Legwork clock in your games: does it stay really low?
We’ve played a single session this weekend and ours stayed clean, which made the Get Paid move pretty trivial. Perhaps we just had luck in the dice, or maybe we passed too fast by this phase (each of the 4 players did 1 legwork action). So, is this clock in your experience? Thanks!
It varies a lot. If you’re looking to run the whole mission in one session, you’re probably going to keep the legwork phase short… the players don’t get as much opportunity to gather intel and gear, but they’re also unlikely to have done anything to alert the target. And so yes, they’ll have a nice bonus on Get Paid if the action phase also goes smoothly.
On the other hand, if you’re running a slower game, maybe splitting the mission across a couple of sessions, you’ll see a lot more activity in the legwork phase… characters using their intel gathering moves, working their contacts, engaging in side missions (possibly in exchange for info).
And so they’ll go into the action phase with more intel and gear to spend when they need it – but they’ll have made a lot of moves, and inevitably done things to attract unwanted attention. Depending on just how much time they’ve spent on it and how their luck has gone, it’s quite reasonable for the legwork clock to be in the 2100 to 2200 range…
It also depends on the MC, who has plenty of discretion in these matters – particularly in the legwork phase, he/she may find it more appropriate to raise corporate clocks rather than the mission clocks, or to provide other complications that don’t directly relate to the mission (e.g. attracting police attention while trying to tail a target).
Makes sense, Simon. Thinking now, our clean Legwork clock was the combination of players passing really fast through it plus some very lucky rolls. Thanks for the tips!
As my GM is find of saying, “The Sprawl is really easy as long as you keep rolling 10+.”
Having run a lot of espionage and cyberpunk games, the legwork phase depends entirely on how clear and simple the mission is, as presented.
If you’re paid to go into a small building, take a prototype cyberarm from the 2nd floor hardware testing lab, and then bring it to Mr. Johnson, very little legwork is needed. The ethics are clear (just a cyberarm), the target is clear (2nd floor lab), the ingress is a single Assess roll, and the egress is a single Assess roll you can do on the fly.
The directives are simple:
1. Get the job
2. Enter the building
3. Steal the prototype
4. Escape the building
5. The mission ends
Now muddy it up.
Forget small building, let’s make it an underground black site. Let’s make it hidden, “under the old Los Angeles subway system somewhere near the I-10 overpass downtown.” Let’s add some mystery, “you are to steal a distinctive orange case, like a suitcase, but about twice as large and twice as heavy. You may not open the case.” Let’s add some complications: “Your contact at the FBI, who you’re owned by, asks you to look in the case, because she suspects this is a plague bomb. If it is, Mr. Johnson might be a terrorist.”
Now all of a sudden they’re going to need to do a LOT of legwork.
The new mission directives could be:
1. Get the job
2. Find the hidden black site
3. Enter the black site
4. Decide what to do with the case
5. The mission ends