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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wolf1066" data-source="post: 5180649" data-attributes="member: 88680">My fourpence, standard disclaimers apply, YMMV etc...I have a setting.  It's a reimagination of Night City - some things have changed (like I moved it to Australia, renamed some of the regions, put in different/new gangs etc).That setting is full of stories.There's "The Ripper" murdering prostitutes by slashing them up with Wolvers, there's "The Vampire" exsanguinating victims and leaving their drained, cleaned corpses in dumpsters, there are kids going missing, there are powerful corporate heads making power plays, there are all manners of other people going about their daily lives - legal and illegal.A million stories in that dark, naked city.All of which will continue happening without any intervention of the players at all.Then we have the player characters, all with backgrounds that give them skills, advantages, disadvantages and little quirks -and all, until very recently, unemployed.  This is Cyberpunk: you don't meet in a bar, decide to trust each other and go off adventuring.  There has to be a reason for "the team" other than "hey there's a sign on the wall offering 1000GP for the safe return of the King's daughter, what say we band together and earn it?"Now, there are many excuses for a team - they're all childhood friends etc. - but I wanted the players to be strangers to one another so they would have to role play getting to know one another and spend in-game time getting to know one another's strengths and weaknesses.I also wanted them to be fish out of water, strangers in a strange land etc, so they would have to role play building up their local knowledge and their support networks.So, this group of strangers are called together by the one thing they have in common - an employment broker - and assembled into a team at the behest of a new employer overseas in Australia.  That's the back-story I provided.Given that the players have a choice of taking the job or not playing the game, the story has them flying to Australia to meet their new boss.Now they are in a place where they will interact with the other stories that are going on.  How they decide to respond will determine a lot of what happens and how it happens.Many of the people they encounter have their own stories and their own goals.  Which of those stories the players choose to get embroiled in will determine what is recorded of the players' personal stories.Certain things will happen regardless of what they choose - certain things will happen wherever the characters happen to be at the time - outside the pub or the mall or their home or while they're on the way back into town - they'll come upon a story I've created and choose how they will respond to it.Also, they are employed - and their employer will send them out on certain missions that will have "unexpected" twists that the players are going to have to respond to - or possibly die.This, to me, is like real life - there are a lot of "stories" out there... he wants to set up his own business, she's just looking for the quiet life, he's wanting to find a woman who truly loves him etc.  We wander around in our own stories - with our own motivations and goals.  We encounter people and respond to the situations based on what we're wanting and their reactions are grounded in their own motivations - they don't do things at random (even though it may see they do).I've got the setting and a bunch of stories, the players move in midst of that and write their story of how they affect - and are affected by - the setting and the other stories.  What happens if what they've done directly hampers one of those powerful corporate heads?  Will the things they do hamper a corporate head?  I've no idea, their stories are in the early stages when they're finding their feet in a strange town and I've really got no idea what they will decide to do.  But if they do hamper a corporate head - or annoy the wrong people - then what happens will not be random. I do have ideas that I plan out for our gaming session - as both their employer and The Cruel Hand of Fate, I have a fair idea of where I want to send them for the day and what sort of things I can throw in their way.  I also have encounters with people (who, if the players play their cards in a particular way, may have information that could be interesting or useful) that may or may not happen depending on what they do - but I still plan for them, at least have the character and motivations of the NPC set.And if they do solve or tie up some mysteries or stories along the way or find some of the little "treasures" I have hidden around the place, I can always introduce a few more story arcs, more things for them to find - in and around doing their work, paying their bills and having fun during their time off.But basically everything that happens is driven by some story or other - the NPCs stories - and the outcome will vary depending on how the characters decide to respond.For me, having the characters wandering around with every meeting and reaction to them being "random" (if the very small subset of possibilities contained in a reaction table can be said to be truly random) robs the game of realism.  "You meet [one of twenty different species] who is a [one of twenty different character classes] and (s)he wants to [one of twenty different actions]" just does not compare with "well, since you blew the lid on a major operation, a guy who has 8.3 billion euro and a small army at his disposal is now out to get you for screwing his chances to become Senator." In my games, if the characters elect to take a six month tour of Europe, they will come back to find that the place they left has totally changed - the stories marched on without them.</blockquote>

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