How tight do you frame your get the job scene. Do you allow players to do other moves than the Get the job move? Do you allow you players to get all paranoid and go chasing red hearings or possible interlopers to the mission? Or is it more like a vignette/flashback where it’s already agree upon that they took the job and it’s just a matter of discussing the terms of employment?
How tight do you frame your get the job scene.
How tight do you frame your get the job scene.
Good questions. I still haven’t run a game (I will very soon), but as the game is mission based, I feel it’s assumed that the characters will take the job. At least the first one. They could turn the job down if they don’t like the offer, but as the game is about teams of professionals looking to get hired, turning down too many offers doesn’t make sense. Why are the characters a team of freelancers if they turn down all the offers of work? You could ask the players what types of jobs their characters would take.
I think it’s fine for characters to do whatever they want, triggering moves as normal, during the Get the Job scene. But again, I think everyone should understand what the scene is for; setting the stage for the upcoming Legwork and Action scenes. If characters cause too many problems during the initial meet, who’s going to want to hire them?
As for red herrings? the characters are professionals and probably wouldn’t go off chasing leads that turn out to be nothing. I feel the game is less about finding clues and more about dealing with complications.
It can vary considerably. It could be tightly framed, almost narrated, including in a flashback, or it could be casual and full of moves and action itself.
One of the podcast APs (I forget which) has a pretty involved get the job scene including a fight. You could even have then get the job scene include the assassination of the person giving the job offer as the setup. In fact, I might use that…
I think that was the Once Upon a Game AP that Eric Vulgaris did with an all star cast:
youtube.com – Once Upon A Game | Special Edition | The Sprawl p1