It really depends on player interests, really. We're staring a Narrative Campaign among several new players, and the only reason we play ITS missions so far is because they want to help me prepare for Salt Lake Showdown. As soon as that's out of the way, we will deviate using more narrative missions for each campaign round. ITS is just the standard. The basic "we don't know each other but I'd like to play Infinity with you" premise. I feel Narrative Play to be like Role Playing in DnD. Some players just want to roll dice, kill monsters and get magical items; others just want to weave a story; and a lot of them fall between the other two. There are several narrative missions in the supplementary books (Daedalus Fall and Uprising) and the alternative mission systems (YAMS, TACO, Infinity Recon, 20x20) are still useful. Heck, I think Infinity Mercenaries does an amazing job as an alternative framework for an N4 narrative campaign: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threa...ish-campaign-framework-for-infinity-n4.38512/
when i play 20x20 i do play with lockpicker. you just need to rephrase it to fit N4 style. Because when you make a mission you are always allowed to invent new skill that interacts with the objective. So while i won't say to use lockpicker on all doors of the table, i will have the equivalent for interacting specifically with the objective room doors. synch civilian/civevac still exists, not as a N4 rule, but as a ITS rule, and is used in one ITS mission. I think most plays with ITS's Civilian rule as applying for all of N4. It is just annoying that you have to refer to the latest season pdf instead of the wiki.
I recently got to play 20x20 again and now I feel like writing a N4 update. The second roll would be game changing effects instead of a secondary mission. 10 missions will be super easy to understand and play, while the other 10 will be fluffbunny missions. ITS is fine, but its just not fluffy enough imho.
