Besides creating fake items or documents, characters can use Forgery to detect fakes, and to pass off fakes they’ve created.
DETECTING FORGERIES
The more a character makes his Forgery roll by, the more time it typically takes to discover the forged item is fake — it may take years or decades in some cases. To uncover a successful use of Forg- ery, a character investigating the forged item must know Forgery himself, conduct a detailed examina- tion of the object, and win a Forgery Versus Forg- ery Skill Contest with the forger.
Detecting Art Forgeries
In the case of art, the forgery detective con- fronts many obstacles. First, the age and uncertain provenance of many items can make analysis diffi- cult. Second, the fact that artists sometimes exper- iment with styles, change their styles, ape another artist’s style, or make multiple copies or “drafts” of a work means that a work that doesn’t look
exactly right could still be legitimate — and while
it’s bad enough to accept a forgery as real, it’s even worse to brand as a forgery a genuine work. Third, if a fake gains acceptance (as they so often do) and remains undetected for a long time, it not only influences thinking about the artist’s work, it may inspire other fakes, further confusing the picture. Fourth, a fake created in the distant past may give every appearance of genuine age and materials, because it really is that old. Some Greek and Renaissance artists, to name just two groups, were master forgers who cranked out fakes by the wagonload; the works of famous artists were often faked during the artists’ lifetimes.
Still, all is not gloom. Art detectives have many ways to detect a fake. First, there’s scientific analysis of the materials used, which may indicate all sorts of problems — chemicals not in existence at the time of the fake’s supposed creation, signs of artificial aging (or that an item is too young), and so forth. Second, scholarly analysis may detect problems with the style and aesthetics of the work. Third, problems with the item’s history may give it away, or the fact that it lacks a reasonable history (or, paradoxically, that the history is too detailed) may tip an investigator off to look more closely (as may the “discovery” of a “new work” supposedly created by a currently-trendy artist). Fourth, some experts contend that most fakes have at least one stupid mistake that a trained observer can find with careful observation and study of the item coupled with a deep knowledge of art history. Knowledge Skill: Art History, not to mention more specific KSs like KS: Works Of Rembrandt, are invaluable as Complementary Skills.
Some accomplished experts at finding fakes have their own unusual, personal methods of detecting forgeries. For example, some claim they can distinguish a real work of art from a fake one by smelling, tasting, or chewing on the material; others have an “intuition” for fakery that they can’t explain in rational terms.
Detecting Other Forgeries
Detecting forged money and documents is usually a simpler matter than detecting forged art. In many cases a close examination, possibly includ- ing applying a simple chemical test to the paper, is all that’s required to reveal the objects as fake; this may not even require a roll. If the forger’s done a really good job, a character may have to perform a minute analysis involving sophisticated tools to discover that the document is fraudulent.
In most cases, characters who specialize in detecting forgeries (particularly of money) have a relevant KS pertaining to the type of money they’re accustomed to for use as a Complementary Skill. A character who knows US currency backwards and forwards may have no idea how to evaluate a Japanese yen note or a European euro bill. The same applies to official credentials and other docu- mentation — knowing what a DEA identification card looks like doesn’t mean the character’s just as well-versed in Interpol cards. Forgery conveys some knowledge of these subjects, but a real expert has relevant KSs as well.
PASSING FAKES
The Forgery Skill provides a character with at least some ability to distribute the fakes he cre- ates. When it comes to counterfeit money, this is sometimes referred to as “passing” the fake bills. The easiest way to do this is to spend a large coun- terfeit bill for a small-value item and receive real money in return as change. However, this method, even when it involves groups of people recruited for the purpose, can be slow and exposes the forger to repeated risk of detection. Safer ways include selling the fake money to organized criminal groups for roughly 10% of its face value, buying large amounts of illegal goods (such as drugs) from criminal groups that can’t detect the fake money (especially if it’s mixed with real money), or passing large amounts of fake money at a single cash-ori- ented major event (like a World Series game).
How forgers pass other fakes depends on the object involved. An art forger typically tries to trick a collector or museum into buying his work, or he may partner with an unscrupulous art dealer who does this for him. Forged goods are usually sold into the normal stream of commerce at a discount so the buyer can sell them himself for full normal price and make a larger profit than if he bought the real thing. Forged documents are usually prepared at the behest of a specific person for a specific pur- pose, and thus don’t have to be passed.
To pass a forgery, a character has to make a Forgery roll in a Skill Versus Skill Contest. If the character succeeds, he distributes the fake appro- priately; the GM can determine how much profit he makes based on the roll’s degree of success. If the roll fails, the character can’t find the right outlet for his work or can’t convince anyone to pay him for it. Since passing forgeries often involves criminal skills or contacts, the Streetwise Skill may serve as a Complementary Skill.
If possible, the GM should encourage charac- ters to roleplay the passing of fakes they create; it can be a lot of fun.
Other Rules
EQUIPMENT
Except for faking a signature (which requires only a writing instrument), Forgery almost always requires considerable amounts of equipment, not to mention appropriate raw materials for the forger to work with (which can be even harder to obtain). For documents and currency, this includes special printing technology or devices, appropriate paper and ink, and the like. For art objects, it means art- ists’ tools, appropriately-aged canvases (or other materials to turn into art), and so on. A character lacking these things may not be able to use Forgery at all, or at the very least suffers substantial “lack of equipment” penalties (see page 33).
Equipment also comes in handy when detect- ing forgeries. Characters can use all sorts of sen- sors and other scientific equipment — ultraviolet and infrared lamps, powerful microscopes, carbon dating, chemical tests, and so forth — to reveal that a piece of money, art, or the like is a fake. Some types of anti-counterfeiting equipment is specifi- cally designed for use by laypersons and doesn’t require the user to make any sort of Forgery roll (the device itself is built using Forgery with the Limitation Only To Detect Forgeries (-1)).
POWERS AND FORGERY
A character with an appropriately-con- structed Images ability might be able to use it to create really realistic-seeming fakes without need- ing to use Forgery. Such a power would probably need to be Usable As Attack (so the character could “stick” the power to an object) and Persis- tent (so it keeps functioning beyond the charac- ter’s Line Of Sight). A Transform-based forging power wouldn’t suffer from these difficulties; the character would just use it to Transform “raw materials into artwork” or the like.
Conversely, a character with Enhanced Senses may have a much easier time detecting a fake. For example, experts often use infrared and ultraviolet scans when testing potentially phony pieces of art; a character who can naturally see IR and UV light may not need their fancy equipment to tell a fake from the real thing.
CONSEQUENCES OF FAILURE
The consequences of failure for different types of Forgery are discussed above.
BASE TIMES
The Base Times for most Forgery tasks are discussed above. The accompanying Forgery Base Times table provides general guidelines based on how simple an object or document to be faked are. After a character has created many copies of the same item or document, the time to create it may fall significantly due to his familiarity with the pro- cesses involved (reduce it by up to half).
UNIFYING/SUBDIVIDING FORGERY
The categories grouped together under the heading of “Forgery” aren’t necessarily that closely related in terms of the abilities needed to create fakes. In “realistic” campaigns, the GM may want to subdivide Forgery into four separate Intel- lect Skills: Art Forgery; Counterfeiting (forging money); Document Forgery (excluding hand- writing); and Signature Forgery (the faking of handwriting). On the other hand, in some games Forgery won’t be a significant aspect of game play. In that case the GM may want to make Forgery a standard Intellect Skill and let a character who pays 3 Character Points have the ability to create fake versions of nearly any object.
FORGERY BY GENRE
Generally, Forgery works the same from genre to genre and era to era. It’s just a question of what’s being forged, how it’s passed, and the tools involved.
Fantasy
Magic opens up all sorts of possibilities for Forgery. A character using an appropriate spell might be able to create perfect copies of objects and documents in mere seconds. On the other hand, anti-counterfeiting spells might make it equally easy to detect forgeries.
Pulp
During the Pulp era, art forgery was a boom- ing business. This was driven by several factors. The French artist Van Gogh was just becoming popular, and that often leads to a rise in forgeries of a given artist. The theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911 led to later claims that the real one was kept and a fake recovered; while this is untrue, it’s possible that many “real” Mona Lisas were made by Pulp-era forgers and sold to private collectors as genuine. (The increased fascination with da Vinci in the early twentieth century also led to the faking of other works of his.) A 1924 exhibition in London about forgeries, one of the first of its kind, not only gave collectors some idea of what to look out for but showed forgers what mistakes not to make in the future. The rise of big business and vast fortunes, especially in America, led to a spree of art collecting by the nouveau riche that created a market for phony works.
Counterfeiting could be big business in the Pulp era. In 1926, a group of Hungarian forgers, eager for revenge against France for its role in the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, engaged in am industrial-level forging operation to create 10 million fake French francs. They had state sponsorship; Germany and Austria were also involved. The counterfeiters’ aim was to use the profits to support militarist and border-changing political causes. Arrests in the Netherlands smashed the ring, and the League Of Nations launched an investigation.
Science Fiction
Forgery is a very technology-sensitive skill. Forgers who can absolutely fool contemporary methods of detection can be easily exposed by high-tech equipment, while a forger trying to beat advanced countermeasures may not even know what he has to fake. Apply the Obsolete And Advanced Technology rules from Chapter One whenever forgers and detectors from differing tech- nology levels are involved.