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Old 10-08-2018, 11:17 AM   #11
AlexanderHowl
 
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Default Re: Hiding the Bodies

Wood chippers are a terrible way to dispose of bodies. Every wood chipper is slightly different, so they leave unique marks on the bone. In addition, they are nearly impossible to clean.

For a proper disposal, professional criminals seem to prefer cutting up the body along the joints and then disposing of the bodies in several remote areas (or random dumpsters if they cannot get out to the city). Alternatively, they wrap the body in chicken wire, chain everything to a few cement blocks, and drop it in deep water so marine animals will consume the evidence. In either case, the body will not be easy to find, though incidental forensics evidence may allow for conviction even without a body.
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Old 10-08-2018, 11:24 AM   #12
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Default Re: Hiding the Bodies

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While something like Callous might help, you don't really need disadvantages for that. To do it reliably, Unfazable, high will or enough prior experience should be enough. Even just having enough time to get used to the idea could help a lot.

Disadvantages should only rarely enable behavior. Callous is one of the few exceptions, but even then, I'd say that an appropriate skill or will roll would also help things along. The 0-point gurps character is not an innocent civilian: they're a very pragmatic individual who is free to act in their best calculated interest: most of the time personality limitations are disadvantages, not missing advantages.
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Old 10-08-2018, 11:41 AM   #13
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Default Re: Hiding the Bodies

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Disadvantages should only rarely enable behavior. Callous is one of the few exceptions, but even then, I'd say that an appropriate skill or will roll would also help things along. The 0-point gurps character is not an innocent civilian: they're a very pragmatic individual who is free to act in their best calculated interest: most of the time personality limitations are disadvantages, not missing advantages.
Yes, GURPS assumes adventurers who are by definition people with weak taboos and great flexibility (there is a reason why the term "adventurer" can describe merchants, sex workers, and professional soldiers!) Most GURPS characters would do well to have [-1] to [-10] in a personal Code of Honour to represent their own values.

In a gritty game, I might require a Fright Check for a character with most 20th/21st century Cultural Familiarities to push a body through a woodchipper/dump it in a pig pen/wrap it in chains and drop it off a small boat. Some mental disadvantages and skills involving dealing pragmatically with blood and viscera would give a bonus; I might even allow Acting to count as a supporting skill if a player has read Double Star.
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Old 10-08-2018, 01:47 PM   #14
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Default Re: Hiding the Bodies

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While something like Callous might help, you don't really need disadvantages for that. To do it reliably, Unfazable, high will or enough prior experience should be enough. Even just having enough time to get used to the idea could help a lot.

As far as such things go, I'm not even sure that putting a corpse through a wood chipper would be that bad. You could after all do so without looking directly at the corpse. Something like butchering the corpse with a knife seems like it would be worse.
Meh. Fair enough ... I would consider that you need something extremely wrong with you to put someone through a chipper, especially to do so without doing yourself some serious psychiatric damage along the way, but as the Romans used to say "disgusting things are not to be disputed" ;-).

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Wood chippers are a terrible way to dispose of bodies. Every wood chipper is slightly different, so they leave unique marks on the bone. In addition, they are nearly impossible to clean.
I'm told, however, that if you bury the output it quickly becomes almost unidentifiable. Apparently you clean them by following up with plenty of brushwood.
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Old 10-08-2018, 01:51 PM   #15
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Default Re: Hiding the Bodies

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So, in your modern games, how difficult do you make it for characters to hide the bodies of the people that they unlawfully kill?
I make it difficult only if I want it to be a plot point.

In general, though, the PCs are far less likely to try to hide a body than make it look like Someone Else With A Motive did it.
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Old 10-08-2018, 02:09 PM   #16
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Default Re: Hiding the Bodies

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I generally keep around a stock forensic anthropologist (Anthropology-14, Criminology/TL8-14, and Forensics/TL8-14) when characters are going against state law enforcement (+2 to the skills when they are going up against federal law enforcement, -2 to the skills when they are going up against local law enforcement).
Presumably this represents the combined efforts of several people, some of whom are assigned to the case and know enough about the alleged crime to be able to use Criminology to speculate, but also other people from a crime lab who are not supposed to know anything about the incidents surrounding the samples that they test, lest their preconceptions taint any resulting evidence.
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Old 10-08-2018, 02:52 PM   #17
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Default Re: Hiding the Bodies

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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
So, in your modern games, how difficult do you make it for characters to hide the bodies of the people that they unlawfully kill?
Generally, we don't unlawfully kill people. We're often on the side of the law, and if not, killing people is a really bad idea.
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Old 10-08-2018, 02:59 PM   #18
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So, in your modern games, how difficult do you make it for characters to hide the bodies of the people that they unlawfully kill?
Well, PCs in my modern games don't generally leave unlawfully killed bodies about, making it moot. In cyberpunkish games, where it's more likely, they tend to generate dead bodies on their opponent's turf, and their opponents usually have reason to not want police investigation.
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Old 10-08-2018, 04:18 PM   #19
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Default Re: Hiding the Bodies

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1) The genre: in some games we basically handwave it, or have abilities that make it less of a concern, while in others its a huge deal.
2) The area where the person was killed and their identity matters. Law enforcement agencies have varying budgets, and certain types of killings tend to stick in their craw and get worked on for years and years, while others get waved off and either explained simply or declared unsolvable and not worth their time.
Basically what red said. Though, the only 'modern' game I've ever run teetered from 'hand-wave' to 'make rolls and make 'em well' as it was a Monster Hunterish game and some corpses had to be disposed of properly.




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Originally Posted by The Colonel View Post
Meh. Fair enough ... I would consider that you need something extremely wrong with you to put someone through a chipper, especially to do so without doing yourself some serious psychiatric damage along the way, but as the Romans used to say "disgusting things are not to be disputed" ;-).
Butchering a person shouldn't be any harder than butchering an animal, we're all meat after all.




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I make it difficult only if I want it to be a plot point.
This too.
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Old 10-08-2018, 05:05 PM   #20
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Butchering a person shouldn't be any harder than butchering an animal, we're all meat after all.
I've seldom killed an animal larger than an insect and never butchered one, but give me $200 and someone to provide expert directions and I'd be happy to try killing and butchering a pig. I'd do it for free if I had a spare day and got to keep the pork.

I don't consider myself unusually squeamish but I wouldn't be so keen on doing the same thing with a human, even if the legal issues were put to one side.

EDIT

Maybe it's a guilt thing...I probably could willingly dissect a human body that was donated to a hospital for that purpose but I certainly wouldn't chop up and conceal a murder victim without coercion or other extreme motivation.
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