Police Interest Dice Pools- Cheese it! It's the Heat!

A shocking number of plans undertaken by Player Characters involve breaking and entering. From finding evidence, planting evidence or an old fashioned distraction, the art of housebreaking has helped adventuring parties overcome their obstacles, and create new ones.

In “Those that will not work, comprising; Prostitutes. Thieves. Swindlers. Beggars” Victorian Journalist and activist Henry Mayhew describes the one of the methods used by Victorian burglars.

They close the outer door after them when they enter a shop or warehouse, most of which have spring locks. When the policeman comes round on his beat he finds the door shut, and there is nothing to excite his suspicion. The cart is never seen loitering at the door above a couple of minutes, and does not make its appearance on the spot till the robbery is about to be committed, when the signal is given. 

Part of a policeman’s beat was checking the locks on the doors, and keeping an eye open for anything strange, like an open window or someone loitering outside. The art of evidence collection is just getting underway at this time, so catching criminals in the act is a good chunk of a peeler’s job. If a dedicated policeman thinks something is off he will investigate.

The supplement covering Victorian London “the Smoke” (which is the most essential supplement for Victoriana in my opinion) has rules for the amount of police activity in a neighborhood. Each neighborhood has a Police Presence rating of Low, Average, High, Very High, or Heavy.

If you want a bit of crunch telling you whether or not a policeman has noticed a possible in progress use a Police Interest dice pool as shown on the chart below:

Police Presence/Police Interest Dice Pools
Low                    1
Average              3
High                   6
Very High          9
Heavy               12

Roll a dice pool equal to the neighborhood’s Police Interest rating. Sixes explode as normal with one suspicious policeman per success. Each miss on a die represents the policeman missing the crime entirely or just not wanting to get involved.

If a GM wants an even greater chance of the burglars being caught, add the highest Notoriety rating among the participants. This represents snitches seeing the person of interest in the area, the policemen recognizing their M.O. etc.
Pools can be used anytime a Policeman may be nearby, such as a fight in an alley, a society party, or even if they police are aware the PC’s are in town.
This rule is probably most effective during a sandbox “what do you want to do?” kind of session where the players can instigate the most trouble.

If the players are on the side of law and order, the tables could be flipped with the Neighborhood‘s Crime Rating standing for the Police Presence. Then successes are whether or not a crime is happening near the PC’s. The Dice pool could be increased by a successful criminology check.
In either case the check results can always be modified or ignored to move the story forward