[Basic] Skill of the week: Filch, Pickpocket and Sleight of Hand

[Overheat]

I have a question of filch. If you win the quick contest vs someone watching a certain item, do they just ignore the fact that it has gone AWOL, or do they instantly suspect the guy was blocking his view of it in a trenchcoat a second ago?

Maybe the skill includes that ability to get some alone time with what you need to take.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Overheat

I have a question of filch. If you win the quick contest vs someone watching a certain item, do they just ignore the fact that it has gone AWOL, or do they instantly suspect the guy was blocking his view of it in a trenchcoat a second ago?

That's why Running is a good secondary skill.

[RogerBW]

Picking pockets as an RPG activity goes back at least to AD&D, but none of these seems to happen very often in my games. Though I don't mind the separation: I have a character concept in mind (if the campaign ever comes along) for someone with lots of Sleight of Hand, a little bit of Filch, and no Pickpocket.

I would expect these skills generally to go together, but most of the characters in my archive who have them at all have only one or two of them.

[scc]

What's Starglazing?

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by scc

What's Starglazing?

In GURPS Goblins, it was various sorts of window-cracking, prying and levering. In the Update it was replaced with Lockpicking, though one could make a case for Forced Entry in some cases.

(The one that really offended me was Uttering of Base Coin, which was used to mean the production of counterfeit currency, whereas in real life it specifically means passing said counterfeits into circulation.)

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by whswhs

You walk into a store. You wait till no one's looking, ...

And here's the first trouble spot for me. To determine if someone is looking, do you roll Filch (DX-based) or Observation (Per-based) or just straight Perception?

...and quickly pick up the thing you want, with an unobtrusive movement that doesn't draw the potential watcher's eyes.

I guess then you roll against Filch, but if you determined that no-one is looking, maybe you're better off just relying on that fact instead of Filching, right? But let's say there's people around, but just not looking specifically, then you Filch. Should there be penalties for size, shape, weight of the object? Do any attributes of the bystanders/defenders matter? If you succeed, no-one has noticed you I assume, but do you have the object in hand and then need to use Holdout, or is a little Holding Out already accomplished with the filch?

Also, if you fail your roll, the text doesn't give any guidance on outcomes. Are you automatically noticed doing the deed or are there other fail outcomes? Are you noticed after you've grabbed and so have the object and could make a run for it, or did you not get it, or abort the effort unnoticed?

Finally, I guess, what are you actually training in this (DX Average) skill? The physical act of picking something up in a fast or unobtrusive way? Or also a sense of when to do it? Is it a sort of reverse-Fast-draw with Observation tacked on?

Anyway, thanks for your reply, it helped me to think about why I've been confused by Filch.

Edit: Oh, and when you're using a confederate to distract attention, does she use a skill? Do the distractees get to resist being distracted?

[RogerBW]

Well, in the real world it's more complex than the rules can allow for. The thief wants attention to be elsewhere, but a sharp or unnatural movement will draw that attention back. In a game that was about thieving (say, an RPG implementation of Leverage*), you could reasonably expand on this into multiple skill rolls; in one where it's just a background detail, that would be a waste of time.

* Yes, I know there is an official one, but that's not relevant to my point

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

In GURPS Goblins, it was various sorts of window-cracking, prying and levering. In the Update it was replaced with Lockpicking, though one could make a case for Forced Entry in some cases.

And in the real world it's the art of installing and removing window panes from molding.

You remove a window pane to access the the lock on the inside, then can open the window.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Edit: Oh, and when you're using a confederate to distract attention, does she use a skill? Do the distractees get to resist being distracted?

It's probably a complementary skill roll, where success gives just a small bonus. But I think I had rules for this kind of distraction in GURPS Social Engineering.

[simply Nathan]

I just merge all three and call it Sleight of Hand. No rolls against it yet, but I do have it on templates.