Netrunner
Ready to Jack-in
Netrunner
Everyone else sees the net as a tool, a thing you shop on, scroll the socials, and watch funny cat videos. A Netrunner sees the net as an endless ocean of possibility, where you can dive in and make it big or die trying. Brain-burning computer hackers and the last electronic wraiths of the Post-NET cyberverse, Netrunners are the reason a locked door, a corporate vault, or a rival Fixer's secrets are only ever as safe as your firewalls can maintain.
History
Before the DataKrash, being a Netrunner meant something close to what Rache Bartmoss and Magnificent Curtis lived through: full sensory immersion, jacked straight into the Old NET through a Neural Link and a Cyberdeck, blind and deaf to the physical world the entire time. It was reckless by design. The Old NET rewarded Netrunners who went all in, because the alternative was a NET too slow and too shallow to be worth the risk.
The DataKrash ended that world and with it created a more simple net though questionably safer. When the R.A.B.I.D.S. turned cyberspace into a hunting ground and Netwatch finally cut the Old NET off for good in 2023, a generation of Netrunners grew up dreaming of running with Spiders found themselves locked out of the only NET they'd ever wanted to use. What replaced it, the CitiNet, running on META over Ziggurat's salvaged infrastructure, was smaller, plainer, and a great deal less forgiving of the old habit of leaving your body behind entirely.
Modern Netrunning grew up around that limitation instead of fighting it. Today's Netrunners mesh the NET with Meatspace using Virtuality Goggles and neuroports rather than going in blind, staying alert to the room around them while their mind runs the Architecture in parallel. The systems they crack are smaller than the legendary Old NET vaults of Bartmoss's era, but they're also, floor for floor, considerably deadlier, and a Netrunner without a team watching their unresponsive body doesn't usually get to regret that for long.
That isnt to say that network deep dives dont still exist. Going full dive with a deep dive socket and immersing yourself in the datastream still exists but its substantially more dangerous. Now you just do it with a full bath of ice, or a netrunner chair and a fancy deep dive suit. Bartmoss never had to contend with swarms of Daemons or diving a citinet to take down the traffic grid while trying to keep his brain from boiling itself. The old legends were legends for a reason, But modern Netrunners have to be better.
The Cyberdeck
A Cyberdeck is a Netrunner's mind-modem, the piece of hardware that turns a Neural Link and a set of Interface Plugs into an actual door onto the NET. Cheap ones are boxy, utilitarian bricks about the size of a 90s laptop that a Netrunner clips to a belt or stows in a bag. Better ones get smaller, sleeker and stranger: SGI Technologies builds segmented, almost organic shells; Zetatech's MicroMate folds down to something a person could lose in a coat pocket; Raven Microcybernetics leans into sharp, aerodynamic angles that look fast even sitting still on a table. For the real chromefiends a Cyberdeck can also be installed directly into a Cyberarm or wired into a Cyberspine Port for a permanent, always-on connection, at the cost of never being able to ditch the deck or swap it out in a hurry.
Every Cyberdeck is built around a set number of options and programs, with cheaper tier 1 models being boring generalist designs, while expensive tier 3 decks being highly customized and probably illegal to own(not that anyone cares). A basic Kirama Training Deck is what most Netrunners cut their teeth on, and what an unfortunate number of them die on. Better decks trade flexibility for specialization: some lock a Netrunner into an aggressive, Black-ICE-heavy loadout, others reward a purely evasive, Slide-and-run style, and the priciest custom builds let a Netrunner shape their entire deck around exactly the kind of fight they intend to have. Whatever the build, a Netrunner can only be plugged into one Cyberdeck at a time, and switching decks mid-run costs time in meatspace they may not have to spare.
Techno-Tiers
Colloquially, Netrunner gear falls into four tiers. Though in reality most professional Netrunners live in the last two, with the first two being the domain of Normys and weefles. These tiers don't affect most people's lives and are mostly a check of how much money and resources you've thrown into your Netrunning gear.
- Tier 0 — Old technology, or the cheaper out-of-the-box stuff you can get at any big box store. This tier of gear is simple, slow, and probably what your mom uses. It can encompass Bartmoss-era Cyberdecks that still use keyboards, or modern but very cheap cell phones and home decks used for scrolling social media or making phone calls, but not much else. Seriously, this is mom-tier tech. No self-respecting Netrunner would touch it if they could afford better. Tier 0 has no Virtuality, no ability to deep dive at all, and is basically just a screen with text or video. Attempting to use Tier 0 tech for Netrunning isn't something you could realistically do anymore(unless it's just to show off how awesome you are, right before you get fried)
- Tier 1 — Modern equipment for a modern Normy. Tier 1 is where you'll find most Kirama Decks, since they tend to be the cheapest, most consumer-friendly models (with the exception of their Advanced model). Most runners live in Tier 1 for their entire, very short, career. This level of technology supports Virtuality and, with some modification, can even support a deep dive, but you'll suffer from limited bandwidth, low storage, and barely enough processing power to run most Programs. This is the tier consumers with a little bit of money buy into so they can hit the CitiNet to catch a concert or browse the datapool, and it's also required for Braindances. Most Tier 1 technology is available in publicly accessible stores, but it's difficult to modify for true Netrunning, doable, but rarely worth the hassle.
- Tier 2 — The first tier of professional technology, and where you'll start throwing real money into the endless pit that is Netrunning. Tier 2 is where Microtech Cyberdeck offerings start to show up, and where the cheaper companies like Kirama max out. It's also where the fancier Netrunner add-ons start to appear: Deep Dive sockets, Netrunner bodygloves, and the always sought after, rarely affordable, Netchairs. No corporate Netrunner would be caught dead below Tier 2, and a Netrunner running on the edge will pretend they always operated at this level. The gap between Tier 1 and Tier 2 is a kiddy pool next to an Olympic one: memory storage climbs by orders of magnitude, processing speed makes lesser gear look like a joke, and the gear itself becomes a world more customizable. Tier 2 Virtuality is correspondingly more realistic and can be shaped with a thought far more easily. It starts to feel like the Old NET again, the datastream close enough to touch, so close and so far.
- Tier 3 — The very top of the Netrunning technology kingdom. Top-tier technology is where you'll find the rare and valuable Raven or SGI Cyberdecks. It's also where Cyberdecks stop being simple rectangles clipped to a belt and become the custom, high-end designs that meld into armor or double as a personal fashion statement. Tier 3 tech is where Netrunning suits become properly armored and cooled for field use, and where corporate Netrunners get their big cryo-suite's. This is the hardware that comes closest to the reality of the Old NET, full immersion in data, the NET treated as an extension of reality itself. It isn't perfect. META still isn't a match on the old systems, but it's a tantalizing taste of what Bartmoss had. Tier 3 technology has essentially no general availability. Everything is special-ordered, custom-made, and usually invite-only. For those who run on the edge, Tier 3 technology is something you steal, or something you build yourself.
Programs
Programs are a Netrunner's weapons and gear inside the NET, and every one of them renders as a custom Icon the Netrunner can style however they like, a glowing katana, a swarm of golden mechanical worms, a barrier of flickering silver light. Mechanically, they fall into a few families:
Boosters don't attack anything. They sharpen a Netrunner's other Abilities while Rezzed, quickening a Backdoor attempt, a Pathfinder scan, or a Netrunner's own reflexes in the Architecture.
Defenders keep a Netrunner alive. Armor blunts incoming brain damage, Flak strips the bite out of an enemy Attacker Program, and Shield eats a single hit before burning out. All three are built to be spent, not worn indefinitely.
Attackers come in two flavors. Anti-Program Attackers like Sword and Banhammer exist to tear apart an enemy's Programs and Black ICE. Anti-Personnel Attackers go straight for the Netrunner behind the deck: Hellbolt sets a target's brain and Cyberdeck on fire, Nervescrub scrambles their avatar for the next hour, and DeckKRASH forces an unsafe Jack Out that leaves every Black ICE they'd been dodging free to hit them on the way out.
Black ICE is the Architecture's own immune system: Programs that hunt down intruders once triggered, running on their own Perception and Speed rather than a Netrunner's Interface. Loading a deck with your own Black ICE is possible, but it's expensive real estate and can get you in a lot of trouble with netwatch if they catch you.
Famous Netrunners
- Rache Bartmoss is the name every Netrunner learns first, usually as a warning. The most gifted hacker the Old NET ever produced, and the man whose paranoia ended it. Every modern Netrunner works in the wreckage of his last prank, and every Netrunner hates him just a little bit. Love him or hate him, Bartmoss was likely the best in the biz.
- Alt Cunningham built Soulkiller before Arasaka turned it into a weapon and used it on her. She was a working Netrunner first, a legend second, and whatever she is now behind the Blackwall, third. Alt was at one time considered the greatest Netrunner on Earth, though the debate over that title still rages between her and Bartmoss to this day.
- Spider Murphy ran with Bartmoss and Johnny Silverhand's crew during the Corporate War era and is still active in Night City decades later, one of the few Netrunners of her generation who survived both the DataKrash and everything that came after.
- Recluse — the Spider of Japantown. Recluse builds and sells some of the most sophisticated NET Architecture available on the street from a walled-off corner of Old Japantown, always remotely, always through an Icon shaped like an enormous brown recluse spider with an icy voice.
- Magnificent Curtis led Netwatch through the DataKrash as its top Netrunner, and lost. When it became clear the DataKrash couldn't be undone without tearing the NET apart from the inside, Curtis was the one who gave the order, activating IGTA Dissolution Prime on March 5th, 2023, and killing the Old NET himself rather than let the R.A.B.I.D.S. finish the job. This makes him a complicated figure in modern history, is the killer of the net or its savior? Whoever you ask they all respect Curtis and know he is one of the greatest living Netrunners and they put some respect on his name. Curtis is still around and is the current president of Netwatch making him likely the most politically powerful Netrunner on earth.
See Also
- The Net — the network, the Blackwall, and the history that shaped what Netrunning is today.
- Cheat Sheet — full Netrunning rules, DVs, and Quickhack tables.
"Its like my old boss used to say before he was melted by black ICE "Always Be Running" He should have ran faster ."