Shadowrun CSI, I'm really proud of this... Options

[Raife]

So I was running my usual game a couple months ago, when during the course of normal rp'ing an NPC starts talking about his brother who was killed. It was a target the players had a contract on a few game sessions prior. Well one of the players thought that this guy knew they killed him, or suspected, so he promised to find the real killers and the team got totally side tracked attempting to find and frame another logical candidate for the murder... all in the hopes of covering tracks I didn't invision being there...

It was a great game, the players were acting like a CSI team, with the goal being obstruction of justice rather than actual justice. So what happens? Well the word gets out, that for a fee, these freelance detectives will look into crimes that lonestar isn't working very hard on. The team now gets requested to investigate all kinds of things, from corporate crimes that need covering up AND solving to murders in the barrens where lonestar doesn't go.

Over the last couple months I've compiled a good amount of CSI-ish information, as well as skills the players can use, a few new spells and the toys/gadgets the team has "acquired" to do their job. I'm gota short list of things they can discover at a crime scene (maybe 200), so anyone who wants can put together a little 'mystery' solving mission.

I'll go into more details once I get my website back up and running since tripod hasn't been letting me update and even set my site back nearly a year. It could be a while but I'll get it up as soon as I can, since I really think a lot of people will like this.

In the mean time, what do you guys think of a CSI-ish campaign, maybe even a full blown Lonestar CSI game? What special hurdles would AR bring? How about magic? I've been doing it a while, I have a REALLY good list from actual running experience, but a fresh take on the subject could really help me out.

[fistandantilus4....]

There's a few things to consider with 2060's tech/magic, beyond the normal forensics.
One would be datatrails left everywhere anyone with a commlink goes. That would make it very easy to track someones movemenst unless they were very skilled ant concealing them. Second would be astral signatures, metamagics like psychometry, some murder victims ghost testifying.

Also, the sterilize spell can make things a lot more difficult. So can 'clean', or even fireball for that matter. better have a good mage to hunt mages.

[Grinder]

Iirc SOTA:2064 has a chapter about forensics, you should check it out.

[tisoz]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Checking the logfiles to generate movement patterns.

[fistandantilus4....]

for example, bought a soda at the stuffer shack of 5th, made a commcallfrom the park, got spammed and spyware downloaded in the mall.

Also, I would like to point out that by "very skilled ant concealing them" was meant to be at concealing, and in no way was to suggest that bug spirits are good hackers. Although they certainly could be. Ants do tend to get everywhere after all. Going to go now before sleep deprivation makes me start seeing Drop Bears at work sharpening pencils. :rotate:

[tisoz]

How is it overcome?

I thought I read how just walking down the street, the character is broadcasting their id. If they have it turned off, they are suspect and a Lone Star drone could be asking for your id to keep you SINless frags off the street. That's a lot of trail to erase and who knows if you got all the wireless points that recorded it.

If you are using a fake, you face the same crap, only you burn through ids. Also if you switch ids, isn't that going to be obvious? One stops, another starts? Or one stops, prompting the drone police, and down the road one starts. It would be a good lead anyway.

The degree to which big brother is watching makes shadowrunning obsolete in SR$.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Using Passive or Hidden Mode and hacking all the remaining Nodes still required for Matrix Access to edit the logfiles - or turning WiFi off... or simply spoofing the Access ID.

[ludomastro]

The other option would be to not have a commlink. You would have some serious problems going through life but no one could track you. Much like people that only use cash today.

[tisoz]

Page 210, Interacting with the augmented World, Example 3.

If there is this level of Big Brother watching, how can a shadowrunner hope to cover his tracks? How is a SINless person supposed to even leave the barrens? Running no commlink should be interpreted by the drone as 'hiding'.

Running fake ID is going to leave just as much trace. Switching ID should be obvious to follow. Trying to erase them all seems unreasonable, and having to not trnspond any while erasing the previous sets in motion example 3 plus some modifiers for tampering making it more obvious you are/were present.

I am not convinced.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Uh... what? :|

First off, don't mix Access ID and SIN.
Leaving no Data Trail means spoofing both, but SIN is transmitted at request only, whereas Access ID is the adress of the device, which is required to connect it at all.
In Active and Passive, one does advertize, thus leaving a data trail in the log files of any Node along the way.

In any dynamic setting, just changing that Access ID at random pretty much makes you untraceble, as there is no real way telling what and when your Access ID was changed to.

[Raife]

If you're running a stealth program, you're just that, stealthed. There is a reason it works in cybercombat, its always running and has an effect on how easy you are to track/trace in the matrix. Now if a police drone spots your meat and can't find a commcode to go with it, well thats another issue.

Spoof also helps a lot here. It spoofs the computer to think you're something else. So if said drone does fly on up, you can spoof it ot make it think you're legit. These two programs together make a person tough to track... which is where the CSI comes in.

My decker has a "rebuild" program that attempts to recreat deleted and corrupted files. What runners choose to delete is often a big lead. They also use high powered browse programs to scrub security files for images, and of course their own Intuition + Perception to look find evidence in pictures background.

If a shadowrunner / suspect has these programs it makes life harder on the CSI team, but not impossible.

Also keep in mind that storage in the 2070 is plentiful because its all wireless, NOT because every cyber-eye/drone has unlimited storage on it. Quite the opposite actually. Why put storage space in a drone that is always goign to be connected to your mainframe? Commlinks and Mainframes are the only places with a good amount of storage. Here is a direct example:

Maestro is trying to find evidence at a home invasion/double homocide. He doesn't go to the cleaning drone, and the door cam and the soycaf maker for all his info, he goes to the homes mainframe. While each of those above mentioned device MIGHT have a snapshot in their internal RAM, they do NOT have the actual files for the murder that happened last night.

This isn't because they CANT put storage in everything, its because there is NO REASON too.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Raife]

Edit is used to edit... but actually going onto a computers storage device and rebuilding it from the devices remnant storage would be far beyond the scope of an edit program. Edit is a word processor/video editor/sound studio/3d modeling program, and more, all rolled into one. For scouring the actual physical storage device, you would need something else. This is especially important in say... COURT... where using an "edit" program COULD taint evidence (its just as easy to create false evidence) but a Rebuilding and recovery program would be perfectly admissable.

While the storage device on most things is enough "for what they do" it just isn't freaking practical to build the architecture that way. A door camera might store single shots of hte people who came through, but it would store them on the mainframe... why? Cus its more practical, it saves companies money... and they LIKE MONEY!

Yes a corporation could make a door cam that stored every single 100th of a second of what the camera saw, it would also assess the person for whether or not they were a friend, familymember or salesman. This same camera would then send you a message on your commlink, tell you who it is, and ask if you want to let them in or not. This camera would cost :nuyen: 1000. It would have to have a little processor, a storage device (like a hard drive) and customized software.

Corparation B comes along and says "hey, all that functionality can come on a piece of software run by the homes main terminal, we could sell it, and a camera for :nuyen: 500! We could sell it in bulk to corporations too cus the manufacturing costs are DIRT CHEAP to produce a data storage devices to ship... OH WAIT WE DONT EVEN HAVE TO DO THAT! We can sell directly over the matrix... after 2 years we have payed our software development prices and it comes FREE WITH THE CAMERA! HOORAY WE CORNERED THE MARKET! In 2 years our camera costs :nuyen: 50!

So while yes, a piece of hardware has plenty of storage for its day to day operations, this does not mean it would have unlimited space and not store its stuff on the mainframe. It might hold 24 hours of footage, which is a lot, but it would have no reason to hold the lifetime of data, that is stretching the meaning of "Normal Use" and shrinking the meaning of "exceptionally large amounts of data".

Normal Use = Camera on vacation that can store 500 photographs at high resolution with text markings or voice notes.

Exceptionally Large Amounts of Data = 48 hours of footage with sound and anotated data markings.

Then again, I guess thats just my own personal GM fiat to the issue. Corporate culture effects technology just as much in 2070 as it does today, if not more.

[chazuli]

Umm... isn't the prohibition against being in an area 'hidden' only for highly secure areas? My understanding is that being 'hidden' isn't that uncommon for folks in normal life as a means of avoiding spam.

Best,
Charles Millar

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Shrike30]

If you want an interesting spin on another aspects of RFID's in forensics, the newer Taser pistols discharge a burst of RFID tags when fired, since the theory is you're going to be using the Taser legally... right? Those RFID's contain the serial number of the round that was fired, and the company makes an effort to keep track of where those rounds end up.

In SR, I can see that being applied to all sorts of things. Doing it to every single bullet is a bit much, but what about, say, to rockets (one of my player's favorite high-profile assassination methods), or to area-weapons like Neurostun canisters (it's a lot easier to do a low-profile run if everyone in the office you're raiding is asleep).

[warrior_allanon]

shrike, this is why i use Ex Explosive rounds that are caseless or caseless capsule rounds

[emo samurai]

I'm sure Ares has a point on its gun assembly lines in which a robot fires off a basic round into a pool of water and a camera records the ballistics markings on the bullet. Then the data is entered into Knight Errant's computers.

[Chrome Shadow]

Very good idea...

[Krotiez]

[Shrike30]

You're forgetting... Shadowrun never seems to be able to make up it's mind about cased vs. caseless ammo being the most common. Runner gunfights might leave *no* casings around...

[eidolon]

[Overrated]

[Krotiez]