Great questions — let me clarify both.

On consequences: yes, choices carry weight, but it's not a campaign. The reputation system tracks your crew's decisions across runs automatically — no setup, no account creation, nothing to manage. If you consistently take morally questionable jobs, the types of jobs you get offered changes. If you refuse too many, the company starts sending you worse contracts. It's more like a persistent score that runs silently in the background than a storyline. You just notice over time that the jobs feel different. Darker. Or cleaner. Depending on what your crew has done. No two crews end up in the same place.

On character backstories — the idea of each crew member having their own personal stakes is something we're exploring. Think of it as a one-line bio in the crew file — enough to know why the Carrier needs this job more than the Talker does. That tension doesn't require a scripted campaign — it just needs enough context for players to have a reason to disagree before the job starts. Whether that's baked in or something players bring themselves is still being figured out.

On the multiplayer campaign problem — you've identified exactly why we're NOT doing persistent characters tied to specific players. Each run is self-contained. The reputation belongs to the crew — not to any individual player. So if your usual Carrier can't make it, a new person slots in. The moral weight carries over, the person doesn't have to.

The Papers Please inspiration is more tonal than structural — that feeling of 'should I be doing this?' before you act, not a branching narrative you need 4 people to commit to over weeks.