Ok, game-designites, let's try to put some of that theory into practice, shall we?

How would one go about trying to design a better, funner, more playable "cybernet" for people to "jack" into like they do in those "cyberpunk" novels I've heard so much about, for these "roleplaying games"?

RPGPundit

My first thought is to start with a card deck and lay them out like you would for an Illuminati game, but to help represent the crazy way the web is interconnected you can travel to adjacent cards but also to cards with the same number on them, and maybe you could hop to cards of the same suit with a good roll or something.

Not that I know anything about the structure of the actual internet.  But I'm more interested in a fun and exciting way to fake it.

I'd do it like a dungeon crawl:

Players get the basic network diagram, ('the region map'): which shows which locations are where. But when it comes to actually invading or exploring a data structure, it's (similar to ) a very hypertextual dungeon crawl where you have to go room by room - searching for secret doors, and making your own map.

Quote from: Abyssal MawI'd do it like a dungeon crawl...

I think you're onto something.  One could design it like a flowchart, with a series of logic conditions that have to be met in order to progress from one point to the next, or to make available alternate options.  As in the films Tron, or The Matrix (or, heck, even Dreamscape for that matter), every stage and process can be represented allegorically.

!i!

(P.S. Wait.  My memory is very hazy on this topic, but did I just describe the basic system from 1st edition Shadowrun?)

Quote from: RPGPunditOk, game-designites, let's try to put some of that theory into practice, shall we?

How would one go about trying to design a better, funner, more playable "cybernet" for people to "jack" into like they do in those "cyberpunk" novels I've heard so much about, for these "roleplaying games"?

RPGPundit

Question first, and this is of vital importance - will all the players be 'cyberjackers' or will only one PC fill this role?  If its all of them I'd design a system that uses some kind of symbolic combat or something.  If its one of them I'd focus more on the jacker being able to affect systems and lookup information while the rest of the group does stuff.  You want to at all costs avoid the situation where one player dominates play and the rest have to wait for him to get finished.

I'd use a combo of one conflict resolution die roll, description and GM fiat.

Maddman gets at one of the two key issues: how to make the "cybernet" playable without creating too much play time for one character over the others.

The other problem is mainly how to mechanically handle being in the "virtual reality", without it getting too complicated.

RPGPundit

SR4 and Cybergeneration both went with "overlapping reality".  And it works very well for a game.

Another fun way would be to have hacker need a nearby, fairly-secure wireless node, or be subject to just so much crap as they move "away" that it's useless - a node that the PCs carry, say, letting the hacker "ghost" the group.

Quote from: jrientsMy first thought is to start with a card deck and lay them out like you would for an Illuminati game, but to help represent the crazy way the web is interconnected you can travel to adjacent cards but also to cards with the same number on them, and maybe you could hop to cards of the same suit with a good roll or something.

Not that I know anything about the structure of the actual internet.  But I'm more interested in a fun and exciting way to fake it.

Steve Jackson actually made this game -- it was called "Hacker" or something, I think... interconnecting computer systems were represented by cards in the middle of the table. Sort of like reverse Illuminati.

Cheers,
-E.

The ways I've done it in the past are if 1 person is the decker then I've just put it to a few rolls added some hand waving and made it like any other test.  Unless there is some significance to it.  Then I've tried to do it outside of when the other players are there.

If everyone is decking then I've just treated it as I would any other role playing session, combats, skill checks etc....

Mechanically I don't think it needs separate rules outside of handling the typical things you want decking to be.  So you need a computer which is your PC's body.  Your skills which are your skills and your programs which work like equipment and spells.

Firstly, let's clear up some terminology...

http://xkcd.com/c181.html

More helpfully... let me throw an idea out:

Everyone should be able to jack in and do basic stuff, and everyone should be expected to peripherally be experiencing the cyberstuff. Of course, only certain characters will be especially good and negotiating the virtual space, but everyone should have some authority to do or say something about the cybarweb. Maybe we're in a world where everyone is plugged into something almost always, even if it's just the system status log of your self-aware gattling railgun.

In that case, imagine we're running basically two combats at once, in parallel. Most rounds of combat, we're running our actions in meatspace, where I'm the weak hacker (probably ducking behind cover and trying to get a very wild shot or two off with my pistol) while you're the tank, running headfirst into a bunch of guard bots. Once every six rounds, however, we play out our turns in an abstract virtual landscape, where I'm more like the tank (my move is to aggro the firewall) while you're just going to try to faint the trojan that's trying to crawl up your headjack.

We're in a combat: I'm a weak hacker, hiding behind cover, and there's a tank up front, soaking up major damage from the guard bots. This round, we're looking at the firefight, and I'm rolling to increase my connection without leaving cover, and the tank is rolling to destroy some bots. Next round, we're looking at something different - an abstracted grid where the tank is one node and I'm another, except this time I have the world-relevant skills, so I'm making a direct attack on the firewall while he's rolling a feint against the headvirus that's trying to get up his jack. We both can do things of use in both kinds of worlds, but we have different arenas where we're most effective, and we need to be in control of both to succeed.

As Levi said over-lapping reality "virtuality" as Cybergeneration called it worked well for that setting especially since everyone would wear V-trodes so they could see the web all the time and with code-guns even none-deckers could interact to destroy programs. Not remotely realistic but it means the whole party could be involved all the time.

The other way I would go is low tech as I think I've mentioned before. Hacking isn't done via software but dumpster diving, breaking and entering to switch a corps keyboard with one that has a key-logger installed, etc. So again the whole group is involved. Getting the information is then just a computing roll once they team has defeated the security via low-tech methods.