Matrix. I’m not grokking how much of it the MC is supposed to throw at the players. How complicated should the trail from A to Z be? How many times would a Hacker have to face an obstacle – ok it’s easy to say “defined by the fiction” but the MC needs to have a grasp of what is a good level.
Help? Examples?
I usually have 3 or 4 steps. I generally intersperse these with the larger narrative so – spotlight on hacker for one or two steps, back to main narrative, spotlight on hacker, back to main
If it’s just a door or something they’re hacking I usually keep it to 1 or 2 steps since the rest of the group is probably waiting around.
My overall pacing is based on running a complete mission from start to finish in the time we have available. Not sure if that helps but once you play a few times and get a feel for how long individual elements take then it’s easier to gauge pacing.
End goal is to “Manipulate Systems” in order to obtain some fictional objective otherwise why are they in the Matrix at all (as opposed to just rolling “Research” to do a quick Google search)?
They login, compromise security, manipulate system. Things only get more complicated then that if they start missing roles or stick around to long (getting traced, fighting ICE, ).
We have to assume that the bad-ass hacker is indeed bad-ass.
But isn’t that repetitive? Login, bypass checkpoint, do the thing, jack out…. seems like it can get boring for that player on a run by run basis.
Followup:
1 – The book uses an example of when the team needs darkness in an area and the hacker kills the lights. Would this be while he’s still in the system doing his thing, or would he login again to get this done, or could he do it on the fly?
2 – A lot of cool examples of different types of matrix subsystems are there – do you see these as one unit for the hacker to login to and hack or are they a string of interconnected systems he needs to dance between to get to his goal?
Sorry to press on – I used to be a frequent SRun GM many years ago and the Matrix was a game killer then. Really keen to revive the old group and take them through this iteration of cyperpunk.
Adam Brimmer Seems like the Matrix is just another “building” IMHO.
You go through the front door (login), then you identify which room you need to break into (compromise), then once you are in a room you start flicking switches (manipulate).
Since this is all virtual, it might make since that a security guard is called in to patrol the “hallways” after a friendly login (not necessarily looking at whatever room got accessed).
Chances are the player is going to roll under a 10 at some point. ICE/trace/alerts on 6s.
If they want to manipulate another sub system then the have to compromise + manipulate again.
You can always change the layout of the “building” as l like to imaging it. Maybe all of the rooms are lined up in a straight line, maybe they are connected in a circle. Not all of the subsystems are going to be their all the time either.