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The Pick Pocket in EP

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valen valen's picture
The Pick Pocket in EP
I'm helping my little wife make a character for my EP game. She decided on a criminal background and discussed making a sexy little pick pocket. This doesn't strike me as the most successful criminal enterprise for EP. Specifically for on mars. For starters, what do people carry that is worth stealing? I suppose she could plant bugs or trackers on people. What do you think? Help me turn this into a better concept?
OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture
Tough one. There really isn't
Tough one. There really isn't a lot of pocketable gear and most gear is smart PAN connected enough to be capable of screaming when it leaves the owner. There are two ways to go with this; 1, "sexy little pick pocket" makes me think she might actually be interested in more of a "Social Engineer" type of character. So boost SAV and give her some protocol, persuasion, and networking skills that she'll have fun playing with. 2, If it's more about being a thief then give her some hacking skills especially Research and Interfacing with exploit and sniffer software so she can plant bugs, run drones, and jam/intercept signals. Either way she will probably have fun with some smuggling profession skills so spend knowledge cp on those. As far as physical items that are valuable enough to steal it's hard to think of anything specific, however setting will make a difference; On a scum barge there's really no opportunity for theft cause almost nothing is restricted and everything is kind of communal. In the Jovian republic there are probably much better opportunities for a thief because people have much more to hide and more wealth exists in a physical sense rather than as data.

Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
People surely still carry
People surely still carry jewelry and other things that are valuable in terms of materials, craftmanship, uniqueness, design, etc. Especially on Mars where patents, trademarks and fabber restriction makes for a world not unlike our own. Wealth will still be a marker for social status, and people will want otherwise useless or overpriced trinkets to put it on display. A pick pocket could have lots of other skills that comes in handy - Infiltration to defeat surveillance, Infosec to defeat anti-theft systems, criminal networking for fencing goods, various social skills to distract marks and fit in where wealthy people go, Freerunning for escapes, etc.
Hailspork Hailspork's picture
Along the same line as
Along the same line as jewelry, you could steal old earth relics, even in new economies. That said, a lot of them are fake. Another thing to consider with jewelry at least; how many jewels have RFID transmitting their location on intermittent pings on the mesh?
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Hailspork wrote:
Hailspork wrote:
Another thing to consider with jewelry at least; how many jewels have RFID transmitting their location on intermittent pings on the mesh?
EP pick pocketing probably entails spoofed RFID chips and faraday bags.
Hailspork Hailspork's picture
Well, if it's not covered by
Well, if it's not covered by the skill, it'd be covered by pointing that out.
Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture
the walking hacker
I could imagine a petite female bouncer walking in the crowd, a small ecto in her hand containing a Delta Fork of herself in an accelerated VR hacking the PANs of the people around her, transfering creds to a temporary account set up to transfer money to an extropian bank, tranfering in turn to a legit Solaris bank account
[center] Q U I N C E Y ^_*_^ F O R D E R [/center] Remember The Cant! [img]http://tinyurl.com/h8azy78[/img] [img]http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg205/tachistarfire/theeye_fanzine_us...
electron dream electron dream's picture
A pick pocket (thief) could
A pick pocket (thief) could specialize in stealing old earth artifacts... especially old antique items. A character with this background would work well in many inner system habitats, and should have some skills for getting up close and personal with hyperelites.