Last night’s game – part two of our first mission.
So there we are on board the ferry, we’ve knocked out in one way or the other the Hanzaki personnel guarding the truck we need to access. The BreadboarderTech enters the van and starts trying to download a sex dolls brain to his DS&I. That triggers a security alert so the Hacker who has infiltrated the ship’s computer system slides into control of the big drone the driver has standing by. It’s a mech -type drone and it stomps around and stands by the door of the van while the Tech connects a cable to the sex doll so that the Hacker can do some overrides on the alerts and delete the photos the doll took of the tech.
Meanwhile the ship’s security team arrive and try to arrest people, some get dragged off (our Killer and some of the Hanzaki people). The Medi-tech is playing tasered and hiding on his autonomous stretcher drone. The Infiltrator leaves the car deck and enters the coffee lounge pursued by a security guy. He chooses to throw the guy overboard.
Meanwhile the Hacker gets the mech to intimidate the ship’s security team into leaving the drone and the rest of the team alone (Play Hardball).
And that’s where we left it last night.
Our mission is so fucked up that I suspect we’ll never live this down.
Mostly the issues are down to running with 7 players some of whom think violence is the only option and start a fight regardless of whether the situation warrants it. Plus many of them won’t read even a page of material let alone rules putting a large burden on our MC.
Sounds like fun. Also sounds like too many people and a few of them should not be invited back.
Sounds about typical… even when they’re aiming for covert espionage, cyberpunk games always seem to end up with in gunfire and explosions.
The issue is that it’s run at a club that has over 35 people attending each week. They select a game from a selection offered by four or five GM’s who each put forward a choice. One guy splits the players up, according to attendance and preference, between the games. It means for 12 weeks the GM has to deal with the players he is blessed with.
The GM doesn’t get to choose the players or not ask them back.
The GM on the other hand could say how many players he can seat at his game so he doesnt get as many. I have run with groups like that and they always ask you how many you can play.
Secondarily…I would as you continue get used to the players, and then perhaps just recruit 3-5 of them (that play well) to play seperate from the club just to get a solid group that plays the system well.
I do understand how that works though since game club indy events like that expect they are playing games that have limited engine and easy rules. And if they are used to traditional dungeon world stuff they are diving a bit to far deep since The Sprawl is a bit more heavy mechanically.
The issue is the limited number of folks willing to GM amongst the group. If we get five we are lucky and that means 6 or 7 players plus a GM per game. There are currently no options for limiting the number as that just pushes more players on to the other GM’s. It’s something that the officers of the club need to deal with. I do run other games outside the club group for three or four players and can cherry pick who I want in that group so that’s fine.
There’s a distinct lack of knowledge amongst the majority of the group concerning games and anything much outside the ‘I hit it with my axe’ genre is usually a very difficult sell.
That’s tough. Apart from the occasional convention or online play-by-post game, I only play with one regular group – four or five friends who’ve been playing together for nearly ten years… there’s a very different dynamic. But we still get our share of trigger-happy idiot characters… 🙂
It’s less a case of trigger happy characters than a few trigger happy players who pull out the Axe, SMG or Shotgun at every opportunity and even when there isn’t an opportunity.
I get decent games with a small, selected, group and also via Hangouts/Roll20 etc. Moving about a lot during my life (internationally) I don’t get to play anymore with lots of people I started out playing with although some of them have gone on to publish good stuff and some have gone to the gaming store beyond.