GENERAL MODIFIERS Modifier Circumstance Illegality
-0 to -1 Character asks bribee to overlook/cover up a mildly illegal act (a speeding ticket, disturb- ing the peace)
-2 Character asks bribee to overlook/cover up
an illegal act (smuggling of non-dangerous goods, assault and battery)
-4 Character asks bribee to overlook/cover up
a seriously illegal act (smuggling dangerous goods, murder or manslaughter, assault with intent to kill, rape)
Language
-1 Character and bribee speak similar, but not
identical, languages
-3 Character and bribee speak dissimilar lan-
guages and/or have similar difficulty com- municating
Target’s Susceptibility To Bribery
Bribee has Psychological Limitation in favor of being bribed (e.g., Greedy, Amoral, Looks Out For Number One)
+1 Moderate
+2 Strong
+3 Total
Bribee has Psychological Limitation opposed to being bribed (e.g., Incorruptible, Scrupulously Honest, Devoted To His Duty)
-1 Moderate
-2 Strong
-3 Total
TYPE OF BRIBE
Modifier Bribe Character Offers Is...
+0 Identical to what bribee wants: US dollars
when he wants US dollars
-1 Similar to what bribee wants: US dollars
when he wants British pounds
-2 Dissimilar to what bribee wants: raw dia-
monds when he wants currency
-4 Not at all similar to what bribee wants: food when he wants currency
AMOUNT OF BRIBE
Modifier Amount Of Bribe Is...
+2 Exactly what the bribee will accept
More than what bribee will accept
+3 1-19% more
+4 20-39% more
-2 40-59% more
-4 60%+ more
Less than what the bribee will accept
-2 1-19% less
-4 20-39% less
-6 40-59% less
cumstances. For example, if the bribee has the Psy- chological Limitation Greedy, or is positive he can get away with accepting more money, the negative modifiers may not apply.
MAKING THE BRIBERY ROLL
After the GM determines and applies all the relevant modifiers (including ones based on prior Bribery rolls, as described above), the character makes his final roll to bribe the target successfully. Even in situations where the character suffers sig- nificant negative modifiers, he may still succeed, meaning what he offered, how he offered it, or who he offered it to somehow convinced the bribee to take the bribe despite the poor circumstances. On the other hand, even in the best situation the char- acter may flub the offer or run into someone who’s incorruptible (see Consequences Of Failure, below).
EQUIPMENT
Bribery doesn’t involve or require any equip- ment; it’s a purely personal Skill. However, unless the bribe involves an exchange of services, the character needs something to bribe the subject with — money, trade goods, or the like.
POWERS AND BRIBERY
Various Mental Powers may help a bribery attempt, or render it unnecessary. For example, Telepathy can discover the subject’s susceptibility to bribery and how much he’d want (but the character has to achieve the +20 “victim does not know his mind is being read” level of effect or else he’ll tip off the subject). Even better is Mind Control; a suffi- ciently high Effect Roll with Mind Control removes the need for a bribe. If the character is concerned he can’t achieve a high enough roll, he can instead try for a subtler effect, such as EGO +10 to make the subject “do something he wouldn’t mind doing” — that would be enough to convince a corruptible, but nervous, official to go ahead and take a bribe.
EFFECTS OF SUCCESS
Succeeding with a Bribery roll usually means a character has accomplished three things. First, he’s gotten the target to accept the bribe. Second, the target of the bribe will do what the character wants. Third, the bribee won’t betray the character, alert the authorities to his activities, or the like.
CONSEQUENCES OF FAILURE
Typically, a failed Bribery attempt results in a refusal to take the bribe, perhaps accompanied by a pointed question (“Are you trying to bribe me, sir?”). If the Bribery attempt fails badly (by 4 or more) or if the character attempts to bribe an incorruptible target, the potential bribee may call his superior or the police, arrest the character, or threaten him with a weapon. Also, just because a character has bribed someone doesn’t mean that person will stay bribed....
BASE TIMES
Typically an attempt to use Bribery requires at least a Full Phase Action — the time needed to make the offer and have it accepted. But depending on the circumstances, the character may have to spend a lot more time than that engaging in social give-and-take as a way of “negotiating” the bribe, sizing up the prospective bribee in advance, or fill- ing out the paperwork to hide whatever it is the bribee is helping him conceal.
SUBDIVIDING BRIBERY
In campaigns involving a lot of social interac- tion, the GM may want to require characters to buy Bribery by culture or region. Thus, a character skilled at passing bribes in China might not know anything about it in America (though the GM might let him make a roll to bribe Americans at a penalty of -3 or more). Typically the first culture or region costs 2 Character Points for a PRE-Based roll; each +1 culture/region costs +1 Character Point.
BRIBERY BY GENRE
Generally speaking, Bribery works the same in all genres — the only things that tend to differ are what the character offers as a bribe, and how much.
Science Fiction
In post-economic settings, where there’s no money or money exists solely as electronic “cur- rency,” Bribery may become more difficult. After all, when every transaction can easily be traced, hiding illicit payments (if, in fact, they’re consid- ered illicit) becomes difficult or impossible. In that case, bribes may have to consist of goods or services instead of money.
BUGGING
Type: Intellect Skill (roll: 9 + (INT/5) or less) Cost: 3 Character Points for a base roll, +1 to the
roll per +2 Character Points
Characters with this Intellect Skill know how to work with and use listening, visual, and other covert sensing devices (“bugs”), wiretaps, and related equipment properly. Among other things, they can:
■ plant bugs for best reception and transmission ■ operate bugs for maximum effect and efficiency,
using them to watch or listen to someone (or some place) from a distance
■ operate listening or tracking devices designed
to be worn by a person and/or placed in or on a moving object (such as a car)
■ “sweep” (search physically or with detectors) for
bugs that other persons have planted
■ disable or counteract bugs planted and used by
other persons
■ create bugs (assuming they have the proper
equipment and supplies to do so)
A character with Bugging knows about the different types of bugs (and related equipment) available, how they work (and under what condi- tions they won’t work, or work less effectively), and which ones tend to be most effective for which types of tasks. He knows the common (and uncommon) hiding places for bugs, and which work best given the different types of bugs, environmental conditions, and so forth. He knows about various types of bug detect- ing equipment — how to operate them, their strengths and limitations, and so forth.
Additionally, a character with Bugging knows how telephones, telephone lines, and telephone sys- tems operate. Many Bugging tasks involve placing “wiretaps” or similar devices into telephones, and these devices often won’t function well (or at all) if not properly installed. A character with Bugging knows how to determine which phone lines feed into which buildings or rooms (sometimes from blocks away), how telephone system equipment works, and the like. (This does not include knowl- edge of, or the ability to work with, cellular phones or telephone networks as a whole; that’s a function of Systems Operation.)
Although Bugging often involves the use or monitoring of electronic equipment, it isn’t the same thing as Systems Operation. Bugging focuses on a very narrow and specific type of electronic covert sensing equipment, whereas Systems Opera- tion covers a wide range of electronic communica- tions and sensing equipment.
PLANTING BUGS
The most common task performed with Bug- ging is to “plant” a bug or like device in a location so the character can observe that location sur- reptitiously. As noted below under “Equipment,” where you can find game information about a wide
variety of bugging gear, characters with Bugging are assumed to start out with a small supply of bugs and related equipment.
Planting Standard Bugs
To plant a standard bug, a character needs access to the location where the bug is to be located, of course. This may require some breaking and entering work on the character’s part, or the use of wits, forged documents, or other forms of subterfuge. This can be an adventure in and of itself!
Once in the proper location, the character makes a Bugging roll to determine the best place to put the bug; the GM applies a modifier from the Bugging Modifiers table to represent the ease or difficulty of the task. The modifier reflects the general conditions of the location. Some areas are good for Bugging because they have lots of places to conceal bugs, good acoustics, and the like, while others are difficult to bug because they have the opposite qualities.
This Bugging roll takes into account finding the best places to get sound and/or video reception for a bug, determining the optimum places for a bug to transmit what it “sees,” and placing a bug so that it’s not readily apparent to persons in the room (but not hiding it; see below). If the roll succeeds, the char- acter has chosen the optimum location for the bug, given the prevailing circumstances; the bug func- tions effectively and provides clear sound and/or pictures (or as clear as possible given the situation).
If the roll to place a bug fails, the character placed the bug poorly. This may have one or more negative implications, such as:
■ poor pickup: the bug isn’t positioned to get the
best “view” of the location (or whatever it is the character wants to see or hear). The user of the bugging equipment must make PER Rolls each Phase (or some other time interval) to determine what’s being seen or heard. If the roll fails badly (by 4 or more), it may mean the bug cannot pick anything up (either it’s malfunctioned, or it’s hor- ribly placed).
■ poor transmission: the bug isn’t positioned well
for transmitting; something interferes with its abil- ity to send information. The results are the same as for poor pickup.
■ easily found: anyone searching for the bug
receives a +2 (or greater) bonus to locate it. Properly placing a bug doesn’t necessarily mean hiding the bug. Bugging by itself doesn’t allow characters to hide bugs; that requires Con- cealment, with Bugging serving as a Comple- mentary Skill. (Of course, the GM can instead describe the location and let the characters state where they hide the bug, thus dispensing with rolls in favor of roleplaying.) A bug placed with a successful Bugging roll but not Concealment isn’t readily apparent — the average person in the location won’t ever notice it — but it can quickly be found with a search, and it’s possible for someone to stumble across it accidentally.
Characters often want to plant bugs so they can run off the electricity at the location, rather
than their own batteries. That way the bug can keep operating indefinitely. If this is possible, doing it entails a -1 penalty on the Bugging roll.
Characters can sometimes plant bugs that use some normal, non-grounded, metallic feature of the environment — a curtain rod, aluminum siding, springs inside a piece of furniture, the wire hanger for a picture frame, a metal filing cabinet, or the like — as an antenna for the bug. Trying to do this imposes a -3 penalty on the Bugging roll. If the roll succeeds, PER Rolls to make out what the bug transmits are at +1, and efforts to find the bug are at -1. If the roll fails, the bug still works, but there may be PER Roll penalties to understand what it transmits.
Another way to hide a bug is called “snug- gling.” This involves placing and setting the bug so that it broadcasts near some other, normal, signal in the spectrum (for example, the sound portion of a television broadcast), making it hard to perceive. If this is possible in a given location, the character has to make a Bugging roll at -3. If he succeeds, there’s a -3 (or greater) penalty when others try to find the bug with Bug Detectors or similar equipment. If he fails, there’s no penalty for trying to find the bug electronically (and if he fails by 4 or more, there may even be a small bonus to find them).
Planting Wiretaps
Characters with Bugging also know how to plant wiretaps. A skilled Bugging expert can some- times tap into a phone line without going to the precise location where the phone to be tapped is located. Instead, he can find the right line outside the building, nearby, or sometimes even blocks away at a junction point or bridging box (a “down-
line tap”). The Bugging Modifiers table lists the penalties for trying to wiretap from a long distance away, but the GM may in some cases rule that it’s impossible without inside information from the telephone company about which wires are the ones the character needs to tap.
Tapping a fiber-optic phone cable instead of a metallic one may be even harder, and/or require more sophisticated (and more expensive!) equip- ment. The GM may assign modifiers of -2 to -5 to reflect this. Even if the character can tap a fiber optic line properly, separating out the one conver- sation he wants to overhear from the many carried on that one line may be virtually impossible.
Planting Mobile Bugs
Of course, not all bugs are used in static loca- tions. Characters use some to track vehicles, per- sons in transit, nomadic animals, and other moving things. In this case, the character needs access to the moving object rather than a specific location. Depending on how closely guarded or watched the object is, this may not be any easier than having to infiltrate a location.
Transmitters On People
A character with Bugging also knows how to “install” and use concealed microphones designed for undercover police operatives and the like. He knows what factors to take into account (ease of reception and transmission, possibility of discovery, possibility of damage to the unit, and so on) when selecting the right concealed microphone for the job, how best to attach it to the undercover opera- tive’s body, and so forth.
OPERATING BUGS
In most situations, operating a bug — listen- ing to and/or watching what it broadcasts, in other words — requires no Skill Rolls or the like, just a lot of time and attention. However, as noted above, if a bug isn’t well placed, the reception from it may be of poor quality, requiring PER Rolls to compre- hend. In some circumstances, the character may be able to improve the reception slightly from a distance; this requires a Bugging roll at -3 (Systems Operation serves as a Complementary Skill).
SWEEPING FOR BUGS
Another common Bugging task is to “sweep” a room — to search for bugs other people have planted. Usually a character does this so he can remove, disable, or destroy the bugs, but sometimes he just wants to know where they are so he can feed false (or tailored) information to whoever’s operat- ing them. There are two ways to find a bug: without equipment, and with.
Without Equipment
The simplest way to sweep for bugs is with the eyes and hands — feeling under tables, look- ing in potted plants, and otherwise trying to find where a suspected bug is hidden. This requires a Concealment roll, with Bugging as a Complemen- tary Skill. (If the character doesn’t have Conceal- ment, he can make a Bugging roll at -2 to find the bug.) The Bugging Modifiers table lists the modifiers based on the frequency and quality of potential hiding places. The GM may also impose a modifier based on the size of the bug (but since the HERO System doesn’t have rules for the size of devices, beware of characters who constantly claim their bugs are “extremely tiny” to minimize the chance of detection). See Concealment later in this chapter for more information.
The above paragraph assumes the use of non- disguised bugs. If disguised bugs, or bugs hidden inside objects where they’re not readily accessible (for example, inside a radio, the stuffing of a chair arm, or a smoke detector), then the character suf- fers an additional -2 to -5 penalty to find the bug — the GM determines the exact penalty based on how well-hidden he thinks the bug is, and what actions the character takes. In this case the GM may wish to have the character make a Bugging roll with Concealment as a Complementary Skill to reflect his specialized knowledge of how to use and hide bugs.
With Equipment
An easier way to locate bugs is with equipment specifically designed to find them by tracking the radio waves they emit. See the Equipment section, below, for game information about bug detectors.
In a pinch, a character may be able to use a radio to detect a bug by hearing the distortion in its sound when it gets too close to a bug. If the GM rules this is possible, it requires a Bugging roll at -4.
Success And Failure
Success on a roll to sweep for bugs means the character has found a bug (if there’s one to find) or knows there are no bugs present (if not). The char-
acter must decide what to do with any found bugs — destroy them, disable them, generate nuisance sounds to make them useless, feed false informa- tion to whoever’s listening, or the like. (If the bug is a visual one, the person using it may be aware that it’s been found, since he can see the character searching for it.)
Failure on a sweeping roll means the character didn’t locate any bugs that are in the area he swept. He thinks the area is bug-free (or at least can’t verify his suspicions that it’s bugged). If he fails the roll badly (by 4 or more), he may be absolutely con- vinced there are no bugs even when some exist.
DISABLING AND COUNTERACTING BUGS
The simplest thing for a character to do when he finds a bug is to rip it out and/or destroy it. Of course, this alerts the person who planted it that his bug has been discovered (or at least that some- thing’s gone wrong). But other options exist.
First, the character can attempt to disable the bug in such a way that the person who planted it thinks it’s malfunctioned — it stops working, only broadcasts static, or the like. This requires a Bug- ging roll at -2 (or Electronics roll at -4). The person who planted the bug can, when he examines the bug, make a Bugging roll in a Skill Versus Skill Contest against the character’s result to determine that his bug’s been tampered with.
Second, the character can generate noise to make the bug useless, and/or conduct his activities so the bug can’t perceive him. Basic methods for