Running Spycraft. . .advice for a GM

[Sarastro]

I've been wondering, has anybody here ever run a Spycraft campaign? I'm presently running a Spycraft 2.0 campaign where the PCs are working for MI6 and trying to try down a bunch of information warfare mercenaries hwo are trying to start a new war. People have been having fun but I feel like I as a GM could do more to make it better. Basically the crunchy bits such as the infiltration missions and firefights I can do well and everybody (except our power gamer Hacker) enjoys them. However, once they get out of combat and are setting about non-combat interactions (subplots and such like) everybody gets bored. Given there's a lot of secret player related stuff going on, I generally pull aside the players in turn, RP the interaction and then go on to the others. Once we've gotten through that, it's hard to get everybody focused back on the main plot. What should I do different?

Further, I've been having trouble with our Hacker. Our Hacker is the epitome of a Power Gamer. Even though she didn't know the system, she's managed to get an INT of 20, a feat to brake the skill rank limit, and another feat to keep the extra 50 skill points she has to spare. She is also dead set on jumping off the plot rails at any given chance. Case in point, her character never goes out on missions, preferring to stay inside her command center. Or there was the time in which she hacked into the mercenary mainframe, downloaded all the information they went meant to, and then proceeded to edit the intelligence before passing it along to her superiors. I need ideas about how to deal with her. Fortunately, her character has been getting in touch with the Patriots (as in the Metal Gear Solid Patriots) to see about employment. What should I do? How should I approach her character?

Any advice from other GMs or from people who have played Spycraft would be great. Thanks!

[valadil]

This isn't Spycraft specific, but I've seen hackers run rampant in other games too. In a Vampire game I was in a saw a character make a single roll to break into the governments computers and fire all nukes. Since he had 5 of 5 ranks in computers it just had to work.

Anyway what I suggest doing is reading up on computer security. Bruce Schneir's Blog (http://www.schneier.com/blog/) is a good start. Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon is good too if you'd rather read a story than actually cryptography. Actually Cryptonomicon is a good idea regardless since it'll show you how to turn hacking into plot. Anyway, my point is that things are probably a little too easy for your hacker since games rarely define computer shenanigans in any depth. More knowledge on your part will let you make things appropriately hard or tedious for this character. Taking over a secure network isn't something she should be able to do in a single night. Not unless she wants to get caught.

[Helgraf]

I've been wondering, has anybody here ever run a Spycraft campaign? I'm presently running a Spycraft 2.0 campaign where the PCs are working for MI6 and trying to try down a bunch of information warfare mercenaries hwo are trying to start a new war. People have been having fun but I feel like I as a GM could do more to make it better. Basically the crunchy bits such as the infiltration missions and firefights I can do well and everybody (except our power gamer Hacker) enjoys them. However, once they get out of combat and are setting about non-combat interactions (subplots and such like) everybody gets bored. Given there's a lot of secret player related stuff going on, I generally pull aside the players in turn, RP the interaction and then go on to the others. Once we've gotten through that, it's hard to get everybody focused back on the main plot. What should I do different?

Further, I've been having trouble with our Hacker. Our Hacker is the epitome of a Power Gamer. Even though she didn't know the system, she's managed to get an INT of 20, a feat to brake the skill rank limit, and another feat to keep the extra 50 skill points she has to spare. She is also dead set on jumping off the plot rails at any given chance. Case in point, her character never goes out on missions, preferring to stay inside her command center. Or there was the time in which she hacked into the mercenary mainframe, downloaded all the information they went meant to, and then proceeded to edit the intelligence before passing it along to her superiors. I need ideas about how to deal with her. Fortunately, her character has been getting in touch with the Patriots (as in the Metal Gear Solid Patriots) to see about employment. What should I do? How should I approach her character?

Any advice from other GMs or from people who have played Spycraft would be great. Thanks!

You know, fact of the matter is, Int 20 and an increased skill rank limit is not that hard. There's a lot of ways to increase the skill rank cap in Spycraft. Also, you have resources. Not every computer will be remotely accessable, and in fact many computers with sensitive data will deliberately be _severed_ from the internet, so in order to access their highly protected and sensitive information, the character _must_ travel to the operations site to access the machine directly, taking all risks involved thereto. There's no reason to presume that just because a site has important data on hand that it must somehow be accessable to any skilled hacker remotely.

Also, I can swim is useful, but you can't store 50 skill points with it - the most you could have reserved is one full level's worth, so with an Int of 20, that would be, at best, 14 Skill Points (8 by class if she has an appropriate class, +5 for Int 20, +1 if her origin gives her a bonus skill point per level). Even the Expert Class Schemer Level 6 ability would only give her a single-shot bonus pool of 24 SP. You _must_ spend all reserved skill points before you gain a level. Yes, that's +must+. A GM is even within their rights to give the character the you snooze you lose argument - eg if they level without allocating the points they reserved with I Can Swim first, they flat out lose those SP.

The simple fact of the matter is, you're the GC. You need to take control of the game. You have the resources, and it doesn't matter how high level the hacker is; in the end, she's just as vulnerable as anyone else to the machinations of bureaucracy and such.

Have the ATF Raid her command center. Or have the government cut the power 'mistakenly'. (Perhaps they traced criminal activity to her in error because another Hacker framed her.) Have a sufficently equivalent Sleuth/Snoop backtrack evidence of some of her deeds to her, then pass that information along to his own Hacker associate.