Ran the first session of a short campaign last night. It went OK lots of moving parts for fairly new players to RP but overall pretty good.
Questions: We had a tech with hacking skills and a hacker any tips on running joint hacking sessions? Secondly it was a find and recover mission but the Hunter gets such an advantage in this respect I found the legwork part super short. Is there a way of making this more challenging or should I expect to just skip to action very quickly because they are just good at those mission types. Finally it was 5 players so one of the corporate clocks got very high very quickly and so I threw that in the mix which pulled half the group away from the mission in hand. I’m assuming this is OK as long as you get them back on track… Perhaps the side mission move would have been appropriate here?
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Interesting. Listening.
This is all my personal opinion. 😆
1. Legwork can be longer if the players want, because they can use that opportunity to get gear/intel as well as information on the world. Also to RP. But, the hunter and hacker are pretty good at legwork, so that will get them what they want fairly quickly.
2. If the clock got high enough to attract negative attention and have assets deployed, and it screwed the players up royally, it may make sense that this causes the players to fail the main mission, they don’t necessarily have to be back on track. That is up to you! 😈
3. Which side mission move? The only one that comes to my mind is the “Conduct an Operation” move, which like encapsulates a whole mission in one move. If that’s the one you mean, then that absolutely would be appropriate to address that concern without needing to go super-long or do another mission entirely.
Thanks Daniel Lugo very helpful stuff!
Every now and then a legwork or action phase will be very short, usually because the players rolled a bunch of 10+s and used their playbook moves well. Great! Welcome to the world of being a badass professional!
My main question is, are the players happy with that? In particular, say, does the player of the Hunter feel like they are getting the play experience they want? If they’re dissatisfied that they find their targets too easily, you can adjust the missions, and the way you answer legwork questions accordingly.
Throwing in problems from their past (+hunted and +owned), or from corporations (as you did), or from the surrounding social fabric (contacts, Fixer’s jobs, etc) is a great way of complicating an otherwise simple mission.
Conduct an Operation is good for when there’s some sort of side mission that the table doesn’t want to play out in detail. If the side mission is interesting to everyone, and you have time, running the whole thing is an excellent choice. Do bear in mind that the main Mission Clocks pertain to the main mission, so you might decide to include a whole new set of mission clocks for the side mission, and advance whatever clock is appropriate (or sometimes both).
Any view on the dual hacker situation? It sort of knocks the wind out of the hackers sails with a hacker skilled tech unless they have different specialties or can work together on a run… Suggestions
Eadwin Tomlinson Two hackers can work together – e.g one dealing with security while the other focuses on the mission. But it also increases the risk, more chances of a bad roll giving them away.
Both have to login I assume? Simon Geard but otherwise once in they can go their separate ways I guess makes sense….
Also, I love the idea of someone hitting hard black ICE and another hacker saving their behind.
Eadwin Tomlinson It definitely makes sense. Any matrix node is like a building. Ask your self how many people can fit in a building simultaneously?
As someone noted in another thread, the Hacker is spread somewhat thin in terms of stats they might want. If one Hacker has +2 Mind and the other +2 Synth, then there might be some interesting division of responsibilities and teamwork possibilities.
Although, if two players have said (by their playbook choices) that they want to see lots of matrix action, I would create missions (or possibilities within missions) for the two hackers to come up with cunning ways to hack two different places at once to gain advantage. Maybe the security for the facility is in a entirely separate matrix subsystem to the data the team needs? Maybe they need to hack two corps or facilities at once in order to make simultaneous changes or create secure data tunnels or the like.
Eadwin Tomlinson It’s never actually come up in personal experience, but it could go either way. Maybe one logs in and the other piggybacks the connection – but the two are entangle such that tracing one automatically traces the other too. Or they can both hack the system independently, and coordinate their activities just as they would in meat-space…
Hamish Cameron Yeah, having two people doing independent matrix runs would also work… particularly if it’s also in conjunction with meat-space activity for others in the team.
E.g. one hacker is taking on the building security system to help get the rest of the team team inside, where the second hacker needs physical presence to make the data grab. Maybe the first guy runs with an attack deck to smash his way through the defences, while the second has a stealth deck to exploit the distraction caused by the first…Or maybe the other way around… the first guy quietly seizes control, setting the stage for the second to smash-and-grab.
The obvious way to handle two hackers or rather a tech/hacker combo is simply to have one assist or aid them throughout. Getting a +1 going forwards is a pretty powerful reason for wanting someone else along on the trip. Why not have a ‘ride along’ module on your deck wand bring a friend with a neural jack along for the hack?