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View Full Version : [Shadowrun 4e] Make my Matrix EVIL



Trekkin
2010-12-24, 09:42 PM
I'm going to be GMing a game of Shadowrun in a little while with a group consisting of a hacker, an AI, and a technomancer. Clearly, they'll be spending a lot of time in the Matrix, so I'd like to make it as interesting and detailed as possible.

I'm also a devious, vindictive, and generally cruel person, so in addition to intricacy and immersion, I'd like to litter systems of appropriate difficulty with traps so evil the players' heads hurt, and for that, I'd like the Playground's help. I'd love any ideas for Matrix security you've had, played through, or set up, and the more convoluted the better. Core and Unwired are available (in addition to everything else, but those are the two I know of that offer the most for this sort of thing). Along with specific examples, any general guidelines on how to scale the difficulty of a given network to the level (in Karma) of the team trying to gain access to it would be useful, as well as any general principles for designing security that's fun to play with/through.

TheCountAlucard
2010-12-25, 10:04 AM
I'm also a devious, vindictive, and generally cruel person, so in addition to intricacy and immersion, I'd like to litter systems of appropriate difficulty with traps so evil the players' heads hurt, and for that, I'd like the Playground's help. I'd love any ideas for Matrix security you've had, played through, or set up, and the more convoluted the better. Core and Unwired are available (in addition to everything else, but those are the two I know of that offer the most for this sort of thing). Along with specific examples, any general guidelines on how to scale the difficulty of a given network to the level (in Karma) of the team trying to gain access to it would be useful, as well as any general principles for designing security that's fun to play with/through.Databomb and Encrypt everything. Have parts of a node be running strong encryption, and other parts running dynamic encryption. Every IC should have Analyze, and the node should be running it 24/7. The access log? Every (System) turns, it copies itself and sends said copy to other nodes with equal levels of security.

Really, the numbers aren't what makes a node difficult, though it certainly helps; the layout, if done properly, is what makes the hackers have to use their brains.

Don't just lay traps willy-nilly, either. Use psychology. :smallbiggrin:

Trekkin
2010-12-26, 01:17 AM
Any particular recommendations on what sort of psychology to employ?

Thus far, I've been able to work out an infinite loop (lots of circularly linked nodes. node N reboots after the hacker is in node N+2, just after sending node N+1 a data request to open routing through a hidden central node. Infinity nodes long forwards, two nodes long backwards) and a system with Ergonomic agents running Stealth and no visible IC whatsoever; the agents load themselves onto the hacker's commlink (although I'm considering making them use Scan and find other devices in his PAN) and await the cessation of a signal from a Timer-equipped agent running weaker Stealth than the others and reloading itself every Timer-1 minutes from the corp nodes--so the hacker gets attacked after he logs off, or after detecting this bait agent and frying it.

Also considering silent alarm systems where it's expected that a given node's (unarmed) IC be triggered; anyone not stomping through noisily must perforce be a hacker, and therefore all the nodes with file storage are silently swapped for dummy nodes full of data bombs on encrypted IC unless and until the entry node IC goes off.