Finally managed to loop my tabletop group’s resident cyberpunk junkie into getting a quick (for us) play-by-email game together with another tabletop group’s resident gun bunny and a third mutual friend. We will be testing this baby to destruction! One Techie, one Soldier, and one Infiltrator…and just for the gun bunny (‘He Who Plays Punisher Clones”) I think their first run will be a slightly messy and complicated grappling with the cheerful and benevolent combine known as SHIVA Enterprises. (Three guesses what business makes their bank balance tingle.)
More to follow as the (probably very slow) torrent feed provides. Two of three characters are done, along with the background discussion. I need to go nudge the Techie…
Still waiting on the Techie to finish up his playbook but to keep you all posted here are the four megacorporations these happy yahoos thought up. I take neither credit nor blame for any presumed current events commentary that may be implied. Feel free to borrow and file off the serial numbers!
First, the friendly and cheerful manufacturer and provider of toys that make bigger booms, our previously mentioned SHIVA Enterprises. I believe that first part is supposed to be an acronym.
Second, the overarching media giant Fox-Turner Conglomerated. If it’s not Fox-Turner, it’s not on the air.
Then there’s Orion Manufacturing Corporation, who do a little bit of everything but mostly provide vehicular transport of all shapes, sizes, and degrees of badassness.
Finally, my own little contribution to this, because every collection of zaibatsu needs monetary shenanigans, Eyman-Rand…resource extraction and financial skullduggery.
Finally got that last playbook from our Techie, and now we’re onto the next phase, sort of. Now to establish some links and hopefully convince the Soldier to choose something other than storming SHIVA HQ to whack the middle manager who fired him. Starting the game with a Corporate Clock that high would be bad for everyone’s health… (laugh)
Wow. Dead air. Our resident Techie totally dropped off the circuit between his computer going belly up and his self-employed status overclocking. In the meantime, our Infiltrator and Soldier ran into a little problem–namely that they both came up with a complete and detailed mission history rather than what I read that step as requiring, that being more of a one-or-two sentence summary of a prior job.
Leaves me scratching my head, it does.
Or am I misreading this somehow? (I had this problem with the Dresden Files RPG, too. The rules seem to say ‘quick and dirty summary’ but I keep getting paras and paras of in-depth, fully worked plots…)
Henry de Veuve I think the expectation is that it would be pretty short, but as long as you can find hooks into it for the current game, and get a feel for the character from it, I think that’s good to have players that are that involved with their character. Are the descriptions they provided implausible, or unrealistic for the setting? Are the other characters able to “hook” into the background if they wanted to?
If so, then I think you have a good problem to have, but if not then that’s a small problem. I usually have the opposite problem, where the players don’t seem invested in their character or the setting much at first.
Carl Anderson Hi, Carl–thanks for your feedback.
What we ended up with was not implausible or unrealistic, but without much room for the others to ‘hook in’. Alas, the project died right about then. When we give it another go, it should progress more smoothly.
Yeah, I can see the problem with that. I’d hope that’s easier to handle than the opposite, where the players can’t come up with any ideas for their past.
Carl Anderson Alas, yes! Players who can’t come up with ideas are a frustrating thing,