How to counter the ol' Stormtrooper disguise trick

[Gry Sarth]

Han and Luke showed us how to do it in the first Star Wars movie, and we all learned the lesson. It's the oldest trick in the book. Want to infiltrate and Imperial base? Knock out a couple of sentry stormtroopers, wear their armor and you're free to go nancing about the base as you please. Sure, it eventually ends in a firefight, but still, this tactic is overused and overeffective. The anonimity provided by the Stormtrooper armor is a big whole in the Empire's security.

In time players will learn all the tricks to pull this properly and postpone the inevitable firefight. Aquire the victim's identity number and learn a bit of what that particular trooper is supposed to be doing. Things like that help you con your way through the inevitable "TK-421, why aren't you at your post?".

So, what devices do you, as GM, use to complicate the life of your players in these situations? How to keep them from overusing this simple tactic and breaching Imperial security to the point where it becomes laughable?
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[Orgaloth]

You can always get a trooper who knows the one they are disguised as start asking about the family. Also generally stormies don't generally walk around in small groups. Then there are security cameras, you can always lead the players into a trap as they were spotted getting the uniforms.
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[Tahlorn]

Also, when troopers are on thier off time, they don't wear thier helmets. If they are in a group, head them off to the barracks after thier shift is over, and told to leave thier armor for cleaning.

[garhkal]

[Ray]

How tall are the characters? They could be too short to be stormtroopers.

[The Brain]

According to Craken's Rebel Field Guide the helmet of st armor has a tounge switch that has to be activated or the helmet commlink dumps its memory of comm frequencies on the unit's comm net so someone can't take out a lone trooper then listen in on the rest of the unit. A new model might incorperate a feature that also broadcasts an alarm over a open frequency to alert the unit of infiltraition as well as the memory dump. I use that idea for my own games, that way if anyone brings up episode 4 I just reasonabley explain that Han and luke got lucky with a couple of old MK 1 helmets.

[Jedi Skyler]

You could implement a number of different technological devices to prevent the infiltration through a suit of armor. In areas where the tech is going to be more state of the art, I don't see why you couldn't have retinal scanners installed into the helmets, or a voice recognition package that activates every time the helmet is doffed and put back on.

Perhaps the body glove could be lined with sensors (like garhkal mentioned) that monitor vital signs and broadcast to a central control unit. Face it; someone sneaking into an Imp facility is going to have at least a slightly racing heartbeat, and the monitors would pick this up and raise a flag, prompting the officer in charge to investigate.

[scott2978]

The first difficulty is the size of the armor. Unless you're exactly the same size as the guy you're replacing, you'll look different. It's like a civilian putting on a military uniform. Maybe the way you blose your boots isn't the same, or the way you wear your hat, or the way you roll up your sleeves. The spaces and connectors on Stormtrooper armor are probly the same. "Hey, isn't that trooper out of regulation with his holster drooping like that?" or "Isn't that trooper a little too tall (or fat, or scrawny) for that armor?"

Second, unless your group is ex-imperials, they probably have no idea how to put on Stormtrooper armor. Han Solo spent many years in the Imperial Navy before ANH, he could easily have known how the armor works, and shown Luke. But does YOUR group know how the pieces fit together? How about turning on the comlink?

Third, there is the matter of soldierly ettiquette. How do Stormtroopers talk on their comlinks? What's the callsign of the trooper you just replaced? What's proper stormtrooper comlink protocol? "Hey you, this is me, come in over?" is probably not going to cut it. What about local military jargon? Do the troopers around here use any slang terms a lot? Slang words for local food, cultural quirks and general local slang are quite common in militaries with soldiers posted in places far from home. It's a safe bet that your PCs don't know any of the local military slang, even if they speak the same language. And even if they do, do they know what to say into a stormtrooper comlink so that it comes out sounding like a stormtrooper? "Uh, everything's fine here, we're all fine. No problems. How are you?"

Fourth, there is, as a GM's last resort, technology. Security measures like voice recognition, retinal scans, dumping of comlink freqs, verbal passcodes, or even DNA scans are possible within the framework of the SW galaxy.

The bottom line is, how hard do you WANT it to be? The very real possibility is for you to make it anywhere from "completely impossible" to "pretty simple". Like already has been mentioned, you can even make it more or less difficult depending on the situation. Old backwater garrisons may be using antiquated, poor fitting or even broken equipment. Even a brand new unit may be easier to infiltrate due to technical glitches still to be worked out in brand new equipment, or a recent transfer of a unit to a new post may require new procedures that produce some confusion and uncertainty, allowing easier infiltration. In the end it's as easy as you want it to be.

[Jedi Skyler]

Those are great points, scott!

You also want to think about how often is this group pulling a stunt like this? If they're doing it all the time and getting away with it, it's probably time to throw them a curve ball or two. Conversely, if they're doing this all the time (in the case of a SpecOps Infiltrator unit) they are probably getting better and better at it as they go, so they are going to pick up jargon, how to put the armor on properly, how to operate the comlink (better use a Handi-Wipe; they're tongue-activated).

If they're doing it because it's their job, they should get better at it. If they're doing it just because Han and Luke pulled it off, they need higher difficulty numbers, IMO.

[Gry Sarth]

Great input all around, as usual folks. Special mention to scott, with a very objective list.

The situation is as you put it, Skyler. This groups has pulled this trick a number of times, and they're getting better at it. They now colect all the necessary info on their targets and learn a bit of the protocols. It contributes a lot for them the fact that one of them is am ex-stormtrooper, a Carida graduate, so he knows all about trooper protocol.

Again, thanks you all. And I meant this thread to give ideas not only to me, but for all of you around, cause I think this must be a common-enough occurance in every gaming group.
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[garhkal]

Have they left any stormies alive? Any evidence of what they are doing?

If so, that could actually be used against them. Where the stormies higher ups start devising these tactics and changes in protocols to foil these rebels...
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[scott2978]

If I was an Imperial mucky-muck and I was aware of a group of rebels (or specforce operatives) that were getting away with this even though I had implimented security measures, I might be inclined to lay a trap for them, like equipping every Stormtrooper on certain bases with self-destruct devices, or perhaps even get the Inquisitors involved and plant a couple Dark Jedi in Stormtrooper suits on likely target installations...

[Chabit Rane]

Once in my game I used a transmitter in the helmet of the ST armor to track the PC party. For some reason they could not figure out how the Empire kept "crashing" all their hideouts & bases. It became the focus of the PCs to figure out how the Empire was gaining the location of rebel bases. It was fun .

[Jedi Skyler]

[scott2978]

From what I've read, security on Coruscant isn't really that great. During the book Shadows of the Empire the whole gang just flys on in like nobody's watching. Also during the Young Han Solo trilogy, Han spends a good while on Coruscant and has little dealings with any kind of security.

In a game of mine, I'd probably run it (never had anyone ever want to go to Coruscant in all these years...) as just normal coreward security, except for the Imperial Palace district and aerospace around it, and a few other key facilities.