Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Zilfer on <08-17-11/1922:20>
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I was curious as to the many techniques other DM's use to track their shadowrunners. I understand they can be tracked in a multitude of ways.
I wanted to know exactly HOW. you guys Explain it. Right now I haven't had any one go up against SWAT or Knight Errant, or Lone star because I want to play them efficently like they would be played.
So I know RFID tags are one way but their signal is very low. I introduced this sort of thing to them in a previous session when gang members that survived from their attack tracked them down through small responders. (they through the hint of an NPC were able to figure out how they were locating their hide outs) This was after of course the Mafia Troll's place got shot up in a gun fight.
Also how quick do police respond in Shadowrun? The gunfight in the troll's place I was going to have police(lone star right?) show up if they lingered around too long because of the loud sounds of automatic gun fire. (some of them even went full auto)
Also, if anyone has time to add how they come up with interesting runs, that would be appreciated. I'm going to steal one topic I just read recently about a kidnapping. Kudos to that topic, but I would have never thought of anything like that had I not read the topic. Maybe the more I read the easier it will be. :D
Thanks for any comments!
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RFID signals only need to go to the nearest signal receiver. The CHN in every home and any drones it might be connected to? Yep, that'll work just fine.
But I've had them shadowed by professionals, observed by advertising blimps, delivery drone vans moving in a complex pattern, and a radioactive isotope that has a long half-life.
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RFID signals only need to go to the nearest signal receiver. The CHN in every home and any drones it might be connected to? Yep, that'll work just fine.
But I've had them shadowed by professionals, observed by advertising blimps, delivery drone vans moving in a complex pattern, and a radioactive isotope that has a long half-life.
Do you give them a chance to be tipped off about it? Like a perception check to notice they are being followed? Or do they just enter their house one day and fine 5 guys packing heat there. xD (that seems cruel to me, but somewhat realistic if they could find the hide out. I'm curious as to how 'bad guys' go about tracking the players so I can slowly suggest how the Players might research their targets and the places they are going. Plays both ways.)
RFID always transmit and when this transmit to something it's picked up and thus gives away the location? If so those things are nasty and I can see my group being paraniod about everything they own afterwards. XD
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What CanRay said.
Wrap your mind around what, exactly, the Matrix 2.0 really is. It's big brother to a degree Orwell never imagined. The only reason it's not 1984 is that there is a lot of money attached to all those infobits and everybody simultaneously wants their slice of the money and doesn't want to give others any more than they absolutely have to. No single company was strong enough to do it all, but they were big enough to keep government(s) from doing it either -- after they recovered, of course.
Your home CHN, the road sensors, the sensors in every bit of sidewalk that people tap to watch for criminal sorts and revenuers, the gps feeds, the microtweets from teens and 'news bits' from adults (or vice versa), storefront security cameras watching the streets, and on and on. To get a tiny taste, take a look at all the videos that started popping up about what people were doing when the Oslo bomb went off, and picture it with a hundred times better coverage.
Even if you're turned off, people and cameras near you see you and their smart-traffic sensors start reporting a 'physical null' over here. If the back trail of that null just happens to start where "you" disappeared, well, tracking gets a little easier.
The hard part isn't tracking, it's avoiding being tracked.
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If my group bothered to check, yeah, they'd have had a chance. But, well, I have no idea why they never do. Even Pink Mohawks have more of a mindset to at least check for people following you.
Guess it was just a bad game for the group. Or I was just a bad GM. Not sure which.
But, yeah. There's cameras and sensors everywhere, along with Matrix 2.0 that, if you get a signal, it's reading you. On the bright side is data overload. Trying to sort through all that much information is going to take exceptional processing power. Yeah, Shadowrun Computers are powerful, but every clocktick costs time.
So, if you snatch a purse from Jane Q. Wageslave, the cameras in the area will look for the thief's biometrics that they got from the initial snatch for... Oh... Ten seconds before it's no longer worth the time to bother, they'd be working at a loss.
Blow up something, you're worth far more. We're talking minutes, maybe even an hour.
Kill a cop, and the badges say "Screw the suits" and don't stop looking for you. Ever. Even if the accountants pitch a fit, well, they'll cite the PR profits.
Vice has a good write-up about this.
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If my group bothered to check, yeah, they'd have had a chance. But, well, I have no idea why they never do. Even Pink Mohawks have more of a mindset to at least check for people following you.
Guess it was just a bad game for the group. Or I was just a bad GM. Not sure which.
But, yeah. There's cameras and sensors everywhere, along with Matrix 2.0 that, if you get a signal, it's reading you. On the bright side is data overload. Trying to sort through all that much information is going to take exceptional processing power. Yeah, Shadowrun Computers are powerful, but every clocktick costs time.
So, if you snatch a purse from Jane Q. Wageslave, the cameras in the area will look for the thief's biometrics that they got from the initial snatch for... Oh... Ten seconds before it's no longer worth the time to bother, they'd be working at a loss.
Blow up something, you're worth far more. We're talking minutes, maybe even an hour.
Kill a cop, and the badges say "Screw the suits" and don't stop looking for you. Ever. Even if the accountants pitch a fit, well, they'll cite the PR profits.
Vice has a good write-up about this.
Vice? I assume that is a member here. Could i get a link?
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Vice (http://www.shadowrun4.com/products/setting-sourcebooks/#anchor-Vice). It's a sourcebook.
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Vice? I assume that is a member here. Could i get a link?
Sure (http://www.shadowrun4.com/products/setting-sourcebooks/#anchor-Vice).
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Ok, so how do most go about searching. Do they just search the "Google" equalvent or do they actually hack into video feeds and try to track someone's path they took down the street by switching camera's. (If so that sounds highly illegal in itself. XD)
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Well the easiest, in my opinion, way to keep from being tracked is what I like to call the disguise method. Leave the house disguised, change disguises away from house where there aren't cams, live the day doing what you want, change back to original disguise where there are no cams, and return home. Rinse and repeat, but remember to change your disguises often.
For RFIDs there are always tag erasers to fry the little buggers.
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Ok, so how do most go about searching. Do they just search the "Google" equalvent or do they actually hack into video feeds and try to track someone's path they took down the street by switching camera's. (If so that sounds highly illegal in itself. XD)
They'd set up a search with the biometric parameters through the camera systems they control. (Note that statement: "That they control.").
The main thing that prevents Shadowrun from turning into a really advanced Nineteen-Eighty-Four is that there isn't one central centre for the cameras and such. Lone Star isn't about to share camera feeds with Knight Errant anytime soon, for instance. And Ares and AZT are fighting this week, so they aren't talking either. And so on.
Likely, traffic cameras are owned and maintained (Poorly) by the city/state and their feeds are part of the contract to the Security Company that's providing Law Officer Service. Said Security Company will have their own cameras and sensors as well. And subsidiaries. And, maybe, if they're on talking terms, other corporations in exchange for other provisions, but with restrictions.
Oh, and public domain items, like social networks. Fraggin' kids and their CommLinks with recorders posting things online for all to see, "LOL, Sdwrnrs pwn'd bi KE!"
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Well the easiest, in my opinion, way to keep from being tracked is what I like to call the disguise method. Leave the house disguised, change disguises away from house where there aren't cams, live the day doing what you want, change back to original disguise where there are no cams, and return home. Rinse and repeat, but remember to change your disguises often.
For RFIDs there are always tag erasers to fry the little buggers.
I guess they can't really tell that it's YOUR house with that method. If you become John Smith every time you leave that house and John Smith returns at the end of the day. An interesting Idea i'll keep for my character. :D
Yeah, how well do those Tag eraser's cost? <.< and are they illegal. I'm willing to bet they are.
To CanRay: For the "youtube" type things. Do you mean they can possibly track you from what people record and upload onto the Matrix? That'd be quite a feat i think to find that in a massive amount of communication out there.
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All depends on how much work they want to have done. Get a facial recognition or raw biometrics scan going to all the sites, and you'd be amazed how fast it can be to find someone. All goes down to processing power and bandwidth pipeline.
So, just make sure you're not worth too much clocktime or pipe laying.
...
I probably could have worded that better.
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Tag Erasers are on Pg. 330 of the SR4A core book. They cost 150¥ and are (F)orbidden, but are attainable by starting characters (Avail. 6). They only work on RFID tags (not chips), but I believe one of the other books has an "EMP" style gun for frying RFID chips.
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Tag Erasers are on Pg. 330 of the SR4A core book. They cost 150¥ and are (F)orbidden, but are attainable by starting characters (Avail. 6). They only work on RFID tags (not chips), but I believe one of the other books has an "EMP" style gun for frying RFID chips.
I believe my friend actually got that EMP gun. He used it on someone with bioware to fry all of it. No idea I wasn't the DM that night but the one who was DMing let it slide and destroy the bioware. I believe I had read somewhere you roll the EMP blast against the rating of the Bioware or something like that and which ever gets more hits wins. >.> My question however that I didn't mention because i didn't want the one hit with it to die was.... since the bioware was inside the person's brain/nervous system. Would that do physical damage? and/or kill them?
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How about tracking them through the matrix? I can imagine Cookies, and the like or something like them are still around keeping all of your "searches" on the newest "Troogle" are being archived somewhere. Anything covered in the books tracking them through linking them to certain sites, or implanting tracking cookies. (heh, if you want a really bad one I guess a keylogger for accounts would suck for a shadowrunner)
>.> damn, i'm going to have to invent an dastardly hacker now.
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EMP effects are on page 57 of Arsenal (EMP grenade and HERF gun). I was referring to the HERF Gun earlier. Neither should ever ever ever affect bioware at all and cyberware is up to GM, but I'd say most, if not all of it, is going to be shielded or optical based for the most part and the book itself even states that most cyberware isn't affected.
I haven't played a hacker or read Unwired (I can search in PDFs but I cannot read them without my eyes turning to jelly), but I believe there is a track program. If its anything like SR3, there will also be rules for building you own software as well. Tracking can be tricky if you're just trying to find them out of the mass amount of data available, but I could definitely see hitting them with the virus equivalent of an RFID and/or Simloggers.
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A Vehicle with Electromagnetic Shielding and a hacked Pilot program would work while said person in in said vehicle.
Get to a static zone, and boom, done.
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I've been somewhat hesitant to respond to this thread seeing as it seems most people who responded make reference to the array of technologies that I've yet to read about (Still haven't gotten my copy of SR4 yet).
Regardless, I thought I might share a few ways I go about tracking the PCs:
Depending on how the Runners act in their main haunts and towards the people they encounter, word gets spread around about them and their dealings. Certainly, nothing major unless their Rep actually warrants it. Yet, like many things having to do with communication, sometimes word does spread beyond their immediate areas of "influence" (especially after a "bad run" where -- say -- they carelessly got caught on film and never attempted to do anything to take care of the matter).
Having a Decker (or hacker, or Technomancer) tracking them down by nosing around with what's to do with their personal lives. Figure it like Matrix-side detective work, performed by people much more apt and potentially dangerous than the kind of hackers we have in this day and age.
There's always, also, the astral approach -- Watcher Spirits come to mind (although I cannot yet know if they continue to exist in SR4), among others.
Material proof. It's tragically not very rare that Runners will leave behind enough evidence of their passage to figure a team of forensics experts (magic and mundane) could likely manage to track down a group of Runners, provided they should see reason enough to do so.
Then there's all the miscellany of electronic gadgetry that exists for surveillance purposes, like tracer bugs, and, really, anything else that uses a broad-band signal that could plausibly be tapped into to keep tabs on their actions and whereabouts (although, from what I've been reading on the forums, it seems to me SR4 has possibly diverted from that approach in favor of a broader-reaching Wireless Matrix -- Could be wrong, simple conjecture on my part (and not that it's a bad thing, mind you)).
I suppose I typically favor an approach that feels more like detective work to me, partly because it's dynamic, and partly because it's something that already permeates most of the scenarios I come up with (wherein the Runners have to do at least some detective work somewhere between the gunfights, crazy car chases, and explosive cotton candy :P).
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CSI: Seattle?
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CSI: Seattle?
Hahaha!
Maybe from an NPC standpoint, but I don't think I've been quite that clever in coming up with interesting situations and just how far leaving behind a bit of wayward snot could take a bunch of experts!
Back when we were gaming in our prime, the only "detective thing" that was playing on a regular basis (other than the Poirots et al.) was the X-Files -- which is, admittedly, not the best source of detective work imaginable.
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No, but the truth... *Puts on mirrorshades* Is out there.
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!
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Trust No One
Deny Everything
Everything Dies
Resist or Serve
Nothing Important Happened Today (My personal favorite one)
Man I miss that show. The only thing somewhat comparable to it today is Warehouse 13 and the seasons are just too short for me (I mean seriously, at 12 episodes I just get into the swing of the season and then I have to wait a year).
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Trust No One
Deny Everything
Everything Dies
Resist or Serve
Nothing Important Happened Today (My personal favorite one)
Man I miss that show. The only thing somewhat comparable to it today is Warehouse 13 and the seasons are just too short for me (I mean seriously, at 12 episodes I just get into the swing of the season and then I have to wait a year).
It was a very entertaining show, no doubt about it. I've not heard of Warehouse 13. I'll look it up, though.
Oh, and, also?
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!
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The problem with Warehouse 13 is that... *Puts on Mirrorshades* It comes up one episode short.
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!
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YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!
That ought to be your new signature. DO EET
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Done. Back to topic now, SVP.