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How do you deal with the panopticon in sci-fi RPG ? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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In High technology setting, the hacking skill is incredibly powerful, and a shortcut in many investigation scenarios. By hacking the CCTV camera, I could see that Joe did it, by checkin [insert social media] I know were the evil gad guys live.

Either you go old shadowrun-style with a whole mini game where decker can be killed by AI but it's pretty heavy and weird, or you end-up with 3 success on my roll and give a lot of info for just one roll.

What are your trick/house-rules to prevent that ? And how would you actually protect from panopticon. Especially looking how stupid people are in today's real world

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Maybe a dose of realism? To hack anything serious from the outside it would probably take weeks or months of investigation, programming, testing, ... So if the players don't have the time, physical access, or previous knowledge and tools, that's a big nay. It depends on what type of sci-fi though, if it's the movie / tv type where hacking is a shortcut to anything in record time, welp.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 22 hours ago

I've tried this a couple times with limited success.

Hacking something remotely was a default Very Hard challenge. Very difficult to do without spending fate points.
Hacking something on the same network was hard. Could maybe hit it with a lucky roll, but still would probably require a fate point
Hacking something with physical access was in the realm of "the PC who specializes in this can likely do it without trouble"

Those were then bumped up or down depending on if it was "budget", "consumer grade", or "corporate grade". Hacking into some nobody chump's security system from across the street is something the hacker PC get done for free with a little luck. Hacking into the ASI Corporate HQ maglock door subsystem from across town would be a feat of legend, not something someone can likely do just off the cuff.

I do like that Fate encourages players to do some preparation for hard tasks. Have someone use their talky skills to talk up some junior workers, and learn something about the network. That's an advantage you can invoke. Have someone spend resources to bribe someone, that's another advantage.

A problem that's come up each time I've tried this kind of game is not having a shared understanding of what "hacking" can do. Fate kind of helps here because the actions are kind of agnostic about what skills are creating them. If you're trying to remove someone from the scene, that's likely an Attack whether you're using "hacking" or "fight" or "intimidate". The hacker might fake a text from the boss telling the bouncer he's fired where the bruiser might just deck him, but they go down the same kind of mechanical funnel. The tactical considerations for the players comes from like "what looks like a softer target: his face or his phone? is anyone going to see?"

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