I have two players (Hacker and Fixer) who have picked the directive “Deceptive – When your lies about your identity or your past put the mission at risk, mark experience.”
I have some ideas about how we can work their past into the game, but I’m not sure how lies about it could put the mission at risk exactly. We haven’t fully nailed down what their secrets are, so that may help, but in general I’m having a tough time imagining how lying about one’s past could put a mission at risk.
I think there are just too many moving parts. It seems like I would need to create a situation where first, the player must lie, which would be quite difficult with this group, and then have that lie somehow impact the mission. Maybe I’m overthinking it.
I am interested in examples of how others have handled this directive.
I would first nail down their secrets and ask them how they see it coming up in play.
*Someone they have lied to wants revenge, or just shows up at an inopportune time.
*They commit to a job based upon experience they don’t have or the Johnson assumes that they have and it goes sideways when their specialized knowledge is required.
Yeah, definitely ask them what they’re lying about, and then when you’re inventing the job, it’s the boyfriend they denied knowledge of, or the computer virus they swear they had nothing to do with writing.
“Did you say Vaughn? Roberto Vaughn? The disgraced ex-CEO of Mandala Mechanics? No, never heard the name before. No, it’s not me, why are you asking?”
I saw a wonderful example on an AP where one player said his character was a famous sportsman and their career was inexplicably shafted, and another player said ‘well turns out that was my doing, just a victim of circumstance, didn’t mean to but..’
Well, look at the literature that inspires The Sprawl. In Neuromancer, the team is led by ‘Armitage’, but as the book progresses, it becomes apparent that he’s not what he claims, and that his background is a major liability to the mission.
That’s an extreme case, but I think it’s a good example to consider.
Thanks everyone. I have a better idea of what to do now. I feel like we need to do a bit more RP to establish that they are hiding things from one another. We’ve only done the one session so far. Hopefully I can push this a little bit and it will come out in play.
Good point about ‘Armitage’ Simon Geard, I hadn’t thought about that.
Also consider how that particular directive might resemble others, e.g “when your membership of __”, or “when you harm _ or their interests”, etc. They all speak to something in your character background that will influence your actions, potentially in ways contrary to mission objectives.
As an example, the last Sprawl character I played was secretly associated with the intelligence services. In that particular case, I used the Network directive to represent that, but Deceptive would have fitted almost as well.
I think it requires a little bit of setup by the GM, but my general rule about this kind of thing is “make sure it costs the Operatives something”.
So a choice/obstacle you can offer them is:
You know that the corporation you’re about to incur about has a file on you. Going on site is likely to offer them numerous opportunities to identify you as an Operative on their premises. Do you conceal this information and go anyways? If so, mark XP. Consequence:, a clock advances (legwork, corporate, mission, etc.)