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 …
Category: Games
Sep 05
The Kurosawa Extraction
This is a sample mission for The Sprawl. This mission will probably appear in the completed book, but it illustrates the style of the missions which will appear in The Mission Files, the first stretch goal for The Sprawl. This mission has a very basic premise, a wide variety of methods of completion, and the …
Aug 12
The Virtua Purge
A mission in The Sprawl for Big Bad Con 2014, Oakland, Oct 17 – 19. No prior experience of The Sprawl is needed. The Virtua Purge >>..Replay Annotated Transcript..>> Good evening. >>Crisply pressed Italian bespoke suit.>> I represent the Special Threats Division of VirtuaTech. >>Tone of a man used to being obeyed.>> SimSys West is …
Aug 07
The Quine Trilogy
The Quine Trilogy A trilogy of loosely linked games in The Sprawl for Gateway 2014. Los Angeles, Labor Day Weekend (Aug 29 – Sep 1). No prior experience of The Sprawl is needed. Participation in all three games is not required. The Quine Experiment (Sat, 9am) The wind whips the cold black sea into a …
Jul 30
Straight Outta Chiba: Playbooks and Basic Moves
Today I passed the 50% mark in my final revision of v0.3 of The Sprawl. This mostly involved cleaning up the Playbooks, especially gear and relationship of moves to the new Basic Move arrangement. This afternoon I posted those Playbooks and Basic Moves on Barf Forth. Please read and incorporate them into your games… or …
Jul 11
The Engine Room of The Sprawl
My post on the Driver sparked a discussion about directives which I have now incorporated into MC’s Agenda. Here are the (now) four things that drive the MC’s moves: Make the world dirty, high-tech and excessive. The Sprawl is a contemporary city turned up to 11. The dangerous parts of town are more dangerous; the …
Jul 10
Straight Outta Chiba: The Driver
I’m working on the playbooks today. There have been a few minor tweaks to some moves, but the biggest changes are the addition of a couple of sections (name options, tailored directives in a new format, and character creation advice) and the reworking of the Gear section. Here’s the Driver: Driver Neurotransmitters lick with their …
Jun 25
Revising the Basic Moves
One of the most pressing issues in the current revisions I’m working on is in making the Basic Moves work properly. There were three main issues in the 0.2 revision: Maneouvre did what I wanted but in a boring way, I always ended up fudging Fast Talk slightly in play, and Play Hardball just didn’t …
Jun 25
Back on the Grid
After several months of neglect as I finished writing my dissertation, I’m back working on The Sprawl. I’ve been saving up the feedback I’ve received over that time and I’m currently reading through the document and collating all those suggestions and found errors. The feedback has all been positive. Many of the suggestions I’ve received …
Aug 11
The Sprawl v.0.2
After much testing and fiddling and work-induced delay, a beta version of The Sprawl is now available. Right here. There are still a few gaps, but I’m happy to have the core of the rules done, especially those things that changed in my mind, my playtests, and my documents months ago, but which hadn’t been …