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#1
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Neophyte Runner ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 2,141 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Neverwhere Member No.: 2,048 ![]() |
Greets,
I was thinking about licenses and SINs, I am still unsure on how to play them. The way I play them is like this: QUOTE The Ronald Reagan Airport flashed along the display, a president who symbolized 20th century paranoia. The 21st century one was indicated through the AR display, that the threat level was cerulean and that all arrivals would go through a security check. The road had been blocked with concrete barriers and gray coloured APCs. Around the D.C. Metroplex guard swooped helicopter sized vector thrust drones with their missile racks and distended miniguns as if its was the stingers from a swarm of angry wasps. Tyler's commlink licenses were scrutinized with excruciating detail. This was not some punk who was checking for gang affiliation but a government from a disunited UCAS, with CAS separatists, humanist policlubers, technomancers, and the Shdowrunner kind threatening its existence every day. A drone followed his movements as he navigated the serpentine road block, the sweep of a weapons lock before he was allowed to pass. From a game mechanics side I would see the winning hand always being with security. How do fake licenses help? I mean obviously if you are at the stuffer shack and you want to buy a fag and you flash your electronic equivalent of a cardboard and stick figure photo ID drivers license that would be a License 1 and a hand wave by the GM. However, what about airports, hospitals, and government buildings? Customs officials have special training to identify forgeries. Wouldn't this involve a similar four point system of verification (biometrics, checking the international system of SINs, interrogatory mathematical verification system, and old Mark I eyeball). What about spells? Magecuffs have bacteria that glows when spells are to be cast. It is a simple, mostly fool-proof system. I would see the same technology incorporated in scanners in the sixth world. A little bar on the side which sets off an alarm when a mage walks through the scanner. What about identity theft? What's to stop a character from mugging a person who is of roughly the equivalent size and gender, steal their commlink and go on an identity theft shopping spree? As technomancers are the new Al Qaeda, commlinks are rarely cranial. |
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#2
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Great Dragon ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 5,537 Joined: 27-August 06 From: Albuquerque NM Member No.: 9,234 ![]() |
Hmm that does seem to be the case. Cleverly the game doesn't provide a mechanism to actually do the additional verification "based on the bearers history" that is supposed to result. The default in an opposed test is that on a tie the defender wins if stalemate isn't an acceptable result.
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#3
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Prime Runner Ascendant ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 17,568 Joined: 26-March 09 From: Aurora, Colorado Member No.: 17,022 ![]() |
Hmm that does seem to be the case. Cleverly the game doesn't provide a mechanism to actually do the additional verification "based on the bearers history" that is supposed to result. The default in an opposed test is that on a tie the defender wins if stalemate isn't an acceptable result. I have always read it that if you tie, then you retest again... Seems to fit the fluff... |
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#4
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Great Dragon ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 5,537 Joined: 27-August 06 From: Albuquerque NM Member No.: 9,234 ![]() |
I have always read it that if you tie, then you retest again... Seems to fit the fluff... No, what they should do is throw detailed questions at the character, which means the character with a new SIN every 2 days is screwed when they ask him what Junior High he graduated from and where his mother was born. The character with a stable fake ID that he doesn't burn and instead studies it can probably answer it. Except that in SR option 2 is dumb. |
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#5
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Prime Runner Ascendant ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 17,568 Joined: 26-March 09 From: Aurora, Colorado Member No.: 17,022 ![]() |
No, what they should do is throw detailed questions at the character, which means the character with a new SIN every 2 days is screwed when they ask him what Junior High he graduated from and where his mother was born. The character with a stable fake ID that he doesn't burn and instead studies it can probably answer it. Except that in SR option 2 is dumb. Agreed, but for the "rules" of interpretation, that would be resolved as either another test agains the Fake ID, or as a Judge Intentions Test vs. a Con (Possibly Fast Talking) Social Test... It boils down to that fact that Players/GM's do not put that much into the Fake SIN process in my experience... Which is odd... I always liked putting together some background info, such as you are hinting at, to flesh out the data a little bit... Sadly, most Players/GM's don't care enough about it to put forth that kind of effort... so the Retest or Social Test is the way to handle it... Either way works... |
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#6
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Shooting Target ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 1,894 Joined: 11-May 09 Member No.: 17,166 ![]() |
It boils down to that fact that Players/GM's do not put that much into the Fake SIN process in my experience... Which is odd... I always liked putting together some background info, such as you are hinting at, to flesh out the data a little bit... Sadly, most Players/GM's don't care enough about it to put forth that kind of effort... so the Retest or Social Test is the way to handle it... I can't speak for everybody of course, but I have fifteen current active IDs. Each has diferent biometrics (Including fingerprints, and as soon as I can get my hands on it, retina prints). Each has full name, citizenship, place of birth, date of birth, employer (if any), clothing styles, language, food preferences, speech mannerisms, physical mannerisms, sexual orientation preferences, comlink type (you DID get a different comlink to RUN the fake ID, right?) and OS, firearm(s) with permit(s), and basic nuclear family information and marital status. (My GM says he's thankful I'm the one keeping track of them, but my best friend just insists I'm schitzo so it's not a problem. I can role play each of them, and most people can tell who I am playing just by watching and listening.) I think this part of the game is at the heart of what makes Shadowrun what it is, especially in 2070. As to tests, here is what our group has essentially settled on: Level 1 = It's a bus pass. Stuffer ShackTM probably won't quibble. Level 2 = Minimum casual use. Level 3 = Sufficient to pass a police traffic stop, assuming no other suspicion from the cop. Level 4 = Enough to legitimately buy property (a house). Level 5 = Will pass almost all "immediate" scrutiny. Level 6 = Potentially enough to pass a security background check, but not in person. For "immediate" security checks, we handle it with the ID level as a threshold for the "Scanner". For an in depth check, duration varies by level. Initiative Pass for Level 1. Minutes for Level 2. Hours for Level 3. Days for Level 4. Weeks for Level 5. Months for Level 6. (At level 6, the details and data are so in depth, it takes real people real time to comb the mountain of data to find the tiny discrepancies and put them together.) The threshold there would be level*level. All fakes can be broken eventually. But imagine a flesh and blood investigator looking into a Level 6 (6k/18F) ID, if they just SUSPECT it's false, if the person is convincing in interviews (can you say: role play? Social skills to suplement?) they might give up after a while and say it seems legit? If they KNOW it's fake, it's only a matter of time. If you haven't read it in depth, the Runner's Companion spends a LOT of time talking about this stuff and what a fake ID really entails and involves. Level 3 and higher IDs are putting full and legitimate information into governmental databases. Please bear in mind these are just for baseline IDs. You want a faked access card for the Sader Krupp research facility to go with that fake SiN that claims you belong there as an employee? NOW we're up to a straight-up rating to rating roll off. And when the guard raises an eyebrow, that's when those sleaze skills come in handy to glide you right past him. "Oh, I just transfered in from the Ohio facility, and Mr. Tanaka said he was SURE they would get my paperwork straightened out by the end of the week, but I'm already running late, and you know how he is, don't you?" *Dazling smile and a dice roll* Any thoughts? It means IDs are important to put time into, but not really to take time to DEAL with in play once you set them up and as long as you actually adhere to them. Forget you're supposed to be a meek submissive Japanese wageslave and start sassing the guard with a Southern accent... well, you get the picture. |
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#7
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Great Dragon ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 5,537 Joined: 27-August 06 From: Albuquerque NM Member No.: 9,234 ![]() |
I can't speak for everybody of course, but I have fifteen current active IDs. Each has diferent biometrics (Including fingerprints, and as soon as I can get my hands on it, retina prints). Each has full name, citizenship, place of birth, date of birth, employer (if any), clothing styles, language, food preferences, speech mannerisms, physical mannerisms, sexual orientation preferences, comlink type (you DID get a different comlink to RUN the fake ID, right?) and OS, firearm(s) with permit(s), and basic nuclear family information and marital status. (My GM says he's thankful I'm the one keeping track of them, but my best friend just insists I'm schitzo so it's not a problem. I can role play each of them, and most people can tell who I am playing just by watching and listening.) The drawback is that if you have lots of IDs with the same biometrics is that when you get stopped at the security checkpoint at the airport your prints get run against the central data base and are going to return 15 different people. These also match your retinal patterns and also look remarkably like you. Which means you are not making the 5:15 to NYC. |
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 17th February 2025 - 05:09 AM |
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