So I love cyberpunk and bought The Sprawl due to that. I like what The Sprawl is trying to do. However, I have never used the Apocalypse World ruleset before, and I’m finding some of the vagueness of the rules to be quite frustrating.
1)What happens if a Killer’s custom weapon or (more likely) a driver’s vehicle or drones is destroyed? Do they get another one for free because it’s core to their playbook?
2)Speaking of a driver’s drones, I saw no armor options, even for a bear-sized “combat” drone. So does it simply take one or two hits to destroy any drone?
3)The book says you get twice the cred if you are “paid in full” and three times the cred if the job “pays well.” So what if neither happen? Is it 1.5x cred?
4)Reload for weapons says it takes an action. But this game isn’t broken down by action to action, like Dungeons & Dragons. So how would reloading even be a bad thing? The player Mixes It Up, I say you need to reload. The player says okay and reloads. Then he does another Mixes It Up.
5)Speaking of combat, I still have no idea how it works. The rulebook seemed to infer that a PC can kill multiple NPCs (that aren’t a crew) with one Mix It Up roll. I have no idea how that works, but okay. But with that, what advantage does Area provide? It seems like there is absolutely no advantage to Area.
I still have tons more questions, but I can’t remember them at the moment. I’m on my third re-read of the rulebook, so I’m sure something will come up soon.
And actually, I remembered another one now.
6)What is the advantage of buying gear with cred over simply using the [cred] option while on a mission? A rocket launcher costs something like 8 cred. That seems like a massive waste of cred when you can be on a mission and just use [gear] to say, “I had someone drop off a rocket launcher on the roof.” Bam. New rocket launcher for no cred.
Coming from a dnd background, it took me a while to really grasp that most things in ptba are governed by the fiction rather than by specific rules. Basically, what makes the story and fellow players more awesome? Do that, and never let the specific “rules” hinder it.
You really need to watch an actual play to grasp what’s going on if you find the rules a lot different from what you are used to. You might not be able to grasp the best way to use them without seeing them in action.
Luckily, there is an actual play today featuring the writers of dungeon world and blades in the dark (ptba games)!
https://t.co/ms5rAJfVdN
“It’s happening! Come check out a one shot of @TheSprawl_RPG! Join us 3/27 at 2pm Pacific on https://t.co/gPqGSe5et0 “
I appreciate the responses, and that Dungeon World Guide looks fantastic. I will definitely read it.
However, even watching a game doesn’t help with some of my specific concerns about The Sprawl. I don’t recall other PbA games using the [gear] thing, right? Can anyone help with any of my questions?
Don’t you have to use as many gear points as creds to get that rocket launcher?
I would say that reload gives MC move that the PC has to react to before he can make a move of his own.
Jared Rascher Thanks for that response. It’s very helpful. It does seem like PbA games prefer a fast and loose play style, while I do prefer a more regimented and precise game. But I’m interested to run some Sprawl and see how it turns out.
On getting paid – if the job doesn’t pay in full (double the amount staked, then they just get back what was staked, for no profit.
Skip Olivares
PbtA games are usually fairly structured, I’d even say moreso than traditional games sometimes due to MC/GM/etc having to follow certain structure and rythm, so to say, whereas in traditional games behind the GM screen there’s only white blob of ‘here be dragons’.
For this particular question: There’s no strict
‘initiative’ stat in PbtA games usually, and process is relatively back-and-forth, with each player giving an action, getting some sort of reaction, and focus switching to next person. In case of ‘reload’ tag when you are prompted for an action, you’ll have to say ‘I reload’, and in fast-paced battle this will usually mean that situation changes while you do so – GM usually won’t be OK with ‘I reload and then shoot’. In most ‘non-encounter’ situations, like after battle it is expected that you did reload while you had time.
The ‘back-and-forth’ aspect is described fairly good in Dungeon World Guide, even if flavor of the game is different
1.) Logic in the fiction is king. It has to make sense in the fiction. If its destroyed, then it’s gone. They can find new stuff or make new stuff.. That said, destroying something central to a character should come with plenty of warning.
Consider p129 “If a move that usually comes with gear (such as the Killer move custom weapon) is gained during the campaign, the gear it provides must be acquired in a fictionally appropriate manner, usually through a contact.”
I’d say the same applies if you need to acquire a new custom weapon (the fictional context thing)
2.) Not necessarily. If you need a profile you can take one from the vehicles section. You would need a profile if you are Neural-linked to the drone (Second Skin). Otherwise the drone only gets damaged as part of a narrative consequence for 7-9 in Mix it Up, or Act Under Pressure, or a hard move from a failure. I would say the ‘rugged” tag would indicate that it can take some fire of the non missile launcher variety.
3.)If your crew doesn’t choose “paid in full” during the Getting Paid phase of the mission. It’s your opportunity as MC for the employer to do something like try to eliminate the PCs, and or pay them in undesirable currency, like corporate scrip. (p 217)
4.)What is says for reload is that the character must spend a brief time reloading. Sometimes, that’s just fine and no big deal but sometimes you have to move in the process or the enemy is going to be right on top of you, in which case you are probably Acting Under Pressure. (reloading quickly in a firefight) Or perhaps the enemy gains ground or sounds an alarm while you’re busy fiddling.
5.)Combat works like most other actions. Keep in mind the moves are mostly about what the character is trying to achieve, not some whittling down of opposing forces. Again, your judgment of the fiction is king here regarding what is or isn’t possible. Mix it up is about seizing an objective of some sort. And objectives are small, tactical, moment to moment things. Look at the example on p 28, the PC is clearing the way out for the team. Harm is usually a side effect of achieving your objective. Note… if part of the PC objective is “Kill them all” you have to make a judgment call based on the opponents. I would be like…”Er… there’s like 10 fully armored guys here… that’s just not going to happen with guns. You want to kill someone particular?” “Well I have this grenade launcher (+ Area)” “oh… er… well okay then, give it a go.”
And I would say that only if the opponent knew they were coming. If the opponent was unaware I would simply skip to consequences. “They go up in a massive explosion, but damn that was loud. You probably don’t have much time.”
So, yeah there is an advantage to area, it allows harm to happen to multiple targets (friendly or un) at once.
6.)[gear] during a mission is a limited resource. You can only get 1 [gear] from the initial Get the Job roll. Your tech can scrounge up a couple of more maybe, as can the fixer between jobs. It’s meant to allow you to improvise gear when you need it in the Action phase, because right then you won’t be able to just go out and buy it, you know?
Again we’re constrained by the fiction. You can’t just say it. “When you make this move, the MC will ask questions about the equipment and how you obtained it. The answers must be appropriate to the mission, the fiction, and the tone of the game as established by the your table. You can only produce equipment that you could reasonably have in your possession or could obtain relatively easily.” I mean, really, you know a guy who drops off military grade hardware on the roof? And that’s reasonable, appropriate to the mission, etc? Okay… that dude just did you a big favor. So I’d have you declare a contact and then that guy is going to come looking for payback.
I hope some of that helps. My interpretation of course.
I think combat scene is all about rhythm, like in movies. Some RPGs impose you the rhythm with turns and rounds, here you have to make it happen by yourself. It’s not a bad nor a good thing, it’s just different. But not that much if you don’t want to throw away your fight with just few words. Think about it, security gards don’t throw themselves like a zombie packs to face PC’s bullets. They use covers, they comunicate, they cover each others and manage coordinate actions, they throw flashbang before rushing, they are spread out and not in one pack, they retreat and call backups, they use vehicules and security drones. And sometimes they will attempt to negociate or escape the PCs or surrender because they simply don’t want to die.
You don’t have to think about how it’s working in terms of rules like initiative or rounds, so it gives you time to think in terms of visional effects and rhythm. Use environment, stairs, furniture, civils to block PC’s way to their target. Make it as long as you like if everyone is having fun. The mix it up action allows PCs to end violently an obstacle you just introduced. This obstacle doesn’t have to be the only one to cross before ending the combat scene. That’s why everybody is talking about “objectives”.
Being creative quickly in real time to make a combat explosive or intense is not so easy. Like for other parts of a mission, you can prepare a combat scene. Think about the place, about covers and fields of vision, about things you can use to feed the action, “unespected” outcomes, what would be cool to explode with huge SFXs. Maybe you can write down a quick list, like aspects in some other games.
Hope I didn’t state the obvious too much with this long post, and that it will help few people.