Hey CyberPunks,
Just started MCing The Sprawl and I really dig it. Having some difficulty with the Reporter’s Story clock. The Noise Clock isn’t so much an issue as I can pretty quickly come up with ways a Corp might cover evidence up. I like the idea of the Reporter and I think it allows for a lot of vision to come into the game as with the Pusher.
Has anyone here run The Sprawl with a Reporter on the team? How did you handle it? What are your thoughts on Stories/Story Clock and does this interact with Headlines at any point? I could see that if the story gets covered up maybe it comes back as a headline later on.
May neon and chrome be with you
My team has a reporter AND a pusher. They’re very into the socioeconomic exploitation angle in the setting. We are playing in the San Francisco Free Trade Zone.
So we just completed our 4th mission. We have 2 story clocks going. One is about Monsagra’s monoculture, and how they built a kill switch gene into their grain products so they could use it as leverage. The other is about the corps’ flagrant disregard for AI containment and safety. They’ve watched (ok, two of them reluctantly helped, thanks to a lot of bad rolls) a non-sapient AI escape containment into the net.
These have become the two big through-line plots in the campaign. I’ll be introducing another one or two just for pacing’s sake
Jon Lemich
Legit, that sounds rad. I have Hacker, Tech, Reporter, and Fixer. Any thoughts on missions for these guys? I’ve been leaning away from violence cause I don’t want to go hard on them and tpk.
Investigating tech mysteries, like Ghost in the Shell neo-noir.
Our idea is it takes about 2 missions and downtimes to complete a story clock, so a story is about twice as weighty as a mission.
Younger folks might not understand how a Reporter is an effective character type in a cyberpunk game. You have to watch an old 80s cult TV-series called MAX HEADROOM for inspiration.
Pierre Savoie
I have not watched Max Headroom but I want to since the reporter’s playbook has that as the quote. Haven’t found a free source so may end up purchasing
I’ve read about Noh Theater a bit. I joke, “There’s slow business like Noh business…” Noh theater USED to be quicker, but over hundreds of years the concern with pronouncing archaic dialects correctly and reproducing ritual gestures carefully slowed it down!
Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan is the other big inspiration for the reporter.