TFL/Questions and Answers

This game uses a modified version of the Monster Hunters Investigation rules. This allows the players to pose questions, have their characters investigate for clues, have their characters think about the answer to the question, and hopefully have the GM tell the players the answer to the question whether or not the players have figured things out.

# Current Enigmas

Who are the pirate agents on V'Altrin station in Fromeltar other than RX?
*Multi-part question*.
*Difficulty and skills*: Impossible difficult check against Streetwise, Area Knowledge (V'Altrin station), or Intelligence Analysis -2.
*Clues*: 6+. RX was selling pirate data to and buying data from CSSD-K and Mr. Ebony but mostly sending it to the ARCM. Maxwell Lang is reporting shipping data to his boss. The pirate agent is possibly highly placed in the criminal underworld. The pirate agent might also be placed in a legitimate business. Kim Taylor is almost certainly connected to Cheng Stone. Kim Taylor has a boss connected to Cheng Stone. Unknown additional clues.
Who is Mr. Ebony actually on V'Altrin station in Fromeltar?
*Difficulty and skills*: Very hard difficult check against Streetwise, Area Knowledge (V'Altrin station), or Intelligence Analysis -2.
*Clues*: 6 clues. Mr. Ebony might be a Kun of the Starmist clan. Mr. Ebony did not supply much data to RuteXcalation. Mr. Ebony uses the same anonymizer service as Kim Taylor. 3 other data clues.
Why are two different groups buying HEU-235 in Fromeltar?
*Difficulty and skills*: Hard difficult check against Criminology, Psychology (Applied) -2, or Intelligence Analysis; all at an additional +4 for realizing there are may be multiple pirate agents for different pirate organizations.
*Clues*: 5-6. Highly enriched U-235 is most useful for building primitive nuclear weapons. Pirates desire nuclear missiles for intimidation purposes. Kim called the hijackers "Red Castle" but they said they were "Star Devils" and called him a "Voider".2-3 more.
How involved in piracy are the CDE consulate officials at V'Altrin?
*Difficulty and skills*: Very hard difficult check against Politics or Intelligence Analysis -4.
*Clues*: 6. Megan Waters, a CDE trade analyst, is acquiring cargo information about ships that are possibly statically more likely to be subject to pirate attacks. She sincerely and honestly believes that she is not passing data to pirates. The CDE has been long rumored to support Cheng Stone. Waters strongly denies CDE involvement in the Cheng Stone pirates. Someone has hacked the consulate servers and has a data tap running. The hack and data tap was aided by some secure ports being left open.
What is the Solar League getting out of identifying the pirate agent for the CSU that makes it worth tasking Dex?
*Difficulty and skills*: Hard difficult check against Politics or Intelligence Analysis -4.
*Clues*: 0.
# Game Mechanics

## Posing a Question

Any player, at any time, can ask a question that needs to be investigated. The GM will record the question and give an apparent difficulty to solve it and the relevant skills for deduction.

Deduction penalty levels
 Impossible | -10 or worse

Some questions are so complicated that they cannot be answered in a single deduction. Deducing the answer gives a partial answer and reveals another, more detailed question that can be investigated.

## Investigating Clues

A clue is a concrete fact that aids in deducing the answer to a specific question. Clues are found by investigation. Investigation is any process that uncovers more information, but is generally a series of skill checks. Interviewing witnesses, interrogating prisoners, acquiring and examining computer records, and similar actions are all examples of investigation. A particular act of investigation may result in clues for more than one question.

The GM will generally record what clues have been found, but sometimes the characters will uncover clues without the players recognizing them as clues. These will just be noted as clues without specifics.

The answers to some questions are often clues to help solve other questions. If a question is answered and would provide a clue to another question, the GM will generally announce this at the time.

## Deducing the Answer

Any time after the characters have discovered at least two clues for a question, a character can spend an hour attempting to deduce the answer. The character can not take extra time to get a bonus. Deducing an answer is a secret skill check against the character's best applicable skill from the list of relevant skills, with a penalty relative to the difficulty of the question and a +1 bonus per clue. Particularly important clues may be worth more than +1.

On success, the GM answers the question, with more detail depending on the margin of success. Failure consumes two clues and gives a cumulative -2 penalty on repeated attempts. There is no extra penalty for critical failures.

### Confirming a Suspicion

Players can attempt to figure out the answer to a question. If they mostly put things together themselves but aren't entirely certain of the answer, they may use the deduction rules to get the GM to confirm their suspicions. The deduction roll is at +4 if the players' suspicion is correct and at -2 if the suspicion is wrong.

Although confirming a suspicious is fun and satisfying, ***it is not necessary to have attempt to answer a question before attempting to deduce an answer.*** These rules are meant to let the characters, who are often smarter or more knowledgeable than the players, have a way to answer questions that the players are struggling with. It is precisely intended that the characters be able to look a collection of random data and deduce the answer to a question that the players cannot figure out.

# Past Enigmas

What fundamental assumption are we making that's wrong about the search for the pirate agent?
**SOLVED**: We are incorrect in assuming there is only *one* pirate agent working for only *one* pirate fleet.
*Relevant clues*: There are four or more different and independent organized crime groups on V'Altrin. V'Altrin has a smaller population than Cheng Stone, so Cheng Stone probably has more independent pirate groups. Neither the CSU or the Skoz family know anything about the Cheng Stone pirates, so there is no reason to trust their assumption that there is only 1 pirate agent. At least 3 groups of possible pirates were mentioned when the HEU-235 shipment was hijacked from Kim Taylor. Everything about the history of organized criminal groups suggests there would be multiple factions among the pirates.
*Difficulty and skills*: Moderate difficult check against Streetwise, Criminology, Heraldry -4, Psychology (Applied) -1, or Intelligence Analysis.
Who is Maxwell Lang's crime lieutenant on V'Altrin station in Fromeltar?
**SOLVED**: Jesse Cawthorne.
*Relevant clues*: Maxwell's disorganized records. Maxwell's rarely updated calendar. The lieutenant told Maxwell about the shipments of HEU. Jesse Cawthorne was the only person not on the crew to see the HEU-235 shipments and was very interested in them. Maxwell told his lieutenant to investigate the other receiver of HEU. After Kim Taylor's HEU shipment was hijacked and taken to Jessi Cawthorne's business someone emailed Maxwell an encoded message announcing the event (2 clues). .
*Difficulty and skills*: Very hard difficult check against Streetwise, Area Knowledge (V'Altrin station), or Intelligence Analysis -2.
Where does Robin Uvalde fit in to the V'Altrin crime web??
**SOLVED**: Robin Uvalde is just a low level informant reporting to Megan Waters, who may or may not be part of a larger conspiracy.
*Relevant clues*: Robin has a Ka-Pow! addiction. Robin has knowledge of what freight is loaded onto starships. Robin is regularly meeting with Megan Waters, a trade analyst for the CDE, and depositing cash shortly after the meetings.
*Difficulty and skills*: Easy difficult check against Streetwise, Criminology, or Intelligence Analysis -2.
What investigative paths have we uncovered in the pirate agent case but not realized?
**SOLVED**: This is not an exhaustive list. You could probably arrange an interview with Megan Waters and ask her about her stuff. You might be able to arrange a friendly interview with Lang or e - or possibly an unfriendly one. Kim Taylor might know some stuff. A lot of people are using anonymizer services to disguise who they are sending messages to and receive messages from. The anonymizer services has to know these people's actual emails
*Relevant clues*: Maxwell is communicating with his boss about the HEU shipments via an anonymizer service. Someone has hacked the consulate servers and has a data tap running. Possibly others.
*Difficulty and skills*: Easy difficult check against Criminology +1 or Intelligence Analysis.
Who are the pirate agents on V'Altrin station in Fromeltar?
**SOLVED**: Rudy Calais, aka RuteXcalation, is the pirate agent for Akagi-Red Castle Mutineers.
*Relevant clues*: Megan Water is collecting shipping data for the CDE. Maxwell Lang is reporting shipping data to his boss. The pirate agent is possibly highly placed in the criminal underworld. The pirate agent might also be placed in a legitimate business. Kim Taylor is almost certainly connected to Cheng Stone. Kim Taylor has a boss connected to Cheng Stone. Unknown additional clues.
*Difficulty and skills*: Impossible difficult check against Streetwise, Area Knowledge (V'Altrin station), or Intelligence Analysis -2.
Who is RuteXcalation (RX), the cracker who hacked the *Dollar* on V'Altrin?
**SOLVED**: Rudy Calais, a business analyst with a shady past.
*Relevant clues*: RX must have had some reason for attacking the *Dollar*. RX is almost certainly not the security expert at the CDE consulate. Almost certainly one of Joey Hegsworth, Tony Hurt, Glenn Tomasko, Johnny Bauer, or Rudy Calais, all of whom are criminals who were celebrating at Macroni's Irish Pub. Those 5 backgrounds suggest any of them except possibly Tony Hurt could be RX. RX generally doesn't manage attacks similar to the ones on the consulate or the *Dollar*. 3 other data clues.
*Difficulty and skills*: Very hard difficult check against Streetwise or Intelligence Analysis -2.
Where is RuteXcalation (RX), the cracker who hacked the *Dollar* on V'Altrin?
**SOLVED**: At Rudy's house, on the edge between CCW-Mids and CCW-Downs.
*Relevant clues*: RX is almost certainly somewhere on V'Altrin, probably near CCW-Mid. He is probably generating a lot of heat for computers. He is either at Hegsworth's, Hurt, and Tomasko's place or at Bauer and Calais' place..
*Difficulty and skills*: Very hard difficult check against Area Knowledge (V'Altrin Station), Area Knowledge (CSU) -6, Area Knowledge (the Fringe) -10, Intelligence Analysis -4.
Why did RuteXcalation (RX) target the *Dollar* for a cracking attempt on V'Altrin?
**SOLVED**: He noticed Jeff's intrusion attempts on the CDE consulate and tried to see if his icebreaker could break the *Dollar*s security
*Relevant clues*: Jeff has been doing a lot of hacking recently..
*Difficulty and skills*: Moderate difficult check against Computer Hacking, Criminology, Law (CSU), Psychology (Applied), or Intelligence Analysis.
Who is CSSD-K actually on V'Altrin station in Fromeltar?
**SOLVED**: Kel Kehone, the FTA office manager at V'Altrin
*Relevant clues*: CSSD-K had plentiful data to sell to RuteXcalation. CSSD might be *C*heng *S*tone *S*tar *D*evils, and the Star Devils may have stolen Kim Taylor's HEU-235 shipment. 1 other data clue.
*Difficulty and skills*: Very hard difficult check against Streetwise, Area Knowledge (V'Altrin station), or Intelligence Analysis -2.
Who is Maxwell Lang's crime boss on V'Altrin station in Fromeltar?
**SOLVED**: Bernhard Thrope, a mostly legitimate security consultant who also runs a protection racket and reports via anonymized emails to Kel Kehote.
*Relevant clues*: Maxwell's disorganized records. Maxwell's rarely updated calendar. Maxwell is communicating with his boss about the HEU shipments. 1 other clue.
*Difficulty and skills*: Very hard difficult check against Streetwise, Area Knowledge (V'Altrin station), or Intelligence Analysis -2.