[Basic] Skill of the week: Intelligence Analysis

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Many years ago—it was before I met Carol!—I was invited to play with a new group. Not being familiar with their approach, I decided to keep things simple and play a Fighting Man, not a Magic User or Cleric. So we had the first fight start up, and they asked me what my character did, which turned out to mean, "Could you please stand up and demonstrate the type of combat move your character attempts?" They were all Society for Creative Anachronism, and took it for granted that people could do that, whereas I'd never done that sort of thing, and my paradigm was "I roll a d20 and try to equal or exceed my number to hit." I simply could not play in the style they favored.

NERO goes a bit farther than that...

Need to hit the 'orc' with your sword? Go out there and swing away with that boffer sword!
Need to pick a lock or disarm a trap? You best have real life lockpickin and trap findin/springin skills!
There is no "roll my Diplomacy' skill in NERO, you need to talk the king into financing your private army? Start talking.
Can't piece the clues together on that map the old bearded sage sold you? Too bad, so sad. Maybe the DMs will be prepared to run it again next game... if you ever do figure it out.


The LARP I ran was a bit less 'intense' than that. For instance I didn't make people actually picklocks or deal with mousetraps in chests (mostly because I didn't want to deal with them). And my 'puzzle dungeons' almost all had at least one way to solve them without having to figure out puzzles: Apply sword directly to monster.

[wellspring]

This came up in passing in the article, but it's worth mentioning that Social Engineering suggests an Intelligence Analysis roll for diagnosing hidden relationships, processes, and agendas in an organization. Often the official facts as dictated by policy are very different from how things work in daily life. Also, it's very common for companies to hide or misrepresent these things, especially to their vendors.

In business schools, sales programs often emphasize the salesman as an intelligence gatherer and analyst. Especially at the MBA level, sales executives are encouraged to collect, verify, and review information in a structured manner.

(Admittedly, many programs are still focused on teaching that Intelligence Analysis is important, rather than actually teaching the skill itself. But I have seen some of that, too. Social network analysis, operational analysis, and corroboration of informants.)

Marketers have become extremely sophisticated about their data mining techniques. Much of this is Mathematics (Statistics) or Economics, but interpretation of trends, government relations, and especially competitive intelligence are all major areas of interest.

I also know that bank anti-money laundering organizations will often employ these techniques to identify suspicious patterns of behavior.

Here in TL8, we have a vast amount of (legal) information available even to ordinary civilians, such as satellite imagery, that used to be limited to official military and spy agencies.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

It can be used by a Free Trader in the normal format as well as with the specialty Market Analysis variant(if you know where a war is going to blow up in everyone's face you can predict where to take your ship).

An adaptation can be made for gambling(Stewball never drinks water and only drinks wine, this track is longer then normal, so Stewball will probably be overeager and tire himself out).

Free Trader Beowulf gets into harbor. On the way from exiting jump-point to making port, the captain peruses the multiplicity of ads to decide which is a good contact. He also searchs the news. He uses Intelligence Analysis to know what the prices are now, what the best place to go next week and so on.

To understand it, you might play the old Marco Polo trading game by Phillips Interactive Media(I think). The player has limited intelligence. He has the prices in the town he is in right now. Further intelligence of varying reliability can be gotten by questioning shady characters at the bar. From this the player can deduce which town is most likely.

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The GM rolls this skill, and provides insight on a success. If you have some information that is deliberately deceptive, the GM rolls a Quick Contest between Intelligence Analysis and the skill used for deception, and tells you about it if you win. Modifiers include -1 to -5 for incomplete information, and -3 for complex or technical subjects, unless you have an appropriate skill for understanding them.

I've decided I'm going to give a +4 bonus when they use the skill to verify a specific suspicion. E.g. "Is it a werewolf?" would get a +4 bonus against their Intelligence Analysis skill. "What kind of monster is it?" would be at no bonus.

I think I might have read this somewhere, but don't remember where; so the above might not be my idea.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I've asked a moderator to consider creating a sticky thread in GURPS Resources for threads of lasting usefulness. If it happens, I will build an index-by-skill in alphabetical order in that thread. I'll have entries for each skill, rather than each thread, because that's more useful.

All complete. Thanks to Roger_BW for help compiling the list of URLs.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by wellspring

Marketers have become extremely sophisticated about their data mining techniques. Much of this is Mathematics (Statistics) or Economics, but interpretation of trends, government relations, and especially competitive intelligence are all major areas of interest.

Surely this is Market Analysis.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Surely this is Market Analysis.

Perhaps not. Market Analysis seems to be the skill of predicting trends in market prices so that you can buy now in preparation of reselling at a favorable price later. That's not the same as gathering market intelligence generally. There are people who try to do it by analyzing patterns of fluctuations on charts of prices without knowing anything about the underlying commodities, though that may be Fortune-Telling more than Market Analysis.

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Perhaps not. Market Analysis seems to be the skill of predicting trends in market prices so that you can buy now in preparation of reselling at a favorable price later. That's not the same as gathering market intelligence generally. There are people who try to do it by analyzing patterns of fluctuations on charts of prices without knowing anything about the underlying commodities, though that may be Fortune-Telling more than Market Analysis.

Quite literal Fortune Telling, perhaps. :)