Simplicity Modifier Example
Very Complex -4 Masterpiece work of art
Complex -2 Colorful, detailed paper money; high-quality artwork;
modern driver’s licenses, credit cards, and the like
Average +0 Typical paper money, average artwork, older driver’s licenses
Simple +1 Typical legal document or paperwork
Very Simple +2 Simple legal document or paperwork
Sample Quality Modifier Example
Very Good +2 Mint-condition original document; original painting
Good +1 High-quality original document; high-quality print of painting
Average +0 Average-quality original document; print of painting
Poor -2 Photocopy of a document; damaged object
ple, the forging of legal licenses was so common that there was a slang term for a person who spe- cialized in such work: jarkman.
Creating a fake document is a two-step pro- cess. First, the character needs an original to work from (see above regarding art for some general information about this). In the modern day this usually isn’t too much of a problem, but getting a copy of the precise document involved may cause some difficulties. For example, if a character isn’t already a citizen of Brazil, obtaining a Brazilian passport he can duplicate with Forgery may not be easy. This requires a Forgery roll, usually unmodi- fied; Streetwise may function as a Complementary Skill. As a rough guideline, if the roll succeeds exactly, the character has an Average quality origi- nal; if it succeeds by 2, he has a Good original; if it succeeds by 4 or more he has a Very Good original (if that’s even possible). If the roll fails by 1-3, he has a Poor original; if it fails by 4 or more he has a Very Poor original.
Second, the character has to make the phony document. This requires appropriate printing equipment, ink, and so forth; obtaining these sup- plies may or may not require a separate Forgery roll. Creating the fake involves a Forgery roll. If the roll succeeds, it functions as the result for a Forgery Versus Forgery Skill Contest with someone who tries to determine if the document is a fake. If the roll fails, anyone who looks at the document closely (i.e., succeeds with an INT Roll when examining it) or conducts the proper analysis of it realizes it’s a fake. If the roll fails badly (by 4 or more) the forger
thinks he’s done a wonderful job, when in reality
the fact that his work is a forgery is obvious under analysis. (Alternately, the GM might grant such persons a +4 or greater bonus to their roll to use Forgery as an Untrained Skill to detect the fake.)
The Base Time for forging a document depends on its complexity and other factors. Grind- ing out a fake ID for a teenager who wants to drink underage may only take 1 Hour; forging a passport or similar document takes 6 Hours.
Forging Checks And Commercial Paper
Check fraud and forgery — ranging from forg- ing a signature, to altering the amount on a check, to making phony checks from scratch — remains a serious problem despite the increasing use of electronic money transfers. According to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, more than 13 fraudulent checks are written every second! Only in the past two decades have check security measures (high-resolution printing, watermarks, holograms, anti-copying features, special paper, and so on) become more common, and many forgers have found ways around these obstacles. Characters with Forgery (Documents) know how to create phony checks, and phony forms of other types of commer- cial paper (such as stock and bond certificates).
Forging Handwriting
Included under the rubric of Forgery (Docu- ments) is the forging of handwriting. This mostly means creating believable-looking copies of some- one’s signature on a document, but when it comes
to forging older documents may mean the entire text of the document. Characters can specialize in this type of Forgery by buying bonuses to the Skill Roll that are Only For Faking Handwriting (-1).
Forging a signature requires a Forgery roll. If the roll succeeds, it functions as the result for a Forgery Versus Forgery Skill Contest with some- one who tries to determine if the handwriting is a fake. If the roll fails, anyone who compares the handwriting to a legitimate sample or conducts the proper analysis (i.e., succeeds with an INT Roll when examining it) of it realizes it’s a fake. If the roll fails badly (by 4 or more) the forger thinks he’s done a wonderful job, when in reality the fact that his handwriting is a forgery is obvious given even the simplest comparison or analysis. (Alternately, the GM might grant such persons a +4 or greater bonus to their roll to use Forgery as an Untrained Skill to detect the fake.)
Forging a signature or other small bit of text usually takes a Full Phase, or at most a Turn. Forg- ing longer blocks of text can take minutes, hours, or even days depending on the length of the text.
FORGING MONEY: COUNTERFEITING
While the term “counterfeit” can apply to any fake item, most people tend to use the term “counterfeiting” as a synoym for “creating fake money.” While not as glamorous as forging art, counterfeiting can nevertheless be a profitable criminal enterprise.
Counterfeiting Metal Money: Coin Shaving And Clipping
In pre-modern times, before paper money existed (or was commonly used), forgers cre- ated fake coins. This required two things. First, the forger needed a mold or press with which to make the actual coins, or the skill to do it himself (in many places and times coins were made indi- vidually by hand, a process sometimes known as “hammered money”). Creating one of these often posed less difficulty than the second requirement, acquiring the raw gold or silver with which to make the coins. To obtain it, forgers often engaged in the practices of coin clipping or coin shaving, in which tiny amounts of precious metal were trimmed from legitimate coins until the forger had enough to create a fake coin. (Forgers often sped up this pro- cess by adulterating the precious metal with a non- precious one similar enough in appearance and weight to fool people.) Since coins were made of pure metal and thus got worn down (and lighter in weight) over time, the idea of a coin not being quite as large or heavy as a “new” coin didn’t arouse sus- picion. The practice of putting milling or reeding (grooves) or text on the edges of coins was devised as an anti-counterfeiting technique; in theory a “marked” edge on a coin proved no one has shaved any metal off the coin. Despite such precautions, the forging of coins continued; for example, accord- ing to some estimates, by the time of King George III more fake English shillings existed than real ones. After the mid-twentieth century, when coins stopped being made of actual precious metal, coin shaving and clipping ceased to be a problem.
Typically coin shaving/clipping doesn’t require a Forgery roll (or any other sort of roll), though the GM might call for one so the character doesn’t so griev- ously diminish a coin that he makes people suspicious when he spends it. Forming raw precious metal into fake coins requires a Forgery roll, usually unmodi- fied. If the roll succeeds, it functions as the result for a Forgery Versus Forgery Skill Contest with someone who tries to determine if the coin is a fake. If the roll fails, anyone who compares the coin to a legitimate one or conducts the proper analysis (i.e., succeeds with an INT Roll when examining it) of it realizes it’s a fake. If the roll fails badly (by 4 or more) the forger
thinks he’s done a wonderful job, when in reality the
fact that his coin is a forgery is obvious given even the simplest comparison or analysis. (Alternately, the GM might grant such persons a +4 or greater bonus to their roll to use Forgery as an Untrained Skill to detect the fake.)
Making a single coin by hand takes a Base Time of 6 Hours; the GM can reduce this if the character has presses or molds to do the work with, but creating one of them may require other Forgery rolls. The forger then has to pass or sell the fake money (see below), a sometimes-dangerous practice because it’s usually regarded as treason, a capital offense against the crown.
Counterfeiting Paper Money
The introduction of paper money made it easier for counterfeiters to produce fake money in large amounts. For the sake of simplicity, this dis- cussion focuses on United States currency, the type of paper currency used in many game worlds and widely accepted around modern-day Earth. But the basic techniques of counterfeiting (and the tactics used to foil counterfeiters) tend to be the same around the world, and allowing for changes in tech- nology often throughout time. In the early twenty- first century, the euro note has become as favorite a target for some counterfeiters as the American dollar bill.
The United States prints its currency on cotton-linen paper embedded with special red and blue fibers, thus giving it a distinctive feel and (in theory) making counterfeiting more difficult. The printing is done via the intaglio method, in which precise lines and marks are engraved into metal plates. This gives the print- ing a distinctive feel that, again, can be difficult to duplicate compared to simpler methods like offset or lithographic printing.
According to the US government, the plates used to print its money are produced by spe- cially-trained human engravers, each trained to create only part of a plate so no one person can make a plate on his own. (But see the accompa- nying sidebar.) The actual printing involves pass- ing sheets of money through automatic presses several times, with different layers or colors of ink (or other features) being applied to one side or the other with each pass. The ink is specially manufactured to make counterfeiting US money more difficult.
Until recent years, counterfeiting paper cur- rency could be a lengthy process requiring great
skill, especially if the counterfeiter worked alone and had to perform each step of the counterfeiting process himself. Advances in desktop publish- ing and personal printing technology have made counterfeiting money (and other paper items) much simpler — so simple that very little training is needed, even to the point where some counter- feiters can get around the need to falsify the paper by simply copying/printing a higher-denomina- tion bill on a lower-denomination one. On the other hand, the government has taken steps to make counterfeiting harder, including making changes to the appearance and physical content of currency designed to thwart forgers. Some of these measures include: putting holograms on bills; changing to multi-colored bills; embedding special strips in bills; inks that change color based on viewing angle; microprinting; and specially- printed patterns designed to disable copying devices. Manufacturers of desktop publishing soft- ware have added features to make it harder to use their products to copy currency.
Counterfeiters have come up with a variety of methods to make fake money seem real. Since private citizens cannot purchase the paper the government prints currency on, counterfeiters with access to the paper on which securities are printed (which is similar) use it; others select a paper as close as they can get. They print the blue and red fibers onto the paper, thus fooling people who don’t look closely. They soak printed bills in water and dry them in clothes dryers to give the paper a feel more like that of real money. Many other methods, chemical treatments, and “tricks” are available to make “funny money” seem as real as possible. Stop- ping them is difficult. According to some estimates, as much as one-fifth of the US money in circulation is fake, in part because rogue nations like North Korea engage in counterfeiting on an enormous scale to support themselves.
In game terms, counterfeiting paper money is a two-step process. First, the character has to obtain the right equipment and raw materials for the job, or as close as he can get. (Of course he needs an original to work from, but obtaining one is as easy as visiting the nearest bank or store.) The GM may want to play this out (at least once) as an adventure, but if necessary he can simply have the character make a roll. Use the “Sample Quality” section of the Forgery Modifiers table to represent “Materials Quality.” As a rough guideline, if the roll succeeds exactly, the character has Average quality materi- als; if it succeeds by 2, he has Good materials; if it succeeds by 4 or more he has Very Good materials. If the roll fails by 1-3, he has Poor materials; if it fails by 4 or more he has Very Poor materials. The quality of his materials provides a modifier for the second step, creating the funny money itself. If that roll succeeds, it functions as the result for a Forgery Versus Forgery Skill Contest roll made by someone who tries to determine if the money is fake. If the roll fails, anyone with Forgery, a relevant KS, or some other appropriate Skill automatically realizes it’s phony; if the roll fails by 4 or more, anyone can tell it’s fake. (Alternately, the GM might grant such