| From: | Wordman wordman@*******.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Target: Matrix review |
| Date: | Sun, 17 Dec 2000 14:36:10 -0500 |
by Wordman
Scoring Scale
This review awards zero to five points in each of five sections, giving a
final score of zero to 25. The Writing section deals with the originality of
ideas in the book, as well the quality of prose. The two Usefulness scores
indicate how useful the book is to Game Masters and players. Design covers
the organization, layout and artwork of the book. Ease of Use deals with how
easy it is to locate what you need in the book and includes an evaluation of
the table of contents, index, charts and so on. The scale for these items
is:
0 - None
1 - Barely passable
2 - Not good
3 - Average
4 - Quite good
5 - Perfect
Scoring
Writing: 4
GM Usefulness: 4
Player Usefulness: 2*
Design: 3
Ease of Use: 1
Total: 14 (out of 25)
*This is much higher for decker characters, but most characters are not
deckers.
Bias
I have some strong opinions about how FASA has handled the Matrix, and to
understand this review, it will help to know what they are.
Imagine that you saw this line in this week's copy of Newsweek: "For years
the Internet has been perceived as the province of hackers, a stronghold for
the worshippers of technology." Would you think this line is true? How long
have you used the Internet? Are you a hacker? How long has your mom been
on-line? Is she a hacker, or even a worshipper of technology? Did you hack
into Amazon, or did you just use a credit card like millions of other
people? Hundreds of millions of people get spam, download porn, chat,
e-mail, buy and browse, and very few of them are hackers.
Nearly everything FASA has published about the Matrix, however, makes it
sound like it is just packed with deckers, IC, paydata and nothing else. In
Target: Matrix, there is a line on page 12 that correctly sums up FASA's
apparent attitude toward the Matrix: "For decades the Matrix has been
perceived as the province of deckers, a stronghold for the worshippers of
technology." FASA has long treated the Matrix as nothing for a playground
for deckers, totally ignoring the fact that as a percentage of the activity
that would actually go on in the Matrix, decking is almost not measurable.
The Matrix is built for real work and for real people, but you'd never know
that looking at FASA products.
As someone who does not encourage PC deckers in my games, FASA's attitude
has been very irritating, as it means that all of their work on the Matrix
is basically useless to me. PCs who are not deckers would .certainly. use
the Matrix, but due to the decker-centric rules for the Matrix, it is nearly
impossible for them to do so. For example, thing about doing something as
simple as browsing the web. With the Matrix rules as written, this most
unpleasant, because instead of a browser bringing pages to you, you have to
visit the hosts yourself. Or, think of printing a document. A working person
does this several times a day, but the Matrix rules make this a huge
undertaking, involving moving to the node containing the printer and
convincing it to do your bidding.
In short, the Matrix rules start from the standpoint of a decker wanting to
do something. I think this is stupid. They should start from real people
wanting to do something. To do this, though, you need to completely re-write
the entire Matrix system, because it's foundations are built on the wrong
principles.
So, I mostly ignore the Matrix rules, and instead use the Matrix books as
source material. This tends to be fruitless, however, as nearly all of the
source material is written for deckers.
I have been very anxious to see Target: Matrix, because from its
description, it appeared that it might be closer to what I was looking for:
a sourcebook about the way normal people (or Shadowrunners, for that matter)
would use the Matrix.
First Impressions
With Target: Matrix, FASA has finally taken some steps towards making the
Matrix useful for all Shadowrunners, not just deckers. Unfortunately, these
steps are of the tentative, baby-step variety. Most of the Target: Matrix is
still just for deckers. That is not to say that Target: Matrix is bad; much
of the information presented is clever, well thought out, and
thought-provoking.
Target: Matrix's 133 pages provide a lot of plot hooks for GMs and
(fortunately or unfortunately) turn the Matrix into more of a decker
playground than ever before. Decker characters will have a field day with
this book. (It almost makes a decker-only campaign sound interesting.
Almost.)
One welcome surprise (especially for me, as I maintain the Sixth World web
site), is that a great deal of politics and national history are discussed
in Target: Matrix, mostly about places that have not yet been covered much
in previous sourcebooks.
Grids
The first section of T:M is about Grids, that is, collections of hosts that
form their own "plane of existence", so to speak. Most of these items in
this section are for deckers-only (with one notable exception). FASA does a
good job here of making each of the grids discussed very different from the
others, and each useful for totally different reasons.
The grids covered are Angel Satellite Constellation (a network of satellites
of all stripes, including surveillance), the Chicago Noose Net (a hacked
together grid in Bug City), the UCAS Department of Justice, Magicknet (a
magical bazaar, sort of), Matrix Service Providers (the AOL's of 2060),
various corporate grids (PCC, Saeder-Krupp, Shiawase and Transys). Each grid
gets about a page to a page-and-a-half.
Of these, the section on the Justice Department is probably the most
generally useful, as Shadowrunners often have... issues with the FBI and
INS. Coverage of Magicknet is also most welcome, especially the details of
how magicians gain access to it without having to be deckers.
There were a few things missing from this section. A grid tying all of the
various stock market hosts (or even banks) together, for example, would have
been welcome. A huge B2B grid could have also been neat.
Data Havens
This section, at about 20 pages, gives information on what a data haven is
and why a decker would care. It also describes the Shadow Matrix
(Shadowland, the Denver Nexus) and several other data havens: Asgard
(auction house in orbit), Azziewatch (CAS anti-Aztechnolgy), the Helix (huge
haven in the Hague), Kalinin (old-boys network in Konigsberg), Manchester
(anti-Tir na nOg), the Morgue (Singapore), Mosaic (pro-meta in Vladivostok).
This section is entirely for deckers. It's only saving grace is that it
gives some decent history information on many parts of the world not
previously explored much, especially Konigsberg and Singapore. Further, a
lot of this history deals with political and corporate rivalries in the
area, so is quite useful for GMs, even for events outside the Matrix.
The Seattle Matrix
These 11 pages on the Seattle Matrix should really have been in the New
Seattle book instead (and were probably in Target: Matrix because they were
cut from there, at a guess). This section is much to long and could have
been cut altogether. Or, alternatively, could have been edited to fit in
three or four pages in the Grids section.
Hosts
About 15 pages on various Matrix hosts make this section, the best in the
book. If only some or all of the pages in the Seattle Matrix section could
have been taken to expand this section.
Some of the hosts (Hacker House, Lone Star) are deckers-only. Others, like
the Malaysian Independent Bank and Zurich-Oribal, are mostly for GMs. The
best parts of this section, however, are (finally) some hosts for
non-deckers. And there was much rejoicing.
The People's University hosts on-line, free education. This section
innovative and realistic (for example, it exists only due to a wealthy
benefactor).
The Matrix Clubs item contains a mix of decker and non-decker clubs. Some of
these have some great ideas on how the Matrix can offer an experience not to
be found in reality. Atlantis, for example, seems like a particularly cool
place to hang out.
Matrix Games contains some good in-jokes and could have been longer. Given
the gist of Dawn of Atlantis, it is surprising that a BattleTech clone was
absent.
While Matrix Brothels covers its topic perfectly, missing is a section on
virtual sex clubs, where consenting adults mingle.
Another section that would have been very useful to Shadowrunners would be a
company that hosts virtual meetings free from surveillance. A negotiating
space for fixers would been interesting as well. Other possibilities include
theme parks, gambling, online services (such as people who will do legal
data searches for a fee), the evolution of the open source and open content
movements, hosts that let you lease processing time, peer-to-peer networks,
and so on.
Personas
About a page each on several big-shot deckers. Useful for GMs and
interesting for what it is, but your average runner will not care.
Organizations
A few groups that deal with the Matrix fill about ten pages. Most of the
groups are interesting, but fairly standard: the Corporate Court Matrix
Authority (Matrix cops), the Dead Deckers Society, Die Shockwellenreiter
(the evolution of the Chaos Computer Club) and various Matrix gangs.
The section on the Exchange, however, is special. Kudos to whoever wrote it.
Open Forum
This is a pure shadowtalk section dealing with myths and happenings in the
Matrix. Lots of plot hooks here, and very interesting. While references to
otaku in Target: Matrix are blessedly Spartan, most of them are in this
section but are easy to stomach.
Game Information
At first this looks like the "rules" section, and it does have rules
(including sample security sheaves), but it is mostly useful for commentary
on the game world itself. It gives good information on how to use many of
the ideas in Target: Matrix in a game.
Art
Art in the Target: Matrix holds to the same standard we've come to expect
from FASA, which is to say spotty and inconsistent. The Grid Reaper drinking
a martini on page 40 is well executed, as is the S&M babe breathing smoke
faces on page 125. The rest of the art is fairly uninspiring, particularly
the cover. Most of the artwork is by Steve Prescott, for good or bad.
Index
FASA continues its grand tradition of publishing information rich
sourcebooks without any index at all. Don't get me started.
Quirks & Nitpicks
There were a few things in Target: Matrix that came across as mistakes or,
at least, suspended disbelief.
One was a line in the Magicknet section about the system changing the
iconography it presented to you based on the appearance of your icon. A
system that could do this (analyze an arbitrary image, make some sort of
cultural judgment on it, then use that cultural judgment to build images
within the same culture) would be extremely powerful. Deus could do this,
probably. No way would Magicknet be able to. Leave this up to a decker's
reality filter, since it already knows the .exact. culture the decker wants
to see.
Page 39 demonstrates a cardinal sin of page layout: orphaning a headline at
the bottom of a column. This is both amateur and irritating, since it
effectively hides the headline of one of the most important data havens,
making it difficult to find with quick visual scanning.
Conclusion
Target: Matrix is a must buy for decker characters. Some other characters,
particularly technophiles or on-line addicts, can benefit from portions of
this book and may find it worth owning. Game Masters should only need this
book if they run Matrix heavy campaigns or care a lot about the geopolitics
of the Sixth World.
