Regarding the basic moves, following on from the point in the kickstarter comments as to how many there are, I would cluster them as follows. In these clusters I think the only ones that stand out as being overlapping or non-essential is Observe vs Manoeuvre.
Action
Act Under Pressure: Catch-all move for doing stuff could come first.
Fast Talk: Bluff
Play Hardball: Intimidate
Mix it Up: Fight
Harm: Result of Fight
First Aid: After getting Harm
Acquire Agricultural Property: Result of not enough First Aid
Preparation
Observe: Prepare by senses
Research: Prepare by searching/mind
Hit the Streets: Prepare by social
Manoeuvre: Prepare by senses … I think it could be merged with Observe.
Help/Hinder: In the moment preparation.
World Manipulation
Declare a Contact: Create NPC
Reveal Knowledge: Create Fact
Produce Equipment: Create Item
Go Under the Knife: Create cyberware
One Offs
Get the Job: Once per mission
Get Paid: Once per mission
Obligations: Once per session
To change the order of the words in the move triggers:
Observe: When you closely study a person, place or [charged] situation, …
Manoeuvre: When you [closely] study an opponent, area/security layout, or charged situation, …
The hold in Manoeuvre is a better bonus than the vanilla +1 forward from Observe. Observe (otoh) does better world building via the answers to the questions but often times there’s only one question you really want answered. Could the questions be options for the spending the hold, and the two moves merged into one?
The point that Anibal made about the link between Obligations and Hit the Street also bears thinking about. I’ll have to think about obligations in light of some of the changes I’ve made to moves and MC agenda since I added the obligation move.
Hamish Cameron, I am the one who made the comment on the kickstarter and Observe and Manoeuvre was the one of few I came on here to report as well.
The other was Fast Talk and Hardball …. for me, it is less on action and more on desired outcome. The desired outcomes are very similar. For this NPC to give me what I want.
I am not a fan of Getting paid …. feels very much a MC move with soft and hard variations already tied in.
I think Produce Equipment would make a very cool playbook move for someone like the Soldier or Fixer, but I don’t know if everyone needs such a move.
Produce equipment is a move designed to reduce the planning paralysis that plagues espionage games, so I’m reluctant to move that to a playbook move.
I do think there are good arguments to be made for restructuring manoeuvre/observe, fast talk/play hardball, and obligations/hit the street, so I’ll definitely add those to my list of things to consider.
One of the philosophical approaches of AW that Get Paid encapsulates is the idea that on a 7-9, the players have to choose what bad thing happens to them. There are several moves in The Sprawl that deliberately move these choices from the MC to the players.
Another thing that The Sprawl does is impose a relatively tight structure on play, with moves that signal the beginning and end of the mission and phases within which certain things happen. There are all in the game to help create a certain tone and guide play towards mission-focused cyberpunk. If the game was more open, it wouldn’t be needed, but it’s part of the network of mechanical constraints that reinforce the fictional premise.
Because Get the Job and Get Paid only happen once per mission and at set times, earlier versions located them in the MC section, but I moved them into the main player move section specifically to place the mission framework in front of the players. I want them to see those moves and think about Getting Paid as a reminder of the fictional premise. It’s a similar rational for making the state of the Mission Clocks visible to the players.
I totally understand, I still disagree with assessment of Produce equipment. I would rather see each playbook have starting equipment, certain playbooks have the ability to get it out of a move like this, and if you need any equipment go get it …. by any means (through trade, purchase, theft, whatever…) I have ran many games where many of the best missions where just them getting what they needed for the main story.
I really like the flashback reveal of how a character in a movie like Ronin or Ocean’s 11 had exactly what they needed through good planning.
I guess there’s the option of giving each playbook a Special Move related to gear or intel…
The only other thing I would add to the discussion of Moves is that Mix It Up should have the ‘You Make Too Much Noise, Advance the Relevant Mission Clock’, be a possibility rather than a certainty.
What I mean by this is, if the MC throws in a ganger, with no ties to the corporations (but maybe local gangs) or the mission as a whole and he gets blown away, the clocks should have a chance to not advance.
I purpose wording the move like, ‘You Risk Making Too Much Noise, (The MC May Advance Relevant Mission Clock)’.
This way, Killers and Meatspace assault specialists are not always getting hurt or Advancing mission clocks if there’s a scuffle unless the MC deems it appropriate (and they roll well). It also lets one of the options for Mix It Up have the chance of a positive outcome.
As the MC it lets you do things like, “The shot rings out, and the gangers brains splatter across the alleyway grate, police drone sirens erupt in the distance and get progressively closer, what do you do?” rather than always having to narrate how the Mission Clock now advances, full stop, no player interaction.
It’s currently an option that can be chosen or not as the player wishes, David. Are you suggesting that sometimes it shouldn’t be an option?
One if the things the move is saying is that violence always has consequences. You choose what they are, but killing that ganger in an alleyway because of your stimchip addition could come back and bite you if a corp data sifting algorithm matches your shell casings from the police report with the casings they recovered from the aftermath of the job in Lisbon.
Hi (first post). I like to mention that I like “Get Paid” a lot. The fact that something is going to go wrong at that stage of the mission is a given (that’s the years of Shadowrun talking) but allowing the players some agency of what will go wrong at the moment of getting paid is an outstanding idea IMO.
No, I’m trying to imply that the option should be an unknown for player. It will be up to the MC to decide, relying on the fiction for response if that option is chosen.
Saying that that choice ‘may’ advance the mission clock, rather than ‘will’ implies a risk but still one where the players can use violence to successfully accomplish an objective without negative repercussions.
This stems from the fact that all the options for Mix It Up result in some form of negative consequence for players which was pointed out to me by a prospective player I was hoping to recruit in a future game . It made him feel the gritty violence in the cyberpunk genre he was use to from other games wasn’t really possible.
I conceded that maybe we could modify the ‘You Make Too Much Noise, Advance the Relevant Mission Clock’, option to ‘You Risk Making Too Much Noise, (The MC May Advance Relevant Mission Clock)’.
This way the option implies there’s still a chance they can resolve something through violence, possibly at a later cost, but without a certain negative consequence for using violence.
The MC can illustrate an out, but if the players use violence to kill a drone or minor character in narratively quiet fashion with a good roll, I do think there should be a ‘good’ choice that results in a positive outcome for the players, without harm coming to them, their fellows or advancing a mission clock.
This may not be your vision, and that’s why the system is very hackable, but it is a point I wanted to address and bring up in discussion.
Ah, I see what you’re saying. Actually, the problem isn’t with the options, it’s that a 10+ shouldn’t draw any of those consequences.
I actually just altered that move, but I missed that. It’s definitely up for playtesting!
[And that’s a big enough boo-boo that I altered the Kickstarter Preview document. Thanks!]
“I guess there’s the option of giving each playbook a Special Move related to gear or intel…”
Huh. So making a special Resources move for each playbook. Could be similar to a “Sex” move in that it says something about the playbook’s methods. Maybe roll +countdown with a corp to get it?
David Gallo, I really like.
Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking David Gallo.
I’ll be doing some brainstorming on that during the week.
A proposed Observaneuvre move:
When you closely study a person, place or situation looking for weaknesses or opportunities, roll +Mind. On a 10+ hold 3, on a 7-9 hold 1. You may spend hold to:
* Know where there’s cover: Take +1 armor forward
* Know where to hide: You escape attention
* Know where to target: Take +AP forward
* Know when to act: Interrupt the action with your own plan
* Ask a question: (list from Observe)
Plus a Playbook move to swap Mind to Edge.
And FWIW, I’m going to do this for AsteriskWorld. It solves a lot of issues.