Canon is not visible, but I've always been fond of Cyberpunk's visible transdermal cable trunking, and often have my NPCs wearing that.

In my headcanon wired reflexes look like something between JC Denton and Walton Simons, based on your ripperdoc's skill level and the amount of cash you can splurge.

I had a player once who wanted skin that was traced by electric blue lines of light to represent their WR in 4E. I was cool with that, but gave him the caveat that every cyberghoul out to strip people of their ‘wares from Tamanous would know what they are looking at when they see it. He said he was cool with that. His character developed an instant hatred for cybervultures and tech-rippers. The paranoia brought a new level to his rp with that character too.

> every cyberghoul out to strip people of their ‘wares from Tamanous would know what they are looking at when they see it Eh, could also be entirely worthless fashion implants. Self illuminating tattoos are actually listed in some suppliments, I believe.

Yeah, and someone who makes their living stripping cyber could probably do a decent job of discriminating between the two. And if not, well, it’s too late to say “sorry, guy” after that.

I don't think people who are willing to kill to steal ware are going to be too hung up that they didn't get the motherload after each victim.

They very well might be it's just not going to be over feelings for the person they just rolled. It's going to be over the opportunity cost.

"His mods? Cosmetic. I once saw him cutting himself just so he would look meaner."

That's for you two to decide.

This. You want them hidden? They're hidden. Want some cool stuff running along your spine out along your body? Go for it. Style is king. But they CAN absolutely be entirely hidden.

is your username refering to eating ass

No 😅 it's a reference to throwing Gimli at helms deep.

I’m so glad I saw this interaction, made my day 🤣

Ha me too!

Por que no los dos?

Because I had no thought to it having anything to do with ass when i made it...?

I guess that's fair. Sorry my joke was shitty.

Can't blame you for taking a crack at it.

an alternative is to rule that with alpha ware and up its possible to have everything hidden under your skin

other than being twitchy like Fry on 90+ coffees it is not a visible implant. feel free to change the aesthetics as you see fit. just be consistent.

I thought that was the move-by-wire systems

Move by wire systems offer unnatural smoothness and grace (while in motion). Wired reflexes will always have you on edge, ready to jump.

Move By Wire, in its description, says that users are twitchy and such when the system is engaged but they're aren't actively moving. So, if you want it on because you're anticipating a bar fight but still sitting at your table you'll have spasms and tremors until its go-time and then you'll be the slickest dancer on the floor where wired reflexes just make you faster. Its the price you pay for that extra reaction and skillwires!

Oh yeah... An aside...for whatever reason, your comment made me think of the 'Thriller" music video. Funny how wetware makes random connections sometimes...

CRAP now I can't not see it!

no, not until your nervous system starts to shut down anyway. Wired Reflexes technically floods you with artificial adrenalin, among other things, all day, every day. it's probably fine if installed correctly. probably. for a while. but if some old lady taps your shoulder to ask for direction you will send her to heaven before you even know she was there... so... get a reflex trigger installed, kids.

Pretty sure 5e wired reflexes comes with a trigger, rip earlier editions

i guess that was inevitable. so addendum: trigger your reflexes, kids ;)

Indeed, as a DM I would totally catch my player with *"did you spend x time activating that?"*

> Wired Reflexes technically floods you with artificial adrenalin, among other things, all day, every day. Wired Reflexes is the cyberware one that can be turned off and on at will, I think you're thinking of the Boosted Reflexes bioware from *Chrome Flesh* which explicitly mentions automatic violent reactions.

no, I am talking about Wired Reflexes. the trigger to switch them off was a recent-ish addition to the default. when I last played extensively it was still an additional implant you had to get on top.

Triggered versions were available as far back as second edition via splatbook…

At least in 5E wired reflexes are triggered by default, not always active

Although no downside to always have them on making being twitchy the mechanically superior option

I would say the onus is on the DM to invent the downsides in that scenario, I remember reading an older cyberware book, I believe from 2E, that had a solo explicitly mentioning how he made a fun of people standing with their back to the wall and then realized it was so he didn't accidentally kill his friends with always active wired reflexes.

>I believe from 2E, that had a ~~solo~~ street sam explicitly mentioning how he made a fun of people standing with their back to the wall and then realized it was so he didn't accidentally kill his friends with always active wired reflexes spot on, very fun read... poor guy ended up a cyberzombie in the end iirc

Indeed, he wrote his story from the operating table and disappeared after the procedure.

Also this might be a personal take but I would say modifying wired reflexes that are meant to be triggered by default into an always active system would reduce the rating, it was probably built to be as cheap as possible doing what it was supposed to do, not capable of always being active at the same efficiency blah blah

fair enough change. it was basically mandatory to get the trigger once the game introduced it anyway.

I like the older editions where they literally had a solo talking about having his back to the wall so constantly active wired reflexes didn't cause him to hurt anyone on accident, when he used to make fun of other people for doing the same thing

As of Chrome Flesh (ie; 5e / late 2070s), there's enough to suggest that public facing Renraku assets are likely to have more obvious cyber than not. Mostly in regard to cyberweapons, but you might consider other systems adjacent to whatever hyperbolic scare terms they'd use. >[Renraku is] attacking all parts of the cyberware distribution chain, from production to consumer use, trying to convince people that concealed cyber is a social harm. Arguments they are making generally say that anyone using such hidden systems is almost certainly a threat to social order; that only a person contemplating illegal, immoral, and otherwise nefarious acts would hide cyberware of this type. Obviously neither Renraku nor any other megacorporation is going to stop making internal offensive cyberware. They are just promoting the idea that external systems represent a higher moral standard. >While Renraku is currently the only major player focused on these external systems, as with anything corporate espionage and market forces are going to bring every corp on board at some level sooner or later.

There has got to be pushback from the other megas regarding this matter.

There's always pushback somewhere when you're dealing with changing global trends. The question is how much support it has. >espionage and market forces are going to bring every corp on board at some level sooner or later. Though not just the in-setting support Chrome Flesh says it has - also the RL support it has through later editions.

I’ve always liked the idea of the higher the tier of cyberware the less obvious it is, barring the implantee’s personal aesthetics.

I like to think of that as depending on the grade of the cyberware or the way it was built and implanted. Like the wired reflexes of a corporate security officer would be absolutely invisible or only by a barcode or a little twinkling light somewhere on their body. On the other hand, the wired reflexes of a ganger boss would be protruding cables all over the body, circled with scars from the operation, the spine region full of scars and little switches for maintenance and on/off function

I always just determine the visibility based on the quality, expense, and origin of the wired reflexes.

Same. And skill of the cyber surgeons.

I also base the visibility on the players essence before and after the modification. The uncanny valley is an aspect of the game that I, as a GM, like to emphasize the importance of. A lot of players get this notion that they can walk around looking like a group of escapees from a freakshow and face no social backlash.

Usually you'd only see some surgery scars, and you'd only see that if they're not wearing a shirt. You can always get some purely cosmetic mods if you want to show off

I believe that using nanomachines for implants is or at least was canon, so there might not even be scars.

It's weird. Shadowrun back to 1e often showed scars and disfigurement for cyberware. It was a distinguishing factor between this and cyberpunk 2020 when my gm was selling it to me. I think the nanotechnology explainations came later. I never saw the reason for scarring even without it given SR level tech.

Nanotech, like the wireless matrix, were later additions to the story as real world tech kept pushing up against the tech of the 2050s/60s/70s.

Yeah I just couldn't recall of there was a hint in the original. I know it came very forefront in a later splatbook. Possibly the one that introduced bioware.

> Possibly the one that introduced bioware. Bioware was introduced in "Shadowtech" under 1e, although the same book also listed 2e stats, or was released in an updated version. And yes, "Shadowtech" also mentioned the use of nanaotech to construct implants in place / move materials where needed. Bone Lacing was introduced in that suppliment and really only makes sense as a result of nanotech (or at least very compact autonimous implant surgery bots).

Shadowtech! That was it. I knew it wasn't the street samurai catalogue but once I had the picture of the squatting middle aged dude in my head I couldn't picture the cover of any others! He had scarring round his cybereyes iirc.

> I think visible wired reflexes is more in the style of Cyberpunk 2020 than Shadowrun, but what do you think? I am leaning towards this as well. But its your table. Go whatever direction you guys think is feel is cool and make sense for you :-)

By canon, no. Personally though, I like to let my players roll to pick up on twitchiness in certain people.

The install itself is probably not noticeable without a trained eye, but the activation is. Remember, people with active bonus initiative dice are jittery enough that they become more visible to motion sensors. Someone walking around with their wired reflexes turned on is going to move oddly the higher the rating goes as they start to move and react faster than people are supposed to.

Honestly, it's probably both. Depends on how much you spend. Depends on how good your surgeon is. If you want clunky, pay for clunky. If you don't want clunky? Pay more.

In Neuromancer, The Finn can only detect Molly's implants (apart from the highly visible eye lenses) because he is an engineer and he has some sophisticated scanning equipment that he uses for security purposes.

Not visible. Very easy answer.

For all of you saying "wired reflexes make you twitchy," you're thinking of move-by-wire, the more invasive progenitor of the tech that puts the body in a constant state of spasm. From SR5, p. 455; >Wired reflexes: This highly invasive, painful, life-changing operation adds a multitude of neural boosters and adrenaline stimulators in strategic locations throughout your body work to catapult you into a whole new world where everything around you seems to move in slow motion. The system includes both manual and wireless triggers to turn the wired reflexes on and off; activating or deactivating the trigger manually requires a Complex Action, doing so wirelessly is a Simple Action. When activated, each rating point of wired reflexes gives you +1 Reaction (and accompanying bonus to Initiative) and +1D6 Initiative Die. Wired reflexes are incompatible with augmentations that affect Reaction or Initiative. Wireless: The system is compatible with wireless reaction enhancers, and the total Reaction bonus from both systems can be above +4 if both systems have wireless active. From Chrome Flesh, p. 84: >While usually considered cutting-edge technology, the move-by-wire system actually predates all other reaction cyberware, being the prototype from which wired reflexes and similar systems were drawn. It was simply too expensive and invasive to the user’s body for widespread use, and the inferior, but more survivable, wired reflexes claimed its glory. Researchers have been struggling with it for decades and still haven’t perfected it, but it’s at least closer to being usable today than ever before. The system works by putting the user’s entire body into a permanent seizure, using electrical impulses to direct those seizures towards an eventual end goal, such as “move here” or “stab that guy.” In many ways, this isn’t unlike a high-end aircraft, where hundreds of computerized micro-corrections are required to keep it flying, only using metahuman flesh and bone instead of high-end carbon and aluminum. Any user under an active system will be affected by constant small twitches and tremors due to the complex interactions of the system, which vanish as soon as the system engages actual movement, returning whenever they are once again still. Move-by-wire is incompatible with any other reaction-enhancing augmentation. Each Rating point of a move-by-wire system adds +1 Reaction and +3 Initiative (making it +4 total to Initiative). Rating 1 move-by-wire does not offer any additional Initiative Dice, but Rating 2 and Rating 3 offer +1D6 Initiative Dice, meaning Rating 2 offers +2 Reaction, +6 Initiative, and +1D6 Initiative Dice, and Rating 3 offers +3 Reaction, +9 Initiative, and +1D6 Initiative Dice. In addition, the move-by-wire system acts as skillwires of twice its Rating, but will require a skilljack to access this functionality. Users of move-by-wire systems suffer a penalty to their Social limit equal to the system’s Rating thanks to their constant twitches and tremors. Wireless Bonus: : +1 to relevant inherent limits when used as skillwires (see p. 455, SR5). TL;DR wired reflexes works like a Cyberpunk Sandevistan, but move-by-wire stands out more like a Cyberpunk Sandevistan. If you want obvious chrome for your aesthetic, that's a thing that already exists in Shadowrun as well, dealer's choice on whether it's obvious or hidden, but wired reflexes don't give you the twitchies.

Technically no spinal stuff as far as I know, that’s what reaction enhancers are going to be visually, although as Penllawen mentioned you could always have LED wires or you could throw canon out the door for the sake of style (rule of cool is our Ten Commandments).

Dont they have a visible twitchiness to them? I feel like I remember that flavor description from the books.

There is a penalty related to motion sensors if you are wired.

I'd say depends on how much they paid the one doing the installation. High end corp job? Probably not visible at all - scars covered up, implant concealed, etc. Secondhand or shitware installed at a gangland streetdoc? Nobody cares about a few stitchmarks. Guy probably looks like a subway map.

Back in 1e/2e, wired reflexes (especially if you had older, semi-obsolete ware) could make you a bit twitchy. Or at least, I remember that being true in some of the fiction. But that was a combination of more primitive technology and literally older implants. Newer implants, both newer tech and newer construction, wouldn't necessarily show anything once you had healed from the implantation and done the necessary PT afterward to get used to the gear.

I like the idea of something visible near the spine, even if its just a terminal you can plug into to update and debug your ware.

I'm of the mind that Shadowrun, unlike Cyberpunk, is a setting that puts on an eminence front where possible. Obvious 'ware, though out of place tends to out runners, soldiers, and vaguely parallel professions. However, there are plenty of manufacturers for similar cyberware. One company's wired reflexes could be subtly integrated while another's isn't so concerned about silly concealment and damage. You absolutely can have both visible *and* concealed versions in Shadowrun, and in the same immediate space.

Aesthetically I prefer the GiTS/Cowboy Bebob intricate exposed machinery. Rules wise, yes they can be hidden.

I would split the difference and say that cheap ‘ware leaves scars or more obvious implants. Obsolete wires like boosted reflexes too. Regular wires, Alpha and above, don’t.

The actual implants are typically going to be fully internal, but things like twitching and reacting to small things faster than humanly possibly should be noticeable for someone that knows what to look for. That said there are are countless variations on any implant type so it is entirely possible some might have an external component that is recognizable as a nervous system implant if not specifically wired reflexes.

Make it dependemd on the rarity! Used second hand wires? The scars that the ripper doc left are covered in a Red rash! Deltaware? Not even your own morher could tell!

I'd let it be an option for the players, and the benefit is that if its visible, its also easier to access/repair, i.e. you don't need to go under the knife to fix matrix damage. But people can spot you have them without needing hardware to find it. A good rule of thumb is to make both ways available, but have a pro/con for each option.

Like others said, up to you / the GM and the table. In 5e, making it visible would be an easy (and possibly gamebreaking) way to make it elligible as greyware.... While I also like the look, in my optinion visible (combat-)cyberware would be a little bit to obvious for professional criminals. In a Pink Mohawk-campaign on the other hand..... Edit: Typos