[Torg] The GodNet

[Kansas Jim]

Steve Crow wrote on 6/19:

[I wrote:]

>  > Aside from the GodNet book itself, the only other example I can think of
>  > is in the module "When Axioms Collide", there's a scene where the party
>  > has to infiltrate the main bad guy's facility and shut down its external
>  > security.

> I'd have to reread the When Axioms Collide. As I recall from the last 
> time I ran it, the writer played pretty loose with GodNet rules, and it 
> wasn't that thrilling and adventure. Is that the one with the girl 
> running in terror from a single 1st gen Gospog?

No, that's "Crucible of Pain". Axioms is the one with the Orrorshan
Horror setting up shop in the Cyberpapacy.

>  > What I did in later games with the GodNet was treat it more like The
>  > Matrix than Neuromancer. It basically worked like the real world only
>  > the VX personas had different physical attributes and programs could
>  > be used to manipulate 'reality'. I also borrowed the idea of the decker
>  > being the person who didn't enter the GodNet, he's the one who sat out
>  > in the real world monitoring the computers and operating the programs
>  > that the other characters requested. This way it also avoided the old
>  > cyberpunk problem of the decker acting by himself while all the other
>  > players sat there waiting for him to finish, everyone was able to get
>  > involved now.

> It's a possibility, although it sounds like more of a Tharkold thing to 
> me. And in the GodNet, VX personas do have different "physical" 
> attributes (they're based on PER and MIN). And the programs add to their 
> skills/damage, which is about as complicated and reality-altering as I'd 
> want.

For the most part that was as reality-altering as it got. "I need to
know how to fly a helicopter"; one program download later and poof,
the character has the Air Vehicles skill. (I suppose "reality-altering"
is not the best term to use in Torg.)

> Scattershot rules aside, my main problem is this: the rules are supposed 
> to allow deckers to more or less go simultaneously with players in the 
> outside world, making coordinated virtual-and-reality intrusions. The 
> real-life people fight, the decker hacks. But the hacking process is 
> rarely combat (the PC decker probably doesn't want it to be!). He moves, 
> he sneaks, he scans, he downloads data, he tries to manipulate/control a 
> system. The real-world people fight and move. There doesn't seem to be 
> much to connect the two.

The connections with the real-world is supposed to be things like 
getting into a control node and diverting/turning off cameras as the
PCs walk past them so the Monitors don't see them. Hardly an exciting
enough task to require taking two-hours of real time to play out a solo
entry and penetration of a Cyberpapal facility.

> I'm running such a multi-tiered GodNet iontrusion session next week, 
> after wading through the rules another time or two. Will see hot it goes.

If it's happened, how'd it go?

-- 
Kansas Jim, Torg guru (ksjim (at) sdc (dot) org)
Torg website: http://www.sdc.org/~ksjim/index.html