Undeath of History: Mechanics of Time Travel

We return again to my TimeWatch setting, the Undeath of History. This was originally be a discussion of the Patchworks, the intertemporal set of ruins that allows access to all times and many doomed versions of Earth. But I ran behind and the mechanics of time travel in this setting alone is enough to fill a column. So here we are.

The Mechanics of Time Travel

The Setup

First the basics. By entering into the Patchworks, a traveller can travel back and forth in time. Traversing the Patchworks takes some time (often hours, sometimes minutes or days) but with the right know how you can arrive almost anywhen (surviving is another story).

Changing history (or an alternate history) isn’t difficult in most cases. One life in the flow of time is an invisible ripple in a raging river. Large scale changes (like saving a world) however are much much harder. The timeline resists changes that work against the downward pull of the future. Only careful and sustained effort can alter that dark destiny.

In rare instances the timeline can branch (usually when major temporal disaster occurs). New (and often equally doomed) histories instantly appear.

Paradoxes in this setting can occur but have no additional effect on the timeline. Murdering your past self, making objects with closed timelines, and other head scratchers just work. The consequences for the traveler however are severe. They risk dislocation from the stream of time (and the source of vitality in the world) and becoming one of the Undead.

Rules

Entrance: entering the Patchworks is an investigative use of the Patchworks, Architecture or Occult Studies abilities. The traveller picks out the right spot in the local architecture, waits for the shadows to fall just right and then pass through into the ruins between history. Typically this does not need a spend unless there is some time pressure or otherwise complicating circumstance. For example, it may cost a point of the relevant skill to find an entrance before the radioactive mutants find you or within the windswept (and structure-less) plains of prehuman Siberia.

The Chill Winds of History: entering the Patchworks immediately inflicts 2 points of damage to Temporal Stability. This amount may be higher if the traveler is entering from a particularly distant period. Entering the Patchworks from a doomed alternate timeline imposes a Temporal Stability test Difficulty 4 (5 if right at the apocalypse). Failure inflicts 3 points of Temporal Stability. Add additional difficulty if the time period exists post- or pre-human.

Time spent within the Patchworks can also be dangerous. Each day exposed to the temporal winds (which is everywhere outside of certain protected regions like the Bone Market, the Last Citadel, or the Necropolis) imposes the risk of losing Temporal Stability. The Difficulty for this test is 3 and inflicts 2 Temporal Stability.

If camping down for a long period (where the PCs can be recovering general pools regularly) just have the PCs roll a Difficulty 5 check (+1 for a week, +2 for a month, +3 for a year, and so on) to see if they suffer any significant loss. If they fail they lose 5 Temporal Stability upon the beginning of the next scene.

Exit: Finding the right exit from the Patchworks uses the same skills as Entering with the same spend requirement (i.e. no cost unless the user is under time pressure or wishes to exit at a very specific time and/or place). Exiting the Patchworks has no negative effect on Temporal Stability.

Otherwise the normal rules for paradoxes apply. Within the Patchworks all Temporal Stability checks are at +1 difficulty (accounted for above). Also most time travelers in this setting will be outside of their home timeline frequently and suffer the same increased difficulty.

String Theory Recap: The Big Bang

All things end, even vampires. This will be the last recap for my Night's Black Agents game. This session things end in a bang as the agents track down the vampire leadership and destroy it.

We begin with the agents having just received the formula for a super weapon against the vampire scourge, a serum developed by Dr. Gerhard, former chief scientist for Project Werewolf. It causes the vampire infection to explode violently. There is just the little problem of the rats chewing through the walls and floorboards of the team’s Paris safe house.

The Big Bang

Last time John failed the Sense Trouble roll so he does not get an action before the rats arrive.

Scarlet interrupts Dr. Gerhardt’s excited speech as dozens of rats begin to pour into the room from holes in the walls and floor. On the wall, a monitor shows a half dozen thugs rushing towards the safe house door.

“Where’s the roof exit?” Nasir asks Hank, the safe house’s owner.

Hank is Scarlet’s Network Contact. He can fight but not very well.

I skipped the Heat roll since we were mid combat and we never returned to it. In the end it didn’t matter much as the team was often miles ahead of the authorities.

Hank leads the way to the hatch. The team scrambles to roof. John lingers at the back, batting away the rats as they leap up on him. He reaches the top of the safe house with a few scratches and a disturbing image of a massing pile of rodents in his mind.

With a round to prepare most of the team easily escapes the swarms before they coalesce. John fails an Athletics roll to do the same and so they get to attack him. One of the two swarms succeeds on its Fighting roll and deals 2 damage (1 after John’s Kevlar).

On the roof, the agents race across a few short gaps to a rope ladder leading to their car. Most of the rodents fails to bridge the space between buildings. A molotov cocktail tossed by John disperses the rest.

The human participants in this chase must spend 2 Athletics to avoid tripping on one of the gaps between buildings. The rats have a harder time and one swarm fails.

John makes a Preparedness test followed by an Athletics roll to toss his incendiary at the rats. It disperses them for a moment, removing them as a threat.

A minute later John curses Guy for taking so long to get dinner as he starts the car. The rest of the team buckles their seat belts as he rapidly accelerates out of there.

Then there is a crash on the roof.

A Preparedness test Difficulty 3 gets their car in position. Guy’s player is late so they joke that he’s off getting Indian food.

John makes an opposed Driving vs. Aberrance contest. He loses.

John slams on the breaks and woman in threadbare clothing crashes on the hood. Long dirty hair obscures her face but she hisses and sinks her claw-like fingers into the hood of the car.

John tries to force the stowaway off but only ties the “Rat-Thing”’s roll.

From his position in the front passenger seat, Nasir grabs John’s shotgun and unloads into the vampire. The buckshot rips the creature’s face to shreds but does little to slow it down. As she begins to climb forward, Scarlet sinks a tranq dart full of antibiotics into it while Hank fires meaninglessly with his 9mm.

The shotgun blast does 2 damage. Scarlet does more with her Shooting roll, dealing 3 and some ongoing damage. Hank hits and deals 1 point of damage.

The woman grabs the jagged edges of the windshield and rips it open. A cool mist of antibiotic solution strikes her face, raising a ghostly smoke from the tar-like goo oozing from her wounds. The vampire recoils, sliding half off the front of the car.

The Rat-Thing tries to break into the car but hits the block created by a mist machine, thanks to a Preparedness roll by Scarlet. She fails to beat the Block difficulty.

As Hank continues to fire uselessly, Nasir pulls his tranq gun and injects another dose into the monster. She screams, releasing a cool smoke from her mouth.

Nasir's antibiotic shot deals 3 more damage. Hank deals another 1.

John hurtles down a street lined with parked cars. He swerves and crashes, crushing the woman between the car and another vehicle.

Accounting for speed and seatbelts, everyone inside takes 1 damage. The vampire takes 3 plus another 4 from antibiotics in her system.

As the team recovered from the sudden stop, the vampire pulls her head up from the hood of the car. With one last grunt of effort, she peels the car off of her and tosses it and the agents across the street.

They tumble upside down, dizzy but unharmed. She stumbles into the street, screams, and decays into a pile of dead rats.

I use the last of her Aberrance on a final attack. Sadly seat belts save lives and the team takes no damage. The antibiotics finish her off and her death causes Stability tests with a potential loss of 4. No one fails.

Thirty minutes later and a few miles away, Scarlet finishes patching up John’s scratches. Nasir makes a call to their recent friend, Feinburg. The favor he asks is a large one but she agrees.

Scarlet uses Medic on the team. Hot Lead rises to 5.

The team then burns all of their Network points with Feinburg.

Several hours later a jet not officially belonging to the CIA lands in Vancouver. Aboard are the agents including Hank and the doctor. Skirting customs or indeed any official record, they find a safe location and catch some much needed rest.

Hot Lead rises to 7. They spend 2 to make a Hot Lead test for Canada. After establishing a haven and refreshing several General pools, their Hot Lead is 4.

The next day, Scarlet goes to work on surveilling the Panacea Pharmaceuticals R&D facility. Security is tight with twenty ex-military guards on staff, many former members of Overwatch. They protect a compound nestled in the woods north of the city. The head of security is a Mr. Glass.

One building in particular looks suspiciously isolated. Forty staff work there and she picks out three scientists who work at the suspicious building: Victor Nichols, Jeffrey Benson, and Hazel Soriano. All specialize in the study of antibiotic resistant organisms.

Scarlet makes her Surveillance roll, difficulty 6.

Entry is controlled by key card and retinal scan, difficult but not impossible to break. Scarlet hacks the corporate headquarters and arranges entry identification for the team.

The Digital Intrusion roll is a little hard, 6, but she makes it.

Scarlet and Nasir arrive separately as visiting scientists while John poses as a new guard. Guy waits in reserve. They gather by the isolated building and bypass the security measures before passing through a decontamination chamber. Once inside, they don hazmat suits and head for one of the lab terminals. Only one scientist, Victor, is in at the moment and he is hard at work.

Nasir handles the Infiltration test. Then Scarlet makes another Digital Intrusion roll. Both are at difficulty 6.

Scarlet breaks the firm’s password protection and accesses the main server. She copies all the research data, noting the presence of many antibiotic resistant diseases in this lab as well as samples of many strains of bacterial plagues.

John however spots something more interesting. The floor in this building is raised, suggesting something lies beneath it. With a little search he and Nasir uncover a trapdoor leading down. They recover Scarlet and head down but not before Nasir notices Victor watching them carefully.

Down below they find a dimly lit space filled with drums incubating some dark liquid. Peering closely it almost seems to move on its own. Scarlet flags hidden security cameras. She hacks into them and brings up footage from the facility’s records. The lines bypass the guards and go direct to the head of security.

An Electronic Surveillance spend uncovers the cameras while a final Digital Intrusion roll shut them down.

The last entry of interest shows Mr. Cook, the CEO, being dragged by Glass and another man to a large tub two weeks ago. Inside a black tar-like substance flows like it was alive. They tossed him in and it forces itself inside him! Cook is now a vampire!

John injects antibiotics into a tub to kill the vampire plague but it has no effect. He grits his teeth, pulls out his bag of thermite powder and gets to work.

Antibiotic resistant vampires were only a matter of time.

John makes his Explosive Devices test to have thermite handy.
As they prepare to exfiltrate, guards move into the upper level. Mr. Glass consults with Dr. Nichols and then directs his men to train their guns on the exit.

John hastily constructs an IED and plants it directly beneath Glass’s feet.

Difficulty 5 Explosive Devices test to create a directed explosive pointed at Glass (who they suspect of being a vampire).

A loud moment later, the team emerges from the rapidly burning basement into a blood splattered hall. John squints through the smoke, spying the panicked scientist still safely in his lab. Then he notices a bloody hand pulling a charred, shattered, but very much active Mr. Glass. The vampire hisses a threat as it pulls itself upright on the bony splinters of its legs.

Glass takes 12 damage, but being a vampire only loses his legs. His men being mortal die.

John, taking the lead, makes his Sense Trouble test.

John scoops up an assault rifle and unloads into the monster while Nasir and Scarlet fire a shotgun blast and antibiotic dart respectively.

As the antibiotics begin to dissolve him, Glass lunges forward and clamps his fangs on John’s throat. Gasping for air, the former soldier lifts the broken vampire up and tosses it into the burning subbasement. Glass howls a final time as his withered flesh is consumed.

Glass takes a net 3 damage from the gun fire. Then he makes a called shot to the throat for John, dealing 9 damage.

John uses his Hand-to-Hand MOS to Throw the vampire to his doom.

The agents manhandle Victor into following them outside. He stammers that Glass and the others had threatened his life.

As guards and staff mill in confusion about the fire, a helicopter flies out from the forest, touching down briefly to pick up the ex-spies. In the cockpit, Guy whisks them away to safety.

Guy makes a Preparedness roll to have an aerial escape handy.

A few hours later, the team arrives at the remote doorstep of John’s friend, Arthur Miller. They find John’s old army buddy a little paranoid but helpful. They catch their breath, patch up their wounds, and reload their weapons. Arthur agrees to look after Hank and the two scientists while John and the others finish this mission.

A final Network Contacts (4 points), John spends 3 for a final safe house.

Hot Lead is 5 after taking a short rest and refreshing 3 General pools.

Scarlet also uses Medic to restore John’s Health.

As Scarlet reviews the data they stole, she gets a call from an asset of Rosa’s. They arrange a dead drop. Before heading out, she briefs the team on the vampire’s weaknesses, detailed in Panacea’s files: internal doses of salt, antibiotic aerosol and injections, fire, and direct exposure of the black ooze within them to ultraviolet light. All these can all kill the vampires. And Cook is immune to at least the antibiotics.

Now they know their banes. Not including Dr. Gerhardt’s serum.

The dead drop is the promised payoff from the Network spend last session.

The message Scarlet gets from Rosa describes how the intel tying the agents to the Riyadh attack traces back to Uzbekistan, in a semi autonomous region near Aral Sea. The agents recall the Soviets based a biowarfare program on an island out there. Clinching the connection are records on Panacea’s servers showing that Mr. Cook has arranged a private jet to Uzbekistan tonight!

Now comes the part where the PCs come up with a brilliant plan and short cut some of the story I had planned.

The agents put a plan into motion. Infiltrating the airport ladened with supplies (including their new countermeasures), they surprise the pilots of Cook’s jet and replace them. They stow the unconscious men where they won’t be found for a day and wait.

The team piggybacks on Nasir’s Infiltration test Difficulty 5 and then John makes a couple quick Hand-to-Hand rolls to subdue the surprised men. Then Nasir Disguises (Difficulty 5) the team just in case.

Cook boards on time and they take off with Guy following the flight plan to the letter. Once over Siberia, he announces that magnetic interference from exceptionally strong aurora's is causing a momentary communication blackout. He also indicates that if Cook looks out the right side of the aircraft he can see the northern lights.

Guy spends a point of Reassurance to maintain the element of surprise.

They cut off the wifi and phone.

A moment later, the team bursts into the cabin. John opens fire on Cook with a blast of rock salt. As the monster rocks back in his chair in pain, Scarlet and Nasir hit him with darts full of Gerhardt’s serum. Instantly red glowing lines trace along Cook’s veins near the wound sites, quickly turning white hot.

Twin explosions rock the aircraft as Cook’s gut and left shoulder explode. As the agents take cover, the window next to the vampire blows open. Everyone’s ears pop as air pressure rapidly drops. At the controls, Guy steers them to a safer altitude.

John’s rock salt blast deals an initial 3 damage but the two doses of Gerhardt’s serum act like class 1 explosions. Cook takes 13 damage. Everyone makes their Athletics tests to avoid damage as well for being sucked out of the aircraft. Guy makes a Piloting roll to maintain control.

As they regain their footing, John fires again. Scarlet shoots a dart into the twitching arm on the ground. Nasir kicks it into the monster where it explodes in a much smaller blast, scorching Cook.

More Shooting rolls plus an Athletics test from Nasir to toss the arm. It does a few more points of damage.

Cook struggles to his feet under the blasts. He shakes it off and lurches forward, grabing John and hurling him at the shattered window. The former soldier grabs the edge of the window as he flies out. Buffeted by winds and thousands of feet above the ground, he slowly begins to pull himself back inside.

Cook makes a Hand-to-Hand roll, spending 2 extra points to Throw John. Luckily John makes the difficulty 5 Athletics test to stop from flying out.

Cook turns to the others. Rock salt protrudes from his face and torso. Black goo oozes from craters where his left shoulder and stomach once was.

As he snarls at them, the agents unleash the harsh glow of their UV lamps, focusing on his wounds. He topples back into his seat, the blackness within him turning to ash. In mere moments his body crumples into a charred corpse.

Some Shooting rolls let them deal fire damage to the vampire and slay him.

John crawls back into the plane and the agents lock themselves in the cockpit. Guy resumes the flight plan as best he can. The plane rocks with the added wind resistance.

A couple hours later and it is too much. Cracks trace along the inside and outside of the plane as it vibrates like a coin operated bed. The team don their parachutes and dive out over the Aral Desert.

Guy fails a second Piloting roll to make it the rest of the way. This raises the difficulty for the jump to 4. The team piggybacks on Nasir’s Athletics check.

Hot Lead is now 7. They spend 1 to rest leaving them with a Hot Lead of 6.

Of course I forgot to make a Hot Lead test for Uzbekistan.

They land safely amid the dusty salt flats. Donning their masks against the carcinogenic dust and retrieving their supplies, Guy leads them towards Aralsk-7 on the former island of Vozrozhdeniya. On the days long hike, they spot vast clouds of birds and flies but Nasir safely leads them past the spies of the Conspiracy.

An Outdoor Survival spend and Preparedness test by Guy gets them to the island while Nasir uses his Infiltration MOS to bypass a Difficulty 12 test!

They find the former bioweapons facility abandoned and eerily quiet. Rusted vehicles and decaying structures seem to be all that remains. Then Guy notices that the subsidence of the buildings is far in excess of what might be expected. There is a void beneath them.

A use of Notice.

“Hold on,” he says.

The team makes a difficulty 7 Sense Trouble test. John succeeds.

That’s when John hears it, the sound of movement from the buildings around them. He signals the others and they scatter for cover as a half dozen withered corpses emerge and encircle them.

With the monsters still distant, the team shoots doses of the serum in each, ducking as each explodes violently. In mere moments they are alone again.

5 zombies emerge and lurch forward but the team makes all of their Shooting rolls. The serum cases the zombies to explode as class 2 explosives. Thanks to their cover they avoid all damage and one zombie is blown up in crossfire.

Also blown up is my brain bug which means the mosquito swarms never get summoned.

Then the wall of a surviving lab crashes open as Serge Milic barrels straight into John. He unleashes a brutal attack at his former friend, pounding him into a rusted pickup. The spy tries to defend himself as best he can then bolts well out of range of his attacker.

Serge smashes John for 8 damage. I let John make an Athletics check to move to Near range and behind cover.
Guy fires a dart of serum into Serge.

The vampire explodes in a huge explosion, consuming most of the nearby buildings in a ball of fire and concussive force.

Normal vampires explode like a class 3 explosive. Serge is instantly destroyed. Everyone else heroically makes a Difficulty 9 Athletics test to escape harm.

Everyone scrambles for cover. Scarlet dives past a broken pickup as it is upended. Nasir buries himself beneath a pile of debris as the flames lap around him. Guy plunges through one of the structures as it is ripped apart around him.

As the smoke clears Guy finds himself alone. The ground quakes and then collapses beneath him, spilling him into a tunnel. He slides thirty feet before catching himself above a vast abyss.

I have the team roll Athletics (Difficulty 2) to avoid the sinkhole. Guy fails.

A lake of black slime stirs beneath him. Tendrils rise from its surface and sniff the air. One twists in his direction.

Then a knotted rope cascades down to him. John and the others haul him up.

A quick Preparedness test gets them a rope.

Faced with the enormity of the creature beneath them, only one plan makes sense. Guy pulls out a final mist machine and modifies it to use Gerhardt’s serum. He adds a timer, slides it down the tunnel and they begin running.

A half hour later the world’s attention is drawn to Uzbekistan as a nearly nuclear explosion destroys the last refuge of the Conspiracy.

A difficulty 6 Preparedness gets the mist machine and a Mechanics test difficulty 5 makes the adjustments. That much slime explodes as a class 6 explosion. The team ensures they have enough time to escape the blast radius.

The agents disappear in the smoke. Most launder their haul from the bank heist and live in relative luxury though Nasir continues to harbor hopes of coming in from the cold.

Undeath of History: Organizations

One weakness of the Undeath of History as I originally pitched it was that it failed to answer one basic question: who are the PCs? Obviously they are time travelers but why do they work together? What organization binds them together? What common goals propel them forward?

In this installment we’ll examine some possible answers.

PC Factions and Organizations

The Watchers

(a.k.a. Time Lords, Time Masters, TimeWatch, the Watch)

Probably not as evil as these guys...

The chaos of the Patchworks means that eventually something or someone will try to impose order on time travel. That force for now is the Watch. An order of skilled time travellers, they survey the Patchworks, fight back the encroaching forces of the Undead, curb the damage done by other time travellers, punish those who willfully alter history, and catalogue alternate timelines.

An intensely conservative group, they work to maintain the timeline as it currently stands, despite its eventual doom. Rival time travelers are seen at best reckless and at worst threats to be extinguished. Travel long enough they say and the winds of time will warp you into the soulless undead. Better a doomed future than no future at all.

Operating from the Last Citadel, a post-human moon base perched at the far end of the Patchworks, the Watch claim to be the first time travelers, or at oldest to retain their humanity. Their earliest records hint that once they too tried to change humanity’s destiny. The ultimate failure of this mission has been erased from the archives. Now they simply try to allow humanity to make the most of its time before the inevitable end.

This faction is the Undeath of History’s equivalent of TimeWatch (with obviously a more grim cast to its operations). PCs receive missions, uncover and restore altered timelines, defeat time thieves, and fight Undead remains of fellow travelers.

The Resurrectionists

(a.k.a. the Rebels, the Rabble, the Meddlers)

Like these guys but with a plan

Then there are the hopeful and hopeless who dare to change the future. For the Resurrectionists history isn’t set, merely heavy with inertia. Working in cells they pool resources, research the flow of history, and coordinate changes to timelines, all in the hopes of averting one or more apocalypses. They also share information of secret pathways through the Patchworks, warn each other about the Watch and other threats, and occasionally help out when a larger shift is needed.

Their goals set them directly against the Watch, the forces of the Eternal Egypt, and undead in general. Their strength comes from flexibility. Where their enemies share common education and methods (at least within each faction), the Resurrectionists have a diverse makeup: romantic Victorians rub shoulders with Bronze Age conquerors, 21st century hacktivists mix with Taoist Alchemists. The organization is replete with people with unconventional ideas or impossible dreams.

This diversity is also their greatest weakness. A considerable amount of time is spent bickering with other members to determine how best to alter time. When minds align however, rapid change is possible and the Watch and other groups must scramble to have a hope of stopping the Resurrectionists.

Stories for PC Resurrecitonists would focus on these rare moments when the fate of time itself hangs in the balance and the organization struggles against the forces of entropy and stasis arrayed against it. Tales of being the hunted or rebel faction would also feature prominently.

The Graverobbers

(a.k.a. The Thieves, Time Thieves, Time Bandits)

But much less goofy

And then there are the thieves. Not so much an organization than a purpose, these independent gangs grudgingly share secret routes through the Patchworks and teach the tricks of the trade. But when it comes to the big score, everyone is on their own.

The Graverobbers specialize in pilfering dead worlds for artifacts that they can sell on those that remain. Mona Lisa’s from not-so-Little Ice Age Renaissance, scavenged future tech from burnt out shells of worlds, live megafauna from a world where humanity was aborted before escaping Africa. All are lucrative conquests for a cunning time thief.

Besides who or whatever holds their prize, their major threats is the Watch and the unnatural hazards of the Patchworks. The Watch is only human however and can be bargained with, tricked or outrun. The ancient undead pose a more serious and terminal threat. Without the resources of the Watchers or the Resurrectionists the winds of time are also a greater hazard. Haunt the Patchworks too long and a thief risks becoming the next guardian to a tomb they sought to rob.

A PC group of Graverobbers would focus on heists and the occasional run from the “law” of the Watch.

Gaming with Toddler

Another year and we move from Gaming with Baby to Gaming with Toddler. New challenges and new oppportunities await.

Wow it has been a while since I’ve done one of these. The last 8 months have been busy both for Sebastian and myself. My son has gone from cruising around furniture to walking for a half mile or more on his own. Meanwhile I’ve ended two games and begun two more, seen two groups go to meeting less frequently and formed a new local group.

Bigger, Stronger, Faster

So Sebastian walks farther every day, nearly running at times. Usually he demands to walk halfway back from daycare each day, which is a nice load off my back.

His teeth arrived in batches: 3 front teeth, then a molar and side incisor, then 2 more incisors. Another molar has just begun poking through. He’s still small but grows taller every time we measure him. I think he is slowly catching up to the rest of the kids.

Mentally, he babbles constantly with over a 100 words in 2 or 3 word phrases. His longest word is the appropriate “dinosaur”. He loves to build towers with blocks, as high as he can. He obsesses over cars and trucks and he enjoys putting a name to everything.

Socially he is an attention hog. So much so that he partially killed our online game with his demands. My wife had to leave that game to take care of him just so we could continue. His terrible twos began several month early but we’ve had some luck mitigating them with the advice from The Happiest Toddler on the Block. If only he was a bit little less attached (especially to me) it would be great. He can entertain himself at times for tens of minutes at a time otherwise and sometimes even lets us sleep in.

We’ve not had much luck getting out of the house on our own though. It's mostly our own fault however since we've yet to search for a babysitter. Thanks to the Parent’s Night Out at the daycare however we did enjoy a night in binge watching Daredevil Season 2. Hopefully we'll get the babysitting issue resolved soon so we can enjoy the blockbuster season.

Conventions

If you’ve read my report on DunDraCon, there’s not much new to report here. I’m not going to GenCon this year nor attending KublaCon. I might look at some other local conventions this fall and my wife intends to drive down to San Jose for a fandom convention (she loves Arrow).

Next year I plan to run either a long game or a series of games for Urban Shadows at DunDraCon. But then again I might run something for Chronicles of Darkness. We will see.

House improvement: Progress Bar is Frozen

Movement on the house improvements has been slow. Very slow. Glacial really. Other than maintenance not much has been done on our various projects. With one exception.

I took the plunge on a hand crafted gaming table from Geek Chic. I’m specifically getting the Emissary...minus the draws. I like the look better than the other tables in that price range (like the Minimalist). Their people have been great to work with, helping us with the vast number of choices involved (wood type, inserts, vault depth, and on and on). I think we’ll end up with a terrific piece of furniture in the end. Right now we look on track for an end of year/early first quarter delivery.

Gaming: En Route

The Online Group

We finished String Theory, my Night’s Black Agents game with a big bang. In the end I removed a fourth of the Zalozhniy Quartet. The whole chase segment felt forced (and was a repeat in a way of a previous section of the game) so I removed it. I also removed a planned “our princess is in another castle” plot and got to the good stuff. I think it worked out well. The group really liked the system which bodes well for a TimeWatch game I have planned for the future.

With the vampires out of the way, I’ve decided to run something less globetrotting with a Demon: the Descent set in my version of Seattle (based on my Hunter: the Vigil game: Corrupted Transmission) as opposed to the published material for Demon. Expect some reports on that game soon.

As I mentioned my wife had to drop out of regular play so her character missed the final section of the campaign. She will be playing in the Demon game however. I plan to run her one-on-one and have the events of both sections of the game impact the other. I think it will be fun. Especially as she plans to play an Inquisitor operating under the Cover of a newspaper editor who sends the local Saboteurs to investigate situations too dangerous for her reporters.

Play by Post: Streets of Blood and Steel
(Vampire: the Requiem Elders)

Our vampire ancilla have been plotting and expanding power bases, thwarting vampire hunters, probing secrets, and occasionally setting ourselves on fire.

I’ve really enjoyed this game, even if it has been slower than I’d like. The story moved at about 1/2 the speed of real life but even so the tension remained high. One PC nearly suffered Final Death at the hands of the Prince and a revolution is brewing thanks to the rest of us. My mysterious schemer has slowly begun to reveal herself and in the process helped along the revolution. A revolution she plans to lead eventually. We are on hiatus currently due to real life issues but should get going again this summer.

The Local Game: The Sprawl

This game is done and probably most of our roleplaying with that group for a while. The other couple had their baby and current plans are to do the occasional light game. Perhaps in several years we might have a new crop of players to work with however.

As for The Sprawl it was fun though a bit disappointing that I wasn’t able to wrapped up the main subplot.

A New Local Group!

A couple of months ago I began recruiting players in Sacramento, a topic I intend to expound upon in two weeks. The game is another Vampire: the Requiem game, set in the heartland of America. Amid the cornfields young vampires find themselves alone and exposed.

The plan is to run it after Sebastian’s bedtime when Grace can devote her whole attention to it. The other players seem very enthusiastic and we’ll do character creation soon. Look forward to some actual play reports in the coming months.

That’s it for now.

String Theory Recap: Way Too Much Heat

Last time in String Theory, my Night's Black Agents campaign, the agents enacted the Muslim world’s equivalent 9/11 by destroying the top of the Kingdom Centre in Riyadh in order to destroy a vampire lord and many of the higher-ups of the Conspiracy. While the missiles killed relatively few innocents, the showers of glass and burning debris on the streets below cost many lives. Next up "Way Too Much Heat".

We are rapidly closing in on the end of the game but first the player characters need to escape Saudi Arabia before the world gets a hold of them.

Way Too Much Heat

With the previous operation complete I allow the team to refresh all investigative pools. General pools will have to wait. Also I decide to run the rest of the game as chase, giving the team a generous Hot Lead of 2 (Normally this would be 7 - the current heat but since that would be negative...)

The team works out their escape plan which amounts to drive as far and fast as possible before anyone puts all the pieces together. They hope to cross the border with Yemen and disappear across the Red Sea. I figure it’s a fair plan and after a spend of Traffic Analysis by Scarlet to keep an eye on the authorities’ response, I give them a pool of 5 points to use on it.

As for the Heat roll (Difficulty 8!!), I allow them to spend Driving. Guy puts down most of his points while John helps out. It costs 8 total points in the end but at least they don’t need to worry about the authorities.

Scarlet picks up the soaking wet Nasir and John from behind the hotel they dived into. Two hours later and well outside the city, Guy catches up to them on a dirt bike. Taking over from John he drives through the night along the desert roads, heading ever south. In the back Scarlett does her best to patch up the others. John remains a bit sore from where the bullet hit Kevlar but otherwise the team is healthy.

Scarlet patches up John and Nasir with copious amounts of Medic.

In the late hours of the night they reach a weak point at the border with Yemen. A platoon of green recruits question all travelers coming and going. Nasir takes the wheel and with the others donning burqas, manages to bluff their way across.

Nasir does a Disguise test with the rest of the team piggy backing. Being low on Disguise points they dip liberally into the escape plan pool. Luckily the conscripts manning the checkpoint are not very observant.
The team pushes on for another couple of hours before arriving in a small dusty town. They secure a room to rest in with some handy American dollars and catch their breath. Scarlet sets up some security cameras in the car to remote feed to their rooms. She stretches her legs and then settles in to watch.

Their Hot Lead increases to 4 and they spend 2 for the Hot Lead test in Yemen (difficulty 4). Of course they roll a 1. They then spend 1 point to establish a haven and rest. They refresh 3 General Ability pools. Current Hot Lead is 1.

Scarlet makes the Difficulty 3 Preparedness test for the cameras as well as the Difficulty 4 Surveillance test for what is coming next.

An hour later she spies a squad of soldiers moving to surround the building. Worse in the shadows of the building across the street, two werewolves lurk. She directs the others to pack up and recalling the command words from the files of Project Werewolf, hatches a plan.

Scarlet makes an Occult Studies spend to recall the command words: Heel, Go ___, and Attack __ (all in German of course).

John bursts out of the hotel before the soldiers can react. The agents race across the street and as the soldiers turn to attack, Scarlet shouts out “kill them” in German, gesturing to their attackers. The werewolves lope over and devour two of them in seconds.

As the remaining soldiers try to calm the beasts down, the team race through an alley toward their car. A figure leaps over the gap between buildings above them, firing once. The shot strikes inches from John’s head.

John makes the Infiltration roll to surprise them. With the initiative, they turn the werewolves on the soldiers and get out of line of sight. The leader of the soldiers takes a shot at John but misses (due to the increased difficulty of being surprised).

The team tried to have the getaway vehicle nearby and ready for their escape but failed their Preparedness roll.

As they round the building to get to their car, a blond-haired man jumps down from the roof. Scarlet recognizes the final surviving operative of Project Werewolf, Kessler. Without blinking, he fires at Guy, grazing his left knee. Without pausing, John picks the driver up and carries him to the car.

Kessler targets Guy’s knee cap. He makes the Shooting roll despite the added difficulty but rolls minimal damage: 1. Still the driver is now hobbled.

John makes an Athletics test to quickly carry him to safety while the others follow.

Guy puts his other foot to the metal as the team piles in and races out of town. Kessler jogs after them on foot for a solid minute before abandoning pursuit.

They head for the coast.

We did a quick Driving vs. Aberrance test which Kessler lost. So they escape.

Their Hot Lead is now 3.

Hours later, Guy guides their freshly bought (if overly expensive) boat across the Red Sea. He steers towards the Zubair Archipelago.The rocky volcanic islands soon come into view.

The team makes another Hot Lead test (difficulty 4) and spend 2 Hot Lead. They succeed and their Hot Lead rises to 2.

The agents go ashore briefly, locating a couple vents. Into one they toss the Albedo. It melts and burns. The second one swallows the Nigredo. As the glass liquefies the dark liquid churns and seems to scream. Scarlet feels very cold and exposed out here. She urges the others back onto the boat.

With McGuffins destroyed and Stability test made (except for Scarlett who loses 2 Stability), they move on.

Finally they beach their craft on a barren line of sand in Eritrea. Digging through their supplies they lay a trap for their pursuers. While Guy and Nasir build a crude shelter, Scarlet sets up a remote-controlled sniper rifle atop a nearby dune. Elsewhere John plants mines keyed to a remote trigger.

Then they wait.

The team fails the next Hot Lead test despite spending points. Their Hot Lead stands at 2.

Scarlet makes a Preparedness test 4 to construct her toy. John does the same for his minefield.

Kessler races across the sands under the cover of night. Scarlet tracks his progress on her camera and that of that of the werewolves and two soldiers trailing him. She lines up a shot on his head with her joystick and thumbs the fire button.

Scarlet makes her Surveillance using her MOS and then drops her entire Shooting pool into delivering a bullet into his head (Hit Threshold 7). She rolls 9 damage and Kessler is stunned.

The blow sends him reeling. As he dives for cover the beach erupts in flames enveloping the two werewolves behind him as well. John grins at his handy work.

I allow John a Military Science spend to have a mine nearby. Despite Kessler spending Aberrance to be blown “clear”, he is still dropped to -10. The werewolves are dropped into the low negatives but remain active. The badly trailing soldiers take minor damage.

Guy and Nasir spring from cover to lob grenades at the survivors. The beasts and soldiers are ripped apart.

Guy makes a Preparedness test (Difficulty 3) for grenades. They make their Athletics rolls, lobbing one each at the werewolves and soldiers. Everyone dies.

Hot Lead is now 4.

The team searches the charred corpses before finishing the job. Scarlet tosses a wrecked satellite phone into a backpack as the last of the remains burn to crisp.

Late the next day they sail up the Red Sea, putting in at an Egyptian town. There they claim to be a tour group. The authorities check their passports and welcome them back from their cruise. They grab a bus and ride north to the Mediterranean.

Their Hot Lead drops to 2 after taking a long rest. They recover Hand-to-Hand, Shooting, Weapons, Piloting, Driving, Athletics plus three other General abilities. They decide to head to Egypt and then to Italy to rescue Scarlet’s Solace Pamela Stacy.

I allow them to piggyback on a Cover test (Difficulty 6!). I’m not sure if that is technically allowed but it made the process simpler. Nasir creates a wealthy philanthropist as his new cover.

Their Hot Lead rises to 3.

Then they fail another Hot Lead test.

As they lunch in Alexandria, waiting for the ship to Italy, the team notice a pair of creepy men approaching them. Pale and thin they seem to move from the street to their table without crossing the intervening distance. Then Scarlet recognizes these corpse men. They are the same as the figure she encountered in Baghdad.

The pair raise their hands in a sign of peace. They claim to have a message from Dr. Dorjiev. The doctor congratulates them for their success and invites them to Dragovir Monastery should they believe they can destroy the leadership of the Conspiracy. Their message delivered the two depart as suddenly as they came.

Some Stability tests are made to recall them after they leave but only John fails.

The sea voyage begins well but soon John takes ill. The vampiric plague in his system activates causing an intense fever and horrifying dreams. Scarlet determines he isn’t in danger of becoming a monster, just dying or going insane. She nurses him back to health over the course of the two-day journey. By the time they reach Italy, he has fully recovered.

This was an ongoing Medic test Difficulty 12 but Scarlet finished it in 2 rolls. John did endure one night of nightmares but made the Stability test.

Then we had another Cover test with piggybacking. They again succeed. They also make the Hot Lead test by spending 2 points.

Current Hot Lead is 2.

They quickly make their way to Rome. Scouting out Pamela Stacy’s apartment building the agents quietly surveil her and the men watching her. They uncover four Eastern European men, one sporting Bratva tattoos, keeping an eye on her in shifts. Disturbingly though they identify the “homeless” man camped in front of her apartment as a scarred and broken Serge Milic.

Scarlet makes her Surveillance roll to avoid being spotted by the other side.

Faced with another vampire, the team sources some gear to deal with it and its minions: silenced pistols, antibiotic filled tranq guns, and some aerosol deployed antibiotics.

The team makes the Preparedness test for the gear.

Then they put their plan into action. John slips into the decaying hotel where the men live, killing two in their sleep. Then Nasir lures the others into an alley on their way home. John and Guy, disguised as rival criminals, shoot each in the back of the head before tossing them in a dumpster.

John makes an Infiltration to ambush the two goons as they sleep. Scarlett uses Disguise to help make it seem like all of this is a mob hit. Nasir lures the others into a trap with a Streetwise spend. Guy and John make Shooting test to eliminate the last two.

Then Scarlet calls up her old college friend Rosa. Now with the CIA, Rosa is interested to hear Scarlet’s side of the story about Riyadh. Scarlet promises to discuss it once they reach Florence. She asks her to ready the local safe house. She need to stow their mutual friend there for a few days. Rosa agrees to help her out.

Rosa is Scarlett’s new 7 point Network Contact. A 3 point spend sets up the safe house.

Then they wait until evening. John takes up overwatch position, training a tranquilizer rifle on Serge from a nearby building top. Nasir and Scarlett sneak in the back way while Guy waits in the car.

Once up to the apartment, Scarlett quickly explains to Pamela that they are here to get her out of here. Her watchers are dangerous, Scarlet says, promising to explain more on the way. The airline analyst reluctantly agrees. The three of them, now burdened by Pamela’s well packed carry-on, hustle out of the apartment building and into Guy’s car.

Sneaking in is a Difficulty 5 Infiltration test. Nasir spends most of his points on it while Scarlett piggybacks. The way out is much harder (Neither Pamela or Scarlett has any Infiltration points left) but Nasir uses his MOS to see them clear.

Once they pick up John, they race north to Florence. Along the way Scarlett tells her friend everything: vampires, werewolves, and her clandestine fight against them. Somehow Pamela keeps her composure and her faith in her friend.

Hot Lead is now 4.

Scarlet spends Reassurance to fill in Pamela Stacy and avoid her freaking out.

Once at the Florence safe house, Rosa takes Scarlet aside. She’s heard from her contacts in the CIA that Scarlett and her companions were involved in the attack on Riyadh. The evidence supporting this seems rather tenuous to her however. Rosa asks if Scarlet wants her to dig into this and find the real source of the intel. Scarlet tells her not to put her neck out but if she uncovers anything she’d be interested to hear it. In any case she needs Rosa to keep an eye on Pamela until the agents deal with the people after her.

I offer Scarlet a Network spend to learn where the intel is coming from. She agrees and next session she’ll know where the conspiracy leadership is located.

With their issues in Italy dealt with, the team prepares to visit France before heading to Vancouver. They plan to investigate Panacea Pharmaceuticals. They know the company is involved in genetic and disease research, supposedly in a quest to cure death. One of their R&D facilities looks suspiciously protected.

Some Research and Accounting usage turns this up.

But first they need to talk to Dr. Gerhard. Hank calls Scarlett to let her know that the doctor has developed some sort of revolutionary weapon against the Conspiracy. They arrange to meet in Paris.

The team spends 2 points of Hot Lead as they cross into France. They succeed on a Hot Lead test. Hot Lead is now 3.

Scarlet then makes a Network test for Hank, Difficulty 6! She succeeds which means they arrive in time.

They find Hank and Gerhard safe and healthy. The doctor excitedly relays his findings. He’s found an antibiotic compound that reacts energetically with the proteins within the bacterium’s cell walls, resulting in a violent release of energy. Simply put, it causes them to explode. He can’t be sure of the exact size of the explosion but it should exceed the power of most modern grenades.

Basically it causes the vampires to explode as a class 3 explosive.

As John struggles to follow the doctor’s jargon laden speech, the others notice men gathering outside and the squeaking of rodents pushing through the walls. They are under attack!

Scarlet has the needed levels of Diagnosis and Chemistry. The others lack either, except John who knows a lot about explosive compounds. Hence it seemed appropriate that he was the one distracted enough to fail the Sense Trouble test.

We ended here since it was late and I was very sick but next session John will go last when the rats and goons attack.

Undeath of History: Themes and Mood

Two years ago, I pitched a campaign idea that got a lot of positive attention: the Undeath of History, a time travel setting with a twist. Travel through time occurs by traversing a realm made up from the wreckage of alternate Earths. There the winds of time slowly convert travelers into the Undead. Thus traversing time involves not just the dangers of paradox but also former travelers who now hunger for one's life force.

Added to that concept was a theme of dead and doomed futures where the many possible branches of the future led to inexorably to the end of humanity. Averting that fate was one of several options for the Undeath of History.

The material I shared there assumed that I would use TimeWatch or something similar as the basis. With the post layout version of that game now available to the backers (finally), I think the time has come to revisit this setting concept.

Let’s revisit the themes and mood of the setting.

Themes

In my original pitch, I included two main themes:

The River of Time. Time functions as a vast river, slow and meandering. Sluggish and resistant to meddling, it inexorably crushes anything in its path, changing and transforming it to fit its current banks. It’s many branches issue in salty lakes of death.

This theme serves to underline the central darkness of the setting. Time resists change. Entropy appears inevitable.

This would manifest in the Undeath of History as simply the struggle to make any lasting change to the timelines. Stop the zombie plague and another disease kills off 99.99% of humanity. Boost technological development before a cataclysm occurs and humanity wipes itself out in a war.

Life and Death. Just as the horrors of history reveal the death of timelines, the flow of time can bring new life. If the heroes can but shift it, they might restore doomed worlds.

For every darkness there is a light. Here I hint at how the PCs can change things. By outmaneuvering the course of time. Perhaps they can place the pebble that will ultimately shift history to their liking. They restore dead worlds, perhaps by making those worlds more ‘real’ and less alternative than the current core timeline.

This theme would manifest, not just in the PCs’ victories but also in unexpected minor changes to history. Lives exist where there were none before. They might fail to stop a world from being destroyed by war but do inadvertently create conditions for a successful and lasting human presence in space.

Looking at the setting now however a few new themes occur to me.

Risks and Rewards: Whether pilfering a plague dead world or risking life and limb to pluck one life from the Final War, time travel offers many risks and incredible rewards. You can make history what you want it, rewrite your own past, and forge the perfect future. Or just steal the Mona Lisa all over again.

But spend too much time traveling back and forth through time and you risk not only physical harm but losing your humanity. The icy winds of the Patchworks will slowly rip away your connection to the flow of history, leaving you more dead than alive.

This theme manifests as sessions involving old time thieves reduced to shambling zombies or inhuman vampires as well as premises involving one of a kind artifacts within dead and dangerous worlds.

The next theme comes inspired by a new organization for the setting and my pet theory for Legends of Tomorrow. The Watchers are the setting’s equivalent of TimeWatch, a group dedicated to halting unauthorized alterations to the timelines.

Something Rotten in Time: Watchers hold a secret within their inner circle and oldest records, on that only their most faithful devotees learn. Whatever it is, it implicates the organization in the death of worlds. To protect this secret they will do anything: cordon off eras of time, unleash temporal assassins, and erase their foes from history.

The PCs begin as junior members believing the Watchers are an altruistic group working against time thieves, undead, and renegade time travelers. But as play progresses, they encounter hints of secret missions not on any logs, certain topics off-limits, remnants of erased timelines and lives, and even signs that some former Watchers were removed from history, including (apparently) former teammates and mentors.

Unable to simply walk away they dig further into those forbidden periods, fend off enslaved undead, and encounter fossilized artifacts too ancient to be made by human hands.

Ageless Conspiracy: the PCs are far from the original time travelers. In ages long past chrononauts traverse the timelines. These ancient immortals saw only one way to save humanity, forcing them to bend knee and follow the commands of their elders: the ageless mummies they had become. Echoes of this appear within the history of Egypt but other worlds already lie within their withered fists. Vampire reign over a frozen 21st century Europe. Reanimated men control the thrones of an altered 19th century. Zombie communes proliferate across the wastes of 14th century Asia.

Here in addition to the constant threat of the undead, the PCs encounter signs of the heat death of humanity: blighted timelines, vampires behind every dictator, mysterious men sporting tattooed hieroglyphs, really old money behind every major organization, and a constant theme of anachronism behind every problem they encounter.

Mood

The other item I wish to expand on is mood. By mood I mean the feel of the game. Are the sessions full of hope and wonder or depression and angst? Less a tangible thing, it is the dominant emotional state of the game.

In my original pitch I offered:

Bleak Twilight. Travel long enough through time and you will become an immortal undead thing. The future and much of the past are succumbing to inevitable doom. Every known branch of the tree of time leads to literal dead ends. But is the twilight the sign of approaching darkness or a new day? Can the heroes rise up and change history for the better?

Twilight is ambiguous. While the setting is bleak, full of destroyed worlds and the curse of undeath, the Undeath of History could go either way.
But that’s just one possible take on the setting. Some other moods a game master could run with include:

Pulp Adventure: Braving ruined London and punching mummies in the face amid the sands of Egypt, two-fisted time travelers and intrepid temporal historians search for treasure and truth while battling the nefarious forces of the Undead.

The focus is less on personal (or even global) doom and more on the action heavy setting.

Magical History: Secrets lurk in the architecture. The right (or wrong) turn can send one into the Patchworks and into the ruins of a 21st century Egypt still ruled by the Pharaohs. Or an alternate Renaissance where Da Vinci’s hold back the zombie tide.Or the court of the galvanically restored George the Third where a strangely unblinking aristocracy works to snuff out democracy.

With this mood I keep the doom but focus more on the wonder of the alternate worlds with fantastical countries, inventions, and historical personages.

That's it for now. Next week I'll tackle my sources of inspiration.

Review: The Sprawl

I've run two sessions of The Sprawl, not including character creation, so I feel it is time to review the game that brings cyberpunk to the Apocalypse World family.

The Sprawl

Similarities

If you've played Apocalypse World or one of its many variants, most of The Sprawl will seem very familiar. Players pick one of several Archetypes, assign their attributes (which range from -1 to +2), and select their starting moves. The core mechanic remains rolling 2d6 and adding an attribute. 7-9 returns a partial success while 10+ gives a character most of what they want. The game master does not roll the dice, instead pushing the plot forward whenever the PCs fail or leave an opening.

Differences

So what is different?

Functionally the biggest change is structuring gameplay around a mission. This gives The Sprawl a very focused and much more traditional feel (at least in a 80s RPG sense).
A typical session of The Sprawl follows the following path:

1. The characters are hired by a Mr. Johnson (or otherwise duplicitous agent of the megacorps).
2. They research or prepare for the job.
3. They perform the job (of dubious legality and probably high violence).
4. They attempt to get paid without being ambushed or otherwise removed from the picture.

While this structure works, it feels very off to me coming from other Apocalypse World based games like Urban Shadows or Worlds in Peril. These games follow a sandbox approach of following the characters and having the world react to them. The world still responds(often violently) to the player characters of The Sprawl but they have more clearly define (and often MC-defined) goals based on the mission.

The other significant change is the addition of cyberware.

Cyberware is ubiquitous in The Sprawl. All PCs possess some form of cybernetic enhancement: neural implants, robotic limbs, synthetic nerves, or mechanical eyes. These enhancements give them the edge they need to do their jobs (and provide bonuses and new options for the basic moves). Hefty costs are attached to them: the characters are either owned by the corporation that paid for the operation, hunted by people they owe, or burdened with substandard or defective parts.

One thing I would have liked is an explicit option to opt out of having cyberware. It might limit your character but it seems at least some interesting concepts could come out of it.

The other changes to the system are simpler. Experience needed for advancement is inflated to 10 and is gained by completing or complicating mission.

Combat in the Sprawl feels more brutal. Characters are capable of inflicting lots of damage and the opposition is much more organized than some other settings. Luckily damage vanishes between missions. What doesn't kill you in a mission can be easily cured by future medicine.

Overview

A quick note on world creation.

One thing I really like is how The Sprawl handles the megacorporations that run the world. As step zero in character creation, each player (and the MC) defines a corporation, including its areas of influence and what it is like. The technique allows players to easily define the aspects of the game they want to focus on.

Stats

The stats used in Sprawl include Cool (for grace under pressure), Edge (street smarts combined with an air of professionalism), Meat (for your physical toughness and fighting skill), Mind, Style (a combination of charisma and social skill), and Synth (how well you interface with machines like cyberware or the matrix).

My impressions were mixed. Personally it feels likes there is some overlap between Edge, Style and Cool. Each can be argued to convey an impression of competence. In play this wasn't an issue but then we didn't do much social engineering (with an Infiltrator and a Killer, people were mainly obstacles to be murdered or avoided). On the other hand, the Synth stat makes it clear which characters hue closer to machines than humanity.

Playbooks

The book offers ten archetypes to choose from, each of which carves out a distinct niche in the world of The Sprawl:

• Driver: the transporter and getaway driver as well as part-time drone jockey.
• Fixer: the man or woman who knows everybody. Networking is their thing and they always can find a guy who can help.
• Hacker: master programmer and explorer of the Matrix, the future version of the Internet.
• Hunter: bounty hunter, tracker, and detective. Their focus is in getting information before a mission begins.
• Infiltrator: either a social chameleon or stealthy ninja, they get in and get out without anyone being the wiser.
• Killer: some people need killing. Equipped with the latest cyberware, the Killer is almost more machine than man.
• Pusher: somewhere between an activist, gang leader, and a cultist. The Pusher has a message and a mastery of social-fu.
• Reporter: wields the power of the press to reveal the dirty secrets of the megacorps.
• Soldier: the "Hannibal" of the team, the Soldier has a plan. When the team follows it everything goes smoother.
• Tech: the guy or gal who builds stuff for the mission: weapons, vehicles, cyberware, and so on.

Most of these look like they would work well together. In my games, I was even able to keep a Driver and Infiltrator involved at the same time. The two that I'd worry most about are the Pusher and Reporter. Both include elements in their playbooks that might distract them from what the rest of the group is up to (like the mission). I think either would work great as a focus of the group however.

The Basic Moves

You can tell what an Apocalypse World-based game is about from the basic moves it includes. The Sprawl devotes a fair amount of space to dealing with damage, gathering information, and the mission.

Some of the moves are familiar.

Act Under Pressure is your catch-all knock off of Acting Under Fire. When in doubt use this move, though in my game I think I overused it. That probably indicates that I needed to create some dedicated moves for the actions involved, specifically driving.

Something similar could be said for Mix It Up, the main combat move. In retrospect, I should have homebrewed some version of Apocalypse World 2nd Edition's battle moves.

The other similar moves are solid. Assess is your basic Read a Sitch move, examine a place or person and ask questions about it. This version might have too many choices available. Play Hardball is the Go Aggro, the intimidation move to getting your way with NPCs. Fast Talk let's you manipulate others with words not the threat of violence.

Characters to Help or Interfere with each other, adjusting the odds of success. The interesting thing about this is that Links, the stat used here and which reflects how well a character knows and works well with another, is initially tied into how much trouble the players want to be in with the megacorps. Each player defines a mission their character conducted against one of the corporations and the other players can chime in with how their characters helped. If they did help, they gain +1 Links and advance the corporate clock for that organization. If the clock gets high enough, the megacorp will be coming after them.

This does limit Links to +1 at the start and means small groups are less likely to make a megacorp turn hostile.

Then we get some new moves.

In addition to the standard harm move, we get two new moves dealing with damage. The first, Apply First Aid, handles patching up characters during a mission. In many ways it extends the Angel's (from Apocalypse World) abilities to most characters, thus removing the need for a dedicated medic. Despite getting shot up a lot, my players never had need to use this move. The second, Acquire Agricultural Property (or buy the farm) shows the game's Dungeon World influences. This move comes up when you would otherwise die, allowing a character to cling to life at a cost.

For the information gathering side of things, Assess is joined by Research, a move to use when trawling through a database or other repository of knowledge. For the low tech, there's Declare Contact and Hit the Streets. The first lets you declare a character who owes you one. The second comes up when you go to that contact or one previously established for help. If you are lucky they don't have problems of their own complicating things.

One complaint I have about these moves is that Declare Contact can only be used once per session so it can take time to build up a stable of potential allies (especially if your players neglect to use it each session). At the very least, I think you should be able to Hit the Streets for contacts that don’t owe you one.

Then we have the mission moves.

There is a move to Get the Job which depends on your Edge and determines how forthcoming your employer is and how much trouble you find yourselves already in. On the other end of the session, Get Paid depends more on how much noise your team made before the mission and resolves if this job ends well or with an empty briefcase and many guns pointed at you.

One nice pair of moves works off the new forms of hold in the game. Produce Equipment uses up [*gear] hold to have the right tools when you need them, much like Preparedness in Night's Black Agents. Reveal Knowledge does the same with [*info] to show how your character's behind the scenes intelligence gathering helps you out during the mission.

The final move is a bit of an oddball. Given the costs of cyberware (8+ Cred, the game's currency/status stat) Go Under The Knife seems unlikely to be used frequently enough to justify being a "basic" move. But there it is.

Matrix Moves

Why is it that every science fiction game seems to have a subsystem just for hacking? Perhaps it is simply unavoidable. Some aspects of a game concern only a small subset of characters but are very important to them and the setting (hacking, workshops, driving, combat for combat focused characters, and so on).

Anyway, the moves here are simple but cover a nice range of options. From the necessary Login to Compromising Security and Manipulating Systems to Melting ICE (the brain damaging computer security of the future). I like that the rules include a range of stats between the various moves: Cool, Edge, and Mind and Synth.

Login and its twin Jack Out both read as refined versions of Act Under Pressure. A soft hit still succeeds at your intent but introduces complications. Login is a little different on a miss though. You still succeed but at a greater cost. This makes sense for what is really just the opening move of any Matrix run. Failure at that point isn't very interesting.

Compromise Security and Manipulating Systems both work on a hold system. Each hold spent allows you use that system or security measure.

Finally Melt ICE lets you damage, destroy and evade the computer security of the future. The cost here is whether you hurt it before it hurts you.

This chapter also includes a lot of advice on handling the Matrix, building ICE (Blue, Red and the dreaded Black), and otherwise handling Matrix runs along side other (not net savvy) characters.

Other Material

The one chapter of the book that I didn't see when running the game was the final one: hacking the system (I had the pre-layout version). It is okay as such chapters go and the advice would probably have helped me in the game I ran. As I've mentioned above, I could have used more elaborate out rules for battles and driving, something I should have hacked together myself.

Looks

Final version is laid out well and looks slick. I look forward to a print copy.

Overall Impression

At first glance, this game seemed far too complicated to me with a preponderance of moves and options. On further analysis however, I see that was a flawed impression. The number of basic moves is similar to that of Apocalypse World and games based on it (at least if one ignores the Matrix moves). The archetypes do get a much larger number of initial choices than typical however which might have contributed to my view.

In play the game ran simply and smoothly. You can find the write ups of the sessions here:

1. Character Creation
2. The Black Science Woman Job
3. Crisis of Greed
4. The Unused Mission

Once complication I encountered when running the game was that there was not a basic move sheet. So I had to make my own. You can find a copy here.

The one other item that bothered me was how the mission structure took the focus off the lives of the characters. I would have liked to dived deeper into the PCs' world more; where they lived, who they cared about, how they distracted themselves. Some of that was discovered in play but I wanted more. Of course part of the cause was how the character creation session was cut short due to my son breaking out in hives.

All in all though the game is pretty fun and runs fairly easily.