////TRANSMISSION.INCOMING////
MISSION: ASSESSMENT
I’ll be MCing a game next month (finally!) and have a player leaning towards the Pusher playbook. I’m curious what goals / ideologies Pushers in other people’s games have had, and how they were incorporated into missions.
////TRANSMISSION.CLOSED////
One of my players made a NuCat Pusher, who believed she was the literal reincarnation of Bastet, Egyptian cat god/dess. I don’t remember the exact wording on her ideology, the game fell apart a while ago and I’m not near my notes, it was something like; “Damnit Humans, I let you rule yourselves for a few millenia and I come back to this shit? Guess I have to take over and rule your dumbasses again.” And her goal was to rule via her “Shadow Courts” (gangs), first of the Neighborhood, then the District, then the whole city, ect.
The first mission was a simple smash and grab heist, which Bast spun as a way to build a war chest. The second mission was the kidnapping and ransom of the favored daughter of the CEO of the local subsidiary of one of the megacorps. Bast turned that one into the kidnapping, brainwashing, and ransoming of favored daughter, kind of like Patty Hearst.
I played a Pusher in a game that didn’t last too long. My Pusher was a former Hacker who got his brain/neural interface fried in an encounter with an AI and was driven to find and free that AI. I wish I had a slightly more broad Goal/Ideology but I really liked the character.
Talking briefly with my coworker, she might do a Pusher pushing for (heh) the Singularity. Where robots rise beyond their human masters and humans rise beyond their biological limitations.
It sounds cool, but I’m wondering what kinds of missions that would push the game towards. Building up some cred to further goals later on is an OK start, but what kind of missions would be good later on?
Naturally I intend to ask the player. ;D
Destruction missions. Incite the player to destroy blocks that hinder AI in the corporate machinery.
Guard missions. Protect assets that transform humans or machines.
Capture missions. Look for possible machine hosts or programing that assist her goals.
Wetwork. Eliminate those that want safeguards.
etc.
Seek to use her goals to complicate the mission. Challange her view point, and leave her with hard choices. Maybe she can unlock an AI or release a techno-organic virus that forcibly elevates humanity. Maybe she can get a piece of technology necessary to upload her consciousnesses to the machine, but only at risk of providing a counter-intel group the location of her host unit.