Episode IV of Grapevine, wherein things get real. After an unexpected development, our intrepid team Tiburon Unlimited set out to do a job where the motivation is more than bounty- it’s revenge!
Can they survive the trip? Will they get paid for this job? What will The Market hit them with next!?
David’s Notes:
In this episode, I managed to motivate the team with the incidents of the opening to the point that my players didn’t even LOOK at the other jobs. Sometimes, it’s a payday, but this time it was personal; I chalk it up to my players giving the NPCs more than just two dimensions, and engaging with them enough to really paint some depth.
Also, a big belated Happy Birthday to RPPR fan Ian Weeber! For his birthday, Ian asked if I could kill off an NPC with his name, and… well, if you give it a listen, you’ll hear it.
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this episode had THREE things that I’ve always wanted to see in RM, only the first will be listed as you can guess the other two after listening.
–A job motivated not by money.
I’m not too inclined to agree with Caleb’s “Heroes find the truth, and then they die” philosophy, I believe trying to have a real agenda AND try to pay the bills makes the game even more challenging, and forces chars to hustle even further.
A nailbiting game to be sure, the best one so far.
My plan for the first three jobs was to find the job-giver that the players liked most and then start this session the way I did. Food Court has Doris, Cabellas has “Curtis!” and Latent Quarter has Patient Zero, all of whom had second and third jobs plotted (Zero would have sent the team on closure jobs.)
This was an exercise in world-shaping for me. I feel that a well-done NPC can bring your players in, and if you’ve generated the right level of affection a well-timed tragedy will be compulsion enough.
As for the other two things, I’m guessing the final forty minutes contained both? The complication and then aftermath?
I am not sure how far in the past this game was, so I’ll explain a little. It ended as a part 1. so really all we had here was setup and legs, which was enough!
🙂
We had to stop so Adam could make a new character after he got headshotted. The original plan was to duct-tape the two weeks together and run it as one long episode, but two-parter works.
Spoilers! 😀
Yeah honestly, it works really well as that being the climax of the game.
Why don’t the RPPR Crews ever carry supressin?
Because it’s expensive as hell and the teams tend to spend on other things they need more. A gun gets used every session, but Supression only gets used once.
And suppresin doesn’t always work..
That aberrant is the stuff of nightmares David! Great job!
After every episode I’m jonesing to run red markets.
The stats for it are posted on the RPPR forums and Lifelines, if you wish to borrow it for the inevitable Red Markets campaign for your group.