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Prime Mover
A staple of SR has always been the pre-op legwork. The BBB has some guidlines and missions have another version. But none break it down into how to create legwork answers on the fly. Tables in various adventures have a sucess chart.

0 - Doh, forgot my pants!
1 - Minor info. (Names,dates,places etc..)
2 - Major info. (Confirmation of events or operations.)
3 - WIN (Filling in the blanks or putting the puzzle together.)

Any other legwork methods out there, variants on chart above?

Edit: Can add "datasearch" along with traditional legwork as well. Worth mentioning.
Siege
Usually, it depends on the type of job and the nature of the PCs involved - some PCs are better suited to "who to know" and "how to ask" scenarios than others.

Quite often, it just takes a single scrap of information to provide a springboard for other questions:

1. Where is it?
a) maps. b) environmental hazards. c) movement to and from. d) recon.
2. What is it?
a) size. b) easily traced? c) special handling considerations?
3. Guarded?
a) type of guards. b) magical assets. c) security or automated. d) response elements.
4. Entry and exit points.
a) all potential points of entry. b) all resources moving into or out of target (water, power, air, supply trucks, etc.)
5. Payback factor.
6. Primary and Secondary objectives?

7. General background and history data pull.

-Siege

Edit: Bug out scenarios - rally points. Medical supplies. On hand assets. Needed mission essentials. "After the brass is done hitting the floor" plans.
Prime Mover
QUOTE
-Siege

Edit: Bug out scenarios - rally points. Medical supplies. On hand assets. Needed mission essentials. "After the brass is done hitting the floor" plans.


Too many times I see runners neglect this part of planning, paticularly the after the brass part, way too much confidence. Suppose I may be too easy on them, have to fix that (insert evil grin).
Siege
Drones irl are scary things - in SR, they are going to be even worse.

It's too easy to track careless runners back to a hideout - particularly a communal one - I know, I...uh...well...nuked three city blocks of Seattle by accident because I forgot to check for a tail. grinbig.gif

Or Mr. Johnson sets up a crew to hit his facility, only to have corp snoops track them back and make them an offer they can't refuse.

Plot hooks notwithstanding, my crew used to do things like: reserve air time with riggers - "from 01:30 to 04:30 you will be loitering in or around point Alpha, listening to channel zulu for the following code phrase. Base fee for your time and fuel is A. Final payment for ammo and incidental expenses if incurred to be settled as necessary."

Hell, on one run, we did the same thing with a Street Doc. "You will be open and available from this time to this time..." grinbig.gif

-Siege
Dashifen
I don't do legwork in charts. They call a contact, I decide what the contact knows, if anything, using the Connection rating they've paid for as a guideline or, if I can't decide, I have them roll (Player's) Charisma + (Contact's) Connection +/- Reputation Modifiers - Other Modifiers. The Other Modifiers are things that are situational -- are the cops after the player? if so, maybe the contacts are less likely to help them for fear of bringing down the Man, for example.

Either way, I've never liked the charts in various adventures.
Aaron
I like the Legwork charts, but I mostly use them as guidelines rather than reading them verbatim.
Spike
Sigh. If I tried to give my average group of players a job even HINTING at required legwork it would be a long dull night of watching them sit at the table after the Johnson left and stare at one another lost and helpless.

I swear, since moving out here I've met maybe one or two players who I'm comfortable, as the GM, with handing the 'ball' and letting them run.

Charts? Not so useful to me, that implies, generally, that there are lots of right answers. Not terrible, but not my style. A lot of 'legwork' I'd provide is more binary resources. Are you looking int he right place for it? Do you get x piece of information or don't you. Not: this guy only knows what your success test tells me he knows.

Of course, all that other planning is legwork too, but I generally make that a seperate issue (also, see again my average players, who think taking on all of lonestar in a frontal assault is a great way to accomplish killing one dude.... they have a lot of fun, but there isn't much to it other than 'how many dice do I throw THIS time...' from my perspective.)

As a player I generally handle my own planning for my own character (see again average players....). That seems to be the real source of fun for me recently, figuring out how my character would actually handle being around such yahoo's, and how he avoids the inevitable stench of bad rep that rightly follows them like a cloud. The answer? Its very professional to treat such yabos as disposable assets and distractions and plan accordingly.... great until the GM gave up on the group.



kanislatrans
QUOTE (Prime Mover @ Mar 28 2008, 10:46 AM) *
Too many times I see runners neglect this part of planning, paticularly the after the brass part, way too much confidence. Suppose I may be too easy on them, have to fix that (insert evil grin).


just go easy on those of us who try to plan things out but are overruled by the big"Plans get you dead" crowd.

on second thought maybe I'll just plan on my own and let the fraggers sizzle.(bigger evil grin)
b1ffov3rfl0w
It's a rule: any plan that's discussed in detail has to fail (or at least go wrong in an interesting way). You have to not discuss your plans and then carry them out.

(For real, I don't think you could do this except by giving the GM a stack of sealed envelopes or something).
Siege
Heh.

We had a player who would sit and listen to the plan, smile and nod, then run out screaming.

It got to the point that all of our plans would start like this: "After Player A runs out screaming..."

Which might have been slightly more effective if she hadn't been playing a druid...

-Siege
Wounded Ronin
I think ideally for maximum immersion the legwork/investigation would be a big part of the adventure complete with its own NPCs, places to visit, and so forth.
Method
The biggest problem I have with the single chart is that in effect if a player rolls high enough his neighborhood baker could tell him all about the top secret whatzamagig Renraku has been building. I use success charts, but I do it a little differently.

First, I stratify information into 4 basic categories:
- General Info: widely know facts (and fallacies) about the subject. Stuff any contact might reasonably know.
- Insider Info: info you can only get from talking to the right kinds of contacts (taking into account profession and connection rating).
- Public Data Search: stuff that will come up on any old data search (lots of overlap with category 1).
- Private Data Search: stuff that will come up if a PC hacks the right systems to run his search.

Second, if I'm not sure what a contact knows I will roll the contact's Knowledge Skill + Attribute + Connection (+/- Mods) and compare that to the table.

Third, I only put rough ideas in the success tables and I flesh out the relevant information based on the contact and the specific skill they rolled. The same basic information about the Renraku whatzamagig should be different coming from a corp research scientist than it would be from a street-level tech fixer.

The end result is somewhat like Dashifen's binary system in that there is some info you just can't get without talking to someone who would know it, but there is still a "graded release" of information based on a random element (dice rolling).
b1ffov3rfl0w
Also an element of asking the right questions, and one of knowing what you need to offer in return for that information, be it other info, money, or having to hang out for an hour and a half playing Madden 70 with a patchouli-smelling stoner Troll.
Ancient History
I had a player whose character sat drinking in a Mafia watering hole, and when his mark came in, he waited until the guy went into the bathroom. The PC then followed him into the bathroom and beat and tortured the mafioso until he gave up the information...which the guy didn't have, so he broke fingers until the guy gave him the name and address of somebody that would know. PC waited until three in the morning and then broke down the target's door with a plasteel pipe full of ferroconcrete and proceeded beating his target up in front of the poor bastard's fiance...
It trolls!
I'm big on storytelling, so legwork will usually make up most of my jobs. That doesn't mean that sammie and rigger get to pick their nose while the face cons people and the mage mind probes everyone.
I prefer to hand them jobs on a scope where the actual hit is just the final point of a whole series of possible runs. Hacking the facilities outside host to gain access to employee data. Finding out dirt about security personnel to blackmail them to let a certain entrance unguarded between 1:00 and 1:30. Convincing some local gangers to make a fuss at entrance A at time X so your team can get into entrance B while the guards are distracted. Getting the security mage out of the way. Break into some employee's home and beat him until he coughs up his account data for the facilities internal matrix host...
If those tasks worked well, the characters may have gained a great advantage when hitting the actual target.
I also like to give them jobs on a larger scale and intertwine some small business to provide them with some quick cash in between. My last campaign evolved around the several week long task of digging up dirt on a corp exec, proving he's been funneling money to a neonazi terrorist organization. This involved a break into the exec's beautiful summer home to steal ye ole paper documents of financial transactions and plant surveillance equipment, teaming up with a paranid hacker who's been trying to expose black transactions on the corp's financial statement's for a while and infiltrating the local branch of a right-extrimist party. Inbetween that they had small jobs like planting a wiretap on the central fibreglass cable of a still-in-construction Aztech office building.
Regular connections are mostly used for just very generic information. I prefer to have the players use them for actual services, like organizing equipment, providing help in the form of additional firepower, drones, a getaway driver, etc. and well, if the players have no clue where to start, I might use connections to drop them a hint.
b1ffov3rfl0w
QUOTE (Ancient History @ Mar 29 2008, 04:56 PM) *
I had a player whose character sat drinking in a Mafia watering hole, and when his mark came in, he waited until the guy went into the bathroom. The PC then followed him into the bathroom and beat and tortured the mafioso until he gave up the information...which the guy didn't have, so he broke fingers until the guy gave him the name and address of somebody that would know. PC waited until three in the morning and then broke down the target's door with a plasteel pipe full of ferroconcrete and proceeded beating his target up in front of the poor bastard's fiance...


Strange that someone (a) could get away with being in a Maf-owned bar uninvited, (b) beat the crap out of a made man in the bathroom without being interrupted by large men who would explain in detail why it is bad form to do that, and © leave said bar under his own power without any accidents happening, such as the breaking of his legs by the aforementioned large men. I mean, really, the Mafia of 2070 must be run by prepubescent girls who threaten each other with My Little Pony heads, because someone trying to pull that kind of stunt in 2008 would receive a crash course in etiquette, and by "crash course in etiquette" I mean that he would crash through a plate glass window.
Ancient History
I left out certain details and precautions precautions he took, like going out the back way. And just because the wise guys drink there doesn't mean they own the place.
Aaron
QUOTE (Ancient History @ Mar 30 2008, 08:51 PM) *
I left out certain details and precautions precautions he took, like going out the back way.

Oh, good. I hate hearing about precautions precautions. =ib
DreadPirateKitten
My group is pretty terrible at planning.

We tend to come up with some half-assed plan, then execute it poorly, while shooting everyone in the face, and blowing up/grenading/Machine gunning everything in sight.

The GM wants to see Ocean's Eleven, but we treat him to Natural Born Killers, instead.
b1ffov3rfl0w
Well yeah, when you can grab one guy's gun from his hands and shoot everyone else in the time it takes to catch a flying donut, who needs a plan?
Chrysalis
QUOTE (DreadPirateKitten @ Mar 31 2008, 03:52 AM) *
My group is pretty terrible at planning.

We tend to come up with some half-assed plan, then execute it poorly, while shooting everyone in the face, and blowing up/grenading/Machine gunning everything in sight.

The GM wants to see Ocean's Eleven, but we treat him to Natural Born Killers, instead.


I think ToreadorVampire want more Mission Impossible, but we are more Leeroy Jenkins.
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