So I finally played The Sprawl at a local anime convention’s gaming room (with Hamish!), on a playtest of Touched (yay!) and I think the game overall went really well. So much so, that I’m going to pitch it to the online group for our next Shadowrunesque game.
Anyway, the one thing that bugged me about the game is the concept of Cred as both a measure of money and reputation. It’s combining the two coupled with staking some at the beginning of a mission that I keep having issues with. Here’s something I wrote a while back:
Tuck has 5 Cred and gets a job. She stakes 2 Cred on the job, which means on the actual job, she has 3 Cred to spend to get stuff. She needs to get something from her fixer for this mission, a quite illegal narcoject gun and some KO darts. That’s 2 Cred. She now has 1 Cred left. The mission is successful, but the crew didn’t choose the “job pays well” option: Tuck staked 2 Cred, so she gets that back and then 2 Cred more, bringing her hidden Cayman Island bank account to… 5 Cred.
But what if she staked 3 Cred? Then when she got that narcoject gun and ammo with her last 2 Cred, she’s down to 0 Cred. Job is done: 0 + 3 + 3 again = 6 Cred. Stake 1 Cred? Tuck starts off at 4 Cred, spends 2, dropping her down to 2. Job is now done, so 2 + 1 + 1 again = 4 Cred.
Where is the profit in crime?
Playing the game, my thoughts led me back to that, so I wrote a thing that separates money and reputation. My thought it is would wind up getting characters to a point where they’d have enough to retire from the biz. (I have a difficult time thinking of how a character could save up the 20 Cred to pull off the Retire to Safety move.)
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, even if it’s “Thomas, you totally misunderstand how easily it is to accumulate Cred.”
http://denaghdesign.com/separating-money-reputation-cred-sprawl/
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Seems like if a player is hell-bent on retiring, they save their cred and negotiate with the rest of the players to not always skip the “The job pays well” option or they “get paid in full” option when they present themselves.
Not to mention that the MC could actually set the multiplier for getting paid higher if it’s a high profile job, etc.
Those players (the thrifty kind) can feel comfortable relying solely on freely acquired [intel] and [gear] to increase their options for a mission or just rely on their wits to carry them through since The Sprawl is not really a “gear porn” type of game.
This is all assuming that the characters motivation is to retire at all…
I think the problem is more that the level of reward implied by Cred in the game is not consistent with the fiction: if crime doesn’t pay (or at least promise payment), why is anyone doing it?
That’s one of the things that got me thinking about this.
Has anyone that’s played a campaign or a few series of games gotten their Cred up to a level where they could take that Retire to Safety (20 Cred) move?
Jakob Oesinghaus
Short answer is, not everyone wants to be a wage slave/corporate drone.
And crime CAN pay, it’s just not guaranteed to (ironically how it is in real life). There is a huge amount of luck on getting that big payday and keeping it.
It’s imperative for GMs to remember the principle “Be a fan of the characters”. When it’s time to get paid, even if the players don’t /can’t choose “you are paid in full” you don’t have to screw them completely; maybe you find a way to reward them in non-liquid assets like vehicles, weapons, contacts, etc.
The Narcojetgun you mentioned is something i would pay with a gear point.
The other route I’d take is just keep Cred as reputation and give characters a free [gear] at the start of each mission. That way you could just get the narcoject gun and not have to worry about money.
There’s a lot to unpack here, but the bit I’ll cherry-pick right now is that if Shadowrun is your major cyberpunk touchstone when considering these sorts of questions, remember that there are tons of in-fiction reasons why people run the shadows instead of getting a steady job. In most cases, they literally have no other choice: they lack a SIN, or maybe they have a SIN but grew up poor and didn’t get the same opportunities to get that wage slave gig as everyone else. And, as mentioned above, if you’re playing a character who used to be a wage slave, they almost certainly have reasons for giving it up, likely related to an allergy to megacorporations. So, it’s not really a “crime pays” sort of thing… though you could certainly house rule and run a game like that if you want!
I actually house rule a fair amount of Cred stuff for my own Sprawl games, but from my experience, it should be possible for a group that survives long enough to hit the 20 Cred to retire safely. Since the game isn’t really “loot heavy”, at some point players typically run out of stuff they need to save for or purchase, and so the game instead becomes an exercise in dodging the corps long enough to get out of the life clean.
As someone who has played and run The Sprawl I will tell you this: Cred is not hard to get. The trick is to choose to get paid. If you always play it safe, then you won’t make the big bucks. You have to risk that the Johnson might double cross you. You know when you run an excellent session because it will have the players questioning if they want the money or if they want the other options. Sometimes you break even or lose out because you really don’t want to have to deal with the alternative.
Cred is also not XP. Cred is your ability to get shit done. That might be by waving around stacks of bills, or that might be by calling on favors. When you stake cred, you are putting your reputation on the line. It’s something like collateral for a loan. Everyone knows you are leveraged. Your good standing in the community or perhaps actual collateral is on the line. Screw up and you can kiss it goodbye. You decide how much you will stake on a mission. That’s how much you are going to spread the word around or spend (since the sprawl doesn’t track every round of ammo and the like). Your return is based on this because you gain more prestige for pulling off jobs you talk about or more money for jobs you negotiate on based on expenses (it takes money to make money).
I’ll add a bit here although I have only run 2 sessions. One of my players has the financial directive which has led me to include possibilities of making cred in other ways. Finding drugs they can sell, info they can trade. I figure given that one player has this as a directive than it means the missions should have the possibility of making more cred so they can lean into their directive.
So she’s even on money, but she has a cool narcoject gun. Sounds like profit to me. She’s effectively up 2 cred worth of cool stuff. If she had staked less, she’d be ahead by 1. If she had staked more, she’d be ahead by 3.
This is actually even more stark with hackers. The hacker’s deck takes 2 cred to repair at a minimum. Unlike the narcoject gun, which the PC gets to keep, that’s money lost. On a run, hackers can get paydata, though, and they really should, because that deck maintenance is expensive.
Get the Job: The runner with +2 or 3 Edge will be making this roll, for sure. So that’s a 41-58% chance of 10+ and 82-91% chance of success. The other runners can Help or Interfere on this move. As they gain Links, the Help action becomes easier, and with typical Links, (because they roll over, they’ll hover around +1 and 2) they’ll be doing pretty well. Now, a 6 minus on a Help roll can cause the MC to make a Move against the group while Getting the Job, but like I said, once they have some links, Help is 72-83% useful (and the people with 0 Links won’t roll). So the PCs’ pay will rapidly improve because their Get the Job roll will rapidly improve.
Get Paid: The better the players are at legwork (getting JUST the right amount of [gear] and [intel] and doing JUST the right amount of prep) the better they’ll Get Paid. Cut legwork real short and Get Paid will be easy. Probably 10+. It’ll take a few missions to get the balance right. The Sprawl rewards cutting the legwork off short and taking a risk. When the PCs know everything going in, it’s more Rambo than Neuromancer. If they go in knowing there are unknowns and trusting their quick thinking and l33t skillz, they’re more likely to be surprised and betrayed, but also the players are more likely to enjoy the twists and reversals and tense moments it creates, and then when it’s time to Get Paid, they’re in for smooth sailing. I’m not 100% sure any PC actually does something to Get Paid, so I’m not sure you can Help or Interfere there, but if so, you’re even better off (though 6 minus results for Getting Paid are probably nasty!)
Then there’s paydata, and the fixer’s jobs. Paydata is critical for those hackers, who lose 2 Cred a run if their deck gets damaged. At least. Maybe a lot more, if their programs get slagged.
I guess this is advice I need to give my players more than write here lol!