The fact is, though, that some governments have gotten pretty good at that. You see echoes of this in the UK as well, with an increase in surveillance. China’s crackdown on journalism and filtering of the Internet is another example. And last but not least, the United States has gotten in on this, with such as TALON and the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

The latest bit that brings Control to mind is this: the NSA and the Chinese government are teaming up to limit anonymity on the Internet.

In the US, I feel like there’s a kind of “can’t happen here” attitude, where if you’re innocent, you have nothing to fear. And ordinarily, I try to keep politics out of my roleplaying. But I think it might be all the more interesting to run a game that includes some of these themes. Sometimes exploring something through fiction can provide a kind of insight you just don’t get from reading newspaper articles.

A justifiable fear is that this would too real, in a sense. Some people might not appreciate it for other reasons. Without making too much of a value judgment, some people actually think this kind of behavior in a government isn’t such a bad idea, at least when the US does it.

This is more the germ or the framework for a game. There’d still be a bunch of work as you’d have to come up with a plot. It’s somewhat experimental. And also it might be a lousy idea.

The Game

One set of PCs that play normals, or at least most of them seem like normals. At your option, one or more of them could be involved with one or another illegal activity.

The other set of PCs plays the spooks, for lack of a better term. These are the guys who are tasked with investigating crimes and providing surveillance. Think of an amalgam, here, or an ensemble cast like the people in Law & Order SVU.

The important thing about the spooks is that they are regular people. They aren’t cackling mad or faceless machines. They have loved ones and they collect a paycheck. However misguided we might think they are, they feel what they’re doing is right. That’s part of what’s meant to be scary about the spooks.

One thing you should avoid is a 24-like aesthetic, where the villains are simple and things like torture have no impact on the torturer. Law & Order is a decent example, as the way those characters exploit loopholes in the laws can be very questionable.

The overall goal here is to give the players a look at what it’s like to be on both sides. The normals may, for the most part, be going about their business. Or maybe, in a crisis, they do things that look questionable, and maybe even outside of this context, some of them are questionable. Use your imagination.

For the normals, emphasize paranoia. They see strange cars parked down the street. After the spooks interview them, their friends recoil, afraid to talk much to the PCs. The normals notice neighbors snooping or staring.

For the spooks, emphasize ambiguity, uncertainty, and an undercurrent of urgency. Is this enough for probable cause? Is this harmless, or is it a neighbor settling a score? Do they have time to wait? Don’t let the spooks run roughshod over the law; a disincentive might be excess media attention or superiors who take a dim view of squandering precious time and resources on such a trivial case.

Conversely, planting evidence or entrapment shouldn’t be forbidden out-right. You should just be sure to emphasize the risk and play up that what the PCs are doing is illegal and could jeopardize their case should it come to light.

Ending? What ending?

How could this end? I dunno. This is the part where my idea is weakest.

From here, this could morph into a cat-and-mouse game, a shoot-out, a tragedy, or whatever else you have in mind. I imagine scenes where the spooks are face to face with normals, trying to feel one another out, or where the normals force the spooks into a manhunt. The spooks have to avoid scrutiny while the normals have to avoid getting caught. The normals try to gin up support in the media or on the Internet, trying to find a safe place to stay while the spooks have to sift through all of the clues to track the normals down.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. Lousy idea? Great idea? Dunno.

That said, I did bring Hunter: the Vigil with me, so maybe I’ll write some thoughts about that. There’ve also been some D&D Insider articles up I could talk about a bit.

In the meantime, I recommend you check out blogs on my blogroll, or hit up rpgblogger.com, if that’s not what brought you here in the first place. :)

For this build, we’ll go with level 5. Why level 5? Because that’s what level we were in the Moathouse adventure I played at PAX.

Premise

Wisdom is ostensibly a useful stat for Wizards. For example, look at the control wizard’s at-wills: both Thunderwave and Cloud of Daggers use Wisdom. The control wizard’s Orb of Imposition feature also uses Wisdom.

Unfortunately, that’s about it! More so than most classes, hardly any wizard attack powers rely on secondary or tertiary stats. That said, since anyone can get an 18 in a stat, this does mean you only need one other related stat to make a viable wizard build.

So let’s do it.

Stats & Class

Our stat block starts off like this: Int 17, Wis 15, Str 13, Con 10. We’ll boost Int and Wis by 1 each at level 4 so after racial bonuses we have Int 18, Wis 18, Str 13, and Con 12.

Get Orb of Imposition, Cloud of Daggers, and Thunderwave. For the level 1 encounter power, Ray of Enfeeblement, Chill Strike, and Icy Terrain are all eminently reasonable choices. Once you see this guy’s defenses, Burning Hands might not seem like such a bad idea, either.

Sleep and Acid Arrow for our dailies (they both have saves, you see). Consider Flaming Sphere purely for fun.

Get Shield and Expeditious Retreat at level 2. At level 3, pick Icy Rays. Consider Fire Shroud also; it’s an encounter power with a save ends effect, which you can of course penalize if you wish.

At level 5, get Web and Bigby’s Icy Grasp.

Feats

Let’s sink a couple of our feats into Leather and Light Shield proficiency. Burning Blizzard isn’t a bad choice for our last feat, but I’m compelled to embrace the offbeat nature of this build. Hide Proficiency will let this guy wear Barkskin Armor on top of the +1 AC, so Hide Proficiency it is.

Equipment

For magic items, we get a level 4, level 5, and level 6 item. Amulet of Protection +2 is an amazingly good level 6 item. We’ll take a loss on our level 4 item and take the Orb of Inevitable Continuance (level 3). Finally, our level 5 slot goes to Barkskin Armor +1.

We probably have a bunch of gold left over. Consider spending money on a wand for a daily use of a level 1 encounter power or for some potions of healing.

Results

This guy has +7 to attack, pushing enemies 4 squares or doing a 4 damage Reaping Strike at range. If he uses orb of imposition to penalize saves, that’s -4, which is kind of scary.

We have AC 21, which becomes 23 when we activate barkskin armor. This is on par with a sword and board fighter of our level. Our other defenses are Reflex 19, Fortitude 15, and Will 20.

In terms of a rough character sketch, this is another against-the-grain kind of character. His armor proficiency suggests that despite his unorthodox choice of profession, he wouldn’t forgo basic protection. Still, as a scholar among dwarves, he is slightly out of place. I could see him multiclassing into cleric eventually, or perhaps earlier, acting almost as a community or spiritual leader with an arcane bent.

Or an elf!

In case you didn’t notice, you could just as easily accomplish this build with an elf. The fact that this guy’s a dwarf means he doesn’t get much benefit from not wearing any armor, whereas an elf could reap the benefits of Speed 7 and the ability to re-roll an attack once per encounter. All told, that’s probably a better choice if you’re trying to be, er, less suboptimal.