We’ve done 2 sessions with a new group of Hawkers called the Devil’s Gambit. They’ve taken Ghost Market as their first crew ability, and their basic enterprise is proffering tactile gambling and gaming, and um… other things to touch… to ghosts without them draining all their energies away.
I’d like to post the two scores we’ve run, to see what kinds of things, rules or otherwise, I could do differently, and to ask questions about certain things. We’re really trying to focus on the “don’t plan before” thing, so I’m interested to hear peoples’ takes on that. So:
First session: The crew has been seeing their ghost clientele diminish beause the Wraiths have set up something like theirs, but better for some reason. They decide they can’t let that stand, so I put it to them, “what do you do?” They’re not sure yet, so they do some info gathering. They find that the Wraiths have found a way to administer drugs to the ghosts- something having to do with “the ghost breath”. They’ve tracked their drug runner-boy to his connection on a bridge to Crow’s Foot, where he meets another runner from the Red Sashes. They hear the name Templeton in connection with the operation, and Loop (Wraith top-brass) is on the premises of the operation.
So they decide that they’re going to stop the runner and swap his load out for fake shit, making the ghosts’ next highs be lackluster at best. We decide it’s a Deception plan, with the Method detail being it’s a stop-and-frisk done by the gang’s buddy, Laroze the Bluecoat.
Questions:
• Was any of this crossing over to what can be done with flashbacks? How do you guys draw the line?
• What makes Gather Info rolls different than other actions? Do consequences happen if the rolls are bad? Does the effect level chart on page 37 correspond to the 1-3, 4/5, 6 mentioned in the example on the previous page?
So the engagement roll turns up Risky, no big deal. They see the runner make his connection on the bridge and he turns back.
– Laroze sidles up to him, I make a fortune roll, and it’s critical. She’s got the boy face down on the ground, his heavy satchel is tossed to the side.
The Slide rolls up, swapping the fake drugs for the real payload while Laroze keeps the boy busy with some mild police brutality. Still risky. He rolls a 4/5 he makes the swap but the boy makes eye contact. The Slide quickly sidesteps suspicion by moving the satchel closer to the boy, telling Laroze that she should really lay off kids in the street that haven’t done anything wrong. I consider that a “good idea” and don’t ask for a roll.
– The Leech does a flashback to see how well they did producing a fake drug. It was a 4/5- it looks and feels right- the consequence being that they couldn’t tell for sure.
– Laroze lets the kid off on a warning, and we end the session.
I’d like to see what y’all think, and if there are any suggestions or alternate ways to do things. The above scenario was pretty short and smooth. I’ll post the second session in a minute.
My interpretation has always been the existence of flashbacks is to get to the point of action or engagement for players. If players know a thing they want to do to prepare for the job let them that’s fine. Flashbacks exist for the purpose of stopping “shadowrun syndrome” where the table sits for 2 hours out of character meticulously planning every detail of a hypothetical job that’s probably just going to go sideways anyways.
If the players know they need to gather information to figure out what exactly is up that’s fine let them roll that, if they decide they need to acquire an asset before they go into a score that’s fine let them do that. Flashbacks are for when they get into the score and go “oh we didn’t think about that, but let’s spend a stress to say we did”.
So that being said, in my understanding of the rules it feels like you did pretty much everything right. You could argue that they didn’t need to do a gather information roll to find out what the wraiths were doing depending on how secretive the wraiths were bring or how in touch with the underworld the crew is, but that’s about narrative position and how likely it is they would know so it’s up to you and the world you’ve established.
Thanks Chris McDonald. I’ve gotten the flashbacks system to really sing when I ran some demos at PAX East this past year, but each of those I just dumped the players right into the Baszo Baz meeting and they went from there. In fact, I started to think that the shit-show that Shadowrun missions always turn into could benefit quite a bit from flashbacks.
And I’m still interested to know if Gather Information is more or less immune to the rules and consequences of other action rolls.
Eric Swanson definitely not. Fiction first always. If the pc’s have to go around sticking their noses in places they might get in trouble then there’s the possibility that they are in a risky or desperate position. Generally innocuous questions aren’t going to come back on you, but if you’re at war with the red sashes and you start to ask around when Myra tends to be alone then there’s the risk some red sash loyalists or opportunists looking for an extra coin for squealing might let someone know that you’ve been asking around ya know?
Yes, definitely. I was seeing it less as regular action roll with the effect level determining info, and more of it’s own isolated thing.
BTW I don’t know why some of the text in my post is struck through. I definitely didn’t format it.
In the Gather Information section in the book, it tells you to use the normal action roll rules if there’s some danger to the information gathering (in this case, the effect determines the quality of the information). Otherwise, it’s a fortune roll, so I think you’d use the 1-3/4-5/6 division to determine the quality.