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Message no. 1
From: Dust <rogan@*******.BERGEN.ORG>
Subject: Deckers & Riggers
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 1997 08:57:44 -0400
How many people out there don't have PC deckers and riggers in their
campaigns? I've been doing this for quite a while because I've just found
it hard to integrate them alongside characters such as mages and "other"
fighter types. I usually use NPC deckers and riggers to handle those
sorts of things and don't find that lacking in my campaign. Nonetheless,
two of the people in my group are begging to play a rigger and decker so
I'm going to start a campaign with them. So does anyone have any
suggestions on how to integrate them easily? I mean rigger and decker
play is very time consuming on the other PCs. I think it would work
betterif it were a solo rigger or decker campaign but it's always better
to work with other people.

Any advice, comments, rants, etc.?

Dust
Message no. 2
From: Kyle Kohler <kkohler@**.UCR.EDU>
Subject: Re: Deckers & Riggers
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 1997 06:18:17 -0700
On Thu, 4 Sep 1997, Dust wrote:

> How many people out there don't have PC deckers and riggers in their
> campaigns?

I've had Riggers, but tend to shy away from Deckers, mostly
because the players tend to notice how much it bogs down play running a
Decker during a game.

I never really had a problem integrating them into a campaign.
Just make sure that every once in a while, you include a run that takes
place somewhere other than deep in the bowels of some building and the
Rigger shouldn't have a problem being part of the run. Those
skin-of-your-teeth getaways are always exciting as the Rigger races down
streets and alleys while the rest of the team fires bullets and spells at
the pursuers.

And while the Rigger is waiting for the getaway, there's always
drones. The Rigger Black Book has quite a few little drones that can
accompany the rest of the team on a run (great for laying down cover fire
and spying).

Alternately, you might wat to suggest to the Rigger that if he/she
wants to accompany the rest of the team physically on a run, the stats and
skills might be different from those of the archetype.

Kyle Kohler
kkohler@*****.ucr.edu
Message no. 3
From: Lady Jestyr <jestyr@*******.DIALIX.COM.AU>
Subject: Re: Deckers & Riggers
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 00:54:27 +1000
> I'm going to start a campaign with them. So does anyone have any
> suggestions on how to integrate them easily? I mean rigger and decker
> play is very time consuming on the other PCs. I think it would work
> betterif it were a solo rigger or decker campaign but it's always better
> to work with other people.

Deckers take up time the same way mages in astral do - one suggestion
I'd make would be to suggest that the decker be 'something else' as
well. As an example, both my boyfriend and I have played deckers in our
group. His decker was a decker/sam (nicknamed Conan the Librarian), and
my decker was a decker/negotiator/frontperson.

Riggers, though? I can't see a rigger being any harder than normal. In
roleplaying situations a rigger can participate just like anyone else,
unless the PC's not there in person. In which case, tough noogies. In
combat, the rigger just generally sends a drone in instead of their
body. (Smart people, huh? :) I can't see that there's much that a
*rigger* does that the rest of the group can't participate in. Certainly
not the same magnitude of problem as astral scouting or matrix work.

Lady Jestyr

-------------------------------------------------------------
"No more drugs for that man!" - Dietrich, Face/Off
-------------------------------------------------------------
Elle Holmes jestyr@*******.dialix.com.au
http://jestyr.home.ml.org/
-------------------------------------------------------------
Message no. 4
From: "M. Sean Martinez" <ElBandit@***.COM>
Subject: Re: Deckers & Riggers
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 1997 11:46:23 -0400
On Thu, 4 Sep 1997, Dust wrote:

> How many people out there don't have PC deckers and riggers in their
> campaigns?

Actually I have had both in my campaign from time to time.

When VR2.0 came out, it was feasible that decking would not detract from the
rune. Once I knew the rules, and so did the player, decking took all of 15
minutes.

-Bandit
Message no. 5
From: Barbie <barbie@**********.COM>
Subject: Re: Deckers & Riggers
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 1997 18:03:04 -0500
At 04-Sep-97 wrote Dust:

>How many people out there don't have PC deckers and riggers in their
>campaigns? I've been doing this for quite a while because I've just found
>it hard to integrate them alongside characters such as mages and "other"
>fighter types. I usually use NPC deckers and riggers to handle those
>sorts of things and don't find that lacking in my campaign. Nonetheless,
>two of the people in my group are begging to play a rigger and decker so
>I'm going to start a campaign with them. So does anyone have any
>suggestions on how to integrate them easily? I mean rigger and decker
>play is very time consuming on the other PCs. I think it would work
>betterif it were a solo rigger or decker campaign but it's always better
>to work with other people.

>Any advice, comments, rants, etc.?

Just ran them simmultan to the other in the group, mainly during fights,
and come up with a challenge for all not just for a particular set of
characters, this will lead to boredom by the rest.
One of the best things that these characters can do, beside their main
field of activity is to act as an group coordinator, so they can do something
if they had all other things done.

Speaking as a rigger player for six years.
I never had a problem with been the rigger, more than once I saved the rest.
--
Barbie


One lived hour is still living.
Message no. 6
From: William Monroe Ashe <wma6617@****.TAMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Deckers & Riggers
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 1997 12:08:56 -0500
Actually in new game I currently have both a rigger and a decker. So far
it is working out alright. VR2.0 really keeps things moving. Although
when the decker is doing stuff on the side, that's when most of the other
players call "smoke break". The rigger's having a lot of fun. A heavy
armored land rover with an LMG ruins a lightly aromored strike team's day
quite effectively.

So far things are going well.



Regards


Bill
Message no. 7
From: Loki <daddyjim@**********.COM>
Subject: Re: Deckers & Riggers
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 1997 20:15:09 -0700
---Dust wrote:
>
> How many people out there don't have PC deckers and riggers in their
> campaigns? I've been doing this for quite a while because I've just
found
> it hard to integrate them alongside characters such as mages and
"other"
> fighter types. I usually use NPC deckers and riggers to handle those
> sorts of things and don't find that lacking in my campaign.

I've used NPC's to fill the decker niche in the group for quite a
while. Just recently I've had a player interested in running a decker,
and I was attempting to tinker with the decking rules to make them
cleaner and more streamlined (more like the astral space system for a
mage). However, that player is nolonger with us so I'm back to NPC
deckers.

Riggers I've never had a problem with as PC's.

===
@>--,--'--- Loki <gamemstr@********.com>

Fearless Leader of the Shadowrun Trading Card Game Mailing List
Web Page: Poisoned Elves at www.primenet.com/~gamemstr

"You're calling me Bitch like it's a bad thing."
--> CrapGame during the Drive in the Country tournament
_____________________________________________________________________
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Message no. 8
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Deckers & Riggers
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 12:25:05 +0100
Dust said on 8:57/ 4 Sep 97...

> How many people out there don't have PC deckers and riggers in their
> campaigns?

There are none in my game ATM; there should be one or two new players
tonight, though, so I'll take a decker and a rigger character with me to
see if anyone wants to play one. They'll most likely need the decker in
the adventure I've got in mind (dit is trouwens een hint :)...

The main reason I hardly ever had decker PCs is that I almost never
allowed them -- simply because every time we attempted decking using the
VR 1.0 or SRII rules, I ended up frustrated with the whole mess.

> I've been doing this for quite a while because I've just found it hard
> to integrate them alongside characters such as mages and "other" fighter
> types.

Riggers can be integrated relatively easily, IMHO. Try and make the
players take the rigger's car when they travel (so the player won't feel
useless), and for combats, the rigger can use drones quite effectively.

Deckers are a bigger problem, but a good solution lies in making a
character who is useful outside of the matrix as well: reasonable Body
attribute plus a few combat and social skills, as well as some good
weapons should make the character handy in combats and in social
situations as well. Much the same applies to a rigger, BTW.

> I usually use NPC deckers and riggers to handle those sorts of things
> and don't find that lacking in my campaign. Nonetheless, two of the
> people in my group are begging to play a rigger and decker so I'm going
> to start a campaign with them. So does anyone have any suggestions on
> how to integrate them easily? I mean rigger and decker play is very
> time consuming on the other PCs. I think it would work betterif it were
> a solo rigger or decker campaign but it's always better to work with
> other people.

As I said, a rigger can be integrated a bit more easily than a decker,
since riggers have to go out to do their thing, and can help out in
combats by using their drones rather than their guns.
For deckers I think it'll mainly be the times when they're jacked into the
Matrix that will cause problems because the other characters have nothing
to do. I suggest you switch between the decker and the other players quite
often, just before or after the decker does something big sounds like a
good time.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Well, I have no opinion about that, and I have no opinion about me...
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-

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Message no. 9
From: Justin Pinnow <vanyel@*******.NET>
Subject: Re: Deckers & Riggers
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 07:54:40 -0400
> From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
> Date: Friday, September 05, 1997 7:25 AM

<Snip>

> As I said, a rigger can be integrated a bit more easily than a decker,
> since riggers have to go out to do their thing, and can help out in
> combats by using their drones rather than their guns.
> For deckers I think it'll mainly be the times when they're jacked into
the
> Matrix that will cause problems because the other characters have nothing
> to do. I suggest you switch between the decker and the other players
quite
> often, just before or after the decker does something big sounds like a
> good time.

Oh come on, people. It's not that hard to integrate a decker! Don't you
guys ever use matrix overwatch? Check Paolo's page for some examples of
matrix overwatch. They are written by Marc Renouf, who I have played under
for a couple of years now. The examples show what can be done when a
decker is in the matrix at the nodes held by the corp. the team is running
against. You'd be amazed at the advantages this can give the team.
Anyway, read them over and I am sure that you won't think deckers are
difficult to run with the team any more. Also, I don't think it does the
decker archetype justice to state that players should switch between their
decker and another archetype or that they should make their decker good at
something else besides decking. Just be creative and imagine the
possibilities. :)

So, read the articles at Paolo's site and then let me know how you feel
about deckers and their versatility within a runner team.

> --
> Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html

Justin :)
Message no. 10
From: Stefan <casanova@***.PASSAGEN.SE>
Subject: Re: Deckers & Riggers
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 20:27:21 +0000
> How many people out there don't have PC deckers and riggers in their
> campaigns? I've been doing this for quite a while because I've just found
> it hard to integrate them alongside characters such as mages and "other"
> fighter types. I usually use NPC deckers and riggers to handle those
> sorts of things and don't find that lacking in my campaign. Nonetheless,
> two of the people in my group are begging to play a rigger and decker so
> I'm going to start a campaign with them. So does anyone have any
> suggestions on how to integrate them easily? I mean rigger and decker
> play is very time consuming on the other PCs. I think it would work
> betterif it were a solo rigger or decker campaign but it's always better
> to work with other people.
>
> Any advice, comments, rants, etc.?


Well Deckers have always been abit time consumming ... but that was
all speeded up with the release of VR2.0 ... Decking became faster
... and well you can just skip out on some of the more basic borring
decking ....

Another good point is to have sort of multi characters ... being more
than one thing .. that has become quite popular among my runners not
just being one thing ....

Deckers are in my opinion more important than Riggers since pretty
much everybody can drive since they all use the skillweb and all of a
sudden the troll samuraj with all his wired limbs is by the wheel and
pulling away like a highway hero ...

So combine them ... 2 in 1 ...

/Stefan


/Stefan
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Frag you and the datastream you came on!" - Sinjin the decker
------------------------------------------------------------------------
... E-Mail .............................. casanova@***.passagen.se ...
... HomePage .................... http://hem.passagen.se/casanova/ ...
... ICQ .................................................. 1403212 ...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Message no. 11
From: Kyle Kohler <kkohler@**.UCR.EDU>
Subject: Re: Deckers & Riggers
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 13:15:18 -0700
On Fri, 5 Sep 1997, Justin Pinnow wrote:

> Oh come on, people. It's not that hard to integrate a decker! Don't you
> guys ever use matrix overwatch? Check Paolo's page for some examples of
> matrix overwatch. They are written by Marc Renouf, who I have played under
> for a couple of years now. The examples show what can be done when a
> decker is in the matrix at the nodes held by the corp. the team is running
> against. You'd be amazed at the advantages this can give the team.
> Anyway, read them over and I am sure that you won't think deckers are
> difficult to run with the team any more. Also, I don't think it does the
> decker archetype justice to state that players should switch between their
> decker and another archetype or that they should make their decker good at
> something else besides decking. Just be creative and imagine the
> possibilities. :)
>

I don't think you're going to get much argument about Deckers
being valuable on a run. They can very well save your butt and make
things a lot easier.

The problem most people have is the fact that it is hard to GM for the
Decker and the Runners simultaneously and still maintain the action. For
instance, you lose the excitement of a run when your team of runners
fights past the guards to get to the super security door and then has to
wait for ten minutes as the GM handles the Decker as he hacks his way
into the node that unlocks the door. And the Decker is just hanging
around until he's needed. Not exactly the most fun thing to do when the
rest of the team is sneaking about and shooting things.

Kyle Kohler
kkohler@*****.ucr.edu
Message no. 12
From: Sir Philos Nex <philos@****.NET>
Subject: Re: Deckers & Riggers
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 17:59:02 -0400
Dust wrote:

> How many people out there don't have PC deckers and riggers in their
> campaigns? I've been doing this for quite a while because I've just found
> it hard to integrate them alongside characters such as mages and "other"
> fighter types. I usually use NPC deckers and riggers to handle those
> sorts of things and don't find that lacking in my campaign. Nonetheless,
> two of the people in my group are begging to play a rigger and decker so
> I'm going to start a campaign with them. So does anyone have any
> suggestions on how to integrate them easily? I mean rigger and decker
> play is very time consuming on the other PCs. I think it would work
> betterif it were a solo rigger or decker campaign but it's always better
> to work with other people.
>

I don't think riggers are anymore time consuming than a mage.. deckers
however are a different story... I think the biggest problem with riggers is
that in combat they suck because they usually require high essense items for
rigging and have nothing for wired reflexes so they almost always go last in
the round. I don't see anything wrong with riggers personally...
After my last game I've decided deckers are forever the role of the NPC...



--
Andrew Dominas
AKA Sir Philos Nex
3rd Year Honours Business Administration U of Windsor
Jedi Knight

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Message no. 13
From: James Lindsay <jlindsay@******.CA>
Subject: Re: Deckers & Riggers
Date: Sat, 6 Sep 1997 03:45:48 GMT
On Fri, 5 Sep 1997 12:25:05 +0100, Gurth wrote:

> Riggers can be integrated relatively easily, IMHO. Try and make the
> players take the rigger's car when they travel (so the player won't feel
> useless), and for combats, the rigger can use drones quite effectively.

In your campaigns, how do you handle everything that needs to be done
to allow a rigger a place to keep all of his "toys" safe (boats and
planes are especially vulnerable)? Riggers often have two or three
vehicles that need a place to stay and any old underground parking
garage isn't usually enough to staunch their paranoia. If a rigger
owns a Yellowjacket (for some reason), exactly how easy is it for
him/her to fly about the city?

Also, human beings are much easier to blend into the crowd when you
are finishing up a run, even when pursued from the air. Vehicles,
OTOH, have a much harder time evading. The rigger could very well end
up getting caught or having to abandon a vehicle because it simply
cannot hide like a human.

Finally, do damage, maintenance, and ammo costs for rigger vehicles
come out of their pockets, or do you use a form of "group fund" for
these types of things?

Just wondering how other people handle the unique problems associated
with riggers :)

As for riggers and deckers, why not simply combine the two into one
character. You don't end up with nearly as good a decker or rigger
but it _can_ be done (and the two are much more similar thanks to the
Corporate Security book).

And as for riggers sucking in personal combat, simply have him
connected up with a direct physical link (to counter jamming) and a
remote control deck to a Doberman (an armoured 10m cable ought to do
it). Let the drone roam up ahead while someone watches the rigger's
back.

James W. Lindsay Vancouver, British Columbia
"http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero";

"Give me the strength to change the things I can,
the grace to accept the things I cannot,
and a great big bag of money."

Further Reading

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