Author: Nigel Clarke

I’ve been playing around with some game sign up sheets. Here in the UK we use a system for quite a few conventions where the GM/MC posts a signup sheet for players at a central location before the game  to solicit players. As you aren’t pitching your game in person to the crowd using an interesting but succinct  sheet is the only way to attract people to your game over many others available for play. The trick seems to be to convey the game style in a few words and tailor expectations as well.

Here’s a couple of options I did to see what folks think.

Couple of quick questions.

Going through the playbooks again I’m looking over the Infiltrator and see that p77 says  about the Infiltrator move “Jack in: When you’re jacked into the matrix you have access to the matrix moves: control systems, break systems, and jack out.” this is different to the Hacker Jack In move (also an advance for the Tech) and the MM list doesn’t cover control systems or break systems. Are they a hang over from an older version or is the MM list being added to?

An Infiltrator’s Infiltration deck states that they get three programs but the list is only Lockdown and Manipulate. Is it those two and any one other or is there a choce missing?

A more comprehensive discussion of the relationship between DS&I, the Matrix and jacking in would be good as it currently isn’t that clear where the DS&I integrates with a cyberdeck when accessing the Matrix. Does it go DS&I direct jack in to the Matrix in parallel to the deck or through the deck. Not using a DS&I means you are -1 to MM’s but can’t be physically damaged by ICE. But it isn’t clear if you can use a deck without a DS&I to connect.

As part of my prep for running The Sprawl at the next con I attend as a GM rather than player (I have six games already scheduled for UK Games Expo at the end of May so I can’t fit a game in there) I’ve been pulling together some material.

I grabbed the Art of War books (100 Cyberpunk  Megacorporations, 100 Cyberpunk Locations, 100 Cyberpunk NPC’s), a copy of Masks (1000 memorable NPC’s and some modern floorplans in case the players veer off into left field. ) for player inspiration and MC support.

For plots I have picked up copies of 100 Cyberpunk Runs and Another 100 Cyberpunk Runs plus the GM’s Cookbook Cyberpunk genre plot hooks.  SO there is plenty of options for games and if I go with Hamish Cameron ‘s suggestion of full-on chargen for the first hour of the game slot that should fill a number of slots at Indiecon in November

Last night’s game – part two of our first mission.

So there we are on board the ferry, we’ve knocked out in one way or the other the Hanzaki personnel guarding the truck we need to access. The BreadboarderTech  enters the van and starts trying to download a sex dolls brain to his DS&I. That triggers a security alert so the Hacker who has infiltrated the ship’s computer system slides into control of the big drone the driver has standing by. It’s a mech -type drone and it stomps around and stands by the door of the van while the Tech connects a cable to the sex doll so that the Hacker can do some overrides on the alerts and delete the photos the doll took of the tech. 

Meanwhile the ship’s security team arrive and try to arrest people, some get dragged off (our Killer and some of the Hanzaki people). The Medi-tech is playing tasered and hiding on his autonomous stretcher drone. The Infiltrator leaves the car deck and enters the coffee lounge pursued by a security guy. He chooses to throw the guy overboard.

Meanwhile the Hacker gets the mech to intimidate the ship’s security team into leaving the drone and the rest of the team alone (Play Hardball).

And that’s where we left it last night.

Our mission is so fucked up that I suspect we’ll never live this down.

Mostly the issues are down to running with 7 players some of whom think violence is the only option and start a fight regardless of whether the situation warrants it. Plus many of them won’t read even a page of material let alone rules putting a large burden on our MC.

In our game last night the Hacker  (a non computer person) found it hard to grasp how things should work when getting into the ship’s computer system. This morning I did a couple of diagrams that  I think will help him out next week.

They don’t translate well to pictures but I have them as .ODG, and PDF files if anyone want’s them in my GDrive.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwzePBsqT0NFcFdQX2EwVG1xN1U&authuser=0

Have people doing playtesting done anything specific to extend a game from about 2 hours to about 4 hours. I noticed that the speed of takeup for the game depends upon a few things. The background knowledge of the players. If they have little background in the genre they are slow to pick up concepts. If they have not played many indie style games they tend to flounder especially if they have trouble articulating their actions in the first person.

So if I run the game at a con and make it clear that the expectations are plenty of verbal interaction in the first person and can explain the system in 3-5 minutes (Moves, Clocks, 2D6 plus stat) I can jump straight in with pregenerated characters and corporations and spend another 5 minutes setting the scene for the scenario. 2 hours or so is easy but what might stretch is to the 3 -4 hours expected for a con slot here in the UK?

Adding another complication – double-cross if they are looking to finish too quickly? Third party (another group or corporation) getting involved in the job.

Via The Night Sea

Here’s the Police Investigation System and Traffic Control System. If anyone wants any of these I did them using Libre Office and can supply the raw files or a pdf.

Some more of those diagrams for computer systems

I’ve had a couple of attempts at making plans of how an arcology and a factory might look from a Hacker viewpoint.