Actions in the Scope

Forum for Etherscope, our new RPG of cyberpunk Victoriana.

Moderators: DJ LaBoss, finarvyn, Harley Stroh, malladin_ben, Malladin_Nigel

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Garuda
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Actions in the Scope

Post by Garuda »

I'm attempting to write my own adventure but I don't fully understand some of the aspects of the game.

So some questions for you:

1. Do characters feel physical pain in the Scope? In other words if you capture an npc avatar can you force that npc to reveal information? If you do feel physical pain what penalties does an npc take to their character in prime reality? If none, then there is nothing you an do to their avatar in the Scope, they need only wait to be forced out.

2. If you cannot take prime matter with you, how do you acquire weapons in the scope?

3. Once a character has completed their task in the Scope is there any reason why you'd rather wait for a tab to wear off or you'd make the effort to travel to a scope point to jack out, when its easier to just kill your own avatar?
MidmoSatyr
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Post by MidmoSatyr »

1. It'd depend, I would say, on what manner the person you were interrogating was in the Scope. If the person was jacked in, then if I was them I'd just jack out. Although I'd definetely say pain hurts, no matter what, and while it may not have a physical reprecussion on your body mentally going through torture that your body thinks is physical is just as bad.

2. Make Programs. See the Scope Use Immersed and Programming rules (don't have the book in front of me at them moment)

3. See point 1, honestly we had that situation arise in our game and there was one tabbed person and 3 scope riders with jacks, the players all forgot that they could make an exit (Relatively easy, I think DC15 Scope Use (Immersed) Role) So they killed him, that didn't provide for good incentive for him to return to the scope.

Overall I think it's important to remember the character's opinion of the situation. While they may no, even logically, that no real damage is occuring to their real body, gosh dang they don't wanna get shot. Because it hurts like the dickens.

David
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Garuda
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Re: Actions in the Scope

Post by Garuda »

Thanks for the reply Midmo.

I'll have some more questions that I'll post shortly.

I appreciate your help.

Cheers.
'Gentlemen, we're in the stickiest situation since Sticky the stick insect got stuck on a sticky bun'. - Capt. E. Blackadder.
Garuda
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Re: Actions in the Scope

Post by Garuda »

Next questions :?

Under Scope hacking there are various stages involved in gaining access to data/records each involving Scope Use checks.

1. To find locate the data within the domain (which could be any size domain).

2. Defeat document security.

3. Download the data.

My question is what is physically involved in doing this stuff? What I mean is;
For 1: If I want to find some information that is held within a large city domain how does the scope use check work? Does my avatar phsyically wander the streets looking for a records building or something?

For 2: What is document security? I suppose I need to know what format the document is likely to be in?

For 3: How does an avatar 'download' data? Is the record something physical like a book or something more like a computer file?

Basically, in my idea of something Victoriana, I'd have a library or government records office in the domain within which the records would be stored. Document security would be to access the building getting past security drones that staff the building looking for possible hackers i.e anybody who has no legal access to the building. And the record would be a physical book or document. Is this pheasable or do I have the wrong idea on how the Scope works?
'Gentlemen, we're in the stickiest situation since Sticky the stick insect got stuck on a sticky bun'. - Capt. E. Blackadder.
maded
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Re: Actions in the Scope

Post by maded »

The Find Document function for the Scope Use skill seems very general, and useful mainly as a mechanical solution when a Scope Rider is just browsing a freshly broken-into domain for general paydata. I look at it as a search engine of sorts.

The timeframes for finding data based upon the size of the domain are listed on pg. 77 on Table 2-47. I tend to view this more as a time to find any data files in general. The industrial and governmental domains are likely to house millions of data files, and looking through data banks for something very specific would take much more time in my opinion. Unless someone knows what they are looking for in the first place.

As far as what a character is actually doing during the search indicated by the roll of Scope Use, I'd say the Scope Rider would have to be in an actual system rather than just in a general domain for the Find Documents to really be effective. Wandering the streets of New London randomly isn't likely to net you any paydata, but cracking the security to the 'scope complex of some major corporation and gaining entrance to their system might present you with the opportunity to steal some new zepcar prototypes or some such.

Document security would be any security placed directly on the document itself rather than general security for the system which is being hacked. This could be anything from a sleeper drone set to activate when the file is incorrectly accessed, an access code, or some sort of scrambler code which has to be accessed with the proper key (or hacked) in order to be decoded.

There's no rules presented on data formats or how exactly data is stored when downloaded from Etherspace. In the 'scope, I imagine it mostly to be in books, manila file folders containing copious sheaves of paper, or coded punch cards contained in massive filing cabinets with some sort of indexing system peculiar to the particular company, government or individual keeping the data.

As far as how this data transitions from the 'scope to the physical world, I use the Scope Rider's personal domain itself as the storage medium; while in the 'scope, the user scans the file and it is stored in their personal domain along with the avatar when the user leaves the 'scope. The files can then later be reviewed while the user has accessed his personal domain either remotely or through immersion. They can be patterned into grains to be used in an upload capsule as well, if the user has a patterner and a jack-attach or skull-net, and distributed in that manner. They can also be transcribed into hardcopy if the user is accessing his personal domain remotely.

The amount of time it takes to download a file isn't really described either; I just use dramatic license on that depending on what the file's subject matter is and how much data it's likely to contain, and whether the system is on alert or not.

Hope that mess helps; it's how I approach those subjects anyways :)
Garuda
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Re: Actions in the Scope

Post by Garuda »

Hope that mess helps; it's how I approach those subjects anyways
Thanks maded. That helps a lot.


Cheers. :)
'Gentlemen, we're in the stickiest situation since Sticky the stick insect got stuck on a sticky bun'. - Capt. E. Blackadder.
Malladin_Nigel
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Re: Actions in the Scope

Post by Malladin_Nigel »

Maded is pretty spot on as usual 8) The only thing he is wrong on is that avatars aren't stored constructs-you actually become your avatar when your enter the scope-its your actual mind/soul. Its worth noting that even though the regular scope cannot harm/kill you areas/things and programmes do exist that can. Hopefully we'll get the chance to explore these at somepoint, we've saved a lot of scope stuff for use in relation to Haven, the perfect setting to discuss it.
maded
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Re: Actions in the Scope

Post by maded »

Malladin_Nigel wrote:The only thing he is wrong on is that avatars aren't stored constructs-you actually become your avatar when your enter the scope-its your actual mind/soul.
Ah, meant to say "avatar's programs" on that, gah...
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