We wrapped up “Season 1” of my Singapore Sprawl game over New Years (the finale ended up in a Mission Abort!), and we’re now unfolding Season 2. I’ve had some time to reflect on the game and am looking for some advice for further developing Singapore as a setting, because it poses some unusual challenges. I’m curious how other folks would handle these:
Singapore is a surveillance state, and the tech is only going to improve. Today, there are cameras everywhere! And China’s developing facial recognition tech that’s already frighteningly accurate. It’s something that we’ve been sweeping under the rug mostly, since the Clocks ensure some degree of safety for the PCs. But what would be a good way of handling this without requiring a Hacker to scrub surveillance data every mission? Or maybe we fold this into the options for Get Paid? I’ve also added an easter egg to one of the epistolary articles that surveillance footage is often circumstantial evidence because they are easy to tamper with.
Singapore is gun-free. The “regular” players have leaned heavily into a low key, low violence style of run, possibly because of cultural expectations. But as written, The Sprawl expects most people to have guns. Half the classes get automatic weapons as a starting option. So when the guns do come out, it’s often a bit jarring (“Hold on, are you sure you want to fire a 5-Harm canon at the hospital?” “Wait, I don’t think you would have gotten the Assault Rifle past the security at the supermarket, so what else do you have instead?”) My current thought on this is to have the city be divided roughly into zones, where certain firearms are permitted / won’t draw too much attention… possibly with firearms categorized by the Harm they inflict. So city center is 2-Harm or less, patrolled urban areas are 3-Harm, and most of the island is 4-Harm.
As a result of both of these, players are very hesitant to go on high risk / high profile runs. Runs that cause violent and damage in a public way suddenly stand out significantly, and feel very risky. And the game doesn’t provide any structure to make up for that risk. The payout for missions is usually about the same (3-5 XP, and 2x or 3x Stake in Cred). What are some tools people have used to sweeten the deal?
If you’re curious about the setting, we’ve been curating it here:
