Note: This is part 4 in a series of retrospectives on running The Sprawl for my local gaming group. I’d recommend you check out part 1 to get some background.

Welcome back! Last session we saw our team of operatives fail in their mission to retrieve a piece of technology from the Bud Light Optics Corp; with two of them ending up in BLO custody, two of them dispersing into the night, and one of them dead on the street. While things hadn’t worked out as planned, they had opened up some interesting possibilities for the next mission, and that’s where we found ourselves when my group got together to play.

As can be expected with the drop-in, drop-out style that my group runs, some people couldn’t make it, or could only make it for part of the mission. Two people were only present for legwork (which actually took place during the second half of the previous week’s session), and we got a new player for the action phase. As always, the group had fun, and I learned a few things to help next session be even better.

Back Online; Systems Check

Reality came back through a haze; unfamiliar sights filtering in through unaugmented vision. She was so dazed that it took her a minute to process this last bit–her AR screen was off. She lurched upright in a mild panic, using just her eyes for the first time in, what, years? She was on a hospital bed. The room was bathed in the clinical white light of an over-bright bulb. As she tried to shake the fatigue from her brain, she felt the familiar thrum of her neurolink coming back online. Belatedly, the boot sequence appeared in her vision.

“Oh good, they told me you’d be awake soon. I’m glad they were right; we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

She whirled in the direction of the voice to see a posh young woman dressed in business casual, sitting with a data pad in the corner.

“I’ve got a job for you…”

Things did not end well for Riyoh last mission; she had taken a shot to the gut, and passed out from the trauma as some BLO goons were looming over her. Henry was in similar straights, having been captured by BLO just as he was chopping some of the concert security into pieces. But while this was obviously bad for the characters, it was great for the game; it provided a straightforward bridge into the next mission, which I was determined to make more streamlined.

After looking at everyone’s moves and character directives, it was pretty obvious that violence was key to this team; most of them either had directives for inciting violence, or directives for preventing violence, which I hoped would let me set up some interesting conflicts between the characters.

So what are character directives? Well, if you’re coming from a game like Dungeons and Dragons, they’re basically “alignment,” but more specific, and with a tangible experience reward attached to them. They act as “if-this-then-that” instructions, and tell the MC what the characters want to see in the game. Here are the directives for all of the existing characters in my game, including those who did not participate fully this week. Each character has two:

Riyoh — Improve her standing (or harm a coworker’s standing) within the FailSafe Corp, and use violence to solve a problem when another solution is possible.

Henry — Take physical damage and endanger the mission to settle a score.

Python — Aid the innocent and harm the arrogant.

Nikki — Discover new information about BLO, and preach the idea of a world without corporations.

Zero — Put protecting Python ahead of the mission, and let his status as a hacktivist cause problems for the mission.

Rook — Preach the idea of perfecting the physical self by any means, and take physical damage.

If you’ve been following along with this series, you’ll notice two new characters here: Zero and Rook. I’ll introduce them more formally later on, but for now just know that Zero replaced the deceased character Abel, and Rook was the character our new player created.

Like I said, there’s a lot of violence here. With that in mind, I decided that the new mission would be a simple retaliation; BLO had captured Riyoh and Henry, and after giving them some “upgrades” would contract the group to attack the Madmen — the very group who had originally hired them to steal from BLO! An assassination was in order, which I thought would slot into the team’s skill set perfectly.

Just because the objectives were straightforward, however, didn’t mean I couldn’t through the team a curveball.

When you create a mission in the Sprawl, you set out mission directives as well. These directives work very similar to the character directives; when the characters achieve a mission directive, they mark XP. They’re also a great tool for the GM, in that they allow you to pace the mission, and give the character’s milestone rewards so they feel like they’re moving towards the end goal.

The directives for the mission were as follows:

When you accept the mission, mark XP

When you decide where and when to make the hit, mark XP

When you deal with security, mark XP

When you make the hit, mark XP

When you get paid, mark two XP

Like I said, the mission was going to be a fairly straightforward affair. However, a couple of the character directives involved preventing violence, protecting other members of the group, or making a choice to use violence if there was another way. These directives got me thinking about the target of the hit. I decided this person, while undoubtedly a criminal who had sanctioned terrible things, would also be a “Robin Hood” on their turf; funding after-school programs, handing out turkeys at Thanksgiving, hosting block parties; stuff like that. This person would also be willing to make a deal with the team in exchange for their life. So, I added two hidden directives, which would only come into play if things went a certain way:

When you fake the target’s death, mark 2 XP

When you fool BLO, mark 2 XP

By offering more XP than normal, I thought that the players would have a good incentive to really consider bucking BLO.

With the directives in place, I consulted my copy of Augmented Reality† to come up with some interesting traits for the target. I rolled a name (William Ar’Hama) for him, and then generated some random personality traits; arrogant, shy, and spontaneous. I must admit that I kind of fell in love with those traits, and was looking forward to playing him out.

Understated Professionalism

The group sat gathered around a battered conference table, staring at the data readout she had brought. Two of them were in; they needed the cash, and the job would turn down the heat a little. The Killer, however, was not impressed.

“Nobody owns me,” he growled as he pointed a thumb at his chest.

With that, he sat up, casting a glare at the group.

“I’m going to take care of this shit in my head, and then I’ll be back to help you settle the score.”

As he turned and walked out of the room, the team gazed uneasily at each other. Without any real muscle, this job just got harder.

“Fuck’em.” offered the Tech. “I’ve got a girl I can call…”

You might recall that the last time the group did legwork, they managed to do so poorly that they started the action phase with three ticks on their clock. Having seen how quickly things could escalate, I wrote a custom move for this mission in anticipation of a similar outcome:

When the Action Clock hits 15:00 (1 segment), take -1 forward on Research.

Essentially this represented the Madmen filling the data stream with bogus intel in an attempt to throw off any snooping. I did something similar for Getting the Job, the move the characters use to see how badly they are going to get screwed when the accept the mission:

When Getting the Job attracts attention, take -1 forward to Hit the Streets.

In combination, these two moves would make it difficult for the team to accumulate Intel and Gear, respectively. Remember, Intel and Gear are currencies which the team can use to provide bonuses to rolls during the action phase of the mission. Taking -1 forward means that the next time someone in the team makes the moves listed, they get a -1 to that roll. I wanted there to be consequences for poor rolls, but I didn’t want them to be too harsh. (As a side note, I should say that I totally cribbed these two moves from Adam Koebel; he used them during his set up for the second mission in Roll20’s game.)

It turns out I should have been more optimistic about the teams chances.

While Riyoh did roll poorly when she got the job, the team didn’t end up using the Hit the Streets move. Instead, they decided to leverage the moves in their playbooks. Doing so allowed Nikki to produce +3 Gear, and Riyoh chose to get +1 Gear when she took the job. Zero and Python were able to use their moves to produce a total +2 Intel, and the group then decided that was enough. By the time legwork was over, the legwork clock was only at 15:00, which didn’t have any associated consequences.

This phase went very well of the team, and they decided not to push their luck, given how things had gone last time. In fact, the action clock only ticked to 15:00 after Riyoh decided to wager a large amount of Cred (the stat representing reputation and currency) on the outcome of the mission. Since legwork was done by the time this happened, my move associated with Hit the Streets never came into play, which I was fine with.

You Know What the Plan is; This is the Plan

Funny thing about living in a connected world; it’s hard to hide your patterns. It was William’s job to be visible in the community, and that made him easy to mark. Sure, hacking the schedule had provided them with the best possible location for the hit, but that was just icing on the cake, really.

Please with himself, the Infiltrator leaned back in his seat as his cyber deck transitioned him gently back to meatspace from the virtual.

“This is going to be such easy money…”

As part of legwork, the team had to determine where best to hit William. They indicated a desire to get at him outside of his base of operations, so I used Augmented Reality’s excellent city block generator to come up with three buildings; a car dealership, a gym, and a bank. The gym struck me immediately as the best option. William was a pillar of his community, after all, and so I decided that the gym was actually a YMCA, and that he was scheduled to give some kind of youth leadership talk there. The team then set about investigating the adjoining structures to find possible entrance and escape routes.

After some quick rolls by the group, we determined the car dealership shared a basement with the YMCA, and the two were connected by an old and forgotten door. The team also learned what William’s usual security detail looked like (a couple of armed goons), and what kind of vehicle he would be using (a RV converted into a mobile ad-hacking station).

It was at this point that Nikki the Tech put in a call to an old friend of hers, Rook the Killer. Nikki and Rook had been in the beauty circuit together, before an accident destroyed half of Nikki’s body and Rook started chasing her goal of ultimate physical perfection. Rounding out the team was Zero the Infiltrator; a street kid who had been saved from the madness at the BLO concert by Python. The Infiltrator playbook was an interesting one, as it shares some traits with the Hacker. This meant we had an opportunity to use the Sprawl’s Matrix moves for the first time.

With the plan and team in place, the characters met at a local fast food joint to iron out the last minute details, before heading in. Zero acted as the “inside man,” bluffing his way into the presentation by pretending to be one of the neighborhood kids the YMCA catered to. In the meantime, Riyoh, Nikki, and Rook all went shopping at the car dealership in an attempt to find their way down to the basement.

And that was about when the group stopped rolling well.

Before I get into the details, here’s the action clock for the mission:

12:00 — Business as usual

15:00 — The Madmen start sending counter-intel into the matrix. -1 forward on Research

18:00 — Extra security is added to all mobile offices and mid and high-ranking Madmen

21:00 — Madmen deploy heavies, as well as military-grade AR security measures

22:00 — William is put on lockdown; no one in or out without extreme vetting

23:00 — The Madmen call in a favor and bring a Fisher-Price & Wesson security detail on board (Small gang, well trained, well armed)

00:00 — William is moved underground OR the Madmen and FSW deploy overwhelming force, and the mission fails. Advance the Madmen Corporate Clock x 2

Remember, the clock was only at 15:00 when the action started, so the team had a lot of room to screw up — which they did to fantastic effect.

Zero was the first to roll poorly; he managed to get into the event, but drew attention to himself in the process. This ticked the clock up to 18:00, which meant extra security arrived on the scene. Riyoh, Nikki, and Rook saw the new goons arrive, and decided to hang back a bit.

Next up was Rook. She decided to try and play dumb with a car salesman in order to give Riyoh and Nikki a way down into the basement. Rook rolled ok, and chose to call unwanted attention to herself, thus increasing the clock again. I decided that as the new security detail was walking the perimeter, they spotted the three ladies at the dealer. Game recognizes game, and the goons knew something was up. I revealed the increased security presence by having two of the goons come out to the van and exchange their smart looking suits for serious body armor. Tick tock, and we were up to at 21:00, or halfway to mission failure.

Finally, Zero slid away from the main room in the YMCA to try and hack his way into building security, and we were into the Matrix rules. I’ll talk more about this game-within-a-game shortly, but the quick summary is I remain skeptical.

Zero managed to log in, but then immediately got caught when he attempted to hack the actual security. I chose to activate some ICE (countermeasure programs) and start a trace; which meant that William’s security was starting to track Zero through the Matrix; and I also chose to have the ICE send out an alert, which bumped the action clock up to 22:00. In retrospect I feel like I could have chosen one of the other options available to me; the clock was ramping up fast, and this took away some of the opportunity for the team to be nuanced in their execution of the mission.

With Zero more-or-less made, all hell broke loose. Recall that at 22:00, William gets put on lock down. I illustrated this by having Nikki, Riyoh, and Rook watch him get bundled out of the YMCA in a huddle of security personnel, and into the waiting corporate van. Before the van could leave, Nikki shot out one of the tires, and the fire-fight was on.

We’re Going to Need Guns. Lots of Guns.

The door of the advertising van flew open and a security thug let loose a spray of indiscriminate weapons fire. People screamed as bullets flew everywhere; the teens and parents in the youth center ducked for cover while motorists skidded cars to a halt and crouched low in their seats. The Killer kicked her synthetic nerves into gear and became a blur of smooth motion, racing down the street at lightning speed and gracefully sliding along the pavement as bullets streamed all around her. The nano-blades on her forearms snapped out in anticipation of a kill as she used her momentum to spin herself into a striking pose.

In her haste, however, she hadn’t noticed the delivery drone barreling down the street; oblivious to the danger and unable to recalculate a route that could avoid slamming into her…

Once the shooting started things actually smoothed out for the group. Each member of the team had some particularly forceful moves and toys, and the team also possessed a glut of Gear they could bring to bear.

Rook ended up rolling poorly as she tried to close distance with the crippled van, and got hit by an errant food delivery drone in the process. Nikki’s first grenade went wide and she found herself being tackled from behind by one of William’s bodyguards. Riyoh and Zero faired better at the start, with both of them able to get in close to the van. Once Nikki and Rook recovered, they were able to provide support and covering fire while the other two worked to get to the target.

Everything just kind of “clicked,” and the tension was noticeably high. The team knew what the action clock was showing, and the players weighed each roll against the possibility of failing the mission. I think this was the first time that all of the systems in the Sprawl came together perfectly; the team had to complete the mission or bail, but each outcome could lead to disaster. It made for really good play.

Ultimately the team won the day. Riyoh and Zero breached the van as Nikki and Rook mopped up the goons. Zero killed the driver and programmed the auto-drive to take the van somewhere discreet, and Riyoh served William a face full of flechettes from her pistol. So much for my opportunity to present a moral quandary! The team then made good their escape, and wrapped the session with a successful Getting Paid move, wherein they learned the name of their employer. Augmented Reality’s random tables to the rescue, once again.

Lessons Learned

There’s been a lot for me to consider and unpack after this last session. As is always the case, some things worked much better than others. I thought I was being clever with my hidden directives, but the players weren’t really interested in talking to William. During legwork, I had tried hard to paint a picture of William as a person who cared a great deal for his community, and was always surrounding himself with those less fortunate than himself. By having the event at a youth center, I had thought the team might have second thoughts about killing the guy; at least not before getting him to another location, and thus, giving me time to characterize him a bit.

Well, now I know a bit more about the type of game my players want to play 😜.

One area where I seriously screwed up was in not showing the team the mission directives. I’d let them know when they hit a milestone and could mark XP, but I neglected to show them the whole list. This would have short-circuited any “hidden” directives I might have revealed, had the players engaged with them. I’ve already written a giant note in my GM notebook to the effect of “SHOW THESE TO THE TEAM.”

Next time I’ll also manage the action clock a little differently, too. Or rather, I won’t be so quick to move the clock if there are other options. In some cases I had no choice; the players either chose to bring attention to the team, or the move itself had advancing the clock as a consequence of failure. In other instances though, I chose to advance the clock, as that was an easy way to increase the tension. Looking back, I feel like it was a bit of lazy GMing on my part, and I’ll definitely be using other options when they are appropriate next time.

About those Matrix moves, though.

The more I think about them, the more I feel like this is the area where the Sprawl really misses the mark. For those who are not familiar, most Powered By the Apocalypse games break “moves” up into a few categories; the game has basic moves for handling the run-of-the-mill stuff like hitting things or shooting things or figuring things out; advanced moves for more esoteric things like leveling up or making camp; and character moves, which are the unique moves each different type of character can do. The Sprawl has these, and then adds on a final category of Matrix moves for dealing with hacking and traversing the virtual reality network; both of which are mainstays of the cyberpunk genre.

I understand the impetus for these specialized moves; hacking is intrinsic to cyberpunk, and it is also very difficult to represent in a compelling way for people who don’t know how computers and software work. I’m a software developer in my day job, and I can’t even imagine how boring making a game out of what I do would be.

That being said, I think the Sprawl tries for too much here. There are special moves for hacking into different types of systems within the Matrix (software security, physical security, login, etc.); moves for dealing with the ICE countermeasures; moves the ICE makes when it encounters a player; programs a character can execute; and even a miniature character sheet for the characters deck (computer), with stats to track as they make or fail rolls while executing these moves. This amounts to the Matrix being a game-within-a-game, and it’s too tedious. I was only dealing with one hacking character, and he decided to abort once things got too hot. If the team had multiple hackers, each attempting different things, I could have easily spent the entire session dealing with that.

I wonder if reducing the Matrix moves down to a few more generic things wouldn’t be better; a catch-all Hacking move for infiltrating networks, a Cybersecurity or Cyber-defense move for dealing with ICE, etc. It might break the verisimilitude of the game, but I think it would be a more streamlined, and ultimately more fun, system to engage with. Maybe I’m wrong though, and I’ll see something I’m missing the next time we play. I’d love to hear some thoughts or opinions on this, or any of the other topics I’ve covered.

Until next time, stay jacked-in, cowboy.

Block 17 News Bulletin

Special Report ## Beloved Community Leader Shot Dead in Street William Ar'Hama, a much beloved figure in the Block 17 community of Old Detroit, was murdered yesterday while giving a talk on youth leadership at the YMCA on South EngleWood. Ar'Hama, who was known for his boundless generosity and good nature, had just begun his presentation when he was assaulted by a cadre of highly skilled professional operatives. The assailants disabled Ar'Hama's security detail before brutally murdering the man as he sat in his corporate vehicle. When reached for comment, the leader of the Madmen Consortium had this to say. "This heinous and barbaric act will not go unanswered. The Madmen will bring the full force of law to bear against William's murderers. There will be no place they can hide, and justice will come swiftly and harshly for them." William Ar'Hama is survived by his mother, two brothers, and sister. The family has promised to establish a community outreach center in William's name, to continue the work he was so well known for.

† Augmented Reality is a collection of tables for generating all kinds of random cyberpunk stuff; from people, to sights, sounds and smells; to entire city blocks. It’s inexpensive and worth every penny.