As a follow-up to a post yesterday (https://plus.google.com/103698066825057793940/posts/VcKWecSmFbP), my first stab at a “drugs move” for The Sprawl. If folks are interested, I’ll be happy to provide it in doc or pdf format.
As an example of how to let the fictional results color mechanics, result 3 – “connectedness” – could play out like this:
Take -1 Forward on your next Act Under Pressure, Fast Talk, Hit the Street, Declare Contact, or any other move that fictionally requires an interpersonal connection.
Take +1 forward on Mix It Up or Play Hardball against someone you had thought was a friend. You won’t miss what you break.
I wouldn’t formalize the mechanics ahead of time, though. Just be true to the fiction.
I like it but it seems way to specific and detailed unless its relevant to usage of a specific situation based drug that’s part of a story arc. Side effects of failure should in commonly be more general.
That being said..also if you wanted to have a general drug usage move you definitely want to built some addiction based mechanics into failure, and the declining wellbeing of a junkie (which is definitely a cyberpunk dystopia theme: Addiction Ruining Lives).
I think it might be easier to handle if it gave bonuses/penalties to specific stats rather than to specific moves.
Riley Crowder Can you elaborate on which aspects of the move are “way too specific”? I’d like to understand better.
On addiction mechanics: I attempted to build them into this move to begin with, and found that they add a fair amount of complexity, for the trade-off of being boring, and unnecessary to boot.
Addiction can be handled purely through the fiction, and probably far better that way than if people start throwing around -1s and punish the player for attaching an unpleasant fiction to their character. As you say, addiction is a trope in the genre: it’s worth encouraging players to explore it, not penalize them for doing so.
If you find 1 and/or 2 untrue, though, and perhaps others do as well, I see no problem with someone else adding a custom addiction move, perhaps triggered by frequent use.
Jason Tocci I agree entirely. That being said, I try to avoid unnecessary crunch in fiction-first games. It seemed most appropriate to the system to go with the fiction/color impact, and let the players sort out how it should impact mechanics, where appropriate, if at all.
I offered an example of how that could play out for option 3, that in my opinion, best reflected the color in the option. I’d like to clarify why I focused on moves and not attributes:
If a player/MC actually chose that option, they wouldn’t have to keep track of a list of moves. They’d just keep in mind “this person is feeling alienated as heck, remember +1/-1 forward where alienation matters” and the next time they’re making a move where it could matter, there you go, blast that +1/-1.
The reason this lines up with moves, not stats, is because it affects the character’s fictional positioning, and moves are the mechanical embodiment of character’s fictional actions/positions, not stats.
That said, no one needs to remember a list of moves, any more than you memorize a list of situations where a gun would come in handy: it could help with “Mix It Up”, it doesn’t do anything for “Acquire Agricultural Property.” They both use Meat, but guns are useful for violent confrontations; they’re not useful for enduring a possibly-fatal wound. The impacts of the drugs are no different: look at the fictional impact, and let it play out in the fiction in a way that makes sense.
Thank you for the constructive criticism.
I very much enjoy your grasp of cyberpunk terminology. You’re writing makes this move much better than the mechanics of it. I want to read this move to the players or have them read it over and over. I’d love to see you write a companion piece to the Sprawl. Just things that could help the less brilliant among us to really capture the feel of cyberpunk.
Questions for each playbook, thematic questions to ask the players, maybe some screen descriptions and neon clubs detailed with your personal flavor of chrome and dirt. I would be really interested in something like that. Their in some moves like this with some drugs and a few corps and what they do (because many players have difficulty with that), and I think you’d have a nice product on your hands.