Hey everyone,
I’m looking to find ways to get the tech and Hunter more involved. They’re help with legwork but not with action. they tend to let the infiltrator and killer handle the action phase. I’ve asked them of they’d like to be more involved but respond they’re don’t know what to do. I offer them to grab their guns and follow the killer they decline.
My question is how do I get them more involved so they become crucial. Ive been creating missions where the team needs a specific piece of gear and it’s fragile meaning the tech needs to be nearby to repair it but I’m still struggling with the hunter.
While the Killer is off killing and the Infiltrator off infiltrating, bring a security detail around to where the Tech and Hunter are loitering? Have a surveillance drone fly by? Bring the action to them…
Also, make the missions about everybody. If someone’s playing a hunter, make sure there’s hunting involved. The opposite is true too. If there’s no hacker, don’t make the mission about hacking.
In my most recent, I had the team finding a guy who was running around inside a high-security arcology. The hunter had plenty to do.
What moves and cyberwear do they have? That will influence things. For example, a Hunter with a tactical computer is really useful in the thick of things so they can use their tactical Assess, or a Hunter with the Sniper move has an obvious action role.
Having the action come to them is a good idea – remember that the corps want to fuck the team over, so if the Hunter and Tech are spending the action phase watching netflix at their apartment, maybe a corporate kill team shows up – and suddenly they’ll wish they were closer to the Killer. Austin Walker on Friends at the Table is good at leaving one character in a cliffhanger to cut to someone who hasn’t done something for a while – then he puts them in a spot and asks “what do you do?”. It’s as simple as that really.
The third thing to think about is Directives – these might give hooks that you can use to lure the Tech and Hunter into a more pro-active role – the chance to mess with a group they’re vengeful against, or to save someone they care about. If your group isn’t thinking about Directives much, you could offer double XP for them (that’s what I’ve done) so it’s extra-motivating – they could level up every session if they hit those Directives consistently.
thank you so much!
The Tech has cyber arms with a shotgun implant he says “For emergencies” but he doesn’t like to mix it up. The hacker has a neural interface with multitasking so he can operate the teams van and his drones.
The Tech does extraordinary in the legwork portions he ensures that the team is well geared and prepared for anything. He likes to remain near the hacker to repair any drones as needed.
This session I had their van draw attention from locals. Eventually the cops got called because people felt uncomfortable. This seemed to pull them in more as they had to make a choice between continuing to assist the team and dealing with the approaching threat of law enforcement.
I really appreciate all the feed back.
That’s an awesome way of bringing the action to them, man. If your tech is there to repair drones, take a drone out in the middle of a fire fight and maybe make it an important surveillance drone that is crucial to the success of the mission. Barring that idea, maybe an assault drone gets clipped and needs a repair or the guys won’t be able to handle the suppressive fire from enemy drones. While out there, maybe his assess tells him that one of those drones is close enough that he may be able to disable it, maybe get some new drone tech to take home, surely pissing off some corp in the process.
How much are the Killer and Infiltrator participating in the legwork portion of the mission? It’s OK to move the spotlight from time to time, as long as it’s evenly spread out overall. Not everyone needs to be in the same place, or even facing the same level of danger. Which is not to say you can’t mix it up sometimes, but stay cognizant of what your players want.
As an MC, I’d hate making a contrived sense of danger for “balance” reasons, because I think it breaks the fiction.
As a player, I’d probably hate it even more if I were being asked to make decisions that don’t make sense in character (if I have remote matrix access, why the hell would I go on-site to plug in? if I have an armored fridge, why the hell would I follow the team into a live fire zone?).
That said, don’t forget that a mid-mission “Research” (from “It all fits together!”) can be very helpful, and “Expert” can be a useful fictional key. Both can have elements that require the Hunter/Tech to be there in person.
the infiltrator and killer don’t participate much in legwork outside declaring a contact for something useful.
I guess I as a DM don’t like having half my party engage in leg work then the other half engage in action.
In my head perhaps I’m imaging a cohesive unit rather than each person contributing their skills then waiting around.
You can cut back and forth during the action phase, even slicing up time (so tech working on something critical that the infiltration team will need to use. It happens at different times in the fictional world, but you can intercut during play. Happens during movies all the time.).
Just remember that for a player, in my opinion it is THEIR imagination that should be driving their PC. The MC sets the stage and adjudicates interaction with the world, but I’d be very cautious about overriding player agency.
Are you also asking the question of how to involve killer and infiltrator in more legwork? If not, why not? Is it because you view action as more important than legwork? Do your tech and hunter feel the same way?
And with many things, Legwork can be more important than Action. Cohesion between the two kinds of actions is also part of being an effective unit. Armies, after all, are 90% logistics and 10% combat.
I should say I have a tech who is trying to run a legal business and keeps getting dragged into this. His participation in runs is very different from a typical player, but he seems to be having fun because of it.
I like to think of the intercut trick as “Schrodinger’s macguffin” – until you collapse the waveform by taking the gear out of the bag during the future action phase, anything could have happened in the tech’s workshop during the “past” portion of the action phase.
It’s also a handy way to preserve dramatic tension for the tech’s roll (if one is needed). If you know beforehand whether he succeeded or failed in making the custom gear needed for the mission, players may subconsciously act around it with extra knowledge that their characters wouldn’t necessarily have.
If you don’t know, players may hedge for the chance of failure, but it puts them in the same position their characters would be in, and that is awesome.
I’m not asking how to get the killer and infiltrator to do legwork because its more of their choice. They choose to leave the majority of legwork to the others because they know they will handle the action and it gives the other players some involvement. If the infiltrator needs to know security schematics she will seek them out as well with the killer finding out what firepower he will be up against; beyond that they leave the remaining legwork to the others so as not to “Hog the spot light”
The Tech and hunter on the other hand choose not to participate because “I don’t know what my character would do here, the team has it handled” When offered to draw guns and take down enemies they decline. If I want the infiltrator or killer involved in legwork its as simple as asking them if everything is covered. They will promptly go back and ensure they feel comfortable approaching the action section.
Right now im looking into ways for them to be involved in the action phase that doesn’t involve direct combat. So I am now incorporating individuals who have key information that need to be tracked down during the action phase and devices that are pertinent to the mission that the tech will need to ensure remains in working condition.
I’m not sure I follow. Have the Tech and Hunter expressed that they WANT to be more involved in the action phase, but aren’t? Or do they prefer to do legwork and hang back during the action phase?
Anyway, if the Tech and Hunter were doing 80% the legwork and everyone is participating equally in the action phase, wouldn’t the Tech and the Hunter actually be “hog[ging] the spot light”?
Thank you Junk Addy, I think I was trying to increase their involvement selfishly rather than considering if the players enjoyed the team dynamic they had forged. The situations seems to be resolved as of now though.
Try having a “two keys to initiate launch” plotline – two of the mission directives have to be accomplished simultaneously, but in two locations. Put tech or hunter friendly obstacles in those locations and announce them ahead of time to encourage the Hunter/Tech to either take the lead or tag along.
This was the solution I used for our driver in the last mission – I didn’t want him to be stuck as a Team Minivan for the extraction, so I gave him a distant satellite that had to be disabled so the incursion could be completed.