From: madweaver@aol.com (MadWeaver)
Newsgroups: alt.games.whitewolf
Subject: INFOBIA 56, Hunters
Date: 11 Jul 1995 16:31:17 -0400
Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364)
Reply-To: madweaver@aol.com (MadWeaver)
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We Can Find You
Hunting Characters in Roleplaying Games
by Thomas M. Kane
Since 1995 is White Wolf's "Year of the Hunter," we thought it appropriate
to devote some magazine space to the subject. The theme of characters
being hunted by villains has been a mainstay of storytelling for hundreds
of years, and it's only natural that we stage it in our roleplaying games.
However, the trick is to make the hunt suspenseful, dangerous and fair.
This article offers some ideas.
It happens to every character. Sooner or later you piss someone off and he
seeks revenge, you leave a witness alive and she goes to the police with a
positive ID, or you pull a job and you're caught on camera. In short,
someone learns who you are and wants to find you. All that remains is to
roleplay the manhunt. The question is how to stage it.
This article presents ideas for players and GMs on fleeing from hunters
and tracking prey. It's about staging a fair hunt so that clever
characters successfully cover their tracks and bumbling ones learn the
hard way how to avoid getting caught. This article is also about staging
hunts to build excitement and integrating hunts into other stories.
The Hows and Whys of the Hunt
After deciding to have a powerful person or organization track down the
characters, the GM must answer three questions: How does the characters'
enemy locate its quarry? Once that enemy locates the characters, how
quickly can it or its agents reach them? And what's the hunter's form of
response?
Locating Characters
In a contemporary setting, every move that characters make broadcasts
their location. The trick is for the hunter to be "tuned in" to the
broadcast. Universal computerization and communication, such as the net or
matrix of most cyberpunk worlds, make it feasible for someone with
sufficient resources to locate characters whenever they interact with the
world. Characters' dealings with the world can also be used to track them
in settings of lower technology; only the means of acquiring information
changes. 
If characters know that someone is looking for them, they can use various
means to conceal their activities. One of the most effective but demanding
is changing their identities. Skills such as forgery, disguise and
streetwise come into play as the characters try to avoid being recognized
and fabricate the information necessary to create new identities.
Depending on the characters' underworld connections, the process may be
simple or may require quick wits and intense string pulling, all of which
can be roleplayed.
Regardless of the means of the identity change, the GM should pay
attention to the exact elements of the characters' new selves. If a
character fails to disguise herself on any level, someone may notice the
discrepancy. Once someone draws a connection between a new identity and
the character's old one, the hunt begins.
When staging a story about a manhunt, brainstorm the ways that hunters
might locate characters and how characters might reveal themselves. Also
keep in mind the likelihood of a method succeeding. What are the odds of
government agents successfully locating a subject who's hiding out in a
city's sewers?
Decide how closely that characters' pursuers can watch bars, retail stores
and financial transactions - places where characters may appear and
sources of information that may record their passing. An espionage cell or
criminal ring probably keeps a keen watch over areas that it controls, but
may have limited capabilities to track characters beyond its realm of
influence. Organizations on the scale of the FBI may have contacts in
every possible location. However, government agents typically have to obey
privacy laws, and any organization on this scale is usually so overworked
that it may overlook subtle clues or clues regarding minor cases.
Common Ways of Tracking Characters
Friends in Low Places
Contacts are the most realistic and common means of locating fugitives.
Anyone who wants to know what's going on in the world takes care to
cultivate a wide network of contacts and informants. These people are not
secret agents and do not undertake espionage missions. They are simply an
extension of the webs of social connections that people build for personal
reasons. Such contacts go about their lives, and if they happen to learn
anything noteworthy, they send word to their "friend." Thus, whenever
fugitives show their faces there's a chance that someone may recognize
them. Consider the possibility that motel clerks, bar regulars, car rental
salespeople, airline ticket agents, black marketeers and door-to-door
salesmen work for the enemy.
As a rule of thumb, decide on the chances (in die-rolling terms) that
characters might draw unwelcome attention in common settings. An
established espionage and surveillance organization such as the Soviet KGB
or the Information Collection Service of Werewolf's Pentex probably has an
extensive web of contacts. Anytime characters deal with a contact there
should be a substantial chance, perhaps as high as 10%, that word reaches
the organization. When you consider the number of "minor people" that we
deal with on a daily basis, the chances of detection by a contact become
substantial.
Plastic surgery or effective disguises may confuse casual observers.
However, you should make secret rolls against a character's appropriate
deception skills to see how effective a disguise is; nothing attracts the
attention of informants more than an obvious disguise.
Cameras Are Everywhere
Even without the omnipresent telescreens of Orwell's 1984, we have
security cameras in banks, convenience stores, school buses and apartment
complexes. They can record characters' actions and indicate where
characters have been.
If a hunter has the means to review tapes from a variety of locales, he
may spot and locate characters from a remote location. Computer
image-processing software offers a reasonable way to process data from
security cameras. This leaves only the problem of collecting videos. In a
strictly realistic, contemporary setting, there are no connections between
the security cameras of different businesses. A hunter may require a tip
from an informant before a single security video can reasonably be viewed.
However, in a cyberpunk-era world, a hunter might access a vast number of
security systems through the all-embracing computer net. Powerful
organizations may have such capabilities in a pseudo-modern setting that
features extreme paranoia, such as Werewolf or GURPS Illuminati.
Money Can Be Traced
In our society, money is routinely traced, often within a day or two of
when it is spent. When cash goes to a store, that store deposits it in a
bank, and the bank returns it to a federal reserve installation where
clerks note the bills' serial numbers. Thus, anyone spending "hot" money,
such as the loot from a bank robbery, risks attracting attention. In a
fully computerized world, police could probably trace cash back to the
precise store where someone spent it. Whereas this might take a week in
the modern world, a transaction might be pinpointed within a day in a
futuristic world.
Money can be made safe from tracing by laundering it through an
institution such as a casino. The bills are then distributed to a large
number of people at the same time, who spend it in different places.
Psychological Profiling
The movie Silence of the Lambs and TV's The X Files popularize the idea of
using psychological profiling to track fugitives. Police can use psych
profiles to locate ordinary criminals too. The key to this technique lies
in identifying the target's trademark behavior and looking for signs of
it. If hunters in your game use this technique, the GM must be ready to
explain what activities distinguish the characters, how the enemy knows
about those activities and where the characters betray themselves by
exhibiting them.
Characters often make psychological tracking methods easy to use. Players
imbue into their characters an assortment of traits that reflect both
their characters' psychologies and their own game fantasies. Does a
firepower-addicted character insist on using a major military weapon? Such
ordinance is not common even in the most dangerous and corrupt of cities.
Whenever anyone reports hearing such a weapon, its shell casings are found
or the gun is seen in action, police and other hunters are given a good
idea of the character's location. Games such as GURPS, which encourage
characters to accept formalized psychological and physical disadvantages,
give you additional material for psychological profiling. If a character
has a specific enemy, for example, the hunter may guess that attacks on
that party are the character's work.
In the News
The modern world's press agencies operate a surveillance-for-profit
service. If characters on the run are newsworthy, reporters can track them
on the true hunter's behalf. All that hunter has to do is respond to
sightings of the characters. If a hunter has access to the press or is
socially influential, information on the characters can be falsified to
make them attractive to the press (and sometimes worldwide police
agencies). This kind of trap is along the "wanted for a crime they didn't
commit" line.
However, the press can reveal characters' locales in less direct ways. If
fugitives find themselves in the area of a newsworthy event, their faces
may flash across TV screens worldwide. Foolish or gullible characters may
even allow reporters to interview them on the air. (GMs who seriously want
to make this happen must adopt a subtle strategy of appealing to the
characters' sense of fun or pride. Most characters have a knee-jerk
reaction against aggressive reporters.) If characters appear in the news,
their enemies are likely to pinpoint them, at least for the time being.
No One Is an Island
If a hunter can't find the characters themselves, he may move against
their friends and interests. This may mean kidnapping characters'
relatives and associates in hope of luring the prey out of hiding, or it
may simply mean watching people and places that are important to the
characters.
Electronic Tracing
If characters use telephones, computers, radio headsets or other
electronic gadgets, those devices can be used to trace them. The GM simply
decides on what percentage of the transmissions network that the hunter
can afford to monitor. To intercept a phone call or computer message, the
hunter probably needs to know the subjects that characters are likely to
communicate with. However, in a game of global conspiracies, such as those
in GURPS Illuminati, hunters may monitor entire communication networks.
If characters don't hit the road to escape from their hunter (i.e., they
remain in the same city as their hunter), any local radio, radar or
similar broadcast that the characters make can be traced - the hunter
doesn't have to monitor the world's broadcasting systems. The vast number
of broadcasters in city locations makes locating an individual signal a
difficult proposition, but not an impossible one. Remember, too, that
hunters can locate not only radio transmitters but radio receivers by
their electronic emissions, a fact that German submarine commanders
exploited as early as World War I.
Strings Attached
Perhaps the easiest but most obvious way to find someone is to take
advantage of all the important things in that character's life. This
includes not only friends and relatives, but the material things that tie
the character down. Does the target have a job? An apartment? A religion?
A drug addiction? A credit card account? A police record? A security
clearance? Research into easily available records on these matters can
suggest the character's nature and resources. Unless the character is
willing to give up all of these things, she perpetually leaves clues as to
her intentions.
Who Do You Send and When Do They Get There?
Once the hunter locates the characters, you must determine how long it
takes for the hunter or its agents to reach the target. Determine where
the hunter's nearest base is and how its agents communicate with the
hunter. Also consider legal restraints on the hunter's activities. Is the
hunter a police force with officers who can force other vehicles out of
the way with sirens and flashing lights? Do agents dare to shoot people in
public? If so, can they use heavy weapons?
In all likelihood, the characters have an opportunity to react before the
hunter springs its trap. Hunters with the ability to keep a watch on
characters may spend time observing them before pouncing, trying to learn
where they sleep, who their contacts are and how they operate. However,
when such surveillance is not practical or when time is crucial, hunters
may rush to the characters' locale and conduct a sweep of the area.
The nature of the sweep depends not only on the hunter's power and
ruthlessness but on its manpower. To keep the targets from slipping away,
the hunter must block a number of potential boltholes. Furthermore, when
searchers spread out for a sweep, targets who decide to fight their way
out may overwhelm a few lone agents. You must therefore pay careful
attention to the total number of hunters in an area, their locations and
the size of each search team.
Police can cordon off a region and stop traffic. Unofficial organizations
must rely on keeping their hunters inconspicuous, thereby preventing
characters from running until it's too late. (You may want to make some
secret intelligence/perception rolls for characters to see if they notice
signs of a search.)
The ideal way to stage a sweep is to map the entire area in advance,
including "popular" escape routes such as building air ducts and city
sewers. Determine where searchers are, and let the characters try to find
a safe route out. If the characters' hiding place is not known to you in
advance of a game session and no maps can be drawn, establish the hunters'
tactics. If fleeing characters attempt a maneuver that you have already
thought of, regardless of locale, they encounter the hunters. The less you
plan in advance, the more careful you have to be in justifying the
hunter's anticipation of character moves. If characters behave
unpredictably, they may escape.
Is This Search Necessary?
Designing a manhunt adventure is a matter of answering relevant questions.
You can decide what answers match the "realism" of the setting on a
moment-by-moment basis, or you can decide what best fits the campaign as a
whole. Obviously a search effort suffers from several weaknesses -
instances where a brief delay in response or the absence of suitable
informants allows characters to escape. If characters have been laying low
in a seedy hotel and an agent has been outside, waiting for them to appear
for two days straight, what are the chances of him being awake when the
characters make their move? Is it realistic that characters are
automatically spotted in this particular circumstance? On a campaign
scale, if an adventure leads characters to the Arctic Circle, what are the
chances of a New York crime syndicate finding them there? If events in
your manhunt adventure would reasonably result in the characters'
discovery, let it happen.
The Hunt as a Subplot
A manhunt doesn't have to be the only thing going on in your game. When
you want to emphasize another important plot element, the manhunt can fade
to an atmospheric element that doesn't consume much play time. Simply
stage occasional brushes with hunters to keep the characters on their
toes. The hunt can become a full-fledged adventure again when another
story is told or when either party makes a concentrated effort to resolve
the conflict.
A hunt can also be inspiration for a campaign. Although this concept has
been made cliche by TV studios - think: The A-Team, The Incredible Hulk,
Dead at 21 and Renegade - it still has promise in roleplaying. The
characters start the campaign by pissing someone off and hitting the road
to escape retribution. During their travels they encounter all kinds of
innocent people who have run into trouble themselves. Once characters have
dealt with the local bad guys and have rescued the innocents, they move
on, but only after narrowly escaping their own pursuers, whom the now-safe
innocents send on a temporary wild goose chase. (Don't forget the
customary joke at the end of the session, when all characters are captured
in a freeze-frame while they laugh.)
Hunt Ideals
No matter what plot lines unfold, characters who are being hunted never
forget that they're on the lamb. Though they may help other people or
achieve different goals, they are constantly careful to cover their
tracks. If they face the threat of reprisal against friends, cut all
connections with their past lives and evade armed hunters, they earn the
right to get away scot-free.