What do you do when the mission fails without the action clock maxing out?

What do you do when the mission fails without the action clock maxing out?

What do you do when the mission fails without the action clock maxing out?

So, I ran my first game on Tuesday and we all had a blast! The thing is, I used a failure to Hit The Streets to put my players into a little bind. The character who hit the streets was shot and needed medical care, and his contact offered to take him to a black clinic if he gave them an expose on the corp they were running against.

That whole thing? It was a ruse. He went into the car high on pain meds and then woke up in a very nice, corporate, medical facility. Turns out he isn’t the only one owned by the mega, so was his contact. At this point he meets up with Mr. Johnson (not the guy who gave them the job, a rival) who tells him they put a cortex bomb in his head, so he’d better be a good boy and sneak this chip into the security office at Chizu Cybertechnology and plug it into the terminal. He does so.

The next day is the day of the job, and they get an email from their original contact for the mission, telling them that the drop location has changed. They pull the job and deliver to a smiling Mr. J who pays them and sends them along their way.

You see, this was an escort mission. The first Corp was paying to escort their researcher to a clinic. Instead they took him to a rival corp’s clinic! I upped the corp threat clock for the original Corp since the crew disappeared with their prized researcher. What would you have done as a consequence of this kind of double cross (as unwitting as 2/3 of the group was)?

As an aside, I did a small wrap up scene were they saw Mr. J putting the screws to Chizu Cybertechnology, forcing them to sell to his company!

Hamish Cameron Appeared on + 1 forward.

Hamish Cameron Appeared on + 1 forward.

Hamish Cameron Appeared on + 1 forward. Included is an example hack I found really helpful. Thought it should be posted over here for you guys to see.

Originally shared by Richard Rogers (orklord)

It’s a new +1 Forward! This one’s all about The Sprawl with Hamish Cameron.

We tried something new with the AP section, I hope you dig it!

http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/1-forward/the-sprawl

http://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/1-forward/the-sprawl

Tracking harm for vehicles?

Tracking harm for vehicles?

Tracking harm for vehicles?

Should we bother tracking harm on a clock for vehicles, or just handle it in a more narrative fashion? Likewise, would you use the armor for the vehicle or just transfer it directly to the character? Any advice for running scenes with vehicles would be great, I have a feeling I’ll be running a car chase in my game tonight.

Directly Engaging In Verbal Sparring.

Directly Engaging In Verbal Sparring.

Directly Engaging In Verbal Sparring.

Directly Engage A Threat seems to lean more as a physical move than a social one. I know that you can Take A Powerful Blow based on hurtful words, but is this the result of a Directly Engage or just when it would make sense in the fiction?

If you are going to use Direct Engage for a verbal fight, would you still roll + Danger? It would seem to me that + Superior would make more sense (using your smarts to figure out what would hurt them).

Do you mark experiance for rolling a miss in The Sprawl?

Do you mark experiance for rolling a miss in The Sprawl?

Do you mark experiance for rolling a miss in The Sprawl? I’ve noticed that as a common element to other games of the same system, but haven’t noticed it here. If it isn’t a thing I’d be interested to hear why from a design perspective.

Are some abilities better than others?

Are some abilities better than others?

Are some abilities better than others?

I made a Nova recently for a game I just joined. Because we had someone already playing a character with telekinetic powers, I chose to stay away from telepathy and telekinesis as an ability. Instead, I ended up choosing elemental control to get fire powers. While I could have chosen a different element that would have brought more variety to the table, I wanted the sense of danger that fire brings.

This got me thinking though, telekinesis is a much easier power to leverage into different effects. Normal people can’t ride around on top of a disk of fire like they can a disk of telekinetic force. The same would be true of ice or many other effects. Fire though, is inherently dangerous to the average person (and many Heros).

Am I effectively reducing the capabilities of my character by selecting an ability that is narratively more dangerous? Is this actually an unbalancing factor for the character or will it not matter that they are at a disadvantage compared to a differently built Nova?