Ultratech and The Police

[Daigoro]

Perhaps you could adapt the system for wanted levels from Grand Theft Auto, with more and more police resources coming to take you down as you commit worse crimes and your wanted level goes up, but tied to a BAD modifier.

Each time a FoA roll comes up it triggers an event that must be dealt with. Successfully dealing with it lowers the BAD, but screwing up or ignoring the event raises the BAD. The BAD applies against any rolls you make for counter-surveillance measures and then applies to future FoA rolls.

You'd then have a table of event types that occur at each BAD level and the type of police resources that would come after you.

A BAD 0 event might be being pinged by a local business's surveillance camera or a citizen recognising you in the street. How this is dealt with is up to the player, and could involve whatever skill rolls they choose to apply to the problem. Police response would be to send a patrol car to the area or having a uniformed officer ask some perfunctory questions.

A BAD +4 event might be having your face broadcast on the evening news, with SWAT teams and helicopters on standby.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by hal

One thing I wish the rules had done was to build frequency of activation in such a manner as the target number wasn't 6,9,12, or 15 - or no roll required. There should have been a range as specific as what you can roll on 3d6. Having a frequency of 3 or less on 3d6 should be possible. Having a frequency roll of 10 or less should be possible.

This is a very easy house rule to implement, if you want the extra complexity.

For Allies, Contacts, Patrons, Enemies, and Dependents:

Die Roll	Cost Modifier
Constantly*	x 4
15-	x 3
14- 	x 2.5
13-	x 2.25
12-	x 2
11-	x 1.5
10-	x 1.25
9-	x 1
8-	x 0.9
7-	x ¾ (x 0.75)
6-	x ½ (x 0. 5)
5-	x ¼ (x 0.25)

*No roll is required, the NPC is always present. This level is reserved for NPCs - usually Allies - that are implanted, worn like clothing, or supernaturally attached.

For Reputation:

Frequency of Recognition
Recognized	Limitation
Always	-0%
15-	-5%
14-	-10%
13-	-20%
12-	-30%
11-	-40%
10-	-50%
9-	-55%
8-	-60%
7-	-65%
6-	-70%
5-	-80%

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Perhaps you could adapt the system for wanted levels from Grand Theft Auto, with more and more police resources coming to take you down as you commit worse crimes and your wanted level goes up, but tied to a BAD modifier.

Good idea.

BAD could start at level equal to Bad Reputation (or similar), multiplied by Frequency of Appearance. Further actions that merit immediate police attention boost BAD.

+1 for a violent crime that doesn't involve injury, death, or serious loss of property (e.g., a mugging where nobody gets hurt)
+2 for any action that involves minor injury or major loss of property (e.g., bank heist) or potential for future injury or death to victims (e.g., kidnapping).
+3 for any action which causes serious injury or death.
+4 or more for actions which represent an ongoing threat to public safety.

+1 for any incident that involves injury to a cop or serious humiliation to the police department (e.g., cop held hostage or shooting at police).
+2 for any incident that involves the death or serious injury of a cop.
+1 for any incident that involves a highly sympathetic victim (e.g., kid or attractive young woman).

Example: Standard mook with Reputation -2, (Criminal Record), recognized on 12- starts off at BAD +1 if he's wanted on a warrant. If he kidnaps a kid and shoots at a cop while getting away (BAD +3, +1 for victim type, +1 for humiliating police), he goes to BAD +6. There's an Amber alert, every cop in the state is on high alert and gunning for payback, and the national news cable channels are broadcasting the mook's face every 30 minutes.

[hal]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

This is a very easy house rule to implement, if you want the extra complexity.

Now residing on my hard drive. :)

Thank you.

My campaign start is is coming together nicely enough. I've a thing in my campaign called Crystal Palace (taken from CP2020 and made to be a haven for VERY rich people. After one of their own get killed, the Crystal Palace offers a reward for $500,000 for the capture of the assailant who killed one of theirs on Earth. The players will have their own problems to deal with, but every so often, I'll tease them like a fly fisherman casting a fly - that the hunted was seen near them. More importantly, the masses will be VERY alert and on the watch for the fugitive, which in turn, may make THEIR lives difficult. The opening scene will be one in which they will waken up, with zero memory of what happened in the last few hours (they won't know how much) nor will they know how it came to pass they were incarcerated where they waken. ALl they will know is someone will be in the basement with them, a friend of theirs. He will have an encryted Flash drive, and their phones, gear, car keys, etc - for which they will have to try and piece together what is happening and why. The only thing is? They've got the "bad guys" upstairs who will be investigating what happened when their perimter was breached. Worse yet? The players can either attack and fight their way out, or they can try to be sneaky and use stealth and their brains. Either way, they will find their escape complicated by someone who will need massive first aid to survive - or bleed to death.

Who is the woman? Don't know. Is she important to us? Don't know. How did we get here? Don't know. WHY are we here? Don't know. Should we save this person and ourselves, or just save our selves?

That is the opening scene. :)

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Varyon

If we ignore the x4 for 100% (which is a clear outlier when you graph it), Excel gives an equation with a pretty decent trendline as either an exponential (R-squared=0.9982) or polynomial (R-squared=0.9983) function... but there's not a lot of separation, particularly at low frequency.

Great minds . . . Somehow your slightly more detailed write-up ninja'd mine.

The only problem is that per RAW the cost for an all-the-time Frequency of Appearance for an Ally, etc. is listed as 4x. I forget the exact sourcebook where that rule first appeared, however.

[Aldric]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Great minds . . . Somehow your slightly more detailed write-up ninja'd mine.

The only problem is that per RAW the cost for an all-the-time Frequency of Appearance for an Ally, etc. is listed as 4x. I forget the exact sourcebook where that rule first appeared, however.

The x4 modifier is right there on B. 36 under FoA

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Great minds . . . Somehow your slightly more detailed write-up ninja'd mine.

The only problem is that per RAW the cost for an all-the-time Frequency of Appearance for an Ally, etc. is listed as 4x. I forget the exact sourcebook where that rule first appeared, however.

x4 is from Characters, as noted by Aldric. The reason I left it out of my analysis is because it's a clear outlier when you graph Frequency vs Cost. But then, Always Available should cost more than "18 or less" (nominally 100%) if you're in a campaign where the GM opts to apply modifiers to FoA - someone who calls for a roll of 18 has a chance of not showing up if there's any penalty in play (say, a -5 because you did something to anger the Ally last session), while no penalty is going to prevent an Always Available Ally from, well, being available.

[hal]

Originally Posted by Varyon

x4 is from Characters, as noted by Aldric. The reason I left it out of my analysis is because it's a clear outlier when you graph Frequency vs Cost. But then, Always Available should cost more than "18 or less" (nominally 100%) if you're in a campaign where the GM opts to apply modifiers to FoA - someone who calls for a roll of 18 has a chance of not showing up if there's any penalty in play (say, a -5 because you did something to anger the Ally last session), while no penalty is going to prevent an Always Available Ally from, well, being available.

I think the problem here however, is that per rules as written, there are no actual "Frequency of Appearance modifiers or even rules for modifying frequency of appearance on the fly. For instance, the GM can simply rule that an enemy appears despite no roll being made to see if such an enemy does in fact, appear.

The concept of Frequency of Appearance Modifiers - I think, is a GOOD one (not necessarily because I instigated this thread in the first place - I can't be the first to ever WISH for more, or even think or discuss it somewhere).

If a Character has the enemy group: Police Department, on a 9 or less, if said characters walk past a parked police cruiser, and the GM has rolled a 10+ for Frequency of Appearance roll, are we to assume that there is no chance of the police officers noticing the character and doing a BOLO check only to discover that the characters are in fact, on the BOLO (Be on look out) list?

Ah well, on to another project for my own upcoming cyberpunk campaign:

Crime and Disorder tables:

How often will a background check result in the NPC being checked, have a criminal background? Per one website, 1 in 3 adult Americans have a criminal record. That's an easy check - roll 1d100, a 34 or higher results in no criminal background. Otherwise, roll on the types of crimes the criminal has indulged in. Mostly Misdemeanors? Cool, we have some details. A mixture of Felonies and misdemeanors? Ok, that's details. NPC is a career criminal with multiple property crimes attributed to his name, and a few convictions? Yup, something the player characters may want to know!

Now - the task remains on how to correlate this data into something useful...

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by hal

Per one website, 1 in 3 adult Americans have a criminal record. That's an easy check - roll 1d100, a 34 or higher results in no criminal background.

If you want to keep things GURPSy, that's comparable to a roll of 9 or lower. Granted, that's a 37.5% chance rather than a 33.33%, but those aren't terribly far off - 1 in 2.67 rather than 1 in 3. However, a quick Google search for actual numbers gives the result as around to 29.8%, in which case a roll of 8 or lower - 25.92% - is a better option (an error of 13% rather than an error of 26%). You can, of course, modify this based on area - somewhere like a Night City slum might get a +4 to this roll (for 12 or lower - 74.07% chance of having some sort of criminal record), while somewhere like Arisaka Tower might get a -4 (for 4 or lower - 1.85% chance of having some sort of criminal record, probably representing either an intruder or an employee that someone screwed up on wiping his/her record clean).

[hal]

Right now, I'm looking at the stats on crimes by neighborhoods in LA to give me some feel for how things probably should work out. If I treat neighborhoods as having their own "stats" as a whole, I could possibly look into trying to figure a way to tie in criminals with the locations they live in. One study I was reading today (darn it, research is just so much fun!) indicated that the broken windows theory of policing does have merit. It was found that in neighborhoods with massive graffiti issues or litering issues - result in a "cirminal" action that is twice the number than similar crimes being committed in clean and well kept areas. The "test" was putting a 5 euro note in an envelope in a mailbox in cleaner more patrolled areas vs the same denomination being placed in a mailbox etc.

To me, that is sort of sloppy analysis simply on the grounds that other factors such as economic distress were not mentioned. But hey, it is a starting place for a GM to work from.

As for percentile dice or automated app crunching the numbers, I'd just as soon not use a 3d6 table to roll on. Even the Pyramid article from 1999 uses percentiles rather than 3d6 tables.

What I found interesting was that roughly a given percentage of reported crimes get solved, and that roughly 1/2 of the crimes are actually reported. If roughly 42 percent of the crimes are resolved, then the real number of resolutions are closer to 21% of all crime, not just the reported crimes. What is missing from that "picture" is that if you use a blanket statement of 42% of crimes are solved, are the bulk of them in property crimes? Are the bulk of them in violent crimes? If someone notes that out of 500,000 crimes that were committed, some 210,000 were solved - but most of them were misdemeanor crimes - that's not giving a true picture of what is really happening.

Yes, I want a quick and dirty criminal activity table to roll on. Yes I want it to be reasonably accurate without being anal retentive about it. Ah well, more reading is required... Good thing today is my day off!