Question about intrigue in a mission…
What are your practices regarding behind the scenes machinations as it pertains to your missions? When your PCs get the job, how up front with them are you about what’s going on and why they’re being hired to do this thing? If you incorporate a mystery, bit of intrigue, or ulterior motive, do you do so with the intentions of working it into the things the players discover during legwork/action phases or do you drop the initial plot thread during the Get The Job phase and leave it to the PCs to either pursue or not?
In the games I’ve run so far, I’m finding that my players aren’t getting engaged in my missions beyond the surface, which is making me unsure of myself regarding my approach to information divulgence.
It feels like they’re not latching onto the “truth” about what’s going on with the missions they’re being hired to do and I’m wondering if I shouldn’t start taking a different approach with how I’m prepping my games to either eliminate the extra work (thus resulting in missions that are what they say they are), or start finding a better way of putting these mystery nuggets in the direct path of what they decide to do so that they’re “discovering” the layers of the mission without the work.
Anyone else have any similar observations/obstacles with their own game groups regarding the art of mystery storytelling?
I think there may be a bit of a disconnect between your expectations and those of your players. Clearly, you’re interested in intrigue and conspiracy but it’s entirely possible that your players just aren’t. Maybe your players just want a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of thing that doesn’t go much below the surface.
This is probably best addressed out of game by talking to your players directly. Let them know that you’re interested in introducing more elements of intrigue and mystery and you’d like to explore some narratives where they have opportunities to investigate the shadowy layers below the surface. Ask them if that’s something they’d want to do. If they’re on board then great! Maybe they just had no idea that was something they could do and now they’ll be more proactive in the future about questioning things. At the same time, be aware they might say that they’re just not interested and just want to play this like a more straight-forward action movie.
The playbooks your party chose should give you some indication as to what kind of game they were looking for too. If you have a hacker, infiltrator, and reporter then your group’s tailor-made for some noir mystery investigations. If you have a killer, driver, and a soldier then they probably just want to shoot stuff and go on car chases.
Luiz Mattos Yeah, we’ve actually been communicating today about the topic and we’re making some headway, but I don’t know if there’s a consensus on what the party wants as a whole, tone-wise. I have concluded that the mindset of most folk in the group has been to resolve what’s given to them and attempt to accomplish the mission they were hired to do (so surface level stuff), but I’ve got some players who seem clueless about how to go digging deeper and don’t want to go off the rails to figure it out. One of my players even said that they didn’t see how knowing about what’s going on behind the scenes would help them complete the mission, and honestly, the way I’ve been handling it so far, they’re right. It doesn’t. I definitely need to take a more simplistic, action movie approach to my missions going forward and then slip in the intrigue as I see opportunity to do so instead of beginning with some MegaCorp secret and then building a mission off that.
A lot of the struggle I’ve had with The Sprawl so far in this regard has definitely been a matter of expectation on my part not matching up with the way things organically unfold. I’m learning some valuable lessons about GMing in general from these obstacles, so at least there’s that, but I feel like I’ve got a ways to go before I hit a comfortable sweet spot.
Brandon Fincher Yeah, a disconnect between expectation and how things turn out has been my biggest hurdle as a newish GM. I usually try to take a step back and ask myself, “Are my players still having fun? Am I still having fun?” and if so, I’ll try to reorient my expectations.
Brandon Fincher Even if you let the intrigue thing go make sure there is something you want explored further getting spotlight time from the players (after open discussion and agreement).
It’s give AND take not just take, between everybody at the table.
Good advice about talking with your players regarding what they want out of the game.
Instead of intrigue, what about entanglement? What I mean is, rather than creating behind the scenes intrigue that the PCs and players have to dig down to uncover, why not involve them in more surface events?
This depends a lot on the results of moves, but have their contacts require side jobs when the PCs Hit the Streets. Or have some local street gang harass them (or ask for help) when they’re scoping out a location during the Legwork phase. Have any of the loose ends generated during the Links phase popped up again? Any survivors or witnesses from a previous mission poking around for revenge?
It sounds a bit like your players don’t feel they have a reason to dig deeper into the intrigue you’ve created. Or the players don’t care about it. Instead of planting clues and hoping the PCs start digging, drag them sideways with things they have to get involved with.
Chris Stone-Bush(null) Great advice there, thanks for that!
I think that’s pretty good advice for GMing in general – don’t be too subtle. Whatever intrigue is going on behind the scenes, it needs to impact the PCs, needs to be something which is clearly in their interests to follow up.
It’s not enough to simply drop some clues pointing at wider events, and hope they’re interested enough to take a closer look.
Or if you do drop some subtle clues and the players don’t follow them, you need to be ready to abandon whatever plot they connected to.
Simon Geard Yeah, that’s a good summarization of what I’ve walked away from this experience (and this thread) with. Thanks again you guys!