| From: | Marc Renouf renouf@********.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Characters looting corpses. |
| Date: | Wed, 30 Jun 1999 18:14:45 -0400 (EDT) |
> It just annoys me when they do it, especially when they expect to get
> tons of money from it or when they are lifting up the corpse to take off
> all the armor.
What constitutes "all the armor" ? Are your baddies wearing
armor that is valuable enough to warrant stealing? Armor jackets and
suits of form-fitting are a dime a dozen, but if the victim is wearing
medium security armor then we're talking a serious investment.
I can suggest a few things that might curb their scavenging
tendencies (in addition to those already suggested by others).
1) Enforce the "fencing the loot" rules. Scavenging weapons,
ammo, and armor is all well and good, but when you only get a 30% return,
profit is less of an incentive.
2) Armor is clothing. It has a size, and in the case of
form-fitting armor is tailored to fit. Picking up an armor jacket from a
corpse does not guarantee that you can wear it. While I realize that
there are no hard-and-fast rules for this, I tend to require that someone
be of the same metahuman phenotype (variants are usually okay to keep
things simple) and must have both a Body and Strength within 1 point above
or below the original wearer. This avoids the absurd situation in which a
Strength 1 Body 1 Dwarf horks a suit of armor off the Strength 12 Body 10
Troll he just geeked.
3) Since armor has sizes, that reduces the demand (as it will
only fit so many people). As such, there's a limited market for
secondhand armor, and thus the fence percentage probably drops to as low
as 15% of the original value of the item. "Sure, I know a guy who could
use some armor, but he's twice as wide across the shoulders as this thing
you're tryin' ta sell me."
4) Looting bodies takes time. Have a friend put on a jacket, lay
down on the floor and go slack. Now kick him ('cause he shouldn't be that
trusting). But seriously, have someone be dead weight for a few minutes
and try to get his jacket off. It's not easy. And every minute that's
spent looting bodies is another minute that a potential witness, random
innocent bystander, or police cruiser might show up.
5) Looting bodies is messy. Unless you've simply knocked someone
out or poisoned them, there's probably blood. Most baddies in SR will
die as a result of armed combat or gunfire. Either way, there's bound to
be blood, and probably lots of it. Any armor or clothing you pull off a
body is bound to have blood on it, and that looks suspicious. You can bet
that people are going to start calling the cops on you if you start
walking down the street carrying blood-stained clothes. Even rolling a
body over to get at a wallet is going to de a delicate affair, lest you
get blood on you (your hands, your shoes, your clothes, etc). Blood
congeals quickly, becoming slimy and sticky in a very short amount of
time. It is hard to wash off skin and stains fabric like a bitch.
6) Looting bodies is an excellent way to leave physical evidence
at a crime scene. You can leave discernible fingerprints on the
damnedest things (especially if you have blood on your hands), and
grunting and sweating as you try to liberate the armor from a corpse is a
great way to leave hair and fiber evidence. If you touch a body in any
way, you are inextricably linked to that crime scene. If the police
gather enough forensic evidence to get an identity, they may have some
very unpleasant questions for you when you next encounter them (this is
especially true of SINned individuals).
7) Corpses smell bad. Even fresh bodies smell bad, generally
because the sphincter relaxes at the time of death. In other words,
bodies tend to literally smell like shit. Ask the players if they really
want to contend with this and run the risk of getting "dirty," so to
speak.
8) Anything you take from a body links you to that person. If
it's something simple like a piece of clothing or consumer electronics
(i.e. you hork the guy's walkman), it's virtually untraceable. But if
it's something like a gun, that has a distinct serial number and may be
registered to the victim, you'd better pray that you never get picked up
carrying that weapon. Again, the cops may have some exceedingly pointed
questions for you. At best you're in possession of a stolen firearm, and
at worst you are now a murder suspect.
9) In an age of electronic money transfer, there's only so much to
be gained from looting. It's not as though everyone's carrying cash
(though they may be depending on the setting of your campaign). But even
in today's day and age I rarely carry any cash. Credit cards and
direct-deduct ATM cards are accepted virtually everywhere, so I never need
it. Certified credsticks are less traceable, but ask yourself if the
victim would be carrying them? Registered cred (i.e. that money sitting
in the bank account of the victim) does you no good. You may have the
guy's credstick, but it's probably useless to you because you can't access
it.
10) It's unprofessional. Looting corpses is the kind of low-grade
scavenging one would expect of a desperate squatter or jonesin' junkie.
Selling off looted goods may net you a little cash, but it makes you look
like a freakin' ghoul. If you get a reputation for stopping in the middle
of a well-paying run to loot bodies for a paltry sum of cash, your
employers are going to begin wondering just what your priorities are.
This is not to say that looting doesn't have its place. You can
learn a lot about someone by going through their wallet, and it can be a
great way to pick up disposable guns or ammo. But this has to be balanced
with the risks, and the risks should be portrayed as what they are. The
first time you have the cops show up on the doorstep of one of the
SINned characters asking a lot of inconvenient questions, I can virtually
guarantee you that their looting activities will be seriously curtailed.
Marc Renouf (ShadowRN GridSec - "Bad Cop" Division)
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