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Counter/Surveillance - condensing it in narrative and play

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Angry_Ghost Angry_Ghost's picture
Counter/Surveillance - condensing it in narrative and play
I'm re-reading Panopiticon and I love all the ins and outs of suveillance and ways of not getting caught. My problem arises though in game as I don't want to put it in the background or gloss over it, but nor do I want to spend a whole session in planning and/or execution with it as the primary focus - mainly as there are many other aspects of the game I want to explore and I feel it might get a bit bogged down. The game hasn't yet started but I envisage that my players will have some speciality in counter survelliance between them so I am really asking if anyone has suggestions to include the ins and outs of this aspect of Eclipse Phase without it becoming a major focus/ignored on a dice roll or two.
The Force will be with you. Sometimes.
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Counter/Surveillance - condensing it in narrative and play
This totally depends on your group. If your group wants to focus on combat or political intrigue or exploration or whatever, but not sousveillance, broach the subject and ask if they're comfortable with their just making an infiltration (or disguise, depending on the method) test, with a modifier based on the amount of sousveillance equipment active in the area. They have to specify when they're infiltrating instead of walking, and take a penalty to some actions. For running a group, I'd have the leader roll first, then their success gives a bonus (or penalty) to everyone following. That reduces the high likelihood of failure resulting from multiple attempts, without making anyone's skill completely irrelevant. The next level up, I'd find a general solution for most of the time (like fake mesh IDs), and only bring it up when it's really relevant to that location. For instance, my players have to worry about it when they're getting into the facility, getting through chokeholds, or in secure locations. But when they're just wandering around 'in public' in a place they aren't supposed to be, I handwave it. It only becomes an issue if they're surprised (for instance, if someone is murdered right in front of them, bringing additional scrutiny, now sousveillance becomes an issue).
Angry_Ghost Angry_Ghost's picture
Re: Counter/Surveillance - condensing it in narrative and play
cool, thanks I think the issue for me is coming up with various narratives of different surveillance(s) and aspects thereof so the same thing doesn't get reiterated all of the time - that way they can make say a good infiltration roll etc and I can tell them that they have successfully negated x, y and z, a is fooled for the time being a b and c never knew they were there. ;-)
The Force will be with you. Sometimes.
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Counter/Surveillance - condensing it in narrative and play
Most of the time it'll basically be one of the same three or four methods. When a method is cheap and effective, people are going to stick with that one over all others, so unless it has a specific reason for being something special, that's what I assume it is. In most cases, it'll be cameras, other bystanders, and mesh tracking.
King Shere King Shere's picture
Re: Counter/Surveillance - condensing it in narrative and play
If you want the paranoia to kick in, use nano/micro/milimetre particles. To name a few situations A ball is thrown in. As it stops a a gas erupts from it, but the gas vanishes quickly; depositing tiny tiny white specks on every surface. Peculiar dust in the in the air in a zero-g corridor. Peculiar sand on the floor sides in a Foyer Sprinkler system that seems to be running, but nothing can (with normal vision) be "seen" to be coming out of of it.
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Counter/Surveillance - condensing it in narrative and play
King Shere wrote:
Sprinkler system that seems to be running, but nothing can (with normal vision) be "seen" to be coming out of of it.
I included this detail when running Continuity and it freaked the players out so much. They hadn't even encountered anything!