Hi, I’m in the process of putting together a campaign for The Sprawl and I have more than 4 applicants. I wouldn’t want to go higher than 5 players anyway, but is there any reason the game specifies 4 players as a limit? Looking through the rules, I think the only thing which would need to change would be the links/corporate clock economy. Is there anything else?
What was the main reason behind the 4 player limit? Is it just that bigger games can get messy, or is there something deeper to it.
Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks!
It’s just because big games get messy. PbtA games require participation in a conversation and once the group size gets too large, its hard to give everyone sufficient screen time.
In my opinion, 2-4 is the sweet spot. I’ve definitely run it for 5, and would do again, but only in cases where I know the players well.|
The links economy scales up to 5 at least. At 5+ there is even more need to be explicit about what happens when a Corporate Clock gets maxed out as its more likely to happen.
Thanks so much for this prompt response, I really appreciate it. I am running a one shot as a sample game before I start the campaign proper, so I think I’ll try it with 5, and if that seems unwieldy I’ll make a decision then.
Thanks again.
The one-shot game went very well, especially when new players like me had any exposure to PbtA games in the past. Great playbooks with knowledge at my fingertips!
We didn’t have cause for netrunning or “hacking” in this game, which is a major game-stopper in other cyberpunk games, but if we read the book details we can run things like that smoothly too.
We played on Roll20 which now has a tolerable Sprawl character sheet with buttons for rolling each stat, filling in each Edge and Gear and displaying it to the group if necessary.