Category: The Sprawl: Design

So, I have added a “fear” mechanic to Necropolis which I absolutely don’t want abused.  The intention is to underscore the supernaturally horrific elements of the setting and contrast them with the every day violence the PCs are already well hardened towards.  I hope this wording makes that clear.

Keep It Together: When you first engage an unnatural situation roll+Cool.  On a 10+ you keep it together, take +1 forward.  On a 7-9 pick one:

– Take -1 ongoing until the situation is resolved or at least removed.

– You make a mistake that draws attention.  The MC will advance an appropriate countdown clock.

– You lose or break a vitally important item or piece of equipment.

– Hesitate.  The MC will make an appropriate move.

This move is extremely rare and is usually prompted by a character’s response to the MC’s reveal an unnatural situation move.  There are two really critical words here: engage and unnatural.  So first, the situation must actually be unnatural.  The characters are professionals used to encountering all kinds of stress, dangers and violence.  They normally have no problem keeping it together in the face of immensely brutal events.  For this move to be relevant the situation must actually be unnatural in origin and obviously so to the characters.

Second, the character must be attempting to directly engage the unnatural thing.  Actions which involving side-stepping or avoiding the unnatural element of the situation do not trigger the move.  In this way this move is usually a precursor to another immediate follow up move.  This short cut phrasing may help: “In order to  with the you’re first going to have to keep it together.”  Example: In order to play hardball with the vampire you’re going to have to keep it together.

 

So last night I finished the initial text on Necropolis’s 13 major corporations and power bases.  I pulled them out into their own document so people here can take a look, if they’re interested.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11zgX3W7dgvTpgUfBCC-KWZImkEPGbFKRbhH3Jhom3Wk/edit?usp=sharing

Realized I posted this to my own feed, and not here as well.

Wrote this as part of my Necropolis text yesterday.

The MC’s Modified Agenda

For the most part the MC’s agenda for Necropolis is the same as any game of The Sprawl.  The focus is still on mission-based action featuring competent professionals.  However, to bring home the gothic style the MC has a couple of tweaks to his agenda to focus on.

Make Necropolis dirty, high-tech, excessive… and claustrophobic.

The new part of this agenda is the element of claustrophobia.  Everything in Necropolis is narrow and winding.  Streets and hallways seem to close in.  Mist and clouds limit visibility.  Most doors are locked.  Nightclubs are packed.  And there doesn’t appear to be anything outside the city itself.

But the physical world is only one dimension of space.  Consider more abstract spaces, such as the emotional state of the characters, and make those claustrophobic as well.  Have NPCs be inappropriately intimate with the character’s feelings and and willing to casually manipulate their fears and desires to the NPC’s own end.  The world of Necropolis is a mirror waiting to show the characters the darkest reflections of themselves.

  

Fill the character’s lives with action, intrigue, complication… and horror.

The goal of the MC is not to scare the players or their characters.  The world is too awful and the characters too hardened for that (although see the new Keep It Together move for an ounce of frailty).  Instead, the MC is working toward moments of horror.

Horror is the momentary sense of disorientation one experiences when they can not properly reconcile what just happened with their standing expectations of how things ought to be.  In keeping with the MC’s agenda to play to find out what happens these should not be specific planned events (although they may be lurking in the MC’s mission prep) but instead the MC should be opportunistically looking for openings in the fiction to up-end the character’s understanding of their situation, particularly as the basis for a hard move.

I was looking over Necropolis (my cybergothic setting for The Sprawl) and realized I probably should add a new kind of threat.  It helps spell out how I use supernatural beings within the setting.

New Threat: Monster

Monster Moves

Attack directly and savagely, without mercy.

Claim a lair by force or intrigue.

Reveal the frailty of human emotion.

Offer favor in exchange for sacrifice.

Display supernatural power beyond the reach of mortals.

Reveal the monster within humanity.

Attack the bonds between people.

Defile the sanctity of someone’s body.

Defile the sanctity of someone’s mind.

Change form, revealing something unexpected.

Gather servants to do your bidding.

Seduce someone.

Monster Goals: to corrupt, to breed, to feed, to kill, to control, to be worshiped