningful actions could be taken by anyone. And the average character is composed of like a hundred icons.
#SHADOWRUN 200 MAGIC ICON HOW TO#
Here's the core issue: Remember how to play a Decker you just had to spend six digits of Nuyen on equipment, some of which cost 5¥ or less? Now, remember how every single item is a wireless device? Technically, before you can do anything to anything in the Matrix, you have to spend an action analyzing its icon. They are able to get absolutely ridiculous dice pools on specialist tasks, they are going to be actually incapable on some others, and that is somewhere between broketastically overpowered and unplayably terrible depending on how your GM handles things. Technomancers are basically in the same boat they are in in SR4. Then when the rules work, go back and put in your set dressing and technobabble. Invent a system that works within the game, and design the hacking and the normal user system so that it works and makes sense. the complete abandonment of this fucked up need to seem like it's based on modern computer systems, and then throw the baby out with the bathwater because you're not an IT expert and know fuck-all about modern telecommunications. And no, I'm not talking about cyberware bonuses for being online. Instead you get pseudo-Luddites who worship the all-powerful Hacker-Priest when it comes to looking up the number of the local Stuffer Shack. What the matrix can do for someone who *isn't* a hacker, because it focuses so much on a hacker that normally in a game I rarely see non-hackers use the matrix, which is supposed to be fucking ubiquitous. For some reason it's a trope in SR that as soon as you flick a computer on you have to go batshit crazy in this completely disconnected over the top shitstorm that integrates into the main game about as well as a Saint Bernard mates with a Chihuahua: You can make it work but some lubrication and a lot of booze is going to be required.
SR doesn't devote 50 pages to combat tactics in a magically awakened future tech world (although part of me wishes to fuck they would), and outside of the spell list the magic section is fairly manageable too. Franks Ends of the Matrix is nice, and consistent, and works, but I find it's way overkill. Matrix rules have always been a clusterfuck in Shadowrun. New matrix seems to be too fiddly to me, from the GM perspective - you need to track everyone's matrix stats, loaded programs, Overwatch Score, Matrix condition monitor, initiative, MARKs. Oh noes! Who's next? McDonnalds workers?! Yes, that's a philosophy nerd rip on the SR5 writers. Then I went back to reading Kant, because it's more straightforward. I saw the two page spread of "matrix jargon" and said, "Fuck you." NineInchNall wrote:To be honest, I haven't really looked at the Matrix chapter in detail.