So I occasionally like to come up with my own scenarios for infinity, and thought I would share one I recently tried. Warning: This rule is not heavily tested. It is likely not balanced for tournaments or pickup play. This rule heavily favors certain army builds. However if you have a regular opponent, and both of you know and agree to the rule before you build your list, it can add an interesting new wrinkle. The purpose of this rule is to simulate the kind of black ops Infinity is well suited to. In this situation, a hacker is attempting to catch and suppress any information about the op from leaking to the public. This rule can be added to any existing scenario to influence how it plays. ---- Media Supression: This special skill is a hacking program added to Hacking Devices, Hacking Device+, Evo Hacking Devices, and I guess Phero-ware if you want the Tohaa to be able to play to. Burst = 3. When a hacker uses this skill, they must roll below their WIP, but above the number of friendly figures on the table in a non-Null, non-marker state. If the test succeeds, that team earns 1 point. Only 1 point per turn can be earned with this skill. ---- Adding this rule to a game heavily favors Limited Insertion Camo lists. This can be fun if both players build their lists with foreknowledge that this will be an intrinsic part of the next game. Enjoy!
... does President Trump know about this, yet? Could you develop an entire scenario around the idea and have points for leaking 'fake news' too?
If it were me, I’d do it as a Special Rule that worked like this: Mission Skill Hack Media (Entire Order Skill) Hackers have infiltrated Maya to destabilize the population with inflammatory headlines, holographic combait, and feline sensory vids. Requirements Only Hackers may declare this skill. Effects Allows the Hacker to make a Normal WIP roll to Hack Media. If the roll is successful, place a Fake News marker on the Hacker. At the end of the game, remove any Fake News markers from Hackers in a Null state. Mission Bonus Hackers with a White Hacking Device, Defensive Hacking Device, Hacking Device Plus, or EVO Hacking Device get +3 to the WIP roll necessary to Hack Media. With that rule in place you can have fun with Objectives. For example: Objectives Have the same number of Fake News markers as your opponent. Have more Fake News markers than your opponent. Your opponent has no Fake News markers. You can also fiddle with Mission Rules, such as a Mission rule that lets whoever has more Fake News markers give their opponent -1 OP, or a rule that lets you cancel classified objectives with XYZ icon, or a rule that has the players make a FtF hacking roll at the end of the game with a Burst equal to your Fake News tokens. Doing the rule this way also gives non-hackers a way to ‘cancel’ Fake News by killing the hacker. It’s the same idea, but more versatile.
@MindwormGames I am leery of the term 'Fake News'. While there is certainly fake news stories out there, as of late it just seems to be a buzzword used to shut down conversation. But that is just my own personal bias. What you are suggesting is kind of the opposite of what I was. I was talking about suppressing information, and you are talking about a disinformation campaign. Your idea has merit but comes at it from a different angle. It could be interesting to combine the two. A player may use a hacker to add disinformation to the Maya Sphere, and the other player needs to use a hacker to expose that disinformation as a lie. Sort of like a public opinion scale, that opposing hackers can move back and forth. But then we have perhaps made hacking too central to a game about shooting people. Maybe the propaganda tests can only be made while in base-to-base with an antenna? Or inside some sort armory-like media room? Then you can use that guy with the flame-thrower to do some judicious 'extreme editing'.
My idea for a mission; It's set in a "television" station. There's a series of rooms which both sides need to infiltrate to reach a number of 'media centre' areas, and they need to use these 'media centres' to influence the public's perception of their faction/cause/whatever. There should be as many such 'media centre' areas throughout the station as you think is applicable, (e.g. Production, Editing, Broadcast), but probably at least 4 or 5. Specialists can 'turn' each 'media centre' to their side with a Short Skill and a WIP check; Hackers auto-pass the WIP roll. The various 'media-centres' are also destructible scenery elements, and thus allowing anti-material ammo to ensure the 'current' state sticks; but destroying an area causes Fire damage to everyone inside the area, (as the resultant explosion engulfs the entire room/section). OPs are scored for each 'media centre' you've turned to your side; bonus points for destroying them.
Pen-dragon, Names are just names. It can be changed to whatever. The rules still work for what you want to do thematically. They’re flexible. What I wrote is a system in which Hackers can ‘do a thing’ to generate a resource, and those resources can be used as the basis of mission special rules or objective points. The resources can be eliminated by non-hackers via direct action, thus helping to balance low hacking factions or army lists. The core idea is that hackers on opposing sides are working against each other indirectly. It doesn’t really matter what they are doing, thematically. The point is that players have to balance the expenditure of Orders against the potential benefits of generating the mission specific McGuffin resource. They have to keep those resources on the table, too, attached to models that need to be in a non-Null state.
I like that idea. Some nice discussion going on here. I am inspired to try and come up with my own, 'internet propaganda' themed mission. I might try and cobble something together and test it out with some players I trust.
