If you’ve read the Kickstarter Preview [Link accessible for backers only] of The Sprawl, you may have noticed a big highlighted heading, “Extended Chargen Example”, at the end of Chapter 3: Making a Character. Over the next week or two, I will post sections from this extended example. If there’s some aspect of the process that isn’t clear, make a note in the comments and I’ll expand or clarify my description as necessary. The earlier posts are here: Step 0; Steps 1 & 2; Steps 3 & 4.
Step 5: Choose Playbook Moves
Norah (MC): The next step is to pick your playbook moves. Each playbook has one or two moves that you get automatically, then a list from which you choose one or two more. Your playbook will say how many moves to choose. Look at that list and pick your starting moves. Some moves might have options to choose from that further define how that move works for your character. Make those choices now too.
Takumi reads the moves on the Fixer playbook and sees that Hub gets two moves automatically: Hustling and I know a Guy who knows a Guy. Takumi wants Hub to be the kind of Fixer whose side jobs support his shadow work, so looks over the options for Hustling and chooses Surveillance and Technical Work as his two jobs. He writes down that he has 2-crew. Hub gets one more playbook move; Takumi chooses Smooth (which substitutes +Style for +Links when helping) because wants to be able to support the rest of his team well, regardless of his personal history with them.
Aanya sees that Hackers get Jack in and Console Cowboy automatically. Neither require any choices. She looks over the rest of the moves and is faced with a hard choice. Aanya wants Core to be an ICE smashing badass, but she also wants her to have a little notoriety. She decides that Core will start off skilled, but not known: the confident and talented young gun with a chip on her shoulder about the lack of recognition. Rep can come later. For her first move, Aanya chooses ICE Breaker to give Core an edge against all types of ICE.
Infiltrators get Covert Entry automatically. Sarah sees Zero as more of a sneaky type than a face, so she chooses Cat Burglar. Sarah already gave Zero a good Edge score, so she decides to double down on legwork and take Case the Joint. That extra +gear (from Cat Burglar) and +intel (from Case the Joint) will give her lots of options to get out of trouble during jobs.
John looks at the Killer’s moves and sees that he has several choices to make. His two set moves are Chromed and Custom Weapon. For Chromed, John looks over the full list of cyberware in Chapter Five, but decides to go with a Targeting Suite so Oakley can use his Synth when he shoots people.
Norah (MC): Who installed that second piece of cyberware and what’s your relationship with them now?
John: It was another Shanghai Security mod; installed before he skipped out on them.
Norah writes a x2 next to “Oakley is hunted by Shanghai Security” on her MC Sheet.
For Oakley’s custom weapon, John builds a big genade-lugging gun. He chooses shotgun as his base and adds the options automatic, hi-powered, and ridiculous payload. He names it The Shanghai Special (4 damage close/near loud messy autofire breach dangerous).
Finally, John considers his move choices. Oakley is already pretty tough in a combat situation, so John decides to give him a non-combat option. He is attracted to Serious Badass which uses Style and Emotionless which would allow him to substitute Synth for Edge when playing hardball. Oakley already has +1 Edge, so Emotionless isn’t much of an improvement and John does want Oakley’s low Style to cause trouble, so he chooses Serious Badass.
