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

submitted 1 week 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] 12 points 1 week ago

I don't really run a lot of cyberpunk, but I'm all about subverting player expectations. The trick is usually to make them feel like they got something out of the skill, while also ensuring that they don't circumvent the whole thing with a single check.

So say you look up the evil bad guy's social media to find out where they live. Then you discover that they live in a hardened bunker only accessible from the private elevator of their corporate penthouse office. The knowledge of their whereabouts is useful, but it's still going to require more strategizing to figure out how to penetrate it.

Or if they're a major public figure, you might discover that their social media is being run by a botnet. You might not get your target's exact location, but it gives you a chance to direct the players in an investigation at the botnet's physical address.

Hacking the CCTV camera might determine that Joe did it. But maybe the assailant was disguised, or Joe got deepfaked, or your hacker discovers that someone has deleted / corrupted the footage. All of these scenarios have potential to turn the investigation in another direction.

If you have a hack-happy player then you probably want to do something to beef up the villains' technological prowess. Ultimately you do want to reward the player for using their skillset, but you also want to challenge them too. Every hero needs a foil, after all.

It would probably be disingenuous to have every villain suddenly be a computer prodigy though. But it's not unreasonable to have a few high-profile hacking antagonists or organizations. And if you're the sort of villain who has the resources to wield a private army or a lavish ultra-rich lifestyle, it stands to reason that you've probably contracted out your IT needs