Would it be possible to play out “mission style” or “action packed” games with “The Veil”?

#1

I am deciding whether “The sprawl” or “The veil” is targeted at me. From what I read, “The spawl” is more on the Shadowrun side of things, mission-centric. Where as “The veil” as I understand it, is more about the philosophical aspects of living the cyberpunk future - I’ve read someone mentioning “Ghost in the shell” as a comparison.

So both emulate the genre in their own way.

Unfortunately, I am into both sides of the story. And my question comes down to:
Would it be possible to play out “mission style” or “action packed” games with “The Veil”. I mean in a sense of, that it is not completely off the rails to do the one or other “mission”.

Of course the general answer is that it depends on what you make out of the rules. OTOH I think it is maybe easier to do missions in the “veil” than to play the things between missions as your main part in “The sprawl”. From my impression of the game this would be something “The sprawl” isn’t good at.

I hope my question makes sense :slight_smile:

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The Modular Design Goal Of The Veil
#2

Oh yeah! The Veil’s playbooks bring in the questions about the human condition—but the basic moves definitely allow you some adrenaline pumping moment-to-moment action scenes. In fact, I would say, they focus on that.

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#3

Caveat: I have not read or played The Sprawl.

From what I know and have heard from people who have played The Sprawl it is really great at giving the mission/betrayal feel of first wave Cyberpunk. That is what it is tightly designed to do. And AFAIK it really enforces that structure of missions mechanically.

The Veil (and Cascade and the forthcoming Inheritance) are designed to cover a broader spectrum of the questions raised by Cyberpunk (over its various waves). You could do mission stuff in it - the system won’t fight you but it won’t give you a ton of mechanical support though. (Outside of some dealing harm type moves.) But if you can support the style yourself in the fiction you’d be fine.

In the Veil campaign I was in we had a little bit of mission/action stuff but it certainly wasn’t what we the players were really focused on. But those parts mostly worked and I think they would rock with players who wanted to do that stuff.

I certainly think @frasersimons would have some thoughts on the subject though…

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#4

Thanks folks :slight_smile:
I read some further articles and listened to the +1 forward episode on “The Veil” and came to the conclusion, that it suits the style I want to play better. Although the sprawl seems tailored to emulate shadowrun, a style which I do like, from what I’ve read, it only seems to that one thing well.

I just bought the PDF and have to do some reading :blush:

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#5

Might I suggest some AP tow watch/listen to? :wink:

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#6

You could add some custom moves to The Veil so that it does mechanically support missions, although I expect that could be tricky.

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#7

I’ve never tried it, but I bet you could use the mission structure from The Sprawl with the moves and playbooks from The Veil. It might require some thinking on your feet for move/clock interactions, but it should be doable.

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