VR in rpg (not 'rpg in VR')

[Gnostic Goblin]

I'm putting this in Geektalk and Media because of its content.

I read Ready Player One. It is brilliant. For a generation who remembers the 80s and uses multi-user 3D social media platforms such as SecondLife or any of the video games which have that faculty, its a major history piece. Don't miss out on it. I saw the movie. It took me four times. I could not get into it until after reading the book.

One of the first RPG's I got into is Shadowrun. I have FASA's first edition hardcopy. It is where the name 'the Matrix' came from, you possibly saw some of those movies.
The biggest criticism I heard repeated by everyone who knows Shadowrun is that any Character jacked into the Matrix is having an entirely different adventure than the ones who aren't. It can be a nightmare for the GM to run it and boring for the players, as it involves a lot of waiting around before players can join in the action.

When I first read the description of what the Matrix is in SR, was before we had VR, before we had the internet. The description mentioned how it uses the Deckers brain and memory and imagination to generate the visual imagery with their mind, wrapped around a simple structure (comparable to a simple d&d dungeon layout; guard room, puzzle, treasure room, etc), which other people can also jack into to experience and share that environment. I might be the only person I ever heard of who played it that way. Everyone else seems to think it is Tron.

 

[GMMichael]

The biggest criticism I heard repeated by everyone who knows Shadowrun is that any Character jacked into the Matrix is having an entirely different adventure than the ones who aren't. It can be a nightmare for the GM to run it and boring for the players, as it involves a lot of waiting around before players can join in the action.

I haven't run Shadowrun adventures (yet), but I've definitely had a party or two split up. I'll say that it can be awkward, but it doesn't have to be a nightmare. My solution was to find natural breaks in which one side could take a short break to "watch" what the other side was up to. It would be like playing a few minutes of main party time, then switching over to the decker(s) to check in, make a few rolls if necessary, and then hop back during a lull or even a cliffhanger (so, you know, the party-splitter can sweat it out for a bit).

The description mentioned how it uses the Deckers brain and memory and imagination to generate the visual imagery with their mind, wrapped around a simple structure (comparable to a simple d&d dungeon layout; guard room, puzzle, treasure room, etc), which other people can also jack into to experience and share that environment. I might be the only person I ever heard of who played it that way. Everyone else seems to think it is Tron.

So the virtual world is only in the decker's mind? And others jack into her modal? Sure, I guess it could work that way, but if I were a decker, I wouldn't want too many others rooting around in my head. It makes sense that matrix code has to be arranged into things that a human brain can use, since, at least in the Matrix (movie), people aren't walking around with supercomputers in their heads - it seems to be just a plug and a jack-brain interface. Sending what Cypher sees on his three Matrix screens*, all the green code, into a human brain would just be noisy, if not painful. It could be lo-fi, so each person who's jacked-in just gets the message for "car," and their brains can fill in the rest (much like a PC hears "door" from the GM and has to fill in the blanks until the GM does). Then you'd have a different version of the matrix car for each decker involved . . . which might even speed up decker encounters if the info that they get is always simplified.

*Before he heard Neo coming in, and switched away from his NSFW viewing.

 

[Umbran]

One of the first RPG's I got into is Shadowrun. I have FASA's second edition. It is where the name 'the Matrix' came from

Nope.
Before Shadowrun, the term was used in 1984 by William Gibson, in Neuromancer, which is probably the definitional novel of the cyberpunk genre.

And, technically, the term was used in 1976, the Doctor Who serial Deadly Assassin. But it is widely accepted that the Wachowskis were referring to Gibson's novel, not to Shadowrun.

When I first read the description of what the Matrix is in SR, was before we had VR, before we had the internet. The description mentioned how it uses the Deckers brain and memory and imagination to generate the visual imagery with their mind, wrapped around a simple structure (comparable to a simple d&d dungeon layout; guard room, puzzle, treasure room, etc), which other people can also jack into to experience and share that environment. I might be the only person I ever heard of who played it that way. Everyone else seems to think it is Tron.

Well, early Shadowrun modules presented corporate matrix systems as little dungeons, so you are not the only one to play them that way. But those are the corporate systems - they are embedded in a wider landscape, which might as well be Tron.

 

[Gnostic Goblin]

I was a kid pre-puberty, I hadn't discovered Neuromancer quite yet at that age. My favourite Gibson quote is "before self-diagnosing as depressed, first check to make sure its not simply you are surround by a-holes" which has gotten me through life so many times.

 

[Gnostic Goblin]

I wouldn't want other deckers rooting around in my head either. Thats why there are firewalls and blackIC to fry their brains out if they try it. Wetware damage from a cybercode.