On Hacking in Tabletop games, 1 of X
Note: this is about the "hacker" role in TTRPGs, not "hacking" the game itself.
The idea of playing a hacker in a cyberpunk dystopia has captured my interest ever since I was introduced to TTRPGs that weren't just Dungeons and Dragons. Specifically, I've played hacker-types in Shadowrun 4 and 5 and Interface Zero 1.0, and read over the rules for hacking in Shadowrun 6, Shadowrun: Anarchy, and Cities Without Number.
What is a hacker
To me, the hacker is a support character: they get information, turn off cameras, grant access, retrieve data, disable enemy devices, and boost friendly devices. The hacker can be the star of the show, but I've generally played them to be the supporting element behind everyone else. Of course, depending on the story that your GM/DM/Storyteller/whatever is telling, the hacker will have more or less time in the spotlight. A hacker in a shadowrun that's focused on data retrieval will receive more of the group's attention than a hacker in a beat 'em up combat scenario, but the role is useful in both places. A min-max'ed hacker might not be mechanically very good in a social situation, but (1) you don't have to min-max your characters, and (2) you can try to find ways to be useful that don't involve rolling social skills. Would your social character find the task of greasing some palms and making connections easier if they had a heads up display that had everyone's names and professions already filled out? If they were talking to someone who mentioned a corporation or something in the news, who is better positioned than you to quickly get information on that subject, summarize it, and present it to your teammate, all at the speed of thought? And if you really can't think of something to do, you can just sit there and be weird - maybe that'll make someone uncomfortable enough to give the players engaging in the social situation an edge.
The hacker, then, is a support character that has many avenues open to them, generally limited by a few things:
- The player's creativity
- The player's understanding of the rules
- The GM's understanding of the rules
- The group's consent in the GM and the player going off in a corner and rolling dice against each other
Item 2 and 3 might go without saying, but given that I've already noted this post will deal with the Shadowrun system, "knowing" the rules is not nearly as simple as it might sound. Players and GMs who've dealt (or attempted to) with the rules of "The Matrix" know how incredibly difficult they are.
Item 1 there is the player diving into the setting of the game - if they're playing Shadowrun, then they need to think about how incredibly tied into the Matrix everything is - the cars, the telephones, the weapons, the coffee makers. If the hacker wants to give their more socially-adept teammates a leg up in the day's negotiations, it'd be such a shame if the target's alarm were to go off late, their coffee machine made decaf, and they hit a bunch of red lights on the way to work, wouldn't it?
The last item there, #4, is part of being a good player in any system: we play tabletop games to have fun telling a collaborative story with our friends. If any player, the hacker or otherwise, takes too much of the spotlight, the other players can feel, if nothing else, bored. I try to ensure that my fellow players (I play far more than I GM) are getting plenty of time to shine (I probably avoid the spotlight a little too much, actually), which ties into my opinions about hackers as support characters. In Shadowrun 5, for example, the hacker and the GM generally have to spend a lot of time rolling dice against each other for anything, good or bad, to come of the hacker's attempts. Want to open the door? Well, you'll need MARKs on the door if you have a direct connection, or on the PAN or Host the door is connected to. If you're playing SR5 purely RAW, without any house rules (good luck, by the way), you'll want to also think about cross-grid hacking, because that'll impose a penalty (unless you're using one of the many ways to avoid it) and the penalty for using the public grid. You'll need a certain number of MARKs depending on the action that you want to take. Your GM is tracking your Overwatch Score and the response time of the network's security, right? ... Right?
Shadowrun 5e
I and many players in the hacker role in SR5 have benefitted from the work of others online who have put together graphics, flow charts, tables, rule summaries, and house rules in an attempt to demystify, clarify, streamline, and altogether "make better" the rules of the Matrix in SR5. I've personally made pages of tables in Google Sheets, many pages of rule summaries, a phone app to represent my cyberdeck, specifically based character builds around minimizing this sort of GM-and-player-private-game business, and have worked with my GMs to skip past rules that we think don't add anything to the system. First off: no, this shouldn't be required - you shouldn't have to sink tens of hours (minimum, really) into "fixing" a system, just to make it palatable to your table. Second, I did have fun doing it (mostly), and I chose to do it, so I'm not blaming anyone else. Third, I do like the collaborative nature of the community coming together to help each other, especially people e.g. on the Shadowrun subreddit who take time to answer other peoples' questions.
I'd include links to some of these helpful materials, but ... I really can't be bothered to figure out static file hosting on this site. If you want links, email me.
In SR5 ...
... do all of these rules make sense? No
... do all of these rules add to the gameplay? No
... do all of these rules suck? No
To be clear, I like SR5. Mostly. I like the setting, I like the "vibe", and I generally really enjoy making characters, including hackers. Playing the game, however, gets, well, tedious. I'm very thankful that my GM and I have been able to work together to ensure that our group's hacker is able to meaningfully contribute to the group without taking up too much time. Often times, this is based on the GM trusting me not to meta-game with knowledge about the system and trusting me to tell him the dice totals that I need to roll against. I enjoy this, as I get to help the GM move the story along. Though, yes, again, I shouldn't have to. Not everyone will want to. I'd wager that most won't want to.
And that's okay.
You shouldn't have to.