Epilogue from GM One, SnowCrystal: Murphy’s Law on Steroids
In mililtary encounters, a well-known rule of thumb is that one’s plan does not survive first contact with the enemy.
Of course, in the gaming world, the PCs are not The Enemy—or at least they should not be! But the same rule of thumb applies. One’s players ALWAYS do something we don’t expect them to do. Here, in this campaign, my plans got spun, folded, spindled and mutilated!
It all began when my sweetie asked if I would GM a campaign. “Well,” I said after some thought, “I COULD do something down the lines of Burn Notice.” One of our PCs was a high-level spy in our Romanian campaign—and that campaign had not yet gone sideways. I figured I could design something around this PC (Zar Vaduva).
So I created a backstory, incorporating elements from many of my favorite TV shows. Gregory Michaels ran Section, a black-ops/spy off-books group based both on Division from Nikita, and on the shadowy group who burned Michael Weston in Burn Notice. Michaels wanted to recruit Zar, who morphed into Kyle Vaduva at the end of the Romanian campaign. I added some NPCs from Justified and In Plain Sight. I generated some details on how Michaels engineered the burn notice, complete with two moles in the CIA plus documents and the burn process—figuring that Kyle would start his investigations there. Knowing that players always do something unexpected, I didn’t draw a specific blueprint on how Kyle could succeed in learning how and why he’d been burned. Instead, I planned to follow Kyle’s actions by expanding on whatever direction he chose to take.
As in the TV show Burn Notice, we had Kyle’s buddy Sam Fisher (Sam Axe), his girlfriend Fijay (the player didn’t show up so this became an NPC who was eventually dropped from the campaign), and his mom Sharin Vaduva. Kyle also knew another PC, Doc Freeman, from the Romanian Campaign.
Then, because we had a LOT of players at that time (ten, which is way too many), my sweetie suggested adding some kids from Shameless to the PC and NPC mix. Thus were born Crystal, Storm, Rayne, Gayle and Zephyr Snow plus Crystal’s boyfriend Jimmi Stevens as the NPCs on this story track, and Allison, Cat, Geoff and Nip as the PCs. (We also had Alex, Dan and Oliver, but these three players dropped out fairly soon.) Since Nip had amnesia, we needed a home for her, so I added NPC Tyne Lacey as Sharin’s sister and Kyle’s aunt, who had adopted Nip a while back. (Yes, Cagney and Lacey is another of my favorite TV shows.)
Thus, the campaign was split from the beginning into the “grownup” adventures and the “kid” adventures. Yes, there was crossover and mingling between the two, but having such a deep split in a campaign is rarely a good idea. As an only child and never having been a parent, coming up with kid stuff was quite a challenge for me!
Anyway, I’d created the Gregory Michaels backstory, a setting in Atlantic City, and a set of clues for Kyle to follow. Enter the PCs, stage left.
A PC’s Reasoning Turns the Campaign Upside Down
I was all set for Kyle to pounce on the breadcrumbs I’d created.
Instead, as I did not find out for months, Kyle tries to make sense of the situation he finds himself in. He is burned and then dumped in Atlantic City—with his buddy Sam, another associate Doc Freeman, his girlfriend Fijay and mom Sharin. Soon, he also finds himself surrounded by teenagers—his adopted cousin Nip, her friend Cat (who is actually his former biogenetic lover from Romania, “reborn” into another body), and Cat’s other friends Allison and Geoff.
Next, Kyle gets a series of challenges to solve—the “client du jour” concept of Burn Notice. As it turns out, the player was not that familiar with the TV show, so he doesn’t know he is “supposed to” follow the trail of breadcrumbs. Instead, Kyle decides he’s been put into deep cover by the CIA and given a bunch of “jobs” that allow him to train the next generation of “agents” for the Agency.
Kyle’s conclusions do not come to light until roughly Episode 10, when he tells Cat his ideas about why he is here in Atlantic City. At this point, I have already run through two clients du jour—Barry Gelder, a money launderer whose bank account had been hacked and his clients’ funds stolen, thereby putting Barry’s life in jeopardy; and Katie Whalen, whose husband had given all their money to a cult: the Church of the Ever Loving God. I have also introduced two naked chicks in Episode 7, sunning themselves on the dock next door to Sam—and yes, this was a honey pot trap from Gregory Michaels aimed basically at Kyle but happily catching Sam instead. Plus two LawDiv guys are watching Kyle’s every move—and yes, Michaels’ mole at the CIA had inserted these two into Kyle’s life and he is getting all their reports. But Kyle is taking zero action on finding out who burned him!
Also at this time (Episode 10), another CIA operative Logan Hawke (the Jesse Porter from Burn Notice) joined the Team. This was a new player to our group, and I engineered a backstory so that he and Kyle had worked together before. {?In the next episode, Logan brought in another player who took up the Fijay persona.?} (By this point, Cat and Kyle are well on their way to being reunited, so Fijay is no longer in the Michael Weston girlfriend role.)
So, here I am at Episode 11, learning about Kyle’s delusion and needing to find a way to convince the ex-spy that his burn notice is real! What better strategy than an engineered file of his evil deeds—the “evidence” that he’s a bad guy and should be burned—but again, with clues he can pursue to find out who burned him and why. So I created nine incidents that Kyle was framed with, complete with pictures and heavily redacted text (similar to the redacted file in the movie RED).
The Gloves Come Off—With Much Fanfare of “I’ve Seen Your File”
At the start of Episode 12, the two mild-mannered LawDiv guys, Tom Strickler and Dick Peebles, tell Kyle, “It’s been real, dude. Good luck with the next guy.” Enter their replacment: Harry Hoar, stage right, in Episode 14. (In Episode 13, Cat and Kyle have their chat on the dock where each learns the other’s true identity.)
Harry arrives waving a search warrant for Kyle’s boat and announces, “I’ve seen your file, Vaduva. There’s a special cell in SuperMax with your name on it—and I’m gonna be the guy who puts you there!” He turns Kyle’s boat upside down and, during the following weeks and Episodes, pursues his quarry like a bulldog.
Meanwhile, I also created Delrick Bouchard, a murder victim in Atlantic City, as Kyle’s college history professor and a mentor who inspired him to join the CIA. Here, Kyle found clues towards the overseas location of Miles, his CIA handler in Romania who had disappeared with all of Kyle’s money at the end of the Romanian adventure. But of course, Kyle decides he cannot leave the country. (GM note: Okay, so he doesn’t have a passport. This should be a mere annoyance for a world-class spy type instead of an insurmountable obstacle.) Kyle also gets a photo that includes a shadowy figure whom Nip’s invisible ferret Fred succeeds in identifying as Gregory Michaels.
Cat and Kyle tackle the problem of neutralizing Harry Hoar. Unfortunately, it takes until Episode 22 for Kyle and Cat to discover that Harry can be blackmailed and to get the redacted file. In the meantime, Murphy’s Law is busily concocting trouble on two other fronts.
With Friends Like This, Who Needs Enemies?
Supposedly, Sam and Kyle are bosom buddies. In Romania, however, Sam threw his weight around at Zar, creating friction between the two. In the interim between campaigns, Sam was instructed to cool it. However, another dynamic emerged to throw sand into these cogs.
In Romania, Sam and Cat (already on her second life as the biogen Caitlin) got to know each other quite well. In Atlantic City, Sam “posed as” Cat’s dad—but in truth, he took this role to heart. After her third “birth”, Cat was very vulnerable and needed a dad. Sam took it upon himself to protect her.
Two facts were a secret at the start of our Burn Notice campaign. One: Kyle was also Zar. Two: Cat was also Caitlin. Sam was the only PC who knew this, and he was pledged to secrecy on both fronts.
Our group’s GMs made some bets among ourselves as to how long it would take before Sam blurted out the truth, but we all lost. Sam kept these secrets religiously; perhaps too religiously. Keeping that secret drove a wedge between him and Kyle. And by the time the secret came out when Cat sniffed Kyle in Episode 12, the damage was done. The friendship was … not exactly on ice, but certainly not thriving.
As a result, the two PCs had a tendency to go their separate ways, and one of Sam Fisher’s actions was to start a business, Sam Fisher Associates, where he hired Logan Hawke as security. This had important implications for the other front where Murphy’s Law was headed towards derailing the Atlantic City campaign entirely.
What Were You Thinking?
When a group is too large, it’s difficult to keep all the players engaged.
By Episode 20, Logan Hawke is bored and itching for a fight. He tackles two bar customers who were eyeing his girlfriend’s “assets”. The NPC bartender fires a shotgun into the ceiling to stop the fight, then levels his weapon in the direction of the combatants, telling them to “take it outside”. The two regulars sit down immediately, hands open and empty, but Logan punches one of these men. The bartender shoots the second barrel, doing a point of stun damage to Logan’s leg.
Logan decides to get revenge. In Episode 21, he builds a dozen Molotov cocktails and puts them into a cardboard wine-bottle case. He then puts on a disguise and takes them in a taxi to the bar, where he lights the wick on one bottle and shoves the case inside the door. Of course, Molotovs are designed to be thrown, whereupon the volatile vapors ignite. Liquid gasolene does not burn. At least one of the bar’s patrons and/or employees immediately grabs the burning wick and averts all danger of an explosion. Of course, the bar calls the police. Since the bottles and box did not burn, Logan’s fingerprints will be found and identified over the next several days. The player did not wear gloves or take any other precautions while prepping the Molotovs.
Logan is disappointed by the lack of news about fires in the neighborhood. He spends the next day building two small bombs. (He does this and the Molotovs in his office at Sam Fisher Associates.) Logan then sets one bomb in the bartender’s car, which blows up, killing the man. The other bomb was intended for Cat, who had interfered in another of his recent attempts to get into fights.
In Episode 22, Logan learns the consequences of his actions. His fingerprints on the Molotovs make him a “person of interest” in the murder of the bartender. Security cameras have taken pictures of people entering and leaving the bar, thereby capturing one of his disguises as he shoved the Molotovs in. More importantly, it also supplied an image for facial recognition software. Also, despite having taken the precaution of a disguise, Logan took cabs to and from his office and the bar, not once or even twice, but at least three times. These records are made available to the police, who are investigating visits to the bar.
Within a few days, a SWAT team arrests Logan on a charge of first degree murder, a brain-danceable offense. An hour later, CIA Special Ops director Nathan Forrest shows up in Logan’s cell, and orders the surveillance equipment turned off. Nathan explains that the CIA cannot allow Logan to be braindanced, and offers him a choice. Holding up a syringe, he tells Logan, “You can have a brain aneurism right now, or plead guilty to manslaughter and spend 5 years in jail.” When Logan repeatedly refuses to plead guilty to “something I didn’t do,” despite Nathan’s assurances that the authorities have enough proof to convict him, Nathan injects him with the contents of the syringe.
But the damage to the campaign does not stop there. Some degree of responsibility also falls on Sam Fisher, because he was Logan’s boss and failed to supervise him. US Marshalls apprehend Sam when he tries to flee but doesn’t turn off the GPS on his boat. After dealing with Logan, Nathan goes to see Sam. Even though Sam and Nathan are long-term friends, “I can’t get you out of this one. They’ve got Logan cold on Espionage—and you as his accomplice.” He gives Sam the same kind of choice he gave Logan. Plead guilty to Extortion and do 5 years in Medium Security—or have a lethal heart attack. Sam chooses jail.
And so the campaign leaves both Atlantic City and Sam Fisher behind.
Change of Scenery
Enter Disney Corp, center stage, who hires the Team two years after Episode 22, and moves their base to Jamaica. We drop the Shameless thread. Geoff stays in Atlantic City; Randy Shugart III, Zahra Baudin (my PC) and William Eller join the Team. Another GM (Cyberbear) hosts the next several Episodes, and I pick up the thread again in Episode 30 for the conclusion to the Burn Notice thread.
Behind the scenes, Gregory Michaels decides to make his move to determine if Kyle is worth recruiting. West Australian politician Pieter Vanderwick approaches Section for assistance in investigating and hopefully discrediting his rival, Ben Davies, the Labor Party Whip and Minister of Trade and Industry—and Michaels sees his opportunity. Pieter’s brother Joost is the head of Vanderwyck Mining. Joost believes that Davies is corrupt, giving contracts to Joost’s competitors. Michaels tells Pieter to recommend that Joost hire the Team to investigate Davies. Michaels wants to know if Kyle’s moral code is bendable, and he suspects this case will provide an opportunity to discover this.
Change of Luck
All goes as planned on this “client du jour”. Pieter persuades Joost to hire the Team—who are now famous as having rescued the Timbuktu twelve.
This time, Murphy stays his hand. The Team succeeds in discovering Davies’ secret, which turns out to be not financial or political in nature, but sexual. He likes to be dominated and takes a monthly trip to Tasmania, supposedly to visit his sister but also for a side excursion to a local sex club where he can indulge his desires. However, the Team also uncovers that Davies’ close friend and Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Gene Jing-Bao Yao, IS guilty of corruption. Joost has Yao exposed—but Davies’ secret comes to light as well when Pieter calls the media. Davies is forced to resign, and Pieter is happy.
By Episode 30 when Joost hires the Team, I have tired of dropping teensy breadcrumbs that no one is following up on. I decide to toss the entire loaf of bread at the Team. So … during the chase in Tasmania, Kyle encounters Miles, who once knew Gregory Michaels and tells Kyle all about him. And back in Perth, Cat sees a person whose movement she recognizes: It’s Tiffany, one of the honey-pot chicks who lived next door to her dad in Atlantic City. It turns out that Tiffany is in Section because she wants to take Gregory Michaels down. She leads them to the location of Section in the Nevada desert, complete with blueprints.
All’s Well That Ends Well
So in Episode 37, another GM (Cyberbear) hosted the adventure where the Team seizes one of Gregory Michaels’ pivotal “black boxes” that he is using for discrete blackmail of politicians here and there. And in Episode 38, I ran the session where the Team invades the underground HQ of Section—and Kyle gets to confront and overcome Gregory Michaels.
Looking Back
From many points of view, the campaign was a success because the players who stayed had a lot of fun. Mixing sandbox style adventuring (what are you doing today in this scenario) with specific, goal-oriented missions can be a solid formula for player enjoyment. It allows people to take initiative and engage with a situation in ways they enjoy—and simultaneously gives them challenges and obstacles to overcome while achieving a specific objective.
This campaign also spawned new jargon for our group. When a GM’s plans are set awry due to a PC’s role-playing interpretation of a situation or events, we say he (or she) has been “Kyled”. Foreshadowing: Yeah, our current GM has been “Kyled”! Watch for details on [name of thread here].
Looking Forward
Would I design and run another campaign? Dunno. Right now, I’m focusing on other priorities and enjoying the challenges in our new campaign at the Petersen Point Resort in Florida.
Epilogue from GM Two, Cyberbear: Managing the Transitions
It has been our experience over the years that Campaigns have a shelf life before they get sour. After 22 episodes Atlantic City reached critical mass. One PC dead (Logan Hawke), another going to prison (Sam Fisher), and another ready to run away with her recently rediscovered lover (Cat with Kyle). The story wasn’t over though. Kyle was still burned and we had only just acquired his ‘Burn File’. The regular GMs of our group (4) got together and came up with the concept of running this like a vid show. Atlantic City would be considered ‘Season 1’ and we would pick up with a ‘Season 2’ set in Port Royal, Jamaica. Destecado came up with the concept of a smaller Disney Theme Park in the old Jamaican pirate capital. After all, the Pirates of the Caribbean has been a long running Disney theme. Doc Freeman had made enough research and medical rolls plus had accomplished enough role play over several campaigns to satisfy the various GMs’ requirements to produce his ‘cyberbrain’. Still we made it illegal and secret tech as we debated how to implement it. Install this in a cyborg and you have virtual immortality. Still, he joined the few characters we have that are richer than Croesus! Disney kept its end of the bargain and he (along with Destecado’s William Eller character) took possession of a hotel serving our Disney’s Port Royal Historical (Theme) Park.
We restarted the campaign in July 2044 with Allison and Nip (both now graduated from Atlantic City High School along with Kyle, Cat and Doc Freeman from ‘Season One’. SnowCrystal, the GM from Atlantic City, created Zahra Baudin, a former Jamaican soldier, and Sam Fisher’s player created Randy Shugart III (grandson of the Medal of Honor winner of Blackhawk Down fame). Logan Hawke’s player created a former SAS commando, Roger Blackmore. We were joined later (briefly) by his RL girlfriend. The plan was that the Team would take high end edgerunner jobs while looking into the various cases listed in Kyle’s ‘Burn File’. I ran the Episodes 23 through 29 and also Episodes 37 and 39. SnowCrystal did the rest. My purpose in what I ran was to bring the Team back to doing more conventional Cyberpunk missions while exploring Kyle’s situation with the C.I.A. In that I think everything worked out fine. Episode 23 was acting as backup on a simple protection detail that goes horribly wrong (Hey, this is cyberpunk!) Episode 24 was an extraction where things were not quite as advertised, but not an outright lie either. The next five episodes was a longer mission that had the Team traveling through three continents and dealing with issues of conscience and politics. My final episode in this ‘Second Season’ (39) served as a transition to bring in Victor Kane to replace the late Randy Shugart III who died in the final shootout of the Burn Notice thread. It also provided a reason for Disney to want the Team to leave Jamaica.
This set up for our ‘Third Season’ in Rio de Janeiro. The Team was now working like a well-oiled machine. Well, in our minds anyway. Destecado had prepared a wonderfully detailed playground for us in Rio to deal with Cyberpunk issues from a more high-end prospective. We dove right in!
Epilogue from GM Three, Destecado: Selling a Dream
When I first proposed the Rio story arc, a few of our players balked at the idea. They feared it would just be a rehash of my Romanian campaign, reworked and relocated to South America. The scope of that campaign (Romania) had been too ambitious and relied too heavily on key PCs. The exit of those PCs and attempts to change the focus of the story sent it flying off the rails. As CyberBear wrote, stories have an expiration date. Sometimes, it’s better to just move on.
These failures taught me important lessons and spurred the development of our multi tiered game structure. I also took to heart the concerns voiced by some of our players. They were sick of being the ‘bad guys.’ Though good and bad are subjective, especially in Cyberpunk, I understood their sentiments.
Returning to the Source
The charge, to not be ‘bad guys,’ influenced the development of the story arc and the environment. It also changed how I approached individual characters and their personal story arcs. Everyone is the hero of their own story. Even when working as part of a team, players wish to find fulfillment for their individual PCs. Things to be proud of or reminisce over, when talking about their character.
In the Romanian campaign, character development had taken a back seat to the mission. This was something I went out of my way to avoid in Rio. Weaving the personal story arcs of the characters into the story of the city became the focus of my leg of the campaign. With most of the plot threads tied to the burn file resolved by the end of the ‘second’ season, there was no need for me to focus on Kyle as the main protagonist. He was still an important character, but now part of an ensemble cast.
High level spy craft and intrigue are not for everyone. As the tension built and the plot deepened in the Romanian campaign, several players became paranoid. Fear of doing something wrong or jeopardizing the mission (which might mean their deaths) killed personal initiative and created animosity; eventually leading to the implosion of the campaign. This is why we adopted the high-low campaign structure. Those who were so inclined could remain blissfully ignorant of the full impact of the mission, while enjoying the street level aspects of Rio.
The plan was to make it so that no single character was integral to the plot. Into a basic framework, I added all of the resources the players would need, but no blueprint of how to reach their goal. There was a cast of over 100 NPCs to act as allies or adversaries; each with their own motivations and goals. GM provided missions were kept to a minimum, in favor of open ended encounters.
Missions tend to put players into a specific mindset. Situations are just life. There is no right or wrong answer. There is what you do and what comes after. They are organic and in some cases messy, but always surprising. A perfect example is Victor asking Ricco if he knew anyone who needed a driver. Ricco called Henrique, who put the runner in touch with Nico. Soon Kane found himself in the middle of a brewing gang war; a situation that the team would later be able to exploit.
Certain encounters provided foreshadowing for future story threads and time wasters to occupy the players. Perhaps time waster isn’t the best term, but I didn’t want to confuse them with red herrings. These are plots or activities that have no bearing on the team’s goal, but which players invest an inordinate amount of time in because they are important to their character. I put them in as a way to relive tension and provide content for characters that were at times a little detached from the main plot. Victor’s girlfriend Maria and their neighbors are perfect examples, as was the runner’s moonlighting as a stunt driver. I tried to introduce a rival for Colin Hughes’ affections, but became afraid (in no small part due to the player’s out of character comments) that Allison was just going to kill her. I changed the nature of the two NPCs’ relationship and moved on.
The covert war for control of Rio was inspired by the corporate takeover of NightCity. Cultural differences aside, there are parallels between Rio and the fictional NightCity. I decided to explore these similarities, using them as the framework for the main plot.
In our gaming universe, Rio survived the Fourth Corporate War, but was indelibly scarred by the ordeal. Large sections of the city were laid waste by the fighting. Gangs that had been powerful prior to the attack spread their influence and control in the ensuing chaos. Reconstruction of the city required more than just rebuilding physical structures. A relaxing of laws and tax incentives attracted corporations, creating an influx of capital and population which restarted the economy. It also created a tug-o-war for control of the city.
Endings and Beginnings
Rio presented the concluding chapter of the Burn Notice campaign, but it really wasn’t the end of the story. The burn notice had already been resolved by the end of the ‘second season.’ What comes after? That was the question facing the characters and me as game master. In many cases, players wouldn’t be walking away from these characters at the end of Rio, so rather than an ending it was a spring board to jump off into the next story.
Kyle’s personal story was entering a new phase. Devotion to the cause and faith in the Agency shaken, his primary motivation became setting up a nest egg, so that he and Cat could live comfortably in their retirement. Cat’s personal story had become interwoven with Kyle’s, but she was still striving to find herself; to develop into a real person, true and whole (to paraphrase CyberBear). No longer just the friend of Cat, Alison’s association with Doctor Freeman gave her a chance to come into her own.
The good doctor found a life outside the lab and learned that to sell people on his invention he would need to learn some social skills. Kane strove to make his bones on the racing circuit and outdo his rival, Colin Hughes. Nip discovered that she was more special than she realized, before going completely nuts.
With Nip, packed off to New Zealand, the player was able to bring back another of his favorite characters (Roca) that he hadn’t been able to play for a long time. Even Sam Fisher was given the opportunity for a fresh start after being sprung from prison.
The Team’s Association With Disney
Disney has become a major player in our game universe thanks in part to Cyberpunk V3. I have been critical of the V3 expansion, but like CyberGenerations it is not without its merits. The Densai was an interesting concept and something we felt was worth exploring. Having worked at Disney World, I also have a soft spot in my heart for the Mouse.
There is a good amount of criticism heaped upon the Disney Corporation. Of course the company isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but from my experience, Disney strives to be a good corporate citizen, and I at least portray it as such. It’s an odd duck really; eyes on the future, but with values rooted in the past. We have in a sense made it a guardian of the past, a living museum of what was and what could be again. This version of the past is filtered through the Disney lens, which may be a bit rose colored, but it creates hope. What is life without hope or dreams?
Over the years I‘ve tried to find a way to work R.Talisorian’s DreamPark sourcebook into our gaming group’s Cyberpunk universe. Setting an entire adventure in the Park would be impractical, but using it as backdrop in Rio was perfect. Given the group’s association with the media giant, DreamPark became a Disney property, re-branded as Fantasia.
The group’s association with Disney also allowed me to explore themes of duality. Project Overlook and its connection to Fabbrini Air was an extraneous plot meant to provide foreshadowing for future adventures and a dark opposite for their employer. Should they have decided to follow the trail down the rabbit hole the Rio adventure would veered in a very different direction, but one that I was prepared to go. Saner heads prevailed and the team stayed on mission.
I can’t speak for CyberBear or Snow Crystal, but I’m finding the process of crafting an epilogue / GM commentary for the Rio leg of the Burn Notice Campaign to be more difficult than I expected. Part of the reason is that I’m not sure what to focus on. The campaign was great fun and there was a lot going on behind the scenes that the players were not privy to and plot threads that they just never investigated. When crafting an interactive story, such things are to be expected. Snow Crystal said as much in her installment of the epilogue.
Bringing the ongoing adventures of our gaming group to the public is a labor of love. We hope that you the reader find as much enjoyment in reading them as we do bringing them to you. A story, like life itself is complex. An interactive story even more so. It is impossible to completely explore every plot point or character relationship in a single story. To do so would destroy the narrative.
Unanswered questions or unresolved plot threads are not of themselves a bad thing. They provide seeds for new stories, to be told either by the original authors or picked up by others to be spun into their own tales. It is our hope that other game masters will find the NPC’s we have presented and the game environments (Atlantic City, Jamaica, Western Australia, Rio, etc) our players have visited useful for their own games.
Like a director’s commentary or the cut scenes and extra’s added to a DVD, there was a lot of material that did not make it into the campaign. CyberBear and I have worked on generating material for a New York / New Jersey cyberpunk sourcebook and have discussed creating one for Rio. Sadly work and family have a tendency to intrude on the creative process. Still, if there any questions from you the readers about any of the environments, characters or plots presented during the Burn Notice Campaign, we would love to hear them.