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There's actually a discussion (though brief) in the GM portion of the Core SR5 book about running a DocWagon campaign. If I were you, I'd have them show up blind most of the time, with a poor understanding of the situation. Think about this on both sides: a 'runner is gonna have a docwagon chip, but so will a corporate guard whose spouse has expressed so much concern that they took the family pocketbook and bought one. I would probably say no adepts, only one party mage and one decker, no technomancers (because DW wouldn't hire one and wouldn't hire someone who wasn't good at something), and then fill the rest in with hard-core cybered assholes. There's a description in a book that I am not recalling that actually describes the makeup of a docwagon team, and I'd shoot as close to that as possible. The real thing about running a DW campaign is that there's pretty much no chance for mirrorshades, so all of the variety is going to come from "keep them guessing" situations. They show up to a shootout and have to figure out who called them, which side they're on. I'd try to do it like Person of Interest a bit, where it isn't necessarily the case that the person who called them even needed help. One of the dirtiest tricks in the book is to shoot a team mate and activate their DW beacon to get a free evac. A DW campaign is basically going to hinge on super-hairy situations where things get fuzzy in the heat of the moment, and your characters need to make serious judgement calls. Beyond the story stuff, I'd set up a strong cost/reward model where their karma and cash rewards are directly tied to keeping their charges alive. Get called out on a job to save a guy from getting geeked, and he gets geeked anyway? Well, you should have cut through that floor and pulled him up to the paddle-doc. No karma for you, and you are gonna have trouble making rent this month. Hope you have savings! So the major themes, I'd say, are (a) keep then guessing whenever possible and (b) ensure that there is an implicit, out-of-character need for them to do their job (not just dick around in between two groups shooting it out).
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Oct 21, 2014 06:17
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Wanted to thank the people for the Roll20 suggestion. Tried it for our last session on Sunday and while I still need to teach myself all the features it worked much better than IRC.
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Oct 21, 2014 08:09
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Is there something like Soft Rope but for Android? I like the idea of having a soundscape soundboard but don't have a laptop to lug around.
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Oct 21, 2014 19:47
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Does anyone know of a good resource for puzzles or trivia questions online? I'm GMing a Mutants & Masterminds game, and decided to throw the party a Riddler/Arcade-style villain. So far for puzzles, I've had pretty good luck with The Grey Labyrinth. And the Shadowman's Twisted Treasury book seems like it has some pretty good stuff. But that's pretty much all I've been able to find so far.
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Oct 22, 2014 09:25
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petrol blue posted:https://www.google.com/search?q=pub+quiz+questions&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official Those work too! Thank you!
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Oct 22, 2014 17:22
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This is probably something you already know, but the most important thing is to avoid writing yourself into a situation where the plot can't progress because the players can't solve a riddle. The way I would handle this would be to make 'solve his riddle' one of several solutions to the problem, with the others being increasingly unpalatable to the PCs. Like, maybe he has a warehouse full of hostages wired up to blow elsewhere while he performs his bank heist. The riddle tells the PCs where the hostages are so that they can save them, but the military are already on their way to the heist to stop him, hostages be damned.
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Oct 22, 2014 17:28
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The other option is always 'if the players can't solve it (or don't care to), roll some knowledge checks to see if the characters can'.
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Oct 22, 2014 18:09
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thespaceinvader posted:The other option is always 'if the players can't solve it (or don't care to), roll some knowledge checks to see if the characters can'. This is a thing. Or say that if nobody can solve the riddle, they can undergo a more standard investigation with some encounters and stuff. I usually try to abstract my puzzles if I can, these days. I find that I get a lot more mileage out of saying "This room has some bodies fuckin melted into the floor by their plate armor," or "He's not in the motel room any more, but his bomb workshop is still set up in here," and reacting to the player-directed investigation of the area, than I would setting up a rigid flow chart kind of deal or saying "solve this weird math problem." Hell, you could make it an in-joke where the heroes aren't even gonna play the Riddler's Game, and instead just run every puzzle he leaves at the crime scene through the forensics lab, or read its psychic trail, or whatever, and your Riddler gets more and more pissed as the plot progresses that the PCs are "cheating". It's my experience that PCs love it when they have visibly annoyed the bad guy.
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Oct 22, 2014 18:20
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thespaceinvader posted:The other option is always 'if the players can't solve it (or don't care to), roll some knowledge checks to see if the characters can'. For me, this is always option #1 if I've written myself into the riddle corner. The problem with puzzles like this is that they are a test of the player, not a test of the character. In a superhero game where someone might be a Mr. Fantastic-style supergenius or a Batman-style detective, getting stumped by "what walk on four legs in the morning" should never happen. I definitely like this idea: deadly_pudding posted:Hell, you could make it an in-joke where the heroes aren't even gonna play the Riddler's Game, and instead just run every puzzle he leaves at the crime scene through the forensics lab, or read its psychic trail, or whatever, and your Riddler gets more and more pissed as the plot progresses that the PCs are "cheating".
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Oct 22, 2014 18:48
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deadly_pudding posted:Hell, you could make it an in-joke where the heroes aren't even gonna play the Riddler's Game, and instead just run every puzzle he leaves at the crime scene through the forensics lab, or read its psychic trail, or whatever, and your Riddler gets more and more pissed as the plot progresses that the PCs are "cheating". Not gonna lie... I really like this idea. The good thing too is the PCs have a pretty good variety of expertises. And two of them have super scientist character concepts, so they have pretty high intellect scores. That way, if they want to try and solve the puzzle, they can roll for help. If they don't, there's plenty of ways they can think around anything.
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Oct 23, 2014 04:44
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"drat you, Mr Spiffy, and your band of cheating do-gooders! I have an IQ of 5000, and you? You just cheat." **Flips table, runs away swearing vengeance**
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Oct 23, 2014 21:56
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Does anyone have any experience doing a Heist in DnD? So far what I've gathered is: -Stack the odds against the players (tell them it can't be done, dissuade them, etc.) -Have lots of work for skill checks and preparations -Have options for successes/failures on every step What I'm thinking is having them steal a precious object that is inside a cube which is enchanted with dimensional door (think Harry Potter Portkey) and the cube is housed in a secure vault. Obviously a bit of an Inception riff but I was just wondering if anyone had ideas/stories of structuring multiple levels like that.
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Oct 23, 2014 22:03
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deadly_pudding posted:Hell, you could make it an in-joke where the heroes aren't even gonna play the Riddler's Game, and instead just run every puzzle he leaves at the crime scene through the forensics lab, or read its psychic trail, or whatever, and your Riddler gets more and more pissed as the plot progresses that the PCs are "cheating". As done by Impulse to The Riddler
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Oct 23, 2014 22:11
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OfChristandMen posted:Does anyone have any experience doing a Heist in DnD? I think it depends on the type of heist you want to evoke. It'll generally fall into 3 stages. Planning, Stealing, Running. If your players get off on intricate plans, give them everything up front and allow a nice, long first act and let their musings guide your final act complications. Let their interest world build for you. Allow them to show off their planning with lots of bonuses during the theft. If you want ACTION, make stealing part of the planning phase (think Ocean's 11), make the theft simple/fast, and make the escape central to the night (See: theGood, the Bad, the Weird). The Stealing phase need tension if you're making it a focus of the night. Add a real world timer, or hint at monsters moving in for the kill, or make it occur during a pitched battle. Whatever you do, make the object unquestionably what the players want to get, and then throw everything you can to distract them from it.
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Oct 23, 2014 22:40
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fosborb posted:I think it depends on the type of heist you want to evoke. It'll generally fall into 3 stages. Planning, Stealing, Running. Thanks, this is really good advice. Currently I'm realizing the group I have is not interested in going about adventures the same way I am. This helps me think in terms of "what's the best way to build the adventure for them?" rather than "How do I think the adventure should proceed?" Is the Good, the Bad and the Weird worth the watch for this campaign? Edit: What's a good guideline for "I want to make an object that entices my players to go through any lengths to get it, yet is not something I mind them as a group having"?
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Oct 23, 2014 23:39
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Yes, regardless of the campaign  My experience with heists is that players will always plan forever. They'll love it, but it can be difficult to keep pacing up. A quick "so, run me through what you're going to do" to clarify and finalise everything works wonders, especially if you cue up the mission impossible theme or something, and set it going as they start to talk. e: As to the 'what', give them something so valuable that it becomes the story - trying to find someone to fence it, while avoiding pursuit and fending off theives guilds, etc. A flawless life-sized diamond bust of the emperor, a 10-foot-square unique work of art, the last living dragon, that sort of thing. petrol blue fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Oct 23, 2014 |
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Oct 23, 2014 23:44
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QuantumNinja posted:There's actually a discussion (though brief) in the GM portion of the Core SR5 book about running a DocWagon campaign. These are very good ideas - particularly tying run rewards directly to how well they do their job. I also really like the idea of having the players showing up not necessarily knowing who their patient is or which 'side' they're on - in fact, I think I'm going to steal an idea from you verbatim, and have one of the introductory missions for this campaign be a wounded corporate security guard whose squad is shooting it out with a group of Shadowrunners. Will really help to drive home how much different things are on this side of the law. I'm also hoping to incorporate the Anarchist Black Crescent (an organization mentioned in the Loose Alliances sourcebook that provides medical care to people who can't afford actual hospitals and tries to rescue people who can't afford or are otherwise ineligible for DocWagon/similar services). I'd like to have them occasionally buzz in the group on the secure channel with little requests - that gradually get bigger and bigger, and run the risk of pissing off their bosses more and more, gradually letting the players decide if they do or do not work with ABC, and branching the campaign based on their choices. In the long run, the plan is that they'll end up taking one of two paths. Option 1: help the ABC so much they get blacklisted, go underground, fight the man as a pack of anarcho-syndicalist paramedics working for a constantly-broke, secretive, illegal mutual aid organization whose patients are the dregs of society and whose supplies and equipment are obtained primarily through theft. This will allow for more mirrorshades while still being substantially different from a normal 'running campaign. Option 2: stay loyal to their employers, turn the dangerous poor-helping radicals over to the law, and gradually move up the DocWagon ranks until they're one of the premier High Threat Response Teams in North America, sent into the toughest and most complex rescue situations to help the company's top clients. Or whatever third option they end up thinking up.
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Oct 24, 2014 00:31
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OfChristandMen posted:Does anyone have any experience doing a Heist in DnD? Be careful about the "tell them it can't be done" part. I mean, yeah, it's supposed to look impossible, but the GM flatly saying "it's impossible", even through an NPC, can be really offputting. I'd phrase it like "That's impossible! Even if you somehow got through the 7 sealed vault doors and whatever the magic trap is, there's still 150 guards to deal with and the building will have turned itself into a fortress!" There you go, now it's only impossible if you don't have a plan... petrol blue posted:e: As to the 'what', give them something so valuable that it becomes the story - trying to find someone to fence it, while avoiding pursuit and fending off theives guilds, etc. A flawless life-sized diamond bust of the emperor, a 10-foot-square unique work of art, the last living dragon, that sort of thing. The last dragon egg. It's hatching right now! Oh poo poo! The source of all magic. Be very careful not to drop it. The real crown. Who's that wearing a fake one and sitting on the throne? The last of the original magic swords. You know, the ones that cut through any enchantment. Why did they even bother with a magic vault in the first place? Al you have to do is get in, and then... A bound demon that powers the city. The last promise of the departed elves. Just a plain steel ring? Wasn't this supposed to be... Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Oct 24, 2014 |
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Oct 24, 2014 00:52
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Stealing any/all of those for 13th Age, holy poo poo Fake edit: I'm super poo poo at adventure design. I can run pre written modules fine but anything I create is super simple, like "PCs go to this cave and kill these pirates"-- and gently caress me if there's nothing but a rope bridge in the way which somebody literally cut down. What are the basic guidelines or whatever? Captain Walker fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Oct 24, 2014 |
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Oct 24, 2014 01:44
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AlphaDog posted:Be careful about the "tell them it can't be done" part. I mean, yeah, it's supposed to look impossible, but the GM flatly saying "it's impossible", even through an NPC, can be really offputting. I'd phrase it like "That's impossible! Even if you somehow got through the 7 sealed vault doors and whatever the magic trap is, there's still 150 guards to deal with and the building will have turned itself into a fortress!" There you go, now it's only impossible if you don't have a plan... This is perfect, part of the hook of the last adventure is that they found the King's Crown with a dead homunculus. Their Nemesis right now is an Arcane Trickster going around using the cubes to "shrink" rooms inside his own personal containment, who has also taken: a bank vault, a gallery, a barracks and other such stuff. Having the crown revealed to be a fake gives them a huge hook into getting fully into the graces of the new city and restoring their honor. That's also more of what I meant by the "It's 'impossible' [without a plan]". Thanks goons!
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Oct 24, 2014 02:29
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Captain Walker posted:Stealing any/all of those for 13th Age, holy poo poo I'll walk you through how I do it, but it'll be different for everyone. It's kind of just a seed of an idea, then questions about the idea (who/what/when/where/why) What I did in my post above is the first part. The seed of the idea was "heist". The big thing with a heist is the item. So the first question is "what are they stealing?". So I kinda just throw out whatever comes into my head and then choose something that seems cool. (The last promise of the departed elves). Where is it kept? (A magic vault guarded by soldiers, wizards, and... things. Who are they stealing it from? (The High King of wherever, who is the steward of the last promise. Why are they stealing it? This one's the easy part - they're stealing it because it can do <thing>, where <thing> is something they've been wanting to do. It might defeat the King. It might grant eternal life. It might re-ignite the sun. It might be enough money that you could live comfortably forever, it might be the key to figuring out what's in this drat book that they found and everyone seems to want (it's that last one, because it's the book of the names of the Departed and can call up loyal undying followers to defeat the BBEG). When do they have to steal it? Before X, After Y, or During Z are all good answers, so let's go with "before the BBEG gets to the book", or better yet, "before the BBEG's army besieges the city, because if that happens, the wards will activate fully and the vault will be actually impregnable until it's unlocked by the King, the Prince, and two generals). Now do whatever you'd do for "go into a cave and kill pirates", but it's a treasure vault with traps, soldiers, wizards, and whatever else guarding the Last Promise (ie, a dungeon). Plan to have the BBEG show up right near the end, either with the book if the PCs don't have it, or to try to take the book and the Promise and use them for himself. Oh, the High King won't help. He's convinced that just keeping the Promise safe in his vaults will be enough to save the world. He's probably wrong, but he's the king, what you gonna do about it (break into the vault and save the world, duh). e: If you mean "how do you do the dungeon part", there are lots of resources for that around. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Oct 24, 2014 |
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Oct 24, 2014 03:09
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OfChristandMen posted:Does anyone have any experience doing a Heist in DnD? If you're running a 3.5 Eberon campaign, and you know where you can dig up a couple back issues, Dungeon Magazine has a couple one shot adventure modules you might check out. Either to run as a warm up, or just to mine for ideas. #147 has one about stealing an artifact from a House Kundarek bank (The Andairian Job). And #143 has the PCs preventing a train robbery in Breland (Riding the Rail). Both of them are meant for level 5ish characters.
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Oct 24, 2014 06:29
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Any resources I can tap for generic battle terrain? I'm running TOTM with markers on a map to show general positioning, but the last fight I did in a goblin camp had ... 1 tent as far as interesting terrain goes, and I'm crap at coming up with trees, shrubs, etc. on the fly.
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Oct 24, 2014 06:47
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gradenko_2000 posted:Any resources I can tap for generic battle terrain? I'm running TOTM with markers on a map to show general positioning, but the last fight I did in a goblin camp had ... 1 tent as far as interesting terrain goes, and I'm crap at coming up with trees, shrubs, etc. on the fly. Do you mean like ideas for what to put on the maps, or for what to use as markers? For what to put on the maps, you can't go wrong with anything that an enemy can be pushed off or pushed into, or anything that can be set on fire. Basically, go for pits, bonfires, and flammable furniture. Also stuff that can be tipped over, broken, used as a weapon, used as a dumb weapon, or swung from / jumped off. Then make sure that the PCs can kick dudes into the fire, kick dudes into the pit, hit dudes with a table, light the drapes on fire, then swing from the burning drapes, jump off the balcony, and make their exit. If you mean markers and you're doing kind of free-form maps like you described, and don't mind low-effort stuff that looks low-effort, then... Paint some different sized jar lids green on one side and grey on the other. Now they're trees, rocks, pillars, stalagmites, shrubs, whatever and you can just spread them around. You could also use actual stones for boulders and stuff. I bought a bag of "decorative river stones' for a buck, and when they're not being scenery I use them as paperweights and doorstops. Look in a dollar shop (or whatever your local equivalent is called) for big bags of cheap plastic toys which have "scenery" included. You'll now the ones I mean when you see them, they've got farm animals + fences and troughs, or dinosaurs + trees and rocks, or zoo animals + cages. You can throw the toy animals away or use them as stand-in minis (grognard points for drawing the dumbest looking ones and then releasing them as original monster art do not steal, I'm onto you, Gary). Ditto for "big bag of cowboys and indians", which will have tents, horses, and the "bonus" of lots of racist caricature "generic savage" looking dudes and maybe a wagon. e: This kind of thing http://www.ebay.com/itm/DINOSAURS-A...=item43d13454d3 Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Oct 24, 2014 |
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Oct 24, 2014 08:55
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Uhhh, that'll teach me to be more clear with my posts. I meant what to put on maps, and for roll20. Thank you for the advice, though - I understand that the stuff you put down on the maps has to be something that can be interacted with in combat, but I have such a high level concept of the area that I'm having difficulty populating the battlefield with individual pieces of debris and whatnot.
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Oct 24, 2014 09:14
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poo poo, I thought you'd posted that you'd just run a fight with a tent as the only interesting thing on the map and you literally just couldn't think of anything else. Now I feel like an idiot. I know nothing whatsoever about roll20 or any other tabletop-via-internet thing, either. Speaking of that, what would be the best tool to play Dungeon World online? I'm guessing you could just use IRC or any other group chat thing.
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Oct 24, 2014 09:22
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AlphaDog posted:A bound demon that powers the city. quote:poo poo, I thought you'd posted that you'd just run a fight with a tent as the only interesting thing on the map 
My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 09:41 on Oct 24, 2014 |
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Oct 24, 2014 09:39
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AlphaDog posted:Be careful about the "tell them it can't be done" part. I mean, yeah, it's supposed to look impossible, but the GM flatly saying "it's impossible", even through an NPC, can be really offputting. I'd phrase it like "That's impossible! Even if you somehow got through the 7 sealed vault doors and whatever the magic trap is, there's still 150 guards to deal with and the building will have turned itself into a fortress!" There you go, now it's only impossible if you don't have a plan...
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Oct 24, 2014 13:23
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OfChristandMen posted:Does anyone have any experience doing a Heist in DnD? Oooh. I ran a pretty good sort of mini-heist a few months ago. The PCs needed to get at a safe-deposit box in a city bank, belonging to a local noblewoman who they believed was in possession of a certain relic that they needed. I don't even remember what it was at this point, some kinda ring? Basically, I gave them a map of the bank's layout and an explanation of its known security features, and then I let them come up with their own plan. It was a pretty decent plan: They didn't have a key, so they had a two-part plan. One of the party's two spellcasters would disguise themselves as the noblewoman, and try to talk their way in with the manager. Failing that, they would make a huge "HOW DARE YOU" scene in the middle of the lobby, drawing a ton of attention. Then, the party's rogue snuck into the safe-deposit vault and picked the lock, retrieving their prize. Here is the key to running the heist: just as the rogue was pulling the item out of the box, I had the real noblewoman walk into the lobby. Always complicate the party's situation right when they think they've got the heist in the bag. Thinking fast, the second spellcaster, who was outside watching the door, became invisible and followed the real noblewoman into the building. While all the bank guards rapidly put 2 and 2 together in the lobby when the lady showed up and immediately confronted her doppleganger, the invisible party member was able to safely pocket the item, handed off by the rogue, and leave the premises. The whole thing was capped off by an ingenious escape on the rogue's part, in which a series of incredible rolls saw the rogue, a kobold, basically wait in a corner for all the guards to run past him, and then bound out of the building. The players loved the whole playout of the scenario, and I think it boils down to these main elements: 1. Be clear and open about the information the players access when they case the location beforehand. It's perfectly fair to give them an accurate map of the target's floorplan. 2. Let the players come up with their own plan, and just ask that they give you a list of bullet points so you can be ready to respond to it. 3. Throw an unexpected element into the mix right when the players think they're going to get away with it.
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Oct 24, 2014 15:58
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^ I think this is the best solution, as PCs basically never do exactly as you expect them to do. Creating a sandbox environment and letting them prepare a plan (as long as they tell you at least a general outline first) ensures that they get to feel happy about winning on their own terms and prevents you from desperately trying to railroad the elaborate heist that you planned.
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Oct 24, 2014 16:38
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My friends have expressed interest in playing some sort of TTRPG again; we played a little bit of D&D 3e in college but not much. Someone mentioned a Stargate rip-off sort of thing, which sounds fun, but I haven't DM'd since college and I was pretty lovely even then, so I'd appreciate some ideas. I watched quite a bit of SG-1 back in the day, and it feels like D&D wouldn't be a great fit. I'm considering maybe Call of Cthulhu because 1) I have the book and 2) it's about mostly mundane characters going up against significantly greater powers, beating them without always going for the head-on fight. I'm not feeling particularly imaginative this morning so I haven't come up with any particular adventure to run yet, if anyone has done something vaguely similar I'd love to
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Oct 24, 2014 17:26
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Oops, look what I forgot about : These are really easy to make, you just print out a sheet of character portraits from ... anything really. Glue the sheet to a thin cardboard box (I used a make-at-home pizza box), and then glue a parchment sheet to the opposite side. Cut them all out, clip a binder clip to the base, and then remove the silver "handles" by squeezing them together. You could probably get fancy by using a black border at the bottom or larger binder clips - but it's a super-cheap alternative to miniatures.
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Oct 25, 2014 16:28
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I've just started a modern supernatural investigation style game, normally i tend to run either fantasy or sci-fi settings and I was just wondering how other people handle hacking in their games? Like I'll freely admit I'm not the most computer savvy person in the world so know next to nothing about how real hacking works but gameplaywise how do you find the balance with being fine with like a CSI level of unreality to match big action set pieces and so on without making it game breakingly easy?
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Oct 25, 2014 17:11
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Welp, I just bought fifty green, brown and tan plastic men for less than a buck as a lazy miniatures backstop. I never did get around to turning the 1-inch washers into icons - maybe I'll hand them out instead as bennies/tokens.
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Oct 25, 2014 17:48
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I'm sure others will have a more general framework for you to build hacking mechanics around, but hacking doesn't necessarily need it's own subsystem. One of the hottest things in hacking these days is social engineering. This is, for example, calling a bank and using information found off of Facebook to convince the lowly CSR on the phone that you have the credentials to access the account. Often times credentials are built off a series of accounts, starting with public information, then less secure accounts like email or even utilities, and then using those combined bits of info against the actual target. This attack vector requires very little technical "hacking" skills, and could probably be handled by any charisma/social mechanics your system already has.
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Oct 25, 2014 17:49
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The Libearian posted:how other people handle hacking in their games? I'd handle it the same as I'd handle electronics or surgery - by starting from the idea of "what are the characters able to do with this, what's its function in the game?" If the game is all about hacking, then some research might be in order, otherwise I'd just handwave it with 'yeah, you're pretty much a wizard, you get into their system in minutes' or whatever.
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Oct 25, 2014 23:26
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petrol blue posted:I'd handle it the same as I'd handle electronics or surgery - by starting from the idea of "what are the characters able to do with this, what's its function in the game?" If the game is all about hacking, then some research might be in order, otherwise I'd just handwave it with 'yeah, you're pretty much a wizard, you get into their system in minutes' or whatever. This. The first thing you need to do is figure out exactly how prominent hacking is. If you want it to just be a generic skill of the same level as first aid or shooting a gun, just go the cinematic route with a generic "hacking" skill and roll to succeed at breaking in or finding information. On the other hand, a game that's heavily hacking-centric (or demands lots of research and challenge going into the making of the campaign) would benefit from research. GURPS even mentions in its Basic Set that the listed hacking skill is entirely cinematic and realistic hacking is best represented by a variety of skills related to the operation and repair/modification of computers, as well as plenty of social and sometimes burglary skills.
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Oct 26, 2014 04:29
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The Libearian posted:I've just started a modern supernatural investigation style game, normally i tend to run either fantasy or sci-fi settings and I was just wondering how other people handle hacking in their games? Like I'll freely admit I'm not the most computer savvy person in the world so know next to nothing about how real hacking works but gameplaywise how do you find the balance with being fine with like a CSI level of unreality to match big action set pieces and so on without making it game breakingly easy? I'm playing a game currently that's very similar in tone and technology level to Ghost In The Shell. I am not playing the hacker. I'm playing a traditional detective. In this game, hacking is a skill check. A fail triggers your location being traced, info being stolen or destroyed, being hacked yourself and other security countermeasures. It is, however, quite over powered in my opinion. Everything is hand-waved. If you are going for modern realism, you should require time spent to program solutions, or to find and download software to hack what they want to hack, how they want to hack it. This can irritate the hell out of people, but will require them to think. I roll to crack Mr. Evangeline's password. Cool. You rolled a 20. It doesn't matter. What's your guess on Mr. Evangeline's password? "Missus Evangeline?" Fail. Your knowledge of computers reminds you that you'll need to run some password cracking software, or program your own brute force or dictionary attack... This could take some time. God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Oct 26, 2014 |
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Oct 26, 2014 06:38
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 23:48 |
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Depending on what system your using, having a hack attempt be like a pursuit or skill contest can make it more interesting than just a single roll followed by "ok you got the files." The basic idea is that the hacker wants to get the thing, and the counter-hackers want to stop that from happening. I'm not saying you need Shadowrun levels of hacking minigame detail but if you have a PC whose deal is being the hackery techy dude, maybe find a way to give it the level of narrative attension that the tough guy gets in a fight. It's the smart guy's time to shine, let them have the spotlight for a little bit. Maybe the target is protected by more than one sort of security checkpoint that needs a different solution, like a brute force attack would attract too much attention or there's an active trace happening while the file downloads. Anything to introduce more tension than just a simple binary skill check.
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Oct 26, 2014 06:48
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