So I’m going to MC my second session of the Sprawl. The game campaign will see us hopping all over the globe. Last time we were in South Africa, this next session will take place in Japan. All new city, all new corps – but one big question:
How should I keep the pressure up from the corps, especially from the last game? How can I tie it all together? Any suggestions?
Your characters are globetrotting, send NPC parties after them – hired by those corps.
The Corps are part of conglomerates/Zaibatsu and have allies where the players are heading. What happens when South African NutriCorp’s Japan-based technology partner NTech gets wind the PCs are in town?
Yeah, I made it pretty clear at the start of my campaign that the corporations who own or hunt the PCs won’t stop just because they travel somewhere else. Otherwise everyone gets zero consequences for being hunted or owned. You could always say that ‘all new city, all new corps’ was a mistake, and retcon the corps such that they are legit global powers (the only global powers).
Steve Moore’s idea is also good.
Any time your team connect to the Mesh, they open themselves to attack. The corporation hackers could hack surveillance cams, send SWAT teams (i.e., swatting), cancel travel tickets and reservations, leave threatening messages (we have your son) or signs (son’s drawing with blood on it), etc.
I like that stuff, Christo – I would point out, given how mission and time-oriented sessions of the sprawl can be, that if a corp halfway across the world is threatening a PC’s kid, hopefully there’s either enough time in the Legwork phase to deal with that, with the PC flying back or the Corp in question bringing the kid to the new city. Or the PC (or PCs) can go back and deal with it after the mission.
Unless the MC is trying to make the PC choose between ‘throw mission or save kid,’ or split the party for that session between the mission-resolvers and the kid saver(s).
Charlie Vick I would hope our team could remote access droids to set up a counterattack, or call in favors from across the globe.
Nice!
Also we are talking about corporations that are bigger than google. Just because they are not headquartered in your current city doesn’t mean they don’t have a presence.
John Carroll This. Corps are multinational with regional offices all over the world and ability to project their power globally.
Just to tie together most of the post in this thread so far:
If you decide to introduce new corps in the second session, explore why the previously introduced corps don’t have a major presence there: Why are the Japan corps so strong they can keep those multi-national corps from South Africa out of their territory? Or as others suggested, why have they decided to ally with those same corps?
Going forward the corps introduced in Session 1 & 2 are THE major corps to deal with when the players are globe trotting. Your either dealing with regional offices, subsidiaries, or allied partners.