I’m not quite sure if this is the place for it, but i ran a one shot of this a few days ago (my first time GMing anything), and I had a few noob questions. We ran the Kurosawa extraction, and the group contained a hacker, a fixer, a hunter, and a killer.
1: How does unarmed combat work? I didn’t see a harm value listed for bare fists, and I had a Killer who wanted to knock out a guard. I figured since the guard was an uncybered rent-a-cop who was caught kind of off guard, that the killer could just knock him out if she suceeded at a mix it up, which she did. Is there a proper/correct way to handle that situation? And what would have happened if he had instead been a cybered up goon who could have reasonably handled himself in a fight like that?
2: How aggressive should I be with corporate Kill Teams? My group ran the legwork and action clocks on the Kurosawa extraction to the point where Kurosawa had 3 kill teams as his security retinue before the action phase even began. I wanted to use these somewhat aggressively, but I wasn’t sure how to do that properly. I feel like I ended up holding back way too much with them. I’m not really sure how to use them to apply pressure during the legwork phase or how to handle them in combat. especially not 18 of them at once.
3: How does arresting PCs work? At one point, right before running the legwork clock to its max, the fixer and the hunter were able to arrange a meeting with Kurosawa in his arcology. I figured that, by this point, the corp he works for knows that something is going down and is close to identifying the culprits, and were hoping to use the meeting as a chance to pump the PCs for info. Sure enough, the PCs failed a roll, and filled the legwork clock (they had really bad luck with rolls). I thought it would probably make the most sense to have arcology security arrest the two after the meeting, but I wasn’t sure how that would work, as the game was already running long and that would effectively mean half the party is down. I figured arcology security released them hoping they could follow them back to the rest of the party, but then nothing really cam of that. How do you handle something like that?
4: How do you gauge the strength of npcs? I was hoping to create a rival character for the killer, but I think I accidentally made Sarah the cyberninja way too strong.
Thank you for any advice!
I cant answer all of these but I can say with the attack that generally attacks are either a 0 or a 1 if you have no compliments. As it was a killer her base is probably a 1. But totally just knocking out a generic rent a cop is a pretty basic mix it up move. In general they do more damage if the take the actions from the move that allow that.
Also for arresting PCs..roll with the fiction. When you move to arrest them they will probably freak out and flee arrest, which fits the fiction just fine.
Also remember the legwork clock doesn’t immediately mean the corporate clock is also rolled out, so they still might not have enough leverage to arrest them, just enough to know they are definitely the threat.
If they fail, and get arrested, is there anything I should do as the GM to give them an out, or is it OK to just leave it up to the group to figure out if/how to bust their companions out of prison? It seems a little mean to just bench half the party, and I’m not sure just how mean/aggressive I’m supposed to be as a GM to represent the setting appropriately but still make things fun for the players and be a fan of the characters. Also, is there any guidelines on how many rolls they should be given before being thrown in the slammer? Is it one and done, or should the get a few chances to succeed?
If they are true runners, they will never be fully benched. Also I imagine if you put a situation in front of them where they are about to be arrested, the scene will not go peacefully.
But yes. If they put themselves into a situation that they actually get arrested, now they have a new drive (and might fail the mission, which is totally a thing that is okay and can happen).
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