"Realistic computer hacking is probably the single most boring thing in the world to roleplay, so you need to abstract it and make it interesting somehow."
I hate the nonsense of "Neuromancer" hacking/netrunning. It's taking one PC and giving them a side mission that can take hours of real time but only seconds of game time? Why not just make hacking as fast as lockpicking? If you're going to go all the way to la-la land with the hacker and having them have a whole adventure of their own, but only make a few seconds game time, just stop with the netrunning bs and make hacking cinematically fast.
The hacker sits down or connect remotely: plug in their usb drive/begin decoding the log-in; boots into Linux from the usb, runs Winshell, makes themselves and admin of the Winshell/logs in as an admin; run the program searches, etc. Whatever, it can take just a few seconds or minutes if you want to just speed it up. Same with hacking cameras, enemy weapons, etc.
One of the most interesting MMOs I've ever played allowed you to hack other N/PC's brainware, weapons, even grenades on the fly... it just presumed the hacking programs were that fast. Just do so in your games, trust me, it's far, far better than banishing the hacker to the cyberrealm for their own sidemission and making everyone else twiddle their thumbs for an hour.
I hate the nonsense of "Neuromancer" hacking/netrunning. It's taking one PC and giving them a side mission that can take hours of real time but only seconds of game time? Why not just make hacking as fast as lockpicking? If you're going to go all the way to la-la land with the hacker and having them have a whole adventure of their own, but only make a few seconds game time, just stop with the netrunning bs and make hacking cinematically fast.
The hacker sits down or connect remotely: plug in their usb drive/begin decoding the log-in; boots into Linux from the usb, runs Winshell, makes themselves and admin of the Winshell/logs in as an admin; run the program searches, etc. Whatever, it can take just a few seconds or minutes if you want to just speed it up. Same with hacking cameras, enemy weapons, etc.
One of the most interesting MMOs I've ever played allowed you to hack other N/PC's brainware, weapons, even grenades on the fly... it just presumed the hacking programs were that fast. Just do so in your games, trust me, it's far, far better than banishing the hacker to the cyberrealm for their own sidemission and making everyone else twiddle their thumbs for an hour.
Statistics: Posted by evileeyore — 02 Apr 2024 23:14