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I love the SR universe, and have always wanted to run a SR game. Now, I have the opportunity to do so. We've already had one session, and I find myself having to deal with things I'd rather hold off till I get the hang of it. The city the default setting placed in Seattle. In my game, Evo Corp is involved with a cover up with the murder of a suburban citizen and his family. They have a flying security drone (about 4' in length) that flies around the city block, ensuring there's no suspicious activity in the area, particularly around the residence of the murder victims. Any person or vehicle it "sees" near close proximity to the residence is recorded, and the information is sent to Evo Corp.
One of my players is playing a hacker type character, and as such he wanted to hack the drone. That's where I need help.
Reading "The Wireless World" chapter is a bit daunting. There's just so much information. What do I need for this security drone? What will it's stats look like? And what information do I need to be aware of when dealing with a hacker?
I'm in your same boat...almost exactly. The way I would have him proceed (possibly incorrectly) is to start with "Hack on the Fly" (p230, see also the bottom of p235), which is a Hacking + Exploit extended test with a threshold equal to the target's Firewall. Once there he could try Crash Node (same page) or similar to put it out of action or do something else. To send just a single command, he could try Spoofing (p232 and p236). Drone stats are on page 351...but I'm not sure about their 'system stats'.
Hopefully an experienced SR GM can give us *both* some better advice! In the meantime, I hope this helps. :)
M
Edit: N.B. the page refs above are for the anniversary edition of the core rulebook.
That is a good question. I'd say just wing it.
Pick how tough you want it to be and give it a single rating for system/signal/firewall/whatever. Probably, based on your stats above, a three rating would be good? That gives a challenge without making it too easy or unwinnable.
I'm still learning how the numbers breakdown myself...and doing a lot of winging it in the meantime.
I really need to get the Unwired book as the party's hacker is played by the group's 'skills' guy...the one who always plays a rogue or engineer.
M
Edit: Oh, yeah, software. I'm not really sure what a drone needs. Pilot for sure. I think the section on Rigging talks about what programs do what in relation to drones. Honestly, I haven't used one in my game yet...but probably will this coming session since they're about to go into a small corp research facility.
Agree with that. Do you have the Shadowrunners' Toolkit (think that's the name). One of our players bought it when we started playing (only have a few sessions under our belt). It includes some pretty nice stuff: GM screen, starter adventure and a book with NPCs and adventure hooks, consolidated equipment refs, and some pretty nifty one-page reference cards for combat, magic, hacking, etc.
My co-GM ran an intro game and a followup (three or four sessions) and then turned it over to me and I've run two weeks of sessions and hope to wrap up my small adventure tomorrow. I'm managed to do okay, despite my still limited knowledge of the rules...and that toolkit has sure helped me. In fact, I wish I had delved into it before I cobbled together my little adventure (which is based on the one in the back of the old ICE Cyberspace, since I'm pretty new to the genre). Some of the adventure seeds are pretty good.
M
Can't promise anything, but when I get some time I'll look over the SR4 rules and see if I can't lend a hand. I haven't done much with 4th edition beside occassionally go on a reading binge every year or so...with most of the info being forgotten within days of figuring it out. SR has always been kinda a tricky system, especially in the matrix department. I can say this, I've never seen an edition with simpler matrix rules (never played first, but ran second and third ALOT in jr high/highschool)
For the most part, what I would advise is explaining to your group that you're learning the system slowly, and right now you're going to be pulling numbers out of the dark. As time goes on, you'll figure it out and things will run more smoothly. Then, try to get a handle on where your hacker PC's skills are at, and decide how tough you want the encounter to be. Maybe the corp is running substandard equipment do to poor resource managing that will get worked out soon (you want this to be an easy situation, but it seems like the corp should have higher tech).
SR is one of those settings where it's easy to paint yourself into a corner, thinking too much about how high tech a security system should be. Not that I'm a RL security specialist or professional burglar, but I can say that every time I've been exposed to security features, whether it be a private residence, a public building, or mass transit, I've been consistantly underwhelmed. Things are very rarely truly safe, normally they just appear safe.