The cost of Zeroed

[Cybren]

like anything you can't abuse it. You can't assassinate the president, get arrested, and then break out of a high security prison and not expect people to recognize your face.

But at the same time, you payed points for it. Getting stopped at a drunk driving check point or walking in front of an ATM isn't gonna destroy your Zeroed

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Cybren

Getting stopped at a drunk driving check point or walking in front of an ATM isn't gonna destroy your Zeroed

Why not though? It seems logical that it should. The trait as written doesn't provide any resistance to creating an identity. It always seemed to me that the trait would require very careful maintenance or be quickly lost in most settings.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Edges

Right. But don't you need Alternate Identity to have a valid ID? If you get checked once and they run your ID, they may discover that it's fake and arrest you.

They may. That's why it's a good idea to get the skills to make a good fake, or know someone who can. If you are going to go that route. Of course you may have a perfectly genuine piece of ID from the previous timeline.

As soon as they take you in, they take pictures, fingerprints, and whatever they do in that game world and now you're not zeroed.

It's a good idea not to get arrested. But if your Zero'd character does get arrested, as a GM you should let any a reasonable attempt to get the records lost or destroyed be workable.

The advantage seems to make all kinds of security check points a hastle.

Most security check points do not in fact keep a permanent record of everyone who passes through

This is a classic benefit of Zeroed and it's a good one. Although it can be used up pretty quick if the prints match your last crime

Zero'd is not a good advantage for irresponsible slobs who litter clues everywhere.

Cool. This makes the Advantage much more valuable. But it doesn't seem to be the default that you keep getting bailed out (just based on the RAW entry).

The default is that if you take reasonable precautions (like not setting up signature bank accounts) it will be difficult for the authorities to find any records on you or to get a good picture of you. Every advantage you pay points for, is one that will be fairly easy to retain. So yeah, under normal circumstances you can expect records of your movements and activities to have a tendency to just fall between the cracks or at least be relatively easy to clean up. The Patron or other plot device isn't _necessary_ for this to happen. It just can provide some rationalization. But the effect could just be luck, or a minor supernatural talent, or even just the product of your tradecraft. You don't leave fingerprints, you don't give cameras a good look at you undisguised, and the records you leave behind could have been anyone.

If the authorities expect me to have a history and I have none, they will suspect me and likely be a problem to me as soon as they find out I have no history.

The truth is, if the authorities are running background checks on you, you already have problems.

A new question that may be off topic (as it doesn't directly regard "cost") is, what exactly are the game mechanics for the resistant to supernatural detection that Zeroed offers? Are you immune? Is there only an effect if some kind of name magic rules are being used?

You are just plain immune to any divinations that try to learn more than your recent past.

[B9anders]

Originally Posted by Refplace

There was a story by Roger Zelazny called "My Name is Legion"
It describes zeroed as an advantage very well.
Without giving details away the guy would erase and implant any records through a very effective back door.

You still need those backdoors though. To really maintain zero, some kind of modular ability (illegal alternate identity only) is needed.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by lachimba

Agreed that I can't see much use for it in a GURPS Lowtech campaign without supernatural elements.

"And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed."

[B9anders]

I am thinking that for zeroed to be worthwhile, it needs some kind of 'maintainable' enhancement. You did it once and you know how to do it again. Otherwise, for an advantage that is almost certainly doomed to gradually just seep away as the campaign progresses, it doesn't really seem to be worth the points. It's almost perk level really.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

You are just plain immune to any divinations that try to learn more than your recent past.

Maybe, or there is some ambiguity in the incantation, or some other problem. GURPS makes divination magic iffy to begin with, so a justification similar to those for physical disads in TECHNOMANCER is available, and that justification is the wellspring of any "immunity" you may have, Zeroed is but a social trait that such an immunity makes available.

[Darekun]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

If everything is that networked, then it ought to be just as easy to find all those databases as it is for the information to get everywhere.

...No. First, a query only needs to find one hit, blanking someone needs to find all hits. Second, querying those databases is perfectly legal and normal, hacking them to delete the data isn't, and some of those systems are explicitly very hard to hack. Third, the act of performing the search is itself logged, and can be datamined to find "who's been recently blanked", and finding and deleting that information would involve a feedback loop like the rocket equation.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The difference being the other guy bought morph while the other guy needs to call up his hacker friend again.

Actually, I was referring to the "cosmic zeroed" starslayer went into more detail on.

Originally Posted by cptbutton

Does anyone know of other pre-RPG uses of the concept?

Dates according to Wikipedia:

Max Headroom used it, both as general background(starting in the 1985 movie) and in detail for episode plots(in 1987). IIRC it appeared in Neuromancer(1984), but I'm not sure; it doesn't appear Gibson had a name for it.

R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk came out in 1988, and Shadowrun came out in 1989.

Originally Posted by Cybren

Getting stopped at a drunk driving check point or walking in front of an ATM isn't gonna destroy your Zeroed

In Shadowrun, getting stopped at a drunk driving check point will most certainly destroy your Zeroed(unless you have an Alternate ID to use instead of Zeroed). This is why there's a stereotype in the Shadowrun community that something like that will result in the PCs killing all the cops present. (Actually, it usually results in them running away, followed by a chase which they're equipped to escape.)

Walking in front of a public sensor(it's too networked to have ATMs) won't destroy your Zeroed in 2ed Shadowrun, but will at least threaten it in 4ed. 4ed assumes "active" networking, 2ed mostly doesn't.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Most security check points do not in fact keep a permanent record of everyone who passes through

They do in cyberpunk. It's logged, it's datamined.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

So yeah, under normal circumstances you can expect records of your movements and activities to have a tendency to just fall between the cracks or at least be relatively easy to clean up.

That's inappropriate for cyberpunk, and yet that's where the advantage first appeared. Of course, that may mean that it's inappropriate as an advantage…

In a setting where Zeroed is available on the black market, it might be appropriate to charge money for it at creation. Whether they bought it, they got blanked when the Internet died and a new one had to be made, they were born in the Barrens and stayed there until now, or they arrived via Plane Shift.

Of course, that will seriously throw off the finances of a Barrens-dweller.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The truth is, if the authorities are running background checks on you, you already have problems.

It's more networked than that. If you walk by a cop car, it runs a background check on you. Without asking anyone.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Darekun

That's inappropriate for cyberpunk,

No, it isn't. Cyberpunk roleplaying has two mutually contradicting tropes.

Trope 1: Gigantic monolithic social institutions have enormous information resources and can keep track of everything.

Trope 2: Bad*** mofos are running around on the street with their wolverines and uzis and the gigantic monolithic institutions are about as effective keeping track of them as the sheriff is keeping track of Robin Hood, if not less so. Now that may be the product of supernatural luck, or self-replicating net life that considers information about them to be its favorite meal, or friendly uberhakerz, but for much of cyberpunk roleplaying it is not merely appropriate, it is virtually essential.

It's more networked than that. If you walk by a cop car, it runs a background check on you. Without asking anyone.

And finds nothing. Most cyberpunk universes are not in fact so tightly controlled and perfectly run that a failure to find a match to anything is grounds for arrest, or that a cop car's computer running a check for outstanding warrants leaves a permanent recording of your face for future reference in the system. It's possible to have such universe, but it isn't mandatory and even in cyberpunk worlds, there's a limit to storage space.

[Ulzgoroth]

What is the benefit of (non-magical) Zeroed?

The MIB are a fine example of Zeroed, to be sure. But what does it do for them? It doesn't inconvenience them, since their employer provides any needed services...but what possible downside would there be to their not having their records wiped? All I can think of is that enemies might be able to google-stalk them to identify and harass their families. And plenty of characters dodge that threat by the 0-point method of having no loved ones except possibly Dependents.

There are plenty of characters in fiction whose 'zeroed' status is a major advantage for them. But in the cases I can think of, that's not because they like being Zeroed, it's because there's some huge secret or enemy tied to their discarded identity. And that's not really Zeroed...that's a mitigator on a disad.