The Sprawl: Alpha Version

sad to bring more bugs not more awesomeness (though I'll try to do something nice later):
- Tech's Gear is a sad place to be - it has nogthing, almost.
my current solution:
Flechette pistol (2-harm close flechette quick) and Armoured clothing (Armour 0, +discrete, subtract 1
when rolling the harm move), medium drone, Bag of tools. 3 uses. +1 forward each time
or:
Armoured coat (armour 1), Machine pistol (2-harm close autofire loud), small drone, chopper bike (no weapons)

I love bike option for a style
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Tech again, cyberware tags. Zero of them.
current solution:
Cyberware: Cybercoms(2 tags), Cyberarm with implant tools, Control Systems(2 tags), Data Storage and Interface(2 tags).

max for all of them since he's dedicated tech specialist, not "tech and something else" like infiltrator or fixer

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guns:
infiltrator has Silenced SMG (2-harm close autofire loud)
silenced and STILL loud?
same SMG in Firearms section: SMG (2-harm close/near autofire loud)
I suppose Silenced looses loud, but not sure it has to loose near as well. but ok.

same infiltrator:Sniper rifle (3-harm far)
in Firearms: Sniper rifle (3-harm far/ex reload loud)
I guess you meant "Silenced Sniper Rifle" - which is shorter range but silent and.. no reload?
I'd give player a choice to take either option, or have "silencer" separate for an additional payoff

silenced semi-auto pistol (2-harm close)
In Firearms: Semi-auto pistol (2-harm close loud quick)
loosing loud is OK. why loose quick?


monofilament whip (4-harm hand messy area dangerous)
in Hand Weapons: Monofilament whip (4 harm hand messy area)
why I get worse whip then in default armory?


Hacker:
Flechette pistol (2-harm close flechette)
in Firearms:
Flechette pistol (3-harm close flechette quick)


No idea which one I should use. I guess I'll use the latter minding that flechette shells are somewhat rare

all in all: please, make the weapons from firearms and in individual gear sections working the same way (I like how Infiltrator can get awesomer-then-usual versions and so on, but it should be more clear)

Yeah, the Tech is the least developed of the playbooks in the alpha.

You might have also noticed that the gear section itself is pretty sparse and poorly formatted. Filling out that section properly and standardising the weapon stats was one of the things at the top of my list when I finished off the playtest alpha, but it skipped my mind since.

My general principle is that weapons with the same name should have the same stats.

I'm going to block out some time this weekend to fix these issues, write the Reporter and think further about advancement and mission generation. There are a couple of playtest opportunities coming up for me, so thanks for bringing this to the top of my mind!

Have you played with the Tech, Guns_n_Droids?

I don't think it's been chosen in my games, so (a) I'm not sure if the moves feel right in play and (b) I need to work out how to sell it better!

Right now I have 1 game where we just started things with hunter and killer (killer is so totally Codename47 with his mirrored eyes, bald head and antique handgun).
In this case third player (who later decided not to go) fiddled a bit with concept of tech and among other things was disappointed with lack of gear. "He's kinda the guy who makes things explode, where's his explosives?!" as well as other.

Right now my other friend convinced me to soloMC her in Sprawl (after first unsuccessful run with Infiltrator) as a Tech.
one thing I did not mention is suprise from seing *winged* drone ? is it supposed to be cyber-bird?
Anyway, I keep trying to make this work, lately with usage of Technoir Transmissions to setup the world as well (if you are not familiar with Technoir, I'd recommend at least taking a look, Transmission is basically like Fiasco playset with random things arranged to generate fun and diverse setup).

Among other things I'd very much like play examples (like in Dungeon World) or mission generation examples. Examples are always great, as they show rules in work much more clearly.

I like that description of the tech actually... that's definitely a cool aspect of the playbook that I can highlight. I think a few more Tech changes/elaborations will appear when I review my Max Headroom notes.

Would it be more intuitive if I changed the "winged" tag to "fixed-wing"? (as opposed to rotor craft)

I am familiar with Technoir. It's a cool system and those transmissions set things up nicely.

A few questions:

The Fixer Move (Know a guy who knows a guy) does not seem any better than the standard "Declare an Obligation" special move available to all characters. Am I missing something?

Can skillwire chips give new Moves to players who take them?

And are all 'Messy' melee weapons 'Loud'? The club, the monowhip, the sword?

1) The first difference is that Declare an Obligation can only be used once per mission, as can Know a Guy..., but the Fixer can use both.

The second difference is that a contact created with Know a Guy... only becomes a contact/obligation on a 10+, otherwise they're an NPC you can use Hit the Street on right now, but without any real connection to the character. It's essentially someone whose phone number you have, but that's it.

2) Skillwire chips give fictional positioning rather than moves ("I have a climbing chip, so I can use this climbing gear to scale a skyscraper.") If you wanted, you could make special moves that can be used by characters with certain skillchips, but that's a customisation option.

3) Hmm... good point. I've revised the weapons since I put the alpha version online...

I revised the tag: "Messy: Fire effect is inconsistent throughout the area of effect, but it makes a mess of people and things that it hits. If a messy weapon is loud it cannot be silenced."
I also removed +messy from the club. I'm not sure about the sword...

I really love all the work and cyberpunk flare that is The Sprawl. If this makes it to print, I would gladly pay for a hard copy.

For now though I'm working on printable Playbooks for The Sprawl because I want to run it for my regular Monster of the Week crew sometime. I'll post them here when I'm done. They're based off the Template for Custom Playbooks from Monster of the Week and are turning out pretty well. I don't know what font though you use for The Sprawl so I'm making approximations.

Thanks! The main header font I'm using at the moment is AR Destine, but it's just a free font I found with a quick search so I'm open to better options.

I do intend for this to go to print, at which point I get some professional help with layout, design, and all that fun stuff.

For a while I was using a cool set of playbooks that CoveredInFish sent me, but enough of the moves have now changed that my playtests are back to basic printouts of the playbooks in the PDF.

Playbooks are something I'll look into when I've posted the latest iteration of the rules. Until then, anyone should feel free to post links to playbooks they've made here. It's usually the case that users make cooler character sheets than game designers anyway!

I finished the basic template I'm going to be working off of.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0d9TAoIzcKXejU2MFZaNFhWZU0/edit?usp=sharing

Feel free to review and make formatting suggestions or even show me up with your Word or OpenOffice skills.

Note: It might look wonky when opened in Word, but OpenOffice is free. PDF versions for each of the Playbooks are forthcoming soon.

Cool, thanks for posting it. Definitely based on the MotW playbook style! If you start a new thread when you post playbook pdfs, it might be easier to point people at them.

As far as I can tell, the only thing missing is a place to write Cred.

In the next version, advancement works like this: http://www.ardens.org/2013/06/advancement-directives-and-personal-directives/ So to future-proof the playbook you'll need to allow space for to write in two directives. I don't think there are any substantive changes to the kinds of info you'll need in the playbooks though. Everything else is just tweaked moves, equipment and text.

Good news everyone!

There's a link chain to a beta rules set!

I hope I managed to get this out before you got too far on playbooks, GilboD.

If not, sorry! If it's any consolation, that was a major impetus to getting this much awaited revision out there.