I have always had a difficult time running current times campaigns (If I run modern campaigns, it's usually set in the 80s/early 90s). One of the difficulties I have is coming up with scenarios that can't be easily deconstructed by Smartphones.

I would love to be able to run a modern campaign where I don't have to eliminate smartphones. I mean, they don't help with combat...but anywhere else I can't imagine a player not just googling information they need or getting an App for something.

Anybody else have this issue? Anybody solve this issue? Anybody never had a problem with smartphones in their games and want to share their philosophy?

Quote from: KrakaJak;442840I have always had a difficult time running current times campaigns (If I run modern campaigns, it's usually set in the 80s/early 90s). One of the difficulties I have is coming up with scenarios that can't be easily deconstructed by Smartphones.

I would love to be able to run a modern campaign where I don't have to eliminate smartphones. I mean, they don't help with combat...but anywhere else I can't imagine a player not just googling information they need or getting an App for something.

Anybody else have this issue? Anybody solve this issue? Anybody never had a problem with smartphones in their games and want to share their philosophy?

Had a similar problem with comms in Traveller.

The key is to remember that not all information is either online or easily accessible and that information that is online or easily accessible may be false. You cannot access the blueprints for a building's ventilation system via smartphone if they are not online or behind some heavy security. However, let's say that you can access the ventilation system blueprints online, if the villain is smart enough then those blueprints will be false and lead any people using them into a trap set by the building's security.

Use time against the Players. A smartphone may access the internet for information, but the PCs may not have time enough to do a search before that time runs out on them and they must act.

Comms and smartphones can still have trouble working where a signal cannot get to it. Radio works poorly underground or during a solar flare on certain worlds.

Finally, smartphones can break. They can be dropped or get wet or have a strong electrical current pass through them. Any of these can destroy or severely disable a smartphone. If you want to be wicked, just have the touch screen on a smartphone develop a crack or other deformity - then the PCs may have accessed the needed information, but cannot read it in the garbled state it appears.

Hope those suggestions help....

Quote from: jeff37923;442844The key is to remember that not all information is either online or easily accessible and that information that is online or easily accessible may be false.

That was my first thought... a lot of the info I look up online is out of date or mixed in with crazed ravings, attempts at revisionist fiddling or just not from a reliable source. It takes a lot longer to track down the real experts and they're often not freely accessible.
Finding a Lady Gaga video? That's easy... finding something actually useful outside of basic history and nomenclature... still going to take some doing.

Smartphones are like any other piece of equipment, they are both an asset and a liability.

They can get you general information, and allow instant communication. But the information may be wrong (oh hi wikipedia!) and someone may wish to communicate with you at an inconvenient moment, eg you are sneaking somewhere and your girlfriend calls.

"I put my phone on silent!"
"Oh okay, roll to notice vibration... failed? Okay, interesting, I guess your girlfriend can't get through, guess you're not there when you need her, hope she's not in danger, hmm..."
"What? I have this sudden urge to call her."
"You won't be very sneaky chatting to your girlfriend."
"..."
etc.

And much of the information PCs need is something someone knows but doesn't want to share. Jack Bauer's mobile phone doesn't help him find the bomb before it goes off, that's what torturing suspects is for. Ahem.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;442849someone may wish to communicate with you at an inconvenient moment, eg you are sneaking somewhere and your girlfriend calls.

Reminds me of that scene in 'The Descent' when the girl's alarm goes off.

From my experience with trying to write a simulation of the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft is that problem isn't so much there isn't any information but rather it's not the right kind of information. In short there is a wealth of information but it only goes so deep.

Plus when you do find the information it is usually devoid of context, which is find for when it for a bunch of workers at the same company or organization but often a mystery for those trying to make sense of it after the fact. Sometimes it relies on something that not in the net or written down. Again it OK for the people writing the document because the assumptions are part of their workplace.

In short the players may find a floorplan for a building but it will be missing enough information that it uses for a life and death situation, like a break in, is questionable. But it will give them a starting point to direct further digging. Like questioning employees, breaking into the regional engineer office, or into the local ac/heating or plumbing company that laid out those sections of the building.

Finally for popular sites, the security plans will be designed with the idea that people will know as much as possible about the building.  They wouldn't rely on security through obscurity.

Finally I tend rely on more on the challenges poised by human interactions rather than pure physical challengers. Which is one reason why I liked the basic premise of the Traveller Adventure. It didn't matter how easy it was to grab the Howood Amulet from the museum on Leedor on Aramis.  Because the true challenge was in unraveling the plot that surrounded the amulet.

This has been a big issue for thriller writers.

I can see no issue with it. I mean compared to a wish spell or having a coder upload the ability to fly an apache helicopter into the PCs head, being able to check the structure of a corporation or track down the architech's plan for a building is small potatoes.

Working out where to get the correct info and what is correct and what is suprious is what research/computor use checks are for. Working as I do in a large multinational with petabytes of information to trawl through and doing that as a matter of course I don't see it as an issue.

So you can block them but I say let the PCs be cool let them get informaton easily and quickly let them hack into the control network for the traffic lights in LA just make it funa nd part of the plot. Most good plots don't come down to information they come down to relationships and people the same as stories really ...

In addition to the many great posts already here, I'd also add trouble with connectivity and speed.

Connectivity can be a pain in outlying areas or even in heavily built up areas.  My 3G iPhone, frex, sucks in many areas outside of major urban centers with its awesome AT&T network.  The fiance and I are like a commercial sometimes: "I don't have any bars here, dammit."  To which she responds, "Hmm, I've got four bars on my Android."

Also, just because smartphones allow access to the internet doesn't mean the information will come up instantly.  How many times have you tried to access a site to find a place to eat in an unfamiliar town and just watched that damn little spinny wheel graphic turn and turn and turn and...for five minutes.  If time is of the essence, the smartphone might not have the juice to pull your chestnuts outta the fire.

Finally, don't forget about battery life.  PCs have been away from home for a few days?  Battery's dead, sorry....

It wasn't smart phones specifically but the internet generally and google maps that really unraveled a mid level superhero campaign when one of the superhero's key ability was basically that he could access the internet and networks in general from pretty much anywhere.  Google maps for picking out targets, hacking 3g/wifi to gain information etc...  We'd know pretty much everything there is to know about a building before we entered it.

So either everything suddenly became very - very low tech or everything became so incredibly hardened against tech intrusion that it neutered his characters.  Either way it fizzled the campaign, other reasons killed it entirely but that ended up being a big sore spot for the GM.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;442849They can get you general information, and allow instant communication. But the information may be wrong (..) And much of the information PCs need is something someone knows but doesn't want to share.

I think that's a very important point right here. (1) In a game that takes on some sort of conspiracy dressing, or supernatural masquerade and so on, you'll have access to the information available to the masses, as well as crazy conspiracy theories. Not necessarily "the truth." In that case, a smartphone might provide information overload: so much information that the PCs basically drown in red herrings. Being able to actually recognize relevant information might become the challenge. (2) Many, if not all, mysteries are based on information that is not readily shared, like some secret guarded for some reason (you don't find Da Vinci's code detailed on Wikipedia), or relationships and individual motivations that are privvy to these people, unless they have a blog or something where they basically talk about such things (which could be fun in the forms of electronic handouts in a Cthulhu Now game or something).

Real life secret services and police make use of the internet in a number of ways, but the internet alone doesn't replace talking directly to witnesses, DNA prints found at a crime scene, travelling to Pakistan to actually talk with people who might have contacts with Al Qaeda, and so on, so forth. I think there's a tendency to overstate the power of the internet in terms of information value and tool for investigation. It is useful, for sure, but just like the email didn't replace paper in the work place, the internet will not replace actual field work when it comes to uncovering the truth.

Just generally, if people want to use and abuse the internet, making it more realistic and less like a movie will limit their power. Unless there's some secret blueprint.com you can log into, most buildings' blueprints aren't online, and none of the internal systems possess a map of the building either.

Most government websites that have things like registration info, blueprints, etc. are either badly out of date, incompatible with smartphone browsers, or serve as ad platforms for the organisation.

"I look up the blueprints in the county registrar's office."
"The county registrar hasn't had a budgetary increase since 1978, and has no website."

Quote from: kryyst;442904Google maps for picking out targets, hacking 3g/wifi to gain information etc...  We'd know pretty much everything there is to know about a building before we entered it.

You are aware that many of the google map images are a few years old? For example, until a few weeks ago, my local gym appeared on google maps as an empty lot - which it was until 4 years ago.

As for hacking 3g/wifi, you run into the same problem that real-world intelligence agencies do: too much information. Of all the webpages being loaded and all the conversations being had on mobile phones, which ones do you listen to? Or as Benoist says,

Quote from: Benoista smartphone might provide information overload: so much information that the PCs basically drown in red herrings.

Which is the problem for real-world intelligence and police agencies. As well, some nasty people are just plain smart. The September 11 guys didn't write any dodgy emails, kept all their transactions small so they wouldn't be noticed, had all their planning meetings in person, and so on.

As an example from one of my espionage games, the PCs knew that a team of Russians had explosives and VX and were planning to use it in their city. But when and where and how? It was all planned by one of the terrorists, and he only told his team the details in the moments before they did anything.

The attack was to be on a train station. In fact his plan was not to simply put the nerve gas around the explosives and detonate it on the train, but to plant the bomb and then spray the walls of the safety exits... so whether or not the bomb was discovered, as thousands of people went through the safety exits they'd receive a dangerous dose of the stuff; and for every poisoned person there'd be ten panicky people rushing to hospitals (the early symptoms of VX poisoning, muscle spams, sweating and nausea, these are also symptoms of fear!) and overwhelming the system and generally being terrorised.

If all the PCs found out was the target, then the PCs might actually cause the train station to be evacuated and thus be the cause of many deaths. If they just followed the explosives, same deal - they prevent the bombs, enable the poison deaths. So they had to be close enough to observe him getting protective suits and a spray system and so on - stuff he bought from an agricultural supply shop.

He wasn't emailing people about it on the internet or phoning people up about it, so they couldn't listen in and figure things out from there. Basically they just had to watch him unobserved the whole time. And they had other people to watch, too.

As the others have said, if you make your games all about high technology, then sure, high technology will do everything for you. But if you make your games about people, then... well, that's where it gets interesting and fun.

BTW, if you're trying to figure out how to run a low-tech modern conspiracy in your RPG that's not able to be broken open by someone with an internet connection, Al Qaida puts out a free web magazine called Inspire with tons of useful tips. Learn from the pros!

In modern espionage, remember that the enemy also has the internet...and probably more time to plan for the coming of agents.

AKA, if my Evil Dudes have warehouse HQ, their pet hacker may have already dumped a bunch of false info on easy to hack sites with an auto-response if anyone taps into those sites.  

So you just downloaded the plans of the warehouse...but the plans are wrong and now the Evil Dudes know you are coming.

My general rule for espionage is Think Vicious.

I dunno, I played lots of Call of Chthulu, and the Library! plays the same sort of gamebreaking role. I don't mind that the Library! or the Smartphone! are useful if they fade into the background, but too much of the time they end up as item pr0n.
 
Right: I found this map (in the libary / on my smartphone) that shows the location of the cultists secret layer!
 
Wrong: I'll find the secret layer using my Smartphone! 'beep boop beep beep'
Gm: Ok, you discover...
Wronger: But first I bounce my signal off of New York so they can't trace me.
Gm: Ok, you discover....
Wrongerer: And through England, France, and China!
Gm: Fine! You discover...
Wrong^2: Oh mighty GM, how many hours will it take to scramble mine phone thusly?
Gm: ...that the cultists SEEECRET lair....
Nerd: Actualy, it would take a fortnight.
Wrongist: To slow! Tiny lives are at stake! I use my Smartphone! to figure out a faster way! I'm using the touchscreen to push pictures of buttons and not actual buttons themselves does that freeking blow your mind or what?!