I think the Roll20 group really had an epiphany here in their discussion of the tensions they were experiencing with the game. In my opinion, they nailed it and I’m looking forward to the next mission.
I think the Roll20 group really had an epiphany here in their discussion of the tensions they were experiencing with…
I think the Roll20 group really had an epiphany here in their discussion of the tensions they were experiencing with…
TL;DR: Their legwork phase looks a lot different to when I run it. I’m curious what the rest of you think.
My legwork falls into a similar pattern as the roll20 groups. We take a session to do downtime and decide on a mission. a session or two for legwork then the actual mission usually takes only a session.
We like the chew scenery and the pace is suiting us just fine. The one adjust I’ve had to make is doing links only after a mission is completed. Otherwise weird things happen where you’re in the middle of a mission and your links can reset.
The one thing I’ve noticed of Adam is he’ll put some hard failures in the runner’s way. Usually on a failure I’ll just complicate matters and aim for triggering a xp key.
I also allow the players to be more liberal with Intel allowing them to create holes in the security with them to then act upon.
Your last two paragraphs nail the two important differences for me. My two mantras: 6- is complication, not failure; The Sprawl is about action not investigation.
The important lesson for me is that those need to be clearer in the book.
Sometimes you want to explore the world. The legwork/mission only part of it can feel a little restrictive. I would love a downtime phase that isn’t tied to a specific mission. It could be difficult to tie everyone together so that people aren’t just sitting around but if you gave every playbook at least one downtime move to complicate their lives and let them explore their sprawl. Where if they screw up they don’t make a mission more difficult.
Totally, John!
The game is set up to reflect an action movie type story where the work exploration happens in the context of a mission. The way Adam is taking time to let the setting breathe in the mission phase is one of the things I love the most about the Roll20 game.
You can easily add between-mission downtime scenes: A downtime space implicitly exists in the rules as they stand–that’s when links-increasing scenes happen. When this discussion came up on the Roll20 stream, I looked over the basic moves. I would feel comfortable using them all largely unmodified in the downtime situation. The main difference is that the legwork and action clocks aren’t available, so the MC would be advancing Threat and Corp clocks. In setting up such a situation, I would make sure there were more Threat Clocks available to spread the advances over. That also makes sense for a more open world set-up, because you want a lot of factions to make that environment come alive.
I did think about making a special move for each playbook that would reflect how that playbook saw the wider sprawl and vice versa. I ultimately decided that it was partially duplicating Personal Directives and that the character sheet was already too full, but I think there’s definitely a place for that in the game.
I feel like the seeds of a supplement are here.
A downtime supplement would be awesome!
Noted!
(I have a lot on this summer, but I’ll start making notes for later.)
Hamish Cameron I will say I agree with Adam koebel that I wish the system formalized the process of bleeding attention to other clocks. Making noise and alerting people at first glance doesn’t read very flexible. It would also be nice if the game set the pace enough to tell you when to push the mission into full alert.
I am able to do it, but I’ve been thinking a lot about how to fail forward without system support. I encountered similar ambiguity when playing “Blades in the Dark” which has helped me approach the Sprawl from the right mindset? I also cracked my head against shadowrun 3e a year ago and so I’m seeing a lot of connections when i read the Sprawl. I think my GM baggage helps me approach the game from the right angle.
Adam probably has a little bit of GM mannerisms of his own. In his SR 1e”Mirror shades” series for Rollplay it was very similar to how he’s playing the sprawl; clandestine investigations and hard moves against those who didn’t come prepared. Adam’s also a very rule focused GM, so he’s def a stress test on any rulebook. I can understand why in his reading he doesn’t feel able to bleed alert off on anyone but corps. Also I think he’s used to clocks as fronts where they tick up only when the players ignore them, and he’s having a hard time swinging it the other way?
Anyways I do have a question actually. Adam talked about struggling with finding a way to include a fixer in the mission action phase. Can you think of any ideas? Mine were about pretty much making the mission about the fixer, where a corp hires the fixer as a outside 3rd party middle man for a high stakes negotiation, and the team has to play bodyguard.
Makes sense to have more factions if there is a downtime phase. I wonder if two rounds of faction creation would be too many?
Digression – does anyone know where the assets he’s using for R20 can be found? The “Big Board” he uses with corp clocks, Cred Wagered, etc looks very cool. I found the character sheet, but haven’t located the rest of the stuff.
simon max hill i think Adam did most of that himself, but you can get the clocks from: drive.google.com – The Sprawl Countdown Clocks for Roll20 – Google Drive
So I was discussing Roll20’s general criticisms with someone else online and they brought up this point that I really liked and felt that Adam was trying to get at: “the Action clock should fill up because it’s clear the mission is failing. But maybe it’s not as fun if the mission is failing because the Action clock is filling up.”
I’ve noted before that I think Adam has interpreted the rules of the game to be much stricter than I think they actually are (in ep. 5 i remember him mentioning that there’s no game outside of the mission structure) and i think that’s part of the friction the players were feeling. the concept of failing and stacked odds fits the cyberpunk genre and while i understand the desire to ‘not lose,’ i actually think the game is really generous with failed missions. instead of spiraling downward as the characters try to get themselves out, the game sets it up so you have the chance to narrate your escape if it’s fictionally appropriate. sure, your runners are still in a bad spot, but they’re not out of the game if the mission fails.
tangentially, i’m also surprised Adam hasn’t introduced way more clocks besides the corp ones considering the rulebook has space for both ‘Progress’ and ‘Threat’ clocks. i can easily imagine creating clocks that deal with finding the runners’ hideouts, haunts, or identities and raising those instead of just raising the Legwork, Action, Corp. ones.
Legwork has caused me and some other people I know a lot of problems. The use of “employer” is super confusing when you turn around and say the employer is identifiable or not. When really you’re not meeting an employer to get the job, you’re meeting a representative – this caused me and another GM to fuck up Get The Job.
In Adam’s roll20 he fucks up the Get The Job as well – not waiting for the negotiation to happen and assuming that the roll must happen 1st because the text uses “employer” ambiguously. Someone else explained to me that we never meet the “employer” and only meet a runner for them or one of our contacts. That made so much more sense the next time we played.
I used a broad term like Employer to give the MC flexibility. I usually assume it’s a corporate entity, but I could see how someone could bring different assumptions (especially from their own employment background) to the table and assume that it’s referring to an individual person. Thanks for the feedback, Aaron!
Aaron Steed Idk, I actually think Adam doesn’t roll GTJ early enough. To me it should work much like other roles, i.e. it should set the constraints on the fiction. That way, the MC knows how things should play out. For example, if they choose that the job pays well, but you’ve already negotiated, then it’s awkward or forced. Or if they choose that the employer is very identifiable, I can change how secretive the rep is about that, or not have it be a rep at all. Try rolling it before they even walk in to the meeting and see how that works out.
Hamish Cameron it’s not about my background it’s literally the clause “the employer is unidentifiable”. On p37 it says:
“At the start of every mission, someone will get the job. Usually, the MC will describe how the employer contacts one of you or the whole crew to set up a meeting, where the meeting takes place, and what the employer or their representative looks like.”
But “Get The Job” can render the employer unidentifiable. So you’ve possibly met them which identifies them by virtue of them being there. But then you negotiate because fiction must come before the dice, and suddenly you don’t know who they are now. It’s a confusing bit of framing that ignores how Get The Job transforms the scene. If it was just their representative (which is how I play it now) then Get The Job works without a hitch.
Roman Pearah That’s even worse. The whole point of Powered by the Apocalypse is that the fiction MUST come before any dice roll. To do it, you do it. It even repeats this mantra later on in The Sprawl rulebook and every other PbtA hack. By rolling before the move you go against one of the core principles of how you are supposed to play the game – starting and ending with the fiction. The trigger for Get The Job is “when you negotiate”, so you must start to negotiate for that to happen. Otherwise you’re playing homebrew.
It is though, because “employer” in my mind means the corporation, not the individual.
I have very seldom been employed by people. I’ve always been employed by corporations or large entities, so to me “employer” reads as “employing corporation”.
I could substitute “employer” for “money trail” and the move would read the same to me. I view substituting “employer” for “person making the meet” as an edge case (for example, an extremely wealthy individual).
I usually roll GtJ in the middle. I give the negotiation space to play out and as soon as the team start asking really specific questions which require knowing the outcome of the move, we roll.
We rolled GtJ mid-scene on the last game. A player met with a contact to relay the basics and then the player asked for more – roll GtJ. It actually turned out really well because another player tried to help and screwed up – then the Soldier busts in and takes over the negotiation to save the deal. To me, it felt like the best the scene could have went – a proper bit of drama.