Editing MTH:Social Merits (section)

===CIPHER (* to *****)===
EFFECT: The character has made some effort to hide details of his life from public scrutiny; the exact details of this process are left up to the player and Storyteller to decide, but possibilities include tampering with government documents, entering the Witness Protection Program, or simply putting on a mask and costume before heading off on an adventure.  Each dot in this Merit imposes a -1 penalty on any attempts to learn personal information the character has worked to keep hidden.  It is up to the Storyteller to decide whether the penalty from Cipher should apply in a given situation.

Keep in mind, the existence of this merit doesn't mean that every character who wears a mask or uses other methods of identity-protection '''must''' take this merit.  It's simply that having the merit identifies that your defenses are at least somewhat mechanically effective, giving you the benefit listed above.  Players are always free to use whatever secrecy measures they can devise, with attempts to breach those measures handled on a case-by-case basis.

God Machine Chronicle rules update note: If defending the character's true, original, identity, players should use the Cipher merit above. If creating new or additional identities (such as for a character who has no normal human identity), use the Alternate Identity merit.