The Sprawl is intentionally mission-based, but not all cyberpunk fiction is. If I wanted to hack the game to move toward a more “front based” style of play, could the various Corporation Clocks could become the basis for fronts?
My idea is that various Corps have goals and plans, which threaten the PCs fragile situation. Each Corps plan becomes an active front when it’s countdown clock reaches a certain point. When that happens, the PCs must either respond to the pressure, or cave in and lose their position of (relative) safety and security.
Is this a plausible hack?
Sounds plenty good to me.
I think a reskinned Apocalypse World handles non-mission based cyberpunk pretty well.
So yes, to do that with The Sprawl I think you’d want to bring back Fronts (or their equivalent in AW2; I understand there have been changes), but you’d also need to look at the moves. A lot of the moves in The Sprawl are very focused on the mission structure. You’d have to ask yourself: How would those work in your new structure? Some of the books might require some drastic changes. Others less so.