Quick Leaf
First Post
How do you implement hiring spies in your game?
And I don't mean just professional spies, I mean people from the community who have a reason (personal or economic) to help the PCs out.
How often do PCs come to a new town and spend lots of game time picking up rumors and getting the lay of the land?
Here's what I came up with...First take a look at this sample spy...
Moubarak the porter: Subtlety 2, Loyalty 1, Access +3 (Newcomers, travelers, imports), Cost/week 10 gold
A spy is someone from the community who the PC/NPC has recruited to find out what someone else is up to. Each spy has four traits: Subtlety, Loyalty, Access and Costs/week. Letting a spy go is possible, but unless a 10 gold “send-off” bonus is included, their loyalty drops 2 ranks.
Subtlety: Bonus to Hide and Bluff checks. If their access roll is forfeited, may be reserved to counterspy. Used as a bonus to Gather Information check for purposes of learning about her rival’s spies; opposed by the rival spy’s Subtlety score. Once the mage learns about the spies, they suffer -1 access, and it’s up to her what she decides to do about it.
Loyalty: Each point indicates how much it costs to buy them off (50 gold per loyalty point). It also is used to determine if they leak information if caught; use as bonus in opposition to intimidation checks for purposes of interrogation. Each is modified according to their interaction with her. Loyalty can also be bought. For every 20 gold spent in this manner, add another point of Loyalty.
Reduce loyalty by 1 if community is suspicious of the mage, by 2 if disinclined toward the mage.
Access: Used as a bonus to Gather Information checks, qualified by who or what they are close to in the community. This is where they draw their information from, so if a honey-thief is attempting to gather information that only a priest has, they’re not very helpful. One roll is made per day per spy. The base DC for a spy to gain access to information is 20 (-2 per additional week spent spying).
...Finishing notes, This system was set up for an adventure in which the opening section was broken into weeks, so PCs would take weekly actions instead of daily ones. It assumes you have a list of information on the spying target which is broken down with DCs according to gather information, and also assumes the PCs aren't from the area where they're hiring spies.
And I don't mean just professional spies, I mean people from the community who have a reason (personal or economic) to help the PCs out.
How often do PCs come to a new town and spend lots of game time picking up rumors and getting the lay of the land?
Here's what I came up with...First take a look at this sample spy...
Moubarak the porter: Subtlety 2, Loyalty 1, Access +3 (Newcomers, travelers, imports), Cost/week 10 gold
A spy is someone from the community who the PC/NPC has recruited to find out what someone else is up to. Each spy has four traits: Subtlety, Loyalty, Access and Costs/week. Letting a spy go is possible, but unless a 10 gold “send-off” bonus is included, their loyalty drops 2 ranks.
Subtlety: Bonus to Hide and Bluff checks. If their access roll is forfeited, may be reserved to counterspy. Used as a bonus to Gather Information check for purposes of learning about her rival’s spies; opposed by the rival spy’s Subtlety score. Once the mage learns about the spies, they suffer -1 access, and it’s up to her what she decides to do about it.
Loyalty: Each point indicates how much it costs to buy them off (50 gold per loyalty point). It also is used to determine if they leak information if caught; use as bonus in opposition to intimidation checks for purposes of interrogation. Each is modified according to their interaction with her. Loyalty can also be bought. For every 20 gold spent in this manner, add another point of Loyalty.
Reduce loyalty by 1 if community is suspicious of the mage, by 2 if disinclined toward the mage.
Access: Used as a bonus to Gather Information checks, qualified by who or what they are close to in the community. This is where they draw their information from, so if a honey-thief is attempting to gather information that only a priest has, they’re not very helpful. One roll is made per day per spy. The base DC for a spy to gain access to information is 20 (-2 per additional week spent spying).
...Finishing notes, This system was set up for an adventure in which the opening section was broken into weeks, so PCs would take weekly actions instead of daily ones. It assumes you have a list of information on the spying target which is broken down with DCs according to gather information, and also assumes the PCs aren't from the area where they're hiring spies.
Obviously, it'd only be useful in certain types of games, but I can imagine that when it could be used, such a system would be very useful.
