Web Enhancement for D20 Future

[takasi]

Masada, traditional cyberpunk games integrate VR space with reality. Hacking into a motorcycle, checking security cameras, and bypassing door locks are common examples. Have you played Shadowrun?

I want Shadowrun d20, but SR's current IP owners will NEVER develop this. WotC should make this content OGC and I'd love to see some publishers try emulate the great stuff in SR. Whole books could be done on using VR for "rigging" vehicles, creating corporate lairs with cyber enhanced traps or expanding on VR programs and hardware in general.

 

[RodneyThompson]

It wasn't my intention to complain about a free product. However, I see some other exciting things in my view of the future. Here's my attempt to show you...

Yikes, thanks for the compliments, but they were totally unnecessary. I understood you weren't taking pot shots at me. Remember, folks, I'm a professional, so don't try this at home.

I would predict that in 100 years, every square inch of the planet will have something conceptually similar to wireless 100 megabit/sec service or at least the developed nations will.

I agree, or art least agree that it could be so in a sci fi game. However, you really don't need any game mechanics for that, other than the wireless connection hardware (which already exists in Modern/Future).

Today, we have the ability to use very low powered lasers to "paint" images right on to the retina. The devices that accomplish this are roughly the size of a clunky cell phone. Today this allows the user to see text, maps and schematics overlaid in their field of vision regardless of where they are looking. In a hundred years, I can easily see this being something like a full blown windows desktop in the users view where the "wallpaper" is actually the real world. Icons and text will be "clickable" by eye movement or mental command. Combine these two concept and look ahead.

I can see that, and this is what you'll find "display contacts" in the d20 Future book for. It's just a different way of getting the information onto the eye.

Network connections will be placed in nearly everything. People will have identification chips either implanted or carried with them that will interface with wireless security doors, air conditioning, person computing gear, credit cards, etc.

See the Shepherd Chip in Chapter 3: Gear.

Now imagine the Hacker character with an operating system in their head and "windows" and icons painted in to their field of view at all times. They will see all of these wireless devices as network objects. They won't need to run attack programs in VR space, they'll need to run them in real space!

Right. In this case, however, they're just making Computer Use checks. After all, their physical bodies won't have to fight anything, it'll all be a computer use version. So, in essence, you're not using a VR environment at all, but rather simply an expanded interface as per a normal computer system.

Certain programs will be controlled like handguns the hacker will have to be skilled at hiding and encrypting their software. Nearly all transactions will be tracked to the users ID chip, scrambling this signature for themselves and the party may be crucial. Each security door will be be "guarded" by security software that could be as simple as wireless unlock attempt or as complex as an animated "guard icon" that must be defeated before proceeding. The entire modern world will be "alive" with network objects interconnected and waiting to be manipulated by the Hacker.

Again, I'm just not sure why you would need new mechanics for this. This seems just like what you would do using the existing material. Shepherd chips, microcomputers, neural interfaces, wireless jacks, display contacts...

While total immersive VR will be an option, I think a world where VR and reality meet is more interesting. It facilitates "whole party" play rather than only the hacker characters. It allows the hacker to work very much like rogue in party dynamics. I also think it's cool as hell.

Well, to be fair, one goal I had with the VRNet was to make it something the entire party could use but that hacker characters would be able to manipulate with ease.

I understand what you're saying, though, and agree that your vision of the future is both interesting and highly likely. I don't see the VRNet and such a future being mutually exclusive, though. The VRNet would replace the internet, while the rest of the modifications you mentioned would replace credit cards, ID cards, keys, etc. You would use the VRNet to access information without having to specifically go to that place, while you would use the "outside" computer stuff like you're talking about while adventuring.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think the enhancement achieved a good mix between the science and the fiction part of science fiction. And it should also prove very playable, even if the computer expert is the only one to reasonably fight in the cyberspace.

(The only rule mechanic I really don´t like is for the single use programs. Self degrading hacker programs seem unlikely ...)

The Shadowrun Matrix is not only very clunky from a rules point perspective, it is also a very fictive, and has little scientific reasoning.

I can easily imagine that there will be a time where we will have virtual worlds that are very similar to the real world, and might be fully immersive.
But a decker or hacker will certainly never fight with virtual guns against Intrusion Countermeasures (ICEs) or Firewalls.
He will most likely attempt to avoid the whole immersion thing and look behind the code for the graphic engine and attempt to manipulate on a relatively low level. Maybe the graphic engine could prove a way to find the loopholes of the system (that´s how many hacker tricks today seem to work: find a weakness in the Internet Browser / HTML Interpreter that allows to execute illegal code), but it will probably not look like he is swinging a sword at an samurai ICE.
Well, that is true unless the hackers of the future want to impress the "audience" with their skills and create a visual representation of their work - but that´s unlikely for professionals that do it for a living (albeit an illegal one) - that might be something the current "script kiddies" might want to do...

 

[Masada]

I didn't include mechanics as I'm still working on the concept. But part of my intention is to avoid creating a lot of new rules for VRnet type characters. Off the cuff, I want to look at the Hacker character creating programs to do things I described to augment their skills (like Disable Device). Some that might scale to a +5 bonus on the check. For relatively low level VR obstacles, the Hacker may have access to programs that bypass situations entirely. Some of these could indeed be lifted from VRnet.

Extending the idea further. In a setting where nearly every person was a walking node. The Hacker could run attack programs against a person. You could create a variety of new effects for this or you could simple erase the title "Magic Missile Spell" and write in "Energy Surge Program" or at least this could be one variety of Hacker. You could pull from Psionics or Spells for more effects than you could shake a stick at. I like this image because it puts a little paranoia in to the players about using a bunch of cyberware. Obviously, a totally unconnected character would be immune. You wouldn't want total access to all spells nor would they all be appropriate. So some mechanics for "Program Lists" and uses need to be developed. I would be careful to keep this aspect of the character fun and dangerous, but not as powerful as even the d20 Modern Mage class (personally).

 

[sinmissing]

I think lots of folks who cut their teeth on classic cyberpunk want VRnet to be as crunchy as RL. The mechanics as written (MAW), boil down hacking to Computer Use, and a few gadgets, maybe even Skill Focus (Computer Use).

Let's flip-flop focus for a second. Neuromancer shows VRnet as being Real Life to the console jockey, while actual RL seemed surreal and less focused, an impediment if you will on VRlife. In Neuromancer, your Smart 5/Fast 2/Hacker 1 character was your VRnet self. You needed a whole host of skills, feats, and equipment to do anything. On the other hand, getting a soda, opening a bank account, taking the bus, all of that was boilled down to the skill, Navigate Life (WIS). Sure, you needed a lot of social skills, to boast about your L337 $K|||Z get jobs and not get stuck, but for some electric cowboys, like Count Zero, not even that mattered much. (course, that had its own pitfalls, and maybe he's not the best example; then again, maybe he is)

Snowcrash evens out the two worlds of Real and Virtual Life. The book focuses less on the novelty of VRnet, and more on its integration with reality. Hiro is a real life street samurai and a mad hacker. He drives cars at rediculous speeds to deliver pizzas, and then drives virtual motorcycles through insanely difficult obstacles to stop the Raven from detonating a virus on www.happyland.sucker. Neil Stephenson uses real life combat prose to describe Hiro's "Computer Use" skill against Raven, with the same gusto with which he describes Uncle Enzo's final cat and mouse melee with Raven.

So for the campaign that mirrors the merging of real and virtual life, like Snowcrash, are you going to tell the party "wizard" that everything he does boils down to "Computer Use" while the rest of the party is dodging, shooting, blowing action points, manifesting powers, flying ships, and doing flurries of blows? That is Masada's point. I think.