Freebie #1 The Police - Part II

In my last post, we discussed figuring out how good the local constabulary is at doing its job. Now, we will go over how they can do their job.

So, you have determined the basic skills of the police, their Investigate and their Gather information skills. Now, you must figure out how hard their job is on this case.

Firstly, the base Difficulty Class of any investigation is 20. What this means (for those unfamiliar with d20 system games) is that the police must roll a d20 and add their appropriate skill, and if the total is greater than the DC then they have succeeded. However, the DC of 20 is simply the base; you must see what modifiers are out there that can and will alter the final DC.

Character Opposition

If the PCs are worth their salt, they would have done something to cover up their dastardly deeds. In the example I gave from my own game, the PCs set fire to the building after killing four goon-type guards. To represent the PCs attempts at covering up, I allowed one character (the one who used to be a professional thief) to make a roll to see how well she covered up the evidence. The character's roll was a total of a 23.

For every 5 on the characters' skill checks to avoid detection add +1 to the DC and a further d6 weeks to the duration of the investigation.

In this case, the roll adds +4 to the DC and 4d6 to the length of the investigation.

Other Modifiers

There are a plethora of other situations and environmental factors that can effect the final DC of an investigation. I will list several here, but GM's should feel free to add more depending on the setting, locale, and style of play.

Shots Fired - The number of volleys of gun fire is the modifier. If the PCs exchanged fire in two separate instances, then the modifier is +2

Population Density - Higher population densities means more potential witnesses.

Population Density Table
Empty         +3
Low           +1
Average       0
High           -1
Dense        +3

Environmental - This is sort of a catchall category, one that covers all sorts of environmental factors not covered elsewhere. From loud trains to thunderstorms, to billowing clouds of sand or seeping silica, factors within the crime scene's locale that can affect the subsequent investigation. The modifier is left to the GMs discretion, but should rarely exceed +3, unless of very large proportions.

Early - Not many people are early risers; +1

Broad Daylight - Many people out and about who can easily see what's happening; -2

Night - Too dark to see clearly; +1

No Lighting - No artificial illumination; +2

Poor Lighting - Insufficient illumination; +1

Well Lit - Duh; -1

Low Traffic - Not too many people walking/driving/flying through the area; +1

High Traffic - Lots of people walking/driving/flying through the area; -1

Security Recordings - Available from onsite or through an offsite recording agency; -3

Proximate Security - Available from nearby recording devices (security cameras, ATM's, etc.); -1

Lucky Breaks

The final modifier to the base DC is the Lucky Break roll. Even if no other modifiers are applied, this one always is. This is just simple luck that benefits either the constabulary or the PCs. Roll a d10, treating rolls of 10 as 0. Then, roll a second d10 using the same rule. Subtract the second roll from the first roll, even if that would give you a negative number. You will get a number between -9 and +9. This is applied to the base DC, and serves as the ultimate modifier.

Investigation Checks

The constabulary now get their turn to roll dice. You have determined their skills and the DC of the checks that they must make. Calculate how many weeks the investigation will go on based on their skills and PC interference. The constabulary get to make one roll per week for either Investigate or for Gather Information

For the police to figure out what happened and who did what to whom, they must pass both checks within the allotted time frame. Natural 20's are never an automatic success in these rolls. If the modifiers to the DC have made it impossible for one of the skills to ever be successful, the police will have an idea, perhaps even know who was responsible, but be unable to prove it. If neither roll is possible, the case will run its course, and unless the PCs do something else to bring attention to themselves or their actions, it will quietly be put into the cold case files.

If, however, both rolls are successful, the police will be able to apprehend and prosecute the PCs. On a successful check for either skill, for every 5 that the constabulary exceed the required DC, reduce the length of the investigation by 3 weeks. If they beat it by 10 or more, they may decide to bring the PCs in for questioning by the half point of the investigation. If they beat the DC by 15 or more, they may decide that they have enough evidence to arrest the characters.

Please note that these rules are currently geared toward the more modern end of the time line; no contingencies are in place to cover magic or psionics either. This is sort of rough-and-tumble for now. I'll look into these other factors at a later date and see if I can fit them into the paradigm. If so, look forward to a printed product some time in the future!

*       *       *       *

GMs are, as always, free to modify the rules for duration of case. In some instances, it would seem counter intuitive to decrease or increase the investigation time, and so if the GM feels it necessary, he should alter it.

I'll be working on a PDF sheet for download to help folk figure this one out. It might be a good idea to laminate the sheet so you can reuse the sheet over and over again. Another hint, if the PCs are going to be running around the same town for some time, than it might not be a bad idea to roughly map out the town for Crime Rates and Police Reputation, and perhaps even for more than one policing agency if more than one has jurisdiction within the area.

That's all for now. This is the first of many Freebies that I will try to put out at least every two months. I hope it helps! (As if there was any doubt.)

Enjoy!

Freebie #1 The Police

In many games, especially in those with a more modern flavor, the characters may often partake in activities that are, shall we say, unsavory. Less than legal would be another way of putting it. Indictable yet another way.

So what happens when they do these things and the local constabulary get involved? The cops investigate, that's what! This happened to my group recently; let me explain.

Modern day game, and they are all investigators for a particular agency. They have tracked down their quarry to a Quonset hut, and are attempting a rescue. One of them breaks into the building. I have been a nice GM (for once) and a very large freight train has begun moving down the tracks that run right behind the building, so when she trips the motion sensors that sets the alarm bell ringing, no one hears it... except for the four goons left behind as guards.

In the ensuing conflict, all four of the guards are made dead, two with coup de grace bullet holes in their craniums. The characters are not spies, they do not have a license to kill or any such nonsense; they are PI's! They take their rescued targets, set the building on fire, and run like hell.

Now I gotta figure out how the cops are gonna react! So I sat down and devised the following little system. Then I figured I should share it! And so I am. Enjoy!

Constabulary Investigation System

This system is geared for the d20 system, but with simple changes in nomenclature alone, it would be sufficient for nearly any system out there (the easiest fix would be to change Difficulty Class (DC) into Target Number).

Quality

The constabulary in whose jurisdiction the crime has been committed have two major tasks to accomplish before an arrest can be made; they must examine the evidence and then piece together who did what to whom. And so, they have two skill checks they will need to make; Investigate and Gather Information. The number of ranks they have in these skills is dependent upon how good of a police department they are, and can be shown on the chart below.

Constabulary Quality
                          Skill Ranks    Base Investigation Duration
Incompetent        1 rank           3d10 weeks
Poor                   5 ranks          2d10 weeks
Average              10 ranks        1d10 weeks   
Good                  15 ranks        1d6 weeks
Excellent             20 ranks        1d4 weeks

The two skills may have different qualities; the investigating officers may be really on the ball (thus giving them a Good rating for Gather Information), but their forensics team may be troubled by internal politics or budget issues (thus giving them a Poor rating). This is up to the GM to determine.

The qualities of a particular constabulary also determine how long it will take them to reach a conclusion with their investigation. On the chart is a listing for Base Investigation Duration. Each quality has a listing, and the durations for both qualities are added together.

Size

Larger metropolitan police forces will often have large departments dedicated to certain types of crimes; on the other hand, small towns may have only a sheriff and three or four deputies. Because of this disparity, there is a Unit Size modifier. This acts as a modifier for the Constabulary's Gather Information skill.

Unit Size
Podunk                 -3
Small                    -2
Average                 0
Above average     +3
Large                   +5
Unwieldy         (-6 to +6)

The listing for Unwieldy is for those organizations that are so huge that they can often become a hindrance to their own investigations due to combined inertia. These organizations can, conversely, be so large that they, in fact, work better and cover more ground. The modifier then ranges from -6 to +6. The actual determination is up to the GM.

Efficiency

Some police and crime lab / forensics units are models of efficiency, while others are slovenly and accident prone. The Unit Efficiency modifier reflects this. These modifiers are applied to the Constabulary's Investigate skill.

Unit Efficiency
Slovenly         -1
Poor                0
Low              +1
Average        +3
High              +5
Excellent       +7
"Grissom"     +10

Corruption

Some police departments are nigh-on uncorruptable (i.e. Elliot Ness during the American Prohibition Era), while some are so dirty that nothing ever gets done (i.e. Gotham in the Dark Knight movies). The Corruption Modifier acts as a modifier for both the Investigate and Gather Information skills.

Corruption Modifier
Controlled               -5
Not all bad              -4
Some good left        -3
Could be worse       -2
A few bad apples    -1
Arrow straight           0

Crime Rate

Cities and towns all have their good spots and their bad ones. The worse off an area is where crime is concerned, the harder it becomes for law enforcement to do their job. A higher crime rate in a particular area means less cooperation from the locals and an increase in workload for those officers dedicated to patrolling it. This is combine with the greater risk of crime scene contamination and the stresses of a higher workload. The Locale Crime Rate Modifier is applied to the constabulary's Investigate skill.

Locale Crime Rate Modifier
"Crime Alley"              -10
Gang Land                  -6
High                            -5
Higher then Average    -3
Average                        0
Below Average           +3
None                          +5
Inconceivable             +6

Reputation

The local police will often have a reputation throughout it's jurisdiction, one that may be deserved or not. This reputation can change from place to place within that jurisdiction, and this can effect the constabulary's ability to investigate a crime that occurred within a particular locale. The Locale Police Reputation modifier reflects this, and is applied to the constabulary's Gather Information skill

Locale Police Reputation Modifier
"@!#@$^&$ PIGS!"    -10
Low                              -5
Bad                               -3
Not Good                     -1
Meh...                            0
Good                           +1
Repected                     +3
High                             +5

And now, by adding up all of the pertinent modifiers, you can calculate the final skill levels for the police department working on this case. You determine their total Investigate and Gather Information skills, and these skills are used by the police to solve the crime that the PCs have perpetrated.

Come back tomorrow, and I'll tell you how these skills are used to catch a PC!

Extended Rant #1, Part II

In my previous post, I talked about taking dice out of character creation. Now I've only talked about d20 games and their derivatives so far. This is mainly because of two reasons: 1) most role-players are familiar with that venerable system; 2) it's the only one that is open-sourced.

Now, in subsequent posts I'm going to go into a few other systems here. These games and systems are the intellectual property of the various companies that have produced them, and my discussing them should in no way present a challenge to those copyrights.

<Whew> Glad I got that out of the way!

Let's start with the Palladium system as used by Palladium Books throughout their Megaverse of settings.

Now the Palladium system gives characters eight instead of six attributes. Mathematically, to give a Palladium character the same averages as a d20 character, you'd need to give them 107 points to spend. Just round it to 110, since that gives a nice, easily remembered number. Also note that the Palladium system has a sort of balancing factor for characters with some low scores; if a rolled  character ends up with two attributes below 7, he gets some big time bonuses to other stats to make up for it. If you're using a point buy, I would not recommend using that little rule.

Now unfortunately, this only works for human characters or non-human characters whose species still roll 3d6 for each attribute. The Palladium system, however, allows for a vast range of species as PCs, and many of these roll many extra dice for certain attributes. This makes the math a little more fuzzy. I'll do my best to sort it out for you.

Take, for example, the Phoenixi, a race available from one of the many source books. As is fairly typical for Palladium, the number of dice rolled for each stat is different than for a human, and several of them have modifiers to the die rolls. Still, the attributes are still rolled with d6's so it's not too hard to figure it out. A regular human gets 24d6 total for stats, and using a point buy he gets 110 points. You could calculate that each die made available for rolling stats should give you roughly 4.583 points, and so this little birdie guy (who would get 28d6 total) should get 128 points. But there's a problem.

Not all stats for non-human characters are rolled using d6's. And then, there are often some very big bonuses to add (or even multiply!) to the attributes. Don't worry though. I've got it covered.... but first another example.

This example is the Killer Beetle, from yet another source book. This guy uses d4's for rolling several of his attributes. And so these lovelies have a total of 21d6 and 6d4 for their stats. "How do you figure that out?" I hear you cry. What we have to do is a bit of math.

If a normal human gets 24d6 towards attributes, that is a potential of 168 attribute points, out of which he gets 110; meaning he gets only 65% of the maximum points available. On average, he'd only get 84 points, or 50% (if you want the math I can get it to you, but it's not important right now), so using this system he's obviously at an advantage. And so, with math we have devised a multiplier of .65.

So, back to our Killer Beetle. Adding up the maximum points he would get for his dice, we see that he would get 150 points if he rolled the best he possibly could. If we apply the multiplier we calulated above we get (150 x .65) for a total of 97.5 points (rounded to 98). It's lower, yes, than a normal human, but he still gets a few modifiers to his stats... to the tune of an additional 20 points. And so the bug here gets a total of 118 points to spend on his attributes, when on average he would have rolled up around 109.

So, to put it in simpler terms: When figuring out the number of points to give a character in a Palladium system game, add up the maximum total of attribute points available to the character's species; this includes maximum die rolls and any modifiers (including multipliers!). To this total, apply a multiplier of .65. This will give you a reasonable amount of points to spend to tailor your character to your liking. I would round all fractions normally (.5 and up goes up, .4 and down goes down), but that's just me.


A further note: I would recommend following the listed maximums and minimums for attributes. The system can already get fairly silly, and I don't see the need for it to get any sillier.

A further further note: Some species have multiple means of locomotion and so have different rolls for each. Just add these to the max total and apply the multiplier. Then distribute the points like normal to the various movement types as you see fit.

More to come on this subject!

Extended Rant #1

Things I Greatly Dislike About Most RPGs

It's simple; character creation.

There are far too many dice being rolled during character creation in most game systems. I understand that it's "tradition" going back to the glory days of guys with too many G's and X's in their name, but come on. That really is relying far too heavily on old Lady Luck, and as any gamer worth his dice-bag will tell you, Lady Luck can be a fickle wench.

In days of yore, this led, of course, to the "dump-stat"; the one that you never really used and could really live without. I've played with far too many folks with characters who looked like the wrong end of a hemorrhoidal dragon to ever be happy with that situation!

Now, the arrival of the d20 System changed some of that (particularly ugly characters finally found some form of punishment for killing their charisma scores), but still, far too much dice rolling. And for this I have a cure!

Don't roll dice.

It's simple. Don't do it. "How?" I hear you cry. Buy them.

That's right, buy your attributes. At the simplest, each player has a certain number of points to spend on his character's attribute scores. Different systems would need different totals. For any game I run that uses the d20 system, I hand out 80 points for players to buy PC attributes. Each stat starts at 0, and the points are spent on a 1:1 ratio. To make things even more interesting, I establish a minimum score of 3 and NO MAXIMUM score. That's right, no maximum.

If you want to set all your stats but one to 3's and dump the rest into, say, Strength, then you will die very early on, with no hit points, no saving throws, no skills, and no conversational capability worth mentioning. Sure, STR of 65 sounds great. You could wrestle with a dragon. But you're still gonna die. And it won't take much either, you silly person you.

Yeah, there's ways to abuse this idea (slightly more viable than the above example would be a 40 in one stat and 8's in the rest), and some would scream about "balance" and "fairness", but let me ask you this: What's so fair about rolling all 9's and 10's while someone else manages four 18's? Not a gosh-darned thing.

At least with a points buy system you have a character that you can tailor into what you want to play, instead of being subject to the whim of some form of polyhedral random number generators. The balance comes into it when you try to arrange for all the other game-factors that are dependant on the attribute scores you have purchased. You could have those three 18's, but the rest of your stats are gonna suck, just a bit. The idea still retains a form of balance, but that balance is more predictable and more trustworthy than using dice.

More to come on this subject.

Greetings, Gamers!

Well, this is the first post on the blog for Mind Games. Hopefully many more will follow!

My name is Mark Thyme, and I am The Man here at Mind Games. I know a good many people in the gaming industry and community, and I have always heard the same thing; "This was such a good idea, why didn't someone write it / finish it / publish it?" And so to stop these lamentations, I have gathered up a whole host of incomplete projects from publishers and players, and over the next year or so I will be writing / finishing / publishing all those lovely ideas that others seem to have dropped the ball on.

I will also be taking time now and again to discuss certain aspects or ideas here in the blog. These topics are open to all, and I appreciate any and all conversations that are engendered herein. I am The Man, but I am the only man. I wear all the hats around here, and while I may have a prodigious mind (and the modesty that goes with it) even I can't think of everything!

So, I'll take any help, or thoughts, feelings, ideas, critiques, comments, or croutons anybody wants to throw my way. I hope that you all enjoy the blog, and I look forward to presenting products that help you in your various games.


Thanks so much,
Mark