I have a few questions about this game, and PbtA in general. I feel that Dungeon World is an exception to the PbtA rules as they intentionally made that game more as the type of thing to pull in traditional tabletop rpg gamers. I understand that following the fiction is the key to just about everything in the game, but I guess my questions are a bit more about where you draw certain lines.
1. The Sprawl uses a mission structure of sorts, and I feel like that takes away a sort of organic flow from the role-playing. My players love role-playing, and it seems like in PbtA games, role-playing is less in-character, and more described. At least this is how so many of the games I’ve watched on YouTube wind up. I guess my question here is, how to I transition from phase to phase? Transitioning from get the job to legwork is fairly seamless, but aside from saying something like, “We’ve got 3 days to plan for this job, but then it’s going down.”, how would you transition from legwork to action?
2. I have a group who is very much used to Dungeon World, so they should be fairly easy to adapt to the combat, but I want to introduce this game to my old Shadowrun/current Pathfinder group. Both SR and PF have much more detailed combat. Even for my Dungeon World online players, I think they’ll want more detailed combat. Most of the time I have seen combat in The Sprawl and Apocalypse World has been done in a single move or two if someone failed. It’s also usually brought on by a Killer or Battlebabe type class. The question here is, how can I make combat more intimate? I assume that most people are going to answer with something along the lines of requiring smaller objectives and using the act under fire move more, but I was wondering if anyone had any other ideas here. I don’t want to minimize the area tag’s effect by armoring everyone, but I also know that my players would be extremely disappointed if combat scenes were to end with a single meat roll. As much as the Killer is meant to be a combat beast, I know my players are going to feel robbed if the Killer renders their ability to participate by firing off a few pock shots of their own.
3. I’m concerned about my ability to come up with clock triggers on the fly beyond a few things. This goes for mission clocks, threat clocks, and leg clocks, and action clocks. In my experience, things like corp clocks seem to be easier to handle as I can create their conditions after the the first session. I guess what I’m looking for is a layout for how clocks should go.
I’d love to see some comments from players of this game as well as general PbtA insights to these talking points. Hamish Cameron, I am also interested in seeing your ideas on the whole thing. I’d love to see how games you’ve run go. Do you have any actual play videos or podcasts of playtesting the game or just playing with your friends?
Listening. I want to learn how to GM this!
First up, I don’t have any recordings of me running the game. Second, have any of these be answered since you posted this?
1. Briefly, many story games benefit from relatively hard cuts between scenes. Think of an action movie. You don’t see Jason Bourne driving all the way across town. You see his get told that the Russians have the thing, then you see him kicking down the Russians’ door. The Sprawl want you to do that.
2. If your group wants really granular combat, then The Sprawl is probably not going to deliver what they want in that regard. However, the main way that everyone will not be overshadowed by the Killer is by splitting up. PbtA games handle (and encourage) split party action really well, which makes it a great fit for the heist/espionage genres were the heroes are often alone or in pairs.
3. Oh yeah, I handling clock triggers on the fly would be hard! Make those up beforehand! Check out the sample mission for an example of the kind of things I prep. In reality, my mission prep is an idea of the job and the meet in my head, the mission directives on an index card that I can show the players when they get the job, and two fully (or mostly) worked out clocks. Especially the Action Clock.
As I recently said elsewhere, making a AP recording is something I would like to do, but lack the time (mostly) and available technology (less) to do at the level of quality I would be happy with.
1. “”We’ve got 3 days to plan for this job, but then it’s going down.”, how would you transition from legwork to action?”
This is pretty much what I’ve done for all my missions. I just ask them what they’re doing during the Legwork phase and deal out consequences from previous missions, if applicable. When the transition occurs is driven by the players. This way the PCs can have tons of legwork misadventures, and when everyone has had enough, they switch to the mission. You just have to ask them if they’re ready. My experience, at least. You could try to rigidly keep track of how long everything takes, but in my experience if they have 3 days, they’ll have some time to hang out, drink soycafe, and wait for the job to start.
Pocket-Sized Play had a great recording of a session of The Sprawl. I’d definitely recommend it. http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/pocket-sized-play/the-sprawl-001-the-suparat-extraction
2. In addition to Hamish’s points, the Killer’s not going to be great at everything. Throw in enemy hackers (working remotely), enemy Pushers, people with stun gas grenades, drones, drones with grenades taped to them. If the Killer has lots of ranged weapons, use stealth-camo’d cyber Greco-Roman wrestlers. If the Killer uses a sword and a silenced machine pistol, use a sniper and a spotter with a rocket launcher. Killers can be pretty conspicuous, let the NPCs plan for them. Hit them with cars and then drive away really fast. (Also yeah, the system isn’t really meant to give Shadowrun-like combat. I don’t know that it’d be desirable to cross those streams.)
3. I cannot wing directives or the legwork / action clocks. Nope. Not even gonna try.
gauntlet-rpg.com – The Sprawl #001 – The Suparat Extraction
Re#2/Killer:
If the other characters aren’t getting significant spotlight time, something has gone awry in the mission design. Sprawl’s not really built for Shadowrun “we all go in guns blazing” stuff. I mean, it /can/ support it, but it’s sub-optimal.
Spend some time thinking of a handful of obstacles that play into each of the PC’s skillsets. Each PC is built around a particular set of obstacles to overcome, so it’s not that hard to do. During the actual mission, you can basically cut from obstacle to obstacle, giving each PC a chance to shine. Don’t let the meets devolve into gunplay, but let the thread of danger keep them relevant as tension builds.
It’s also handy to split them up into 2s and 3s during the mission itself.
As to comparing pot-shots: other players will always be able to kill NPCs. Your efficacy is really about seizing your goals w/o generating significant complications. It also depends on how the Killer is built. For instance:
A killer with “Emotionless (and a high synth)” and “Military Background” is really going to shine more during the legwork phase than the action phase – they’re good at threatening people, and they’ve got people to reach out to, right?
A killer with “Hard” and “Mil Specs” on the other hand is basically a tank. Yeah, they can kill slightly more effectively than the other PC’s (+1 harm), but the real key is that they don’t take big dmg from a group of guards, and they have an advantage on Harm rolls. While the PCs are accomplishing the mission, this is the guy who’s holding off 20 guards. He’s not stealing anyone’s glory about landing shots – he’s the bulwark.
A killer with “Trained Eye” and “Serious Badass” is actually, I think, a great assassin – in an intimate setting, where the goal is really getting up close to and wiping out one person. They’re not going to suck against groups of guards, but they’re not stealing everyone else’s sunshine, either.
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