Meatwagon In The Time Of The Red

Starting a new campaign soon. It'll be Cyberpunk Red, with the PCs being the crew of an REO Meatwagon Combat Ambulance. If you've consumed any flavor of Cyberpunk, you've probably heard of Trauma Team, the premiere combat ambulance medical extraction company. REO Meatwagon is the low-budget disreputable version. 

I'm setting it up like an episodic TV show. Every session will have an A-Plot and a B-Plot. 

The A-Plot is "this episode's story" that's usually going to be an emergency call, where the PCs show up in the middle of a terrible situation and have to try to get their client out alive. Often this means going in guns-blazing, but sometimes it will be more of a puzzle or require subtlety.

The B-Plot will be a few roleplaying scenes around the edges of that, which tie in to one PCs backstory or personal arc each session, or perhaps advances "this season's simmering meta-plot" in the background.

I've done something similar to this in a one-shot before, and it worked great. Now I'm going to find out how well the idea holds up for a longer campaign.

Planning to assign IP a little differently than the books suggest. 

• Making any serious attempt at the A-Plot scores everyone on the team 50 IP, even if they fail. 
• If they save one or more paying customers, and deliver them safely to a Hospital (or other place the customer says is safe, provided the customer's not bleeding out or KO'd) the group +10 IP per customer saved. 
• Engaging with the B-Plot in any way (e.g.: not just hanging up on the NPC) scores an extra +5 IP for the team.
• If that B-Plot scene is a real dirty suckerpunch that seriously complicates the character's life, hits you in the feels, or someone's roleplaying really impresses the GM, everyone gets +10 IP bonus (beyond the usual +5 from the B-Plot)

The intention then being that the PCs gain 50 to 75 IP per session, which is a little higher than the average the book assumes, but not crazy high. Doing it this way to motivate the players to engage with the plots in particular ways, so there's just a little extra push to try to save a customer. Also to give you a reason to include NPC friends or family in your backstory so it's not just "I'm an orphan and a real loner" as many people seem to love to do with Cyberpunk. I find there something about dystopian futures that really make folks want to create dysfunctional lone-wolf bad-asses by default.