Tuesday, December 17, 2013

CYBER-PULP FANTASY CORE-Your Crew and Retirement

CYBER-PULP FANTASY CORE
© Jerry Harris 2013
(This link will take you to the Fantasy Core Index.)


YOUR CREW
While the Shadows isn’t a good place to make friends, eventually groups of people there do gravitate together for at least economic considerations.  People form Crews for all sort of reasons: family, war veterans, schoolmates, former employees, etc.  They may just be work associates, who have some complementary skills and goals and developed some trust in one another. 

It’s up to the players decide how their character group got together.  Likewise, they should have overall goal in mind for their Crew at some point.  From a game standpoint, this is nearly a levelless game, so playing to max out isn’t going to work.  From the character’s point of view, living in the Shadows sucks, and they want out.  Perhaps they want to go out with a bang and drag some powerful entity down with them.  Maybe they want a big score to buy a new identity, a wealthy one.  Maybe they want to clean up some old messes they made in their past life or get some revenge on the people who put them in the Shadows.  Maybe they want to figure out how to disappear from the Real and Virtual Worlds altogether.  These goals can be determined during play, or the players may want to create whole backstories for their characters.  Just something to keep in mind.

Your characters are all experienced, but it hasn’t been until now that they’ve achieved some small amount of notoriety in the Shadows.  By and large, people needing a group offering “specialized services,” will be seeking out your Crew and making them an offer.  Perhaps a bit like a private detective’s business, but a lot less legal and probably more violent. 

There’s competition for work, but enough opportunities to keep anyone in the Shadows with some skills working.  Your Crew’s reputation in getting a job done is what allows them the possibility of getting more lucrative deals.  Competition between Crews is neither friendly nor professional.  However, people in the Shadows abide by The Code.  Don’t turn on any other Zeroes.  Don’t rat anyone out to the authorities.  Don’t take contracts out on other Zeroes, either stealing or assassinating.  You can kill another Zero in a formal honor duel or if you’re both working opposite ends of a job.  That’s just personal or business.  Breaking the Code will piss off the Shadow community.  At worse, they’ll come after your Crew to preserve themselves against a perceived group of traitors.  At best, you’ll be shunned, which might worse in a different way.  At that point, you’ll literally be socially alone in the world.   

RETIREMENT
If a character somehow max’s out on their stats, it’s time to invoke the Murtaugh Rule.  (“I’m getting’ too old for this sh*t.”)  Such a character should be looking to big one last big score to retire on, or die trying.  Alternately, they can be looking for a blaze of glory to fling themselves upon pursuing vengeance on their enemies.  Whatever.  Your character has not been created for the purposes of ruling a feudal castle or ascending to deity-status to fight elder gods on their native planes.  Your character exists on the bleeding edge, hoping to live long enough to retire comfortably and never live like this again.

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