Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 11-14-2019, 06:18 AM   #81
Luke Bunyip
 
Luke Bunyip's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: The Kingdom of Insignificance
Default Re: Sci-Fi Police of the year 2049 AD

You folk have been having fun...

By a curious coincidence, I too am thinking of running a game set in thirty years or so. The difference being, I'm going for a proto AtE setting (atomic and biological weaponry) and my PCs... well, they'll all be petty criminals.

So, I've been looking at this from an antagonistic angle, namely circumventing the police of thirty years time. I really like the idea of survellience drones, given that all my PCs will start out with tracking anklettes. This could make it difficult to covertly meet or interact with particular people, to the point of being electronically tethered to a small area.

Spoiler:  


The first thought that comes to mind for me regarding survellience drones is using something akin to VR RC racing drones to disable the police device. Ramming, harpoon with an EMP warhead, or a pneumatic miniaturised version of Schräge Musik, whatever...
__________________
It's all very well to be told to act my age, but I've never been this old before...
Luke Bunyip is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-14-2019, 06:38 AM   #82
hal
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
Default Re: Sci-Fi Police of the year 2049 AD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip View Post
You folk have been having fun...

By a curious coincidence, I too am thinking of running a game set in thirty years or so. The difference being, I'm going for a proto AtE setting (atomic and biological weaponry) and my PCs... well, they'll all be petty criminals.

So, I've been looking at this from an antagonistic angle, namely circumventing the police of thirty years time. I really like the idea of survellience drones, given that all my PCs will start out with tracking anklettes. This could make it difficult to covertly meet or interact with particular people, to the point of being electronically tethered to a small area.

Spoiler:  


The first thought that comes to mind for me regarding survellience drones is using something akin to VR RC racing drones to disable the police device. Ramming, harpoon with an EMP warhead, or a pneumatic miniaturised version of Schräge Musik, whatever...
If you really want to have fun with your players? Tell them that the reason they were convicted was because the Police had FULL access to all the phone records of every phone call they ever made in their lifetime. This meant that the Police could access where they were when they made their calls, how long the calls lasted, how often they called a given number etc. In and of itself, it wouldn't have been grounds for anything in the legal system. However, once other people who were in their contact list were convicted of crimes, the police rolled up the mat by backtracking who know whom. If statistical analysis found that they changed their patterns of behavior - it was red flagged. If the people involved were in the same city when they called, despite their originally living in communities far apart, it was red flagged. Eventually, to get a lesser sentence, the player characters were given up in a testimony that put them behind bars.

The reason you do that? It lets them know that anyone who knew them is going to be SCARED to even help them. Just a thought. ;)
hal is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-14-2019, 08:06 AM   #83
Luke Bunyip
 
Luke Bunyip's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: The Kingdom of Insignificance
Default Re: Sci-Fi Police of the year 2049 AD

Quote:
Originally Posted by hal View Post
If you really want to have fun with your players?
My game will be the same date, but the setting will be very different. Virtual footprints aren't very AtE. I'm hoping they focus on clean water, food, fighting cannibals etc.
__________________
It's all very well to be told to act my age, but I've never been this old before...
Luke Bunyip is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-18-2019, 06:20 AM   #84
ericthered
Hero of Democracy
 
ericthered's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
Default Re: Sci-Fi Police of the year 2049 AD

Quote:
Originally Posted by hal View Post
At present, it isn't difficult to have payload capabilities for drones. Amazon.com is looking to utilize delivery drones, and I vaguely recall seeing word that Amazon has patented the delivery drone concept (now what is involved in that would be interesting!). That having been said, what could you arm a police drone with that this both light weight and functionally capable of acting in lieu of an actual police officer? Gas grenades? Multiple use Taser systems?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
However, as drones aren't living things that people care about, that may be a harder sell than treating K9 dogs as officers. It would probably be treated similarly to destruction of an unoccupied police cruiser.

Make it sound like ED-209. "You have 15 seconds to comply." Might work. Another option, depending on how "connected" your setting is - the drone (or more likely a drone minder back at the station) causes the unruly fellow's cellphone to start ringing and vibrating incessantly, with a "Cease - Officers are on their way" or similar message displayed.
I was driving on the road after reading this when a police car in front of me turned on its very loud sirens, which startled me. The lights and sirens are very much part of the police aesthetic, and it occurs to me that part of their purpose is making an impression.

A drone could be made "tougher" by making it more imposing through the use of bright lights, a large facade, and powerful speakers to thunder a policeman's orders or to sound the characteristic siren.

In our instinctual brain, we register these things as power, and a commanding presence may be the key to making the drones work.

We still need a solution for doors, and I doubt a flying drone will be able to make effective arrests.
__________________
Be helpful, not pedantic

Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog

Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one!
ericthered is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 11-18-2019, 06:52 AM   #85
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: Sci-Fi Police of the year 2049 AD

At least in the USA, there are rather important constitutional concerns about having a drone arrest a suspect, which is why I think that police drones may be limited to surveillance, immobilization, crowd control, and remote sniping. After all, a police officer can arrest a tangled individual just as easily if a drone tangled them or their partner tangled them.
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-18-2019, 07:54 AM   #86
ericthered
Hero of Democracy
 
ericthered's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
Default Re: Sci-Fi Police of the year 2049 AD

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
At least in the USA, there are rather important constitutional concerns about having a drone arrest a suspect, which is why I think that police drones may be limited to surveillance, immobilization, crowd control, and remote sniping. After all, a police officer can arrest a tangled individual just as easily if a drone tangled them or their partner tangled them.
If you've got tangler in the setting, yeah, its going to be a really nice non-lethal option for police.

I'm not sure how a drone firing off tangler and having the suspect sit there for an hour while the officer finished his business and drove over would be viewed. At some point fire safety or some other practical will kick in.

I heavily favor the Drone being remotely operated by the officer and using his voice and judgement over an AI. It makes a lot of things simplier, even if it requires more work by the officer. Who is quite possibly sitting in his car operating these things while the vehicle takes him from place to place automatically.
__________________
Be helpful, not pedantic

Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog

Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one!

Last edited by ericthered; 11-18-2019 at 08:00 AM.
ericthered is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 11-18-2019, 08:09 AM   #87
Daigoro
 
Daigoro's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
Default Re: Sci-Fi Police of the year 2049 AD

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
If you've got tangler in the setting, yeah, its going to be a really nice non-lethal option for police.

I'm not sure how a drone firing off tangler and having the suspect sit there for an hour while the officer finished his business and drove over would be viewed. At some point fire safety or some other practical will kick in.

I heavily favor the Drone being remotely operated by the officer and using his voice and judgement over an AI. It makes a lot of things simplier, even if it requires more work by the officer. Who is quite possibly sitting in his car operating these things while the vehicle takes him from place to place automatically.
Yeah, there's a big difference between having a drone under the direct supervision of an officer on-site, and a drone operating autonomously in the field catching crims for the flatfoots to collect at their convenience. However, either system could hold depending on the circumstances and setting.
__________________
Collaborative Settings:
Cyberpunk: Duopoly Nation
Space Opera: Behind the King's Eclipse
And heaps of forum collabs, 30+ and counting!
Daigoro is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-18-2019, 08:43 AM   #88
jason taylor
 
jason taylor's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
Default Re: Sci-Fi Police of the year 2049 AD

On one Covert Affairs Annie Walker was on the lam from the PRC in Hong Kong. The headquarters had had her in interrogation long enough to get a photo so they put it on the cities cell service.

What about a more advanced kind of "hue-and-cry" app that would elaborate that idea?
__________________
"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison
jason taylor is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-18-2019, 09:04 AM   #89
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: Sci-Fi Police of the year 2049 AD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Daigoro View Post
there's a big difference between having a drone under the direct supervision of an officer on-site, and a drone operating autonomously in the field
I'd reserve "drone" to mean (by definition) a remotely-operated machine under the supervision of an officer, while using "robot" to describe a similar but autonomous machine. If the officer's back in the precinct operating the drone, the mere distance seems like a minor difference with the officer being "on site", but the drone being around a corner or inside a building that the officer hasn't yet entered.
Anaraxes is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 11-18-2019, 09:20 AM   #90
Daigoro
 
Daigoro's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
Default Re: Sci-Fi Police of the year 2049 AD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
I'd reserve "drone" to mean (by definition) a remotely-operated machine under the supervision of an officer, while using "robot" to describe a similar but autonomous machine.
I guess it depends on the level of autonomy and intelligence. I would say "drones" could autonomously carry out easily automated tasks, like scanning traffic or tracking a suspect via image recognition. An officer at the station might be in charge of several of those, and only giving direct instructions to one when needed.

A "robot" I'd see as having a step higher level of intelligence, although it's hard to define where the line would be, as they would also need authorisation to carry out various tasks.
__________________
Collaborative Settings:
Cyberpunk: Duopoly Nation
Space Opera: Behind the King's Eclipse
And heaps of forum collabs, 30+ and counting!
Daigoro is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 11:12 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.