Let’s say you are starting a campaign and one player wants to play a driver.

Let’s say you are starting a campaign and one player wants to play a driver.

Let’s say you are starting a campaign and one player wants to play a driver. How can you keep the driver engaging for entire campaign? There are only so many missions that can end up with high speed chases or interceptions or extractions. Any advice?

6 thoughts on “Let’s say you are starting a campaign and one player wants to play a driver.”

  1. Great question!

    Here are a few spit-balled ideas:

    1. Bigger missions. The only time there’s no room for a vehicular scene is if so much of the action is internal to a single location, or the location is roughly “building sized.” Imagine a “building” rather more like a tiny town in size, though, with lots of smaller vehicles zipping around the different floors… That is to say, the “car” doesn’t have to be external to the mission site. In a large compound, the “car” can be internal to the mission site.

    2. If they haven’t taken Drone Jockey, and you want the campaign to have more non-vehicular flexibility, you might give them a freebie drone.

    3. It seems like there should always be something like an interception, or extraction, or high speed chase, or something, at some point. I mean, every mission ends, right? Someone has to head home? Head to the pay-off with Johnson? This might just benefit from a cinematic zoom-out, though: you don’t always have to play it out punch-by-punch. One “Defy Danger” to get everyone there in one piece, and let the Driver have his minute narrating how awesomely he did it. Maybe a 10+ on this throws in a +1 forward for the pay-off move (helped head off any trails, etc.) This might lend a little of the variety you’re looking for: it’s easier to include lots and lots of high-speed chases if not every single one requires a zoom-in and detailed resolution. (To paraphrase a DW thread, “Sometimes you’re Seizing by Force the dark priest’s scepter; sometimes, you’re Seizing the whole damn dungeon.” Cinematic variety is the spice of life.)

    4. Non-wheeled vehicles. Seems like you could probably let them have their day commandeering a corp. helicopter. Maybe the corps are fighting it out over who’s taking over the city docks, and someone’s hijacking a cargo ship to crash it into a canal, and effectively end bids from those corps trying to keep the automated docks going (’cause the hijackers want the land for real estate development.) In that case, he could be piloting a speedboat to the ship, and then hijacking the ship. He pilots, while the rest of the team pirates! On another mission, perhaps personal submersibles! I mean, these are all vehicles he can flexibly and glamorously take over, and it gives the mission structure some more variety, too.

    5. Build him towards / put him into the spotlight as the drone/gadget expert, rather than just the hot-shit driver. Maybe one mission involves hijacking a corp. sat, and his know-how is as needed to hijack its onboard AI as the decker’s is. The rigger would play a bigger role in the legwork phase (or rather, for this approach I’d use flashbacks during the action phase, so as not to leave them out). The mission is getting the team in to plant a remote neural interface for the decker to get in. Once control is achieved, Rigger gets some more spotlight time actually screwing around with the sat. (or, you know, orbital shuttle, as the case may be.)

  2. I guess we could flip the question and ask….why can’t every mission involve high speed chases, extractions and interceptions?

    My favourite section in The Sprawl is the bit on flags. On how the player choices in playbooks and moves are flags for the MC to put that in the story all the time. You’re meant to be a fan of the characters and give them what they want. The book literally says if the players have a helicopter and want to use it in every damn mission don’t stop them. Just make sure every mission is fun.

    If there is a driver then make movement a huge part of the game. The party is incredibly mobile. Why? Who are they on the run from? It also shapes your world too if you have a driver with a hovercraft then create a city full of flying cars. If you have a driver with a beat up on Chevy then create a post fossil fuel world with lots of beat up old cars modified to use….biofuel or whatever.

  6. In response to the “Why are they mobile?” question some one suggested: It’d be interesting to see a campaign where the players are driving to different sprawls every other month.

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