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Topics - Kuzco

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The Sprawl / After action report
« on: July 30, 2014, 01:09:56 PM »
Allright. We did our first session last night. From 19:20 to 23:30, didn't have a lot of time. 3 players, with two more absent.

First thing was character generation. Players knew what job they wanted and that helped a lot. Since we come from playing an earlier campaign using another game system, I offered the players a choice: keep your old PC's with a free advancement, or roll new ones, no XP. Two made new characters with the same jobs.

The setting in a nutshell: argentine city of Buenos Aires suffers a deadly pandemic, becomes quarantined, secedes from the rest of the country. Corps roll in to provide a life-preserving serum against the virus, and lots of goods and services. A part of the city is walled and is called the Citadel, where the rich elites live. The UN deploys vaccinated troops. A merchant fleet supplies some consumer goods and a lot of contraband.

We had Magnetic, a communist wannabie pusher, medium gang, crime and activism. He was totally knew to *World so I went a little slower with him (he got it real fast). Second came Dead Eyes, a Killer with a custom rifle. Last was Jin Woo Park, a corean Tech with a Directive to research and synthesize serum for the virus.

We spent two hours creating chars. Mainly because so many terms were new to them, and had to check many times what the tags and basic moves alluded in the playbooks meant. They also took time creating the links. And I asked questions, like “Who did you screw to get hunted for that cyberware? Why did you do it, how does it feel?”

When we started playing it was a blast. First of all they loved the balance between contacts and obligations, and intel/gear and legwork. They also liked that every failed move had tangible consequences. So a contact named Gardel called Magnetic and offered him a job, fixer was in a club named Sinaxis (ancient greek for 'gathering'). They were surprised that I asked a lot of questions and that fiction mattered so much.

Dead Eyes: "I enter the club."
Me: "You are wearing Body Armour, it's like composite polymers and kevlar, you look like a Belltower guard from Deus Ex 3. You sure you wanna bust in a night club like that?"
Dead Eyes: "No... I'd better change into civvie clothes in my van... And leave my rifle."

Me: "You find a small place to sit next to a couple, they are making out with quite some passion."
Magnetic: "I put my gun on the table."
[He forgets and later calls out loudly for the waitress]
Me: "The couple turn their heads towards you, see your gun, freak out and get away ASAP."
Magnetic: "Oh yeah... that."

I thoroughly described the bar and set the mood. The fixer, in a wall niche, offers an extraction job: Rescue an “unjustly” imprisoned man nicknamed Rome, ambushing the prisoner truck as it goes underground in an street tunnel, the truck is travelling towards a police VTOL and then a prison ship. Magnetic rolled Get the Job, with Dead Eyes helping (D.E got a 7). They got a 12, so 3 choices: +intel, Pays well, Doesn’t attract attention. But they’d lose the “pays well” if Rome got hurt (my feeble attempt at a soft move against Dead Eye’s weak hit).

They accepted and drove away to investigate (Research) the tunnel for the attack. While at it...

Jin Woo: “I sing a corean folk song.”
Me: “Ok. Sing it.”
JW: “Ah, eh, I’d rather play it on Youtube [shows me his cellphone].”
Me: “ ‘If you do it, you do it’. Sing. It.” [laughs]
JW: “... Jin Woo uses the van’s audio instead of singing.”

Magnetic decided to hire men (hire a small gang) from his political movement, for the job. I explained that since he wasn’t the boss, he’d have to pay them. He rolled Hit the Street and got a 7, asked for a fair price (1 cred for an unreliable gang) and not attract attention. So they told him that he’d have the team ready-ish for next night, which was the time of the op. Magnetic tried to force them to be hasty to little avail.

At that time we had to call it a day. Magnetic’s player was a little frustrated that the Believers move wasn’t more powerful; I explained that, in their current state, the gang works more as a reliable super-contact with guns and protection, and that nobody else knew anyone that could provide a well armed gang.

All in all, they liked the system. They are a little confused about combat, specially gang combat. They liked my MC moves, made them take careful choices; they were gladly surprised about my abundance of questions and the coherent fiction it produced. They also liked the appropriate number of gear and weapons.

I realized that I had to be really paying attention to make the most of the session. That meant listening to Pc-to-Pc chat and provide flavor descriptions (all the dancers in the club were on synth drugs, an old lady screamed at Jin Woo for money for the antiviral serum, etc).

Next session is the mission proper, and one new player, probably a hunter or fixer. I also saw, mid-session, that you'd posted 0.3 rules. So I asked them to read them, see any changes to their jobs, and the new, changed basic moves.

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