Hi, everyone,

I'm trying to introduce a new player to an established (4th edition) game. I'm going to give him karma and money to "catch up" to the existing characters, so he's not going to be a street-level newb.

Anyway, after getting acquainted with the setting, my new player has come up with a concept. His character had been a security specialist who consulted with various corporations. He left his legitimate career behind when he was screwed over by the corps, but he says that he wants to have left a number of back doors in the systems that he installed.

I like this idea, but I'm trying to figure out how to handle it mechanically. Obviously, there needs to be some sort of cost associated with these back doors, and I don't want them to turn into a sort of skeleton key that makes any security system worthless.

My first thought was to treat them like contacts. The loyalty rating would be used to determine whether a given back door was available at any given time (in order to remain undetected, the back door might only be available under certain uncommon conditions). The connection rating could be a dice pool bonus for electronics or hacking tests to overcome the system's defenses.

What do you think? Is there a better way of handling it?

Shawn

That's actually a pretty ingenious way of doing it.

Not a bad idea. Is this person a cyber-sam or a hacker?
You could do different systems for both. While I like the idea, at least at character generation that is pretty harsh, because well you need all the points you can get.
If this is a mundane or cyber (non-hacker) the Contact idea works but I would actually make then have a real contact in the actual company. Maybe they have to add a level of Loyalty, bought as 1 level higher to be designated as a backdoor contact. If you make these real people they can be compromised, killed or burned as well, so plots abound. It may also make a your player hesitate to use one if you know that if they help them get inside, they will be fired, hunted, harmed, killed, etc..

I wouldn't want to start a precedent though of bonus dice, because of the outcry of other players and why they can't do it, or the Hacker who can't get past security but they can because of a new mechanic. Now that I think about it, I am liking the idea of making it a real life person more and more. It would have to be treated like a normal contact, including the keeping in contact and helping them out aspects of roleplaying.

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks!


I see what you're saying, but based on the player's concept, I don't think it makes sense to represent the back doors as actual people. The idea was that he had designed and/or installed these security systems, so he had left himself these holes that could be exploited later.

Regarding the other players being upset about this new character's special abilities... this is one reason that I wanted to use a mechanism that would cost the character something at character generation. He'll have to pay for these back doors with build points just like he would any other contact. And since I'm adhering fairly closely to the way that normal contacts work (having to roll to see if they can and will help you, and adding their loyalty rating to the pool), I don't think it will unbalance things. It's just that instead of the gear, or information, or favor that he'd get from a normal contact, in this case he gets a bonus to a roll.

Another thought I had was that if a glitch is rolled, the back door can still be used, but after this attempt, the breach will be detected and fixed, so that back door will be lost. In the case of a critical glitch, the breach has already been detected, but the character doesn't realize that. When he tries to use that back door again, the system will raise an alarm.

You could also have the player take the "Home Ground" quality while at one of his former employer's sites (he would have to provide you with a list of all the places with backdoors). I would also have it that each time he exploits a backdoor and the run goes sour (ie they backdoor gets spotted) that he would lose that backdoor advantage.

I think there should also be a general test you should do at least once per game month to see if the backdoor is identified and removed.

That's a pretty good idea, too. It's certainly a very "low-impact" way of approaching it.

Ok now that we have more information about what the player wanted, I have another idea.

Why not make it something like a Maglock Passkey. This way it is something they purchase and has a single rating (not the split rating of contacts), unless you come up with a good concept what the 2 parts would be like (Access/Availability). Access being how far into the facility or organization can they get (1 = front door, 6 = the ultra high security vault/clean room) and Availability being how wide open is the window to use it. (1 = 1x month, or maybe only at exactly 10am each night -- ie... very limiting, to 6 = can walk in at anytime 24/7/365). If you go with the Access/Availability, have it be like ¥3,000 to ¥4,000 a rating (where you have to buy both sides the same as with contacts). Maybe even add a additional cost depending on what the business is. Security Companies/Saeder Krupp/AAA Mega Corp being the highest modifier. If you have an associated dice mechanic with it, I would have it as average of the 2 ratings - round up.

If you want a single rating idea/device:
Make it ¥5,000 (which equals 1 BP) or maybe as high as ¥7.500 a rating point instead of the minimum 2 BP for any contact.
This should not be a device like the passkey, this would represent access codes, maybe a security badge, a set of keys for a particular lock, etc. I wouldn't make it too expensive, because for 12 build points (¥60k) they could get a 6/6 Rating contact in that company which is could give far more access, and have even more benefits.

I do like your idea behind a critical glitch.
I like the idea overall and would like to here your final results, it is something I could implement in my game depending on what you do.

The reason I like it as a contact, and described above, is that before hacking a system you roll "loyalty" to see if this is a system you've worked on before, did you have a chance at creating a back door? Roll pure "loyalty" dice (figure a loyalty 3 or better pretty much gives access if you need 1 success). Connectedness then becomes bonus dice to the actual spoof actions, etc. It's a measure of how deep into the system you got and how much security you were able to bypass when you put the backdoor in.

Gm might give restrictions on certain networks, such as "this is a large corp, you'd need successes to have your normal dice bonus, but you got 1 success: you've worked here before, but you really didn't get in that deep, bonus dice only applies to the initial firewall hacking attempt."

Or even "this company is so small you've never heard of them before, -2 dice to the Access/loyalty roll" (i.e. the corp is so small the likelyhood that you got into their system is small).

I'd say the player should be required to choose where these back doors are. Actual, specific corps. Yeah, he might never have a run against one of them, then again... Also, perhaps make a roll for each IC month to see if the back door is discovered and/or downgrades. Sure, he left all these back doors floating around, but in the meantime, some drek-hot sysy analyst may have closed them and/or system redesign may have rendered some of these back doors less effective than what they once were.