[Social Engineering] Find a specific person in a foreign city (Known Individuals)

[vicky_molokh]

Greetings, all!

One of the cliché feats ascribed both to spies-in-training and streetwise hobos is the ability to find a specific person, who is not officially listed in any official documents, while dropped into a foreign city with nothing except a normal set of clothes. Some urban legends also claim that true experts could do it while evading a 'wanted' warrant on their head.

Now, this seems like something that could be made interesting, and even might be a reasonable mission in a semi-realistic private eyes campaign if toned down a bit. But what can be done to make in more engaging?

Social Engineering gives guidelines - roughly an IQ or skill roll at -5 for a city of one million people. But that's more like something for a barely-relevant search, not for a focus of a small arc.

Perhaps a better way would be using some sort of clue-based gradual search, where you learn about possible places or people who might be the next link or something.

Thoughts?
Thanks in advance!

[roguebfl]

First would ask your self what do the PC know about their target?

Name?

Description?

Occupation?

Hobbies?

The latter two means you can be a little more overt in the first step and advantages what part of the cirt are those people found / hang out so that they can narrow down the search locations

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

First would ask your self what do the PC know about their target?

Name?

Description?

Occupation?

Hobbies?

The latter two means you can be a little more overt in the first step and advantages what part of the cirt are those people found / hang out so that they can narrow down the search locations

Well, Description + (original) Occupation seems like an interesting challenge, since the name can be easily changed for someone who doesn't have a passport anyway, and an occupation can be changed to some extent. I'm looking for stuff that is borderline heroic, but still doable.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Well, Description + (original) Occupation seems like an interesting challenge, since the name can be easily changed for someone who doesn't have a passport anyway, and an occupation can be changed to some extent. I'm looking for stuff that is borderline heroic, but still doable.

For an extended search, find informants. Seek to gain favorable relationships with local organizations (not necessarily legal!). If you can provide evidence of Status, use that to gain favors through Benefits of Status.

Bill Stoddard

[vicky_molokh]

I'm 90% likely to use this as quest in my current campaign. (Whether it will end up as a full-length or a single-session quest is hard to tell.)

I'm considering toning down the town size to perhaps a 100-500k population, a former mining boom town that is slowly becoming a ghost town (with people gradually leaving) due to the boom being over and the mine gradually emptying up (simply put, the economy is declining slowly but surely).

Some ideas of clues to give (not sure how much would be too much or too little):

• A semi-correct/semi-erroneous facial composite drawing of the character. Notably, race (which is characterised by skin, eye and hair colour) is grossly misjudged. However, height, sex, age etc. are correct.
• A phone number, which is by now obsolete, because the NPC either gave away or thrown away the SIM card, and now somebody else has it. (This is likely a chance for the face or investigator to get the most spotlight.)
• Perhaps some info on the NPC's interests/hobbies, which might give an opportunity to figure where else to look.
• Sure knowledge that the NPC speaks a specific language fluently, and knows a specific Cultural Familiarity. (This is a small clue - the town is a melting pot, but the listed CF/language combination are reasonably common there.)
• (For one PC only.) A dubious but actually true name, upon hearing which the NPC will drop suspicions and talk. (Not the NPC's current fake name; this clue is pretty important, and only makes sense in context, but the point is one PC can perform this check, but will likely not rely on it.)

Originally Posted by whswhs

For an extended search, find informants. Seek to gain favorable relationships with local organizations (not necessarily legal!). If you can provide evidence of Status, use that to gain favors through Benefits of Status.

The first question about hiring informants would be, who such informants are? Who would know all newcomers to the city for a prolonged period of time by address of living and/or work, including the insignificant or the quiet ones?
A crime lord would likely know (or have underlings who know) all the new gamblers, pickpockets etc., though that seems a bit optimistic regarding such a criminal organisation's ability to be informed of new petty criminals. But who would know all the new Status 0-ish people (e.g.: wal/mart reception worker, janitor, apothecary assistant, computer operator, waitress, secretary, street advertiser).

[kdtipa]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I'm considering toning down the town size to perhaps a 100-500k population, a former mining boom town that is slowly becoming a ghost town (with people gradually leaving) due to the boom being over and the mine gradually emptying up (simply put, the economy is declining slowly but surely).

"slowly becoming a ghost town" sounds to me like there's already evidence of that. The town I live in has under 20K people, but it's got business, and the population is holding steady. It's just hard for me to accept a definition of a town with 100K+ people including the term "ghost town". The cities near me have around 40K people. Boston, Massachusetts has approximately 645K people.

I don't know... It just sounds weird. I suppose "Ghost Town" would be based more on number of people compared to how many the city could support at its normal level. Anyway, I'll get back to the actual post subject...

[vicky_molokh]

I'm resurrecting this thread, likely for the last time, since the very issue I'm asking about is going to arise real soon - either next weekend, or perhaps even touched in the session that is planned for today (if things go according to plan and the PCs act in a hurried manner.

Originally Posted by whswhs

For an extended search, find informants. Seek to gain favorable relationships with local organizations (not necessarily legal!). If you can provide evidence of Status, use that to gain favors through Benefits of Status.

Bill Stoddard

A question on informants: what sort of person would be a suitable informant - one that is both well enough informed about any newcomers to the city (most importantly, those who aren't registered in any official records*), as well as sufficiently non-covert that such an informant can be found by the party faster than the NPC in question? Oh, and one that would actually willing to sell the information to the PCs?


* == The locale has very loose border controls, and it is considered totally normal to go by train from one city-state to another without showing anyone a personal identification document. OTOH, luggage customs are serious business, and import of large amounts of valuables is taxed.
The town in question has a sufficient level of corruption that finding a job that is off the record is quite doable.

[ericthered]

For some situations, innkeepers and the barkeeps of certain establishments. For more subtle ones, the inkeeper's emplyees.

In the right kind of environment, the beggers at the city gates. They get a good look at EVERYONE coming in, and they are certainly willing to sell the information.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

A question on informants: what sort of person would be a suitable informant - one that is both well enough informed about any newcomers to the city (most importantly, those who aren't registered in any official records*), as well as sufficiently non-covert that such an informant can be found by the party faster than the NPC in question? Oh, and one that would actually willing to sell the information to the PCs?

That's really dependent on setting and narrative; it's hard to give a general answer. But you mention people who aren't in official records. You would want, probably, an underworld Contact with a high Streetwise (if the target is self-employed) or an organizational Contact with a high Administration and maybe a Security Clearance (if the target is working for some secretive organization). If they don't have a defined Contact of the right sort, they would need to search for the appropriate sort of person—which is not a search for a named individual but for a person in a suitable role; on the other hand, it's probably at -5 if they're using general IQ or ordinary skills, as such people don't hang out signs. They might have to get past an organizational gatekeeper even to talk with them.

Alternatively, they could try searching for indirect traces, coming up with a profile of the person, and then looking for records of transactions they would have engaged in, analyzing appropriate neighborhoods to narrow them down to a small enough neighborhood to avoid the penalty on searches, and so on. I think you're looking at Intelligence Analysis rolls preceded by data gathering. You might want to review the SE rules on gathering rumors for a start, for the HUMINT part. But they also would want to hunt for electronic records, possibly doing a massive data search.

I would suggest that you give your players the choices of (a) brute force search, (b) finding an informant, or (c) doing Intelligence Analysis after gathering data—and tell them they need to come up with the process for whichever they do.

Bill Stoddard

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

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Social Engineering gives guidelines - roughly an IQ or skill roll at -5 for a city of one million people. But that's more like something for a barely-relevant search, not for a focus of a small arc.

Perhaps a better way would be using some sort of clue-based gradual search, where you learn about possible places or people who might be the next link or something.

Thoughts?
Thanks in advance!

Yes, the guidelines are for looking for a type of person, not a specific person. To find a specific person who isn't in the phone book, you have to actually investigate. If it's a runaway teenager then you check their communications, talk to their friends, look at their credit card activity, and then move on to flashing their picture in the hooker strolls and checking the morgues.