TL;DR-Read the bold text

I have a system called Crime and Chaos that I explicitly wrote for playing out criminal sandbox games, and I just got back from playing the Reboot. Broadly speaking I've been seeing 2 opinions

1. It's "fine". The person giving it doesn't hate it, perhaps feels like it was able to capture something of the spirit, but fell short somehow (literal abbreviated story, weird writing moments, not enough banter/connection to MC's best buds, meh game play, and so on).
2. I hate it! (I don't know, something about 2 being best game or whatever)

Me, I thought it was good, but not great (In the interest of full disclosure 3 is my favorite HD game, but I don't obsess about it the way some people do about 2). I understood much of the story choices that got complaints while still having my own opinion about how things could have gone better. Anyway, it seems people are frustrated, which I also more or less understand. As noted above, I wrote a system for criminal sandbox roleplaying, so here's what I'm considering doing about it:

1) An alternate Steelport in which Playa made the "wrong" choice re:

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Shaundi

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or straight up failed in the attempt to make the "right" choice

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leading STAG to win and the old Playa to die.

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at which point new Playas revive The Saints, possibly a few months or years after the events of 3.

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Also Gat won't be plot armored by Aliens.

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2) An Alternate Santo Ileso in which we can have characters with more motivation and interpersonal connection than just being broke students that became friends after having to move together.
3) I'd previously pitched an idea with a non-canon S-alliterative town, but I don't necessarily need to run that.

Regardless of which of the three options we play, I also want some input on what we want to do with gangs. Do we want to include some or all previous gangs, or do we want to include 3-5 unique gangs that do one or more of the following:
1) A melee based gang either acrobatic or hulking brutes
2) gun bunnies
3) Motorheads with monster trucks, dune buggies, or both (which may or may not turn into technicals/NSTVs later)
4) An ironically anarchical group that largely has no idea about their own ironic existence (Everyone hated the idols, I immediately saw this and loved it)
5) Hackers (Also should we put cybernetic enhancement on the table?)
6) Paramilitary or Corporate Security firm, with pretty much immediate access to technicals, but can call higher firepower for backup.

I'm looking for about 3-5 players--Perhaps 1 per enemy gang--but I don't necessarily want characters to be Connected to the enemies like in the reboot.
This message was last edited by the user at 01:32, Thu 22 Sept 2022.

From what I remember the only who had any student debt was Boss. I might be remembering wrong though.

I'll give you the DJ, Kevin but according to the game's website characters page:

and

Those both directly state they were students and seem like they could accrue some kind of debt whether student or otherwise. If it's true that neither Neenah nor Eli accrued any student debt that actually makes a worse story than to give them something else to have in common. Also it seems unlikely that Kevin would "infiltrate the party scene" without at least having some connection to college students. There's a wiki that says he has a degree in something or other, but it's unsubstantiated.

Not that it would matter, because the point of the initial post was not to nitpick about the vagueness of what Deep Silver Volition wrote on their webpage and in their game, but to write an alternate story as something of a catharsis or possibly some level of wish fulfillment re: how we all think a criminal sandbox should be played.

What I'm trying to figure out is "in which ways we can deviate are players most interested in". And honestly even if enough people (as noted, 3-5) just chime in indicating interest without providing further detail I'll work with that too. Ideally I won't have to fill in any party gaps, so that's why I'm hoping for at least that many.
This message was last edited by the user at 05:33, Thu 22 Sept 2022.

This message was deleted by a moderator, as it was off-topic, at 15:49, Thu 22 Sept 2022.

Have you retooled Crime & Chaos since we played it? I remember some players had a hard time enjoying it.

Oh I have no idea what I've done since the last time it was played here. My last changelog post on my server was 8/28/21, but I have no idea whether it was dice pools or 2d10 at that time. It's 2d10+Attribute now. You'd have to re-download it to know if it changed since the document you have. I will only run it if I have enough people chime in here though.
This message was last edited by the user at 03:10, Wed 28 Sept 2022.

This message was deleted by a moderator, as it was moot, at 03:20, Mon 03 Oct 2022.

Since originally writng this I had an idea for an alternate Santo Ileso that I posted on reddit That being said, an alternate Steelport would just cut short of the mass exodus mentioned there. I might have to noodle a bit how I'd do an alternate Steelport if I went that route though, because some of the decisions would not be the same as in that link. I would of course be willing to worldbuild an alternate Steelport other than the above if everyone hated Santo Ileso and would rather play in Steelport. Dunno enough about Stilwater to run a game there, so any other game/worldbuilding would be a city of our own imagining/design.

In light of how easy it is to create goblin and wolfman characters, and also in light of vehicles being the most mind boggling aspect of character creation it bears mention that as of this morning's upload I've made the following changes:

Changelog

• Goblin Power Build
• Werewolf Power Build
• Overhauled Vehicles
• Added Sample Vehicle Stats