I will soon start a small campaign with only 2 players and I was wondering about links and the countdown clock for Corporations. I feel that the stakes will not be high enough if we do links with only the two players.
Here’s how I think I will solve the situation. When it will come time to do links. I will describe an NPC who was the third wheel of this crew. We will go through the link process as if this NPC was a 3rd PC. I/He will be the last to describe a mission in which the other PCs will be involves and then at the end of the descriptions, I will ask my players the hard question:
*How did you fuck up and let NPC X die on that mission?
Why is Corporation X still after you even after NPC X took the entire blame for the operation?*
What are your thoughts? Do you think it will work?
I say just do set up as normal. Allowing the players to say what Corps they ran jobs against is a way to let them set the danger level.
In a two player game there will be three Corps, as you, the MC get to describe one. If both players chose the same Corp, you’ll start the game with one Corp at 10:00 and the other two at 00:00. If the players choose different Corps, you’ll start with two Corps at 06:00 and one at 00:00. That seems fine to me.
If you do make a third, ghost characters there should be four Corps.