I have finally purchased The Veil and I have some questions.

I have finally purchased The Veil and I have some questions.

I have finally purchased The Veil and I have some questions.

1. Have the Threat Clocks been removed from the base PbtA framework? Are the Antagonist or Questions intended to replace these?

2. I love the playbooks in The Veil but I find them to be pretty extreme/loaded examples of various cyberpunk archetypes and narratives. That’s great for each player but I find it difficult when viewing the PCs as a group.

Glitch City did help show how they can be positioned in such a way as to fit into a “Section 9” style group. However, does anyone have any advice on ways of grouping the PCs, or even altering the narrative around the playbooks so they weave together more (yes, that’s a broad question :))?

3. I note that Glitch City has the Aesthetic and the Percipient playbooks to help round out the group. These aren’t in the rulebook, and are the kind of playbooks that will help deal with 2. Are these playbooks from the upcoming KS?

5 thoughts on “I have finally purchased The Veil and I have some questions.”

  2. Hey Luke! Thanks for grabbing a copy!

    1) not really! It’s broken down into two steps like in Worlds in Peril, where instead of a graphical clock filling in segments you just write in step 1 and step 2, and no more. Leaving the rest for when the PCs get in there and find out what happens next.

    2) Best practice is to talk about tone, cyberpunk touchstones, and build a setting for that. Then select playbooks you think would fit into that framework. If it’s a mystery, straight up missions being run, etc. All the playbooks have a lot of fiction so it supports separate PC pathways in the story away from the PCs, having diverging viewpoints in the fiction. Kind of like Urban Shadows and AW mashed together. Otherwise I’d tie everyone together with their Jam. Working on a team, people involved in an overarching mystery or adventure plot tied together with a communality that might be emergent based on first session. That kind of thing. Just see what kind of cyberpunk people want and go from there, basically.

    3) Yep, the Percipient and Aesthetic are being playtested and are playbooks to be included in the upcoming Cascade kickstarter. As well as advice on building a setting, a piece on cyberpunk to help people come up with motifs, themes, etc for their campaign. More playbooks, compendium type classes, and a lot more. I just wanted as much playtest feedback as possible on those particular playbooks.

  3. Awesome, thanks. Urban Shadows is a good comparison, though I find cohesion in that to be difficult at times too TBH. The need to interact with all Factions to advance tends to help encourage the players look for ways for their PC to interact with other PCs.

    I think Jam is a good point. It would be good to see a list of potential combining Jams appropriate in cyberpunk fiction, with examples of how each Playbook fits into that.

  4. Luke JW My play style is more into disparate story perspectives and don’t really worry about them being a cohesive unit, I just like having people do their own thing with spotlight being moved around. If everyone is being a giving player they’ll be into whatever someone else is doing and then the cohesion comes from the larger meta narrative you weave in with the main antagonist and threats being linked as interacted with the players. People love having the players in groups so there’s lots of spotlight time, but I purposefully move away from that usually.

    But in a series of short sessions I will have jams that interweave them along with the initial Giri questions, which really should bind them together quite a bit already anyways. And have the short series have a specific purpose within the genre, like a mystery or whatever.

    I tend to really treat it like a movie, with the camera going around to characters that are together sometimes, but usually not. But the narrative shows a larger picture at work. Humans is a good example, Expanse second season is pretty cyberpunk, jumping about from character perspective to perspective. West World, 13th floor to some degree, A.I artificial intelligence, hackers somewhat does it. Stories where all the PCs have a lot of agency and bring a lot of fiction while grouped together physically or not so no main character isn’t just along for the ride. They’re all in their specific elements.

Comments are closed.