The majority of my GURPS play has been with @JGD and @Phil_Masters so it’s not surprising if our styles overlap a bit.
I don’t think I have a hard distinction between Investigate and Find - much of the time I won’t know exactly what I’m looking for until I also know where it is. (E.g. he’s clearly got a valuable something under guard which is being used to [whatever], but until we get sight of it we don’t know just what it is.)
I don’t think I’ve ever had “disguise yourself as a specific person” in a game. Make myself look less recognisable, sure. But generally it’s been easier to fake up an ID badge or computer record photo than to do the full imitation job. Perhaps I should change that. I do have a lot of social engineering melting into cuckoo work, in the general frame of “I am a person whom you don’t know, but I have a right to be here and you’ll get into trouble if you stop me”.
(My players know the story of Admiral Rickover and the sentry, but most of my security guards don’t.)
I don’t have enough chases. Need to do something about that too.
In the group of players with John and Phil we have a truism that the ideal GURPS fight goes something like:
[silence]
[silence]
“Hans, did you hear something?”
[silence]
[silence]
and I think none of us is especially enthusiastic about detailed combat (well, by the standards of people who are voluntarily playing GURPS). I mean, yeah, it’s there, but you try to make it happen on your terms and timing, because it can cause things to go irretrievably wrong faster than almost anything else.
This seems like a thing for which one might abuse some existing skills - in GURPS, perhaps Savoir-Faire to look as if you belong at the high-society party, Streetwise in the gang meetup, etc. Though I don’t think there’s anything that would cover “act like a normal person in public”.
Likewise. It’s a staple in Hogan’s Heroes and Mission Impossible, but I’ve never seen it in an RPG and I don’t see any reason that I shouldn’t.
I never see a PC with the skills to make latex masks and other such prosthetic disguises. But then, I very seldom see PCs with design, make, and mend skills at all, except when I play them myself. In genre sources Night’s Black Agents has its “wire rat” character type; MacGyver and Burn Notice set popular examples of characters who design and make false documents, field-expedient and improvised secret operator gadgets, rigs to produce practical effects, hiding-places, improvised prisons; and there was nothing wrong with the movie FX: Murder By Illusion. But players very seldom seem to want to play an engineer, mechanic, rigger, set carpenter, practical-effects technician, costume & makeup artist, “cobbler”, or any sort of maker. I don’t know why.
So the “make, set-up, and prepare” sequences that are common in capers and clandestine-ops movies and TV do not in practice appear which I run material like that in RPG. I don’t get the sequences in which the characters acquire kit and materials from e.g. the black market, by stealing it, or by buying it ostensibly for a licit purpose.
I played a fantasy campaign, where the big end scene was one of the PCs pretended to be a particular princess from a far away place. Of course, no one had actually seen her, just heard the ballads about her victories in battle and the portraits on coins. So no need for latex masks or disguise spells, just some hair dye and a little acting. (The PC was from the country, but was a runaway serf from a rural area, and had never been to the capital city, and a couple blown fasttalk rolls made a few important people suspicious…)
A real problem with ‘make and prepare’ sequences is that they’re hard to make fun for the players not involved, and they’re hard for the GM to prepare for, because you don’t know what the players are going to want to do. I did play a few sessions in a gurps campaign where the PCs were combat engineers in an alternate history WWI setting, which was lots of planning the attack on a fortress. (could we dig into to it, could we get artillery somewhere we could shoot at it, …). they semed to find that as much fun as the combat, but I’ve never seen much else of that.
I wonder whether some of that divergence is because it’s largely a feature of interactive fiction which still doesn’t have its genre conventions well-established.
By which I mean that in linear fiction you can establish that you will need a roulette wheel stopper in act 2, and then in act 1 you can show Barney putting together something with a magnet and a foot switch. Behind the scenes, we can assume that the team has worked out the plan and decided that’s what they’ll need, but that’s hardly ever shown.
And some players like going that degree of planning, and I think the tech preparation to some extent can be a spin-off of that. But others don’t. And when a plan has been thrashed out, it can be satisfying for it to come off, but again not to all players.
I don’t have an answer for this but I think this may be why that kind of broadly technical role may be unpopular. Another reason: a fighter gets to do things that culturally we find exciting. A social manipulator gets to have conversations with perhaps a bit of dice rolling (for all we always say “it’s the character’s charisma, not the player’s” it’s more fun if the player speaks in character). The technician doesn’t do either of those things but is interacting largely with rules entities.
I do, sometimes. I acquired the taste for it from building magic items in D&D and Ars Magica.
In a space navy game, I deliberately played an engineering junior officer rather than one from the warfare branch. I did this because the interstellar travel mechanism was interesting and different, and wanted to explore it a bit. It also meant that I wasn’t competing so much with the other players.
In the occult WWII game, I bought up Armoury (Small Arms) enough to be able to upgrade small arms and make custom ammunition for them, which was useful.
All of these examples have required player effort and talking to the GM, outside game time. Many players aren’t willing to do that, but I like it.
Hmm, and you’ve been willing to put in a fair bit of effort in learning about what real-world Armoury makes possible, or pushing the boundaries of my conception of how FTL travel works in that setting. (And I’ll add another one, in the occult WWII game, poking at the interactions between radioactive decay and magic.) I come to suspect that, perhaps because it lacks crunchy rules support the way fighting does, technical stuff really requires a lot of player engagement with the subject.
Like Roger, I think that Investigate and Find have a lot of overlap.
I’m sure I’ve played a system that split Stealth stuff into Sneak (trying not to be seen) and Shadowing (trying to look like an innocent member of the public whilst following/spying on someone). I’m pretty sure we mostly use Acting and/or Convince and/or Fast Talk for the “Yes, I’m from the gas board and have come to inspect the boiler” moments. Depends on the system an how granular it is. Does it just have “Persuade” to cover all eventualities? Or does it split it into Bluff, Deceive, Fast Talk, etc.
That saying, most of said skills are ones which imply interaction with an NPCs. I can’t think of one which really covers those ‘carrying a clipboard and striding about confidently, as if you belong there’ moments.
I have actually done this as part of a pentest. It is stunningly easy if people aren’t alert, and if their full-time job is letting people through they aren’t alert.
(So the Admiral Rickover story. Some time in the 1970s. he starts walking up the gangway of a nuclear attack boat; he regards them all as his personal property, after all.
Sentry: “Halt and show me your ID.”
Rickover: [doesn’t halt]
Sentry: “Halt and show me your ID NOW!”
Rickover: “Do you know who I am, son?”
Sentry: “Yes sir, you’re Admiral Rickover sir, and you’re going to be the deadest goddamn admiral in the US Navy unless you halt and show me your ID SIR!”
On technical characters and making latex masks etc…
My Dark Heresy character had a psi power which meant I could “bio-sculpt” the appearance of myself or other PCs for disguise purposes. I never used it, because (a) the chances of succeeding the roll were so small and (b) the benefits once success was achieved were so marginal… that it didn’t seem worth it.
On “make and prepare” sequences in general… the unpopularity of those characters is probably because - unless your system has a flashback mechanic, like Leverage does - once the dice rolls for the Preparation & Training Montage have been done, then your character has nothing else to do for the rest of the game. Which might mean sitting around looking bored for 2 hours while other people sneak about like ninjas or blow shit up.
I played an engineer in d20 Star Wars once. Never again. In starship combat, the pilot got to make decisions and do cool stuff. The gunners got to make decisions and do cool stuff. But me? Every round of a looooooong combat it played out liked this:
GM: Do you want to reinforce the shields?
Me: Yes.
GM: Roll engineering.
Me: I succeed. We get [1d4] shield points back.
It was tedious beyond belief. Eventually one round, when the GM asked “Do you want to reinforce the shields?”, I said “No”, just for a bit of variety. The look of shock on his face was priceless. He genuinely thought I would be having fun making the same roll for the same trivial effect again and again and again. He genuinely thought that me failing 1 engineering roll in 5 or only getting 1 on a d4 would be nail-bitingly tense for me. In reality it was pointless make-work.
Playing a Rigger in Shadowrun was much better fun. I had drones that I could fly around to take part in exploration and combat bits of the plot.
I think the issue with this is down to RPG systems in general. Obviously I am not familiar with all rulesets and systems, but all I have played use some form of skills system (barring old D&D, but now they have Proficiencies, so they evolved) where players have to allocate dice/points/pips/etc among all their various skill choices to make their character. Over time they get more points, which can be used to master their already chosen specializations, or become more jack-of-all-trades types.
Characters in shows and movies do not need to worry about this. They typically begin the series well versed in all manner of things, and their tricks always work unless it is more dramatic for them to fail.
Take Michael Westen from Burn Notice. It has been years since I have watched any of it, but I remember him being proficient in Guns, Hand-to-Hand combat, Demolitions, Forgery, Acting or Bluff, Intimidation, Stealth, Lock picking and Electronic Security (maybe Infiltration would be better for this?). Maybe Drive as well. Certainly Athletics. He also had a number of Contacts, which would be a skill in some systems. And he was highly skilled in most if not all of these! A PC cannot compare with that!
Or let’s take MacGyver. Again, going by my memory of episodes. Obviously lots of points in Science, Engineering, or maybe all that just gets lumped into Education. Enough that he could likely teach these subjects professionally. Then something in Craft, unless that falls under Engineering, for making all the random things he does. He definitely exhibited outdoor Survival and Mountaineering. He has Infiltration and Stealth. Minor amount of Hand-to-Hand combat, as he occasionally engages in fisticuffs but is not great at it. And I feel like I am missing some. Maybe Lockpicking and Security? Can’t remember all the episodes. Still well over what the average PC can cover with skill points.
So you either get PC’s who have a little bit of everything, meaning they have higher risks of failing difficult skill checks, or ones who specialize in a couple of things and be above average in a few others, with little chance of success in untrained skills.
Circling back to the lack of “maker” characters, In think it’s because a focus in those kinds of skills leaves the character less likely to be able to perform other tasks that players expect their character to encounter. As such, they think they will be relegated to the person who is back at base making nifty things for other characters to use in the field. Or end up being the “man in the chair” support. Some people may get into such a role, but I think most players want a more active role in events.
An exception to this is sessions where the PC’s can prepare the environment. Luring a target into an area where they can be captured. Bad guys are coming to take back something the PC’s stole, so they have a bit of time to fortify. Things like that. This is often where we see the heroes in television shows break out their ingenuity and set up traps, decoys, pitfalls, etc., and where a maker type character can really shine. But that requires sessions that lead to those circumstances.
Is it a conservation of ninjutsu thing? Single lead character, has all the skills. Five leads, they split up the skills between them so that there’s someone who’s a specialist in X, someone else in Y, etc.
I’ve had some fun messing with that: only sneaky crawly person can get through the air duct, but at the other end they have an engineer job to do, so engineer has to try to talk them through it. That can be effectively dramatic.
Something like Leverage is probably a good model here. Everyone has basic level competence at everything, but only one has really good level competence at any one thing, and many of the logistical constraints are setting things up so that that person can be the one in place to do their thing.
In my defence, I was young and stupid(er)… but back in the 1990s I remember looking at a distance penalty table and working out that my rigger character could stay in his solar-powered plane at very high altitude above a completely different city and still run drones effectively.
And finally, with my GM hat on… players with a technical mindset who habitually play technical characters can sometimes be an infernal pain in the backside. Because they want technical answers which are accurate to the nth decimal place about:
Things which they know are non-technical, like magic.
PC: I go to the Physics Department and scan the bag of holding in the MRI scanner. What do I see?
GM: How the fek should I know? The scenario writers never anticipated that!
Things which the GM - or sometimes the player themselves - has just made up on the fly.
PC: Can I reboot the old, derelict computer and find a circuit diagram of the complex?
GM: Oooh, that’s a neat idea. Yes you find a circuit diagram. So you can have +1 to any future skill rolls where you could legitimately use the circuit diagram.
PC: Tell me exactly how the security system for levels 4 thru 9 are wired on the circuit diagram! I need to know precise and exacting details before I make any more decisions!
GM: What the fek?!? YOU invented that circuit diagram. How the hell do I know what’s on it!
I’ll admit it, I love improvising this stuff. (See comments above, and there’s a post somewhere where I managed to work out how to turn a bag of holding into a perpetual motion machine.)
My answer to part 2 might well be “here’s a pen and some paper, and I’ll have to sign off on these before they enter canon”.
I’ve played two systems which tried to give everyone something to do - the old Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat Simulator, and the one in GURPS Spaceships which you’ve played in Wives and Sweethearts. In both cases they tried to have engineering decisions that mattered on a tactical timescale; I’m not convinced they completely succeeded. (Gunners similarly tend to be “here’s your target, roll to hit”.)
My technical specialities are zoology & taphonomy & documentary television, with a bit of geology, oceanography and archaeology. I know bugger all about electrical engineering or the chemistry of explosives or quantum mechanics or whatever hard science rabbit-hole the player wants to go down. So I can improvise “There is a CCTV system” but not “and this is what the wiring diagram for it looks like”.
I have 2 people I play with fairly regularly who WILL NOT STOP at one question. If you improvise a Star Wars style land speeder, they want to know its top speed, 0 to 60 in how many seconds, what braking efficiency, main power source, miles per gallon, what capacity is the boot, does it have AI assisted parking, who drove it in Top Gear’s ‘Star In A Reasonably Priced Car’ feature, etc, etc.
I have upon occasion started a one-off game by warning these players: Do NOT ask technical questions about magic, supernatural shit and wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. There are NO technical answers about these.
I trust that if you play in my adventure Truant Inkwell you will take “a zone of sea-level-pressure water 6,000 metres down” as a great big hint that Here Be Things Wot Don’t Make Sense.
My answer to part two is often “tell me what you want to do.” I decide how hard I want that to be, make a skill roll. Based on the margin of success, and how hard I want it to be, I tell them something like “if you go out to the wire closet on level 4, you can splice into it there.” And then someone has to go do it, which maybe hard, or just a “okay, that will take 12 minutes”. Crit fail gets a plan that won’t work, failure is “you can’t figure out how to do it “.
That’s if I want the idea to be possible. If I don’t, I roll and tell them they can’t figure it out, or tell them a way that would take time or be dangerous or expensive (and which won’t work), depending on the roll, or my feeling about the idea.
I have actually done this as part of a pentest. It is stunningly easy if people aren’t alert, and if their full-time job is letting people through they aren’t alert.