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

[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

[Lamech]

I would use something akin to the MH2 rules for investigation.

A thing to note:
You need enough info starting out to uniquely identify one person. Not half a dozen. Not zero.
This list:

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

• 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.)

Will make it all most impossible. You've given them bad info. It points to someone who does not exist. Now there is the magic name thing, but is the guy going to drop all pretense if a group of people start blabbing around town? If the party asks seven people if they are "the real slim shady" will it work when the "real slim shady" is number 8? Assuming the party needs to be sparing with the name, they'll have problems. (If they don't need to be sparring with the name, they can simply post an ad in the local paper asking "will the real slim shady please stand up?".)

What might happen: So the party makes a list of people with the same hobbies/language/CF as the target. They track down the phone and figure out where it came from. Our target "slim shady". He doesn't match the description. They ask him where he got the phone. He gives them a plausible dead end that goes nowhere. Party continues to search for someone who matches the description. After an exhaustive search they conclude that nobody in the city matches the information given.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Lamech

I would use something akin to the MH2 rules for investigation.

Yes, I'm trying to get some use out of those. I'm certainly finding them more inspiring than the vast-but-hard-to-follow advice of Mysteries.

Originally Posted by Lamech

A thing to note:
You need enough info starting out to uniquely identify one person. Not half a dozen. Not zero.

I'm assuming you mean in the end. It's (IMHO) perfectly okay to start chasing half a dozen trails only to exclude all but one by the end of the adventure.

Originally Posted by Lamech

This list:
Will make it all most impossible. You've given them bad info. It points to someone who does not exist. Now there is the magic name thing, but is the guy going to drop all pretense if a group of people start blabbing around town? If the party asks seven people if they are "the real slim shady" will it work when the "real slim shady" is number 8? Assuming the party needs to be sparing with the name, they'll have problems. (If they don't need to be sparring with the name, they can simply post an ad in the local paper asking "will the real slim shady please stand up?".)

Thanks, this is why I'm asking about balancing the trivial against the impossible. The good news is, the party decided to, instead of going to the town where she currently is, to look at the city from which she retreated (thus spending extra time for extra clues). That's a somewhat unexpected turn of events that will allow them to filter out some/all of the false leads, and likely get some more info on the character (e.g., if they're insistent and resourceful, a new composite).

Originally Posted by Lamech

What might happen: So the party makes a list of people with the same hobbies/language/CF as the target. They track down the phone and figure out where it came from. Our target "slim shady". He doesn't match the description. They ask him where he got the phone. He gives them a plausible dead end that goes nowhere. Party continues to search for someone who matches the description. After an exhaustive search they conclude that nobody in the city matches the information given.

I actually have a pre-planned lead for the phone that does give roughly one half of the information required to pinpoint the NPC (but has to be united with another half from another source).

[Lamech]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I'm assuming you mean in the end. It's (IMHO) perfectly okay to start chasing half a dozen trails only to exclude all but one by the end of the adventure.

Hmm... maybe I didn't quite explain this right. The description the PC's have needs to specify one person.

If the PC's are given the job of "Find the man with natural blue hair, grey eyes and a chicken tattoo on his ankle. He is 23 years old." And they go to New York and low and behold, they find three people who have all those qualifications? They won't be able to find the "right" one. OTOH, if the "right" person is actually 25 years old, they won't be able to figure it out. They want a 23 year old.

The description can be pretty vague "The blonde kid who worked at my Dad's store three years ago" is enough as long as there is only one blonde kid who worked at the Dad's store three years ago. If there were three its not. If there were zero its not.

Basically when the PCs are given the target, whatever they are given as a description must describe one, and only one person.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Lamech

If the PC's are given the job of "Find the man with natural blue hair, grey eyes and a chicken tattoo on his ankle. He is 23 years old." And they go to New York and low and behold, they find three people who have all those qualifications? They won't be able to find the "right" one. OTOH, if the "right" person is actually 25 years old, they won't be able to figure it out. They want a 23 year old.

The description can be pretty vague "The blonde kid who worked at my Dad's store three years ago" is enough as long as there is only one blonde kid who worked at the Dad's store three years ago. If there were three its not. If there were zero its not.

Basically when the PCs are given the target, whatever they are given as a description must describe one, and only one person.

Those facts are not the task. Those facts are the means by which they are to perform the task. They may or may not have means adequate to the purpose. Any description you can give, if the requirement is only, "Find a person of this description," will be not "find a specific individual" but "find a person in such and such a category" and will use those rules. (Thus, as a city gets bigger, on one hand the chance of your finding some person who fits a description gets better, but on the other hand the chance of finding a particular individual gets worse.)

Bill Stoddard

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Those facts are not the task. Those facts are the means by which they are to perform the task. They may or may not have means adequate to the purpose. Any description you can give, if the requirement is only, "Find a person of this description," will be not "find a specific individual" but "find a person in such and such a category" and will use those rules. (Thus, as a city gets bigger, on one hand the chance of your finding some person who fits a description gets better, but on the other hand the chance of finding a particular individual gets worse.)

Bill Stoddard

Yeah, the actual goal is 'find a highly competent and extremely versatile alchemist who is very likely to cooperate with the sort of stuff PCs do (and in fact already having cooperated with their patron/guild several times)'. It just so happens that the clues for finding the most likely candidate are such-and-such.

Also: a setup where Clue A is (secretly) wrong but the process of following Clue A eventually reveals both the fact that Clue A is wrong and reveals a Clue B (which is true) - is still a workable quest for an investigation, right?