TheRPGSite

Having returned for a while to our re-imagined Shadowrun campaign (using HERO System for the rules), I decided to tackle what I considered on of the Shadowrun problem areas. Yes Riggers.

They do sort of make sense given the background fluff, if you're in a world with full VR immersion- why not remotely operate your vehicles, drones, and even anthroforms? Low risk, and even low cost in many cases. They are a perfect supplement to a team or even a full on replacement.

Yes, they can be jammed, but Shadowrunners are geared up to win on the electronic battlefield which they'll commonly do, just like they commonly succeed in hacking attempts. To say otherwise is effectively the same as removing them from the game.

Another problem also rears it's ugly head. Remember those great car chases in Fifth Element, Total Recall, or just about any near future action film? The hero in those movies would so totally be screwed by a rigger operator of the chase cars. An huge chunk of the genre is removed, and frankly I like the scene of a driver fighting the steering controls as he makes a hairpin turn- and don't like the comatose dude who's from appearances is sleeping through the same.

So I basically gave them the boot. Haven't even tried to come up with an explanation for it either. Bruce Willis didn't stop and explain why he was physically driving his cab. I'm not going to waste the time doing it either.


I left drones in, but they function at low DEX and SPD (in HERO terms) making them most useful in the distant observer role, and other supplemental areas. By themselves, they're easy targets once noticed.

How have you approached this in your cyberpunk campaigns?

Shadowrun Riggers are taken lock, stock and minigun barrel from Walter Jon Williams' Hardwired.  Making them drone puppetmasters was a fudge to allow them to be involved in the typical Shadowrun dungeon-that-isn't adventure.

I dealt with Riggers by returning them to their original conception, which means they tended not to appear very often, except as someone's secondary or tertiary character (we did a lot of troupe play).

Quote from: daniel_ream;578558I dealt with Riggers by returning them to their original conception, which means they tended not to appear very often, except as someone's secondary or tertiary character (we did a lot of troupe play).

So you used them purely as vehicle drivers/pilots, and they had to be in the vehicle?

I am playing a rigger in an active Shadowrun campaign now. I operate combat & surveillance drones, and physically drive the vehicles our team operates from. In addition, I have B/R skills for several vehicle types, and decent weapon & martial arts skills.

During our last adventure in whiche took out a bug nest, my character stayed in the car ready for a getaway while the team went in. I piloted a combat drone to go with the team and placed a sachel full of extra grenades for the team to use on the drone.

As it turned out, the bug threat was too powerful to take out conventionally so I radioed my team out of there and hit self destruct on the drone-loaded down with grenades. Bug problem solved. :)

Being a rigger can be fun.

The guy that plays our decker actually joins our session via skype to play with us. It really adds to the feel of him being in cyberspace.

If there is something I never manage to have fun about in roleplaying is car chases. For me its that kind of thing that works well on a tv medium but converts poorly to the table. Like horror.

So, for me, riggers are cool.

(now, if were talking about aerial exfiltration, then count me in... and no, I have no problem with my rigger being in comatose-like state while doing it, because I prefer to imagine the action from its mind's eyes, baby ;) )

QuoteThe guy that plays our decker actually joins our session via skype to play with us. It really adds to the feel of him being in cyberspace

Awesome idea! I have a player on this exact situation, but he plays a mage... I think I will have to persuade him a bit. Hehe

Quote from: silva;578596If there is something I never manage to have fun about in roleplaying is car chases. For me its that kind of thing that works well on a tv medium but converts poorly to the table. Like horror.

I would agree about horror (except perhaps that I think it works poorly no matter the medium).

But I've had great fun indeed with car chases. But that might be due to what's chasing the car...

Quote from: Exploderwizard;578595Being a rigger can be fun.

Didn't say it wasn't. It's always good to pull out the "I win" or at least "I survive" button. My problem is that it's safe, overshadows living characters and is counter-genre.

Still I'm interesting in hearing how people have dealt with those issues if anyone has.

One of the things I use is counter-riggers, and the fact that lots of places the people want to go have no signal, BUT the signal you bring, and that sets off sensors galore, so you want to keep it in building. Keep it very tight band, and not let it stray too much.

Remember the bad guys have bigger budgets, most of the time. They may be lazy, corporate types, but they tend to throw money at a problem until it goes away.

Quote from: gleichman;578623My problem is that it's safe, overshadows living characters and is counter-genre.

Still I'm interesting in hearing how people have dealt with those issues if anyone has.

Shadowrun's assumptions about what the players are supposed to do clash so badly with the world presented that I'm not sure where to start, since the first thing I do with Shadowrun is toss out virtually all those assumptions.

The cyberpunk genre generally and specifically the parts of it that SR is stealing from are all about massive criminal heists in a dystopian world committed by dysfunctional people.  They're like Ocean's Eleven written by Elmore Leonard directed by Ridley Scott.

So when I run SR I run it like Ronin, The Real McCoy, The Usual Suspects, Robocop, etc.  I'll leave off how this affects everything else and focus on the rigger, specifically.

Nuyen allowance for Tech was cut by a factor of 5 (IIRC).  The notion that riggers are poncing around Seattle with a small army of military vehicles without anybody noticing or doing anything about it is asinine, and cutting the amount of gear you get to keep consistently addresses that.

Taking a cue from Ronin, runners are professional career criminals, mercenaries, and freelancers.  They're not street punks.  They don't bring tons of their own gear and vehicles to a run; they live and travel light and anonymously.  They never meet Mr. Johnson; they probably never know who they're working for.  Mr. Johnson hires a Fixer; the Fixer hires the runners.  The Fixer gives the runners a budget for gear and equipment and they have to work within it.  The Fixer will have his own contacts and ways of acquiring gear, and the runners may have their own contacts they wish to use.  Gear purchased for the run is destroyed or otherwise liquidated at the end of the run to eliminate loose ends.

This turns the planning part of the adventure into a mini-game in its own right, where the rigger (specifically) has to decide what he needs, where to get it, how to afford it, and how to get his hands on it in time to customize it for the job. (Watch Ronin, and pay attention to the scenes with the driver).

Riggers really are secondary/supporting characters, which is why we play troupe style - the guy playing the rigger during the infiltration/exfiltration switches to a heavy hitter for the actual [strike]dungeon[/strike] building crawl part of the adventure.  Admittedly, if you're playing a car chase or a getaway scene or something, the rest of the group probably has nothing to do.  Hazard of the profession.  One thing I've done is let the other players run the chasing NPCs, which can be kind of fun as long as no one takes it too seriously.

So by limiting the amount of money the rigger has to spend on his toys, you keep him from being entirely safe; by playing troupe style you keep a vehicle scene from overshadowing the other PCs, and by understanding the genre you keep it from being counter-genre.

See the way I see it is a bit more like the show Leverage. Sure they're criminals, and what they do is illegal in the corporate world, but they're not necessarily "evil" or even "bad," just doing what they can to survive. The basis of most cyberpunk literature from Hardwired, Neuromancer, and Count Zero (The samurai in that? Not that bad a guy really, same with the rigger in Hardwired...etc.)


Now sure they might not be helping anyone but themselves, but the better cyberpunk characters usually are trying to in 'punk' manner make a difference against the man. A violent rather than passive-hippie approach to change.

I do tend to cut the money in my campaigns but usually by being up front about it, the standard cyberpunk protagonist is usually, mostly, a have not.

In Shadow Run, we've avoided Riggers and Deckers.  

For Riggers, you really do want them with the other players, sharing their dangers.  Losing toys is very different from losing a character.

Quote from: Silverlion;578780Count Zero (The samurai in that? Not that bad a guy really, same with the rigger in Hardwired...etc.)

If you're talking about Turner, the first time you see him draw his gun he's shooting his second in command in the gut on the (erroneous) suspicion that she might have sold him out.

QuoteNow sure they might not be helping anyone but themselves, but the better cyberpunk characters usually are trying to in 'punk' manner make a difference against the man. A violent rather than passive-hippie approach to change.

Being products of the 90's anti-establishment, both CP2020 and Shadowrun have a strong anti-corporatist smash-the-evil-corporations theme that isn't actually there in most of the iconic works of the genre.  Hardwired is kind of the exception that proves the rule; Case, Turner, Molly, Johnny Mnemonic, Marid Audran, etc. are all criminals or at best self-centered mercenaries.

Riggers are gone in Shadowrun 4e as their own thing.  Their skillset is conflated with Decking, so it's still available, but the 'hacker' class can basically do it all when it comes to anything electronic/computerized now.

In practice it means more 'Rigging' in play, but at a reduced proficiency (due to striking a balance between RL/Matrix skills and gear).

I think riggers are one of the cooler ideas in Shadowrun, especially if you look at what's unique about the setting (and the game system) after you take out all the D&Disms.

I've never particularly felt my riggers were "safe".  That is, when you're in a combat helicopter providing air support on a run - you usually have a whole 'nother set of problems than the ground pounders.  Namely AA guns and Watchtowers, as well as SA missiles carried by enemy infantry.

Maybe you're letting your players "drone" too much.  Riggers are meant to be in the combat vehicle, supporting the group.  As GM, you know you have a rigger in your pc group, so prepare for it.  You prepare magical enemies, matrix drek and all sorta other mess, chummer.  Send some enemy robots at your groups riggers, or even enemy riggers with better vehicles and ground support.

Then you'll have car/helicopter chases.  I promise.

What are the corps´ default anti-rigger defenses ? I mean, you get magical security in the form of mages and patrolling spirits, you get matrix security in the form of Ice and security deckers, and you got physical security in the form of guards and drones.

How about electronics/anti-rigger defenses ? Electronic Jammers and scanners and scramblers ? And if you have an electronical scrambling field in place for trying to keep invading drones out, could it compromise your own security drone-network ?

Quote from: deadDMwalking;578928In Shadow Run, we've avoided Riggers and Deckers.  

For Riggers, you really do want them with the other players, sharing their dangers.  Losing toys is very different from losing a character.

That's is the heart of the problem. Add to this that remotely rigged drones could replace many of the archtype characters up front and those 'toys' start to dominate the game.

Quote from: silva;579119How about electronics/anti-rigger defenses ? Electronic Jammers and scanners and scramblers ? And if you have an electronical scrambling field in place for trying to keep invading drones out, could it compromise your own security drone-network ?

The game includes this 'solution', but it's either like the other security you mentioned (i.e. a defense that is *meant* to be overcomed by the players), or so rock solid that it makes remote rigging impossible.

Quote from: daniel_ream;578774Nuyen allowance for Tech was cut by a factor of 5 (IIRC). The notion that riggers are poncing around Seattle with a small army of military vehicles without anybody noticing or doing anything about it is asinine, and cutting the amount of gear you get to keep consistently addresses that.

This is a workable solution for what I would call a low level campaign (i.e. low resources- both on the runners side of things, and on their target's).

Not so workable for a Prime Runner campaign, or the type of non-standard re-imagined Shadowrun campaign that I run where the runners aren't crooks out for their own self-interest, but are the actual heroes of the setting in a world where criminality has become the norm.

Additionally, Shadowrun is basically a setting with nearly unlimited toys. It would be a shame to remove them from everyone just because riggers unbalance things.

Perhaps including a mechanism where enemy riggers could potentially "hack" a player's drones and turn them against the team would cut down on drone usage and tone down at least that aspect of the problem. In the Shadowrun games I've played/run car chases have not been a big problem, but I can see where drones could be. We have usually played more "low-level", or "street level" games, so drones have been less of an issue, but I can see how they could be abused.

I never liked Riggers.

RPGPundit

I played several riggers in SR2, and it was smooth and fun, but something went horribly wrong with their rules in SR3 and SR4.

Rigger is such a broad concept base on what they do, and the overlap with hacker is so much that they're really a subset of hacker than their own class.

Signal blocking and counterhacks are the dangers of any hacker or rigger.


Here's how I handle riggers,
First, the books specify the action types for commanding drones and giving orders. Shouting is a free action and you only get one per pass and it better be something short. Running is also a free action. So is taking cover. So be careful burning that one.

Second, even autonomous drones cant account for everything that happens. Drones are not people. They wont automatically engage targets or defend locales without orders, even standing orders.

I require all drone pilots to have a list of basic commands and what they specifically mean as well as any standing orders in place.

Eg
Attack enemies: engage any target I am firing on or who is firing on me.

They can get as complex as they want because when it all goes sideways every rigger discovers he wasnt specific or prepared enough. That's when they jump in or go remote.

Now the dicepool for remote, jumped in, and autonomous all require different dice pools, skills, and software, so you cant do it all. Even ordering three drones to retreat to cover might take a whole pass.

Hey, maybe your drones do it all though? Wont that be expensive if three enemy spiders team up to hack them? Or if the thing bugs up and selects the wrong cover against unexpected missile fire? Did your spy drone scoot out of signal range? Run across an unexpected signal blocker? Signal blockers dont work against friendlies. They're programmable. Now that spybot belongs to the enemy. Hope you're good at scrubbing your datatrail. If that thing saw your face, this job is over. But your signal is trackable as soon as that thing reenters signal range. Say what is the law on a corp sniper firing into a seattle street to stop a determined hack? Want to bet your face on that?

Being a DM is about being creatively evil. Being a Shadowrun GM is the pinnacle of same.


Our issue is always glass cannon riggers. In a pinch they use them as bullet shields and then demand recompense from the party. Like I dont got bills to pay.

I played a Rigger in Shadowrun and actually drove the car manually unless unless I was in a combat zone. Which was actually fairly often as I ran a highway rescue and tow service when not playing backup for an elven team.

I used two sorts of drones. Scouts to map out an area quietly and then a backup and decoy drone that went in with teams first while I followed at a safe distance till the drones went down or needed repair. Once the drones were out of it I waded in with a laser rifle Id put alot into getting good with and upgrading.

Drones were nice. But they didnt survive long against the higher end opposition. But worked great for drawing fire.

One of my best runs involved using a drone I'd turned into a turtle with laters of armour and one big cannon. Said cannon was fake. But I inched it onto a area where we knew the security was well armed and so I rolled it in and kept shouting "Its almost in range! Wait till they get it!" and of course everyone unloads everything into it. Some paniced as it got closer and closer and that huge cannon swinging this way and that way and me yelling "Who do you want me to blast first?" The tram sniper picked off a few and we mopped up the survivors once several ran out of ammo and just surrendered. "DEATH RAY" stenciled on it might have helped with that too...

addendum: The drawback for the rigger is often the costs of getting and repairing the drones. I sank alot into repairs after each mission.

...and now I remember why I have gleichman on ignore.

Quote from: Axdeath;756166Rigger is such a broad concept base on what they do, and the overlap with hacker is so much that they're really a subset of hacker than their own class.

Signal blocking and counterhacks are the dangers of any hacker or rigger.

Shame on a rigger who try to run game on a rigger.

JG