I THINK THIS IS A SERIOUSLY GOOD IDEA. I have a thought about gangs and tier and such. A possible solution is “enterprises.”
What is the crew involved in? What income generators and vice dynamos answer to them? Everything they are involved in that generates money is an enterprise. When the enterprise runs smoothly, it generates funds and takes care of its own problems. When it doesn’t, then it’s problem solving time.
So instead of defining tier by how many PEOPLE are involved, instead it is based on the ENTERPRISES involved. Each enterprise is on a scale of 1-5. Tier 0 is up to 5, Tier 1 is 10, Tier 2 is 20, Tier 3 is 40, etc.
Now you’ve got “turf” measured by income potential. You have (ideally) self-sufficient enterprises kicking money back to the boss. And you’ve got gangs you use to trouble-shoot.
Now you can say that bookie business on Dulvin Street is a 2 enterprise. The bootleg whiskey business in Trevor Square is a 4 enterprise. So your crew has 6 enterprise, and if they can take over the brothel in Times Windfall they’ll get a 5 boost, putting them up to a Tier 1 concern with 11 enterprise.
Business is bad for an enterprise because of bluecoats–Trevor Square goes from 4 to 2, now you’re back down to 9, and risk losing a tier unless you can bolster your enterprise by dealing with the bluecoats, or pick up another one to keep the crew strong.
This seriously appeals to me. It solves the manpower problem, it solves the turf problem, and it keeps the focus squarely on the PCs where it should be.
I like it. I don’t think Tier currently refers mainly to manpower. Rather tier is reflected in being able to field larger gangs.
Though I would clarify that it doesn’t have to be exclusively about income. Depending on your crew type—like a Cult—you may be more interested in less tangible forms of power-potential: prestige, influence, arcane knowledge, intel, artifact collecting, loyalty, access, ambition, international connections, a rare resource, etc.
I think that works just as well, you just might have firebrand preachers or maintain regular ritual ceremonies to commune with supernatural beings as “profitable” enterprises, even if they collect no tangible income.
The rating would be “coin generated beyond expenses once a quarter.” Maybe collect from 1 enterprise per tier per downtime, and collect from all of them before starting over, instead of tying it to time.
You could have small time enterprises, up to 5. Each tier could access bigger enterprises, maximum of half its rating. So if you wanted the race track betting, a 10 enterprise, you would have to be Tier 2 to be able to control it (half of 20 enterprise points to be Tier 2.)
I got this idea by combining the new “claims” structure as a kick-start to contextualize the overall story arc of Peaky Blinders.
Adam Minnie When I read “Tier” in the rules it talks about how many people are involved. What am I missing?
I would still keep the income in place. In your example of a cult, there could be an enterprise for “Faithful among the wealthy” worth 3, “Temple on Fardaron Street” at 2, “Sewer scavaging cult” at 2, and “Lord Pennington’s Support” at 3.
If you want to manage otherworldly power, that’s not a tier issue unless you’re monetizing it. That would be all about reputation, and affecting heat and faction relations. You could be a small tier with lots of high faction relations and punch above your weight.
Then you take this structure and buy assets with it, instead of leveling your crew. (Leveling the crew is tough because if they lose advantages you’re taking their experience away from them.)
So, you buy off the cops on the Dow station, that costs 2. You get a gang of lookouts, that costs 3 but covers the neighborhood. You get a gang of adepts for 1, double the size for 2, double the quality now they cost 4.
So instead of making coin you can instead get advantages paid for by your enterprises!
Orion Cooper This structure would be awesome for your long game of Blades in the Dark. Come up with the enterprises for each group, and the assets they’ve bought, and you’ve got a map of advantages and targets.
Each down time, revise who still has control of what enterprises, with the goal of forcing the other group to drop a tier.
A reward for clandestine activity by gangs spying or downtime project activity would be to build a picture of another gang’s enterprises. Where is their money coming from? Do we know about all of it? What is vulnerable to disruption?
You can do all that through fiction. I think this would be fun too.
Back to the cult example, you could repurpose an enterprise to generate “worship” and buy intangibles with that. A noble’s backing or arts project could generate “prestige.” And between those two and coin, that’s all the flexibility you might need (unless you wanted “terror” as one too.)
Still, enterprises generate resources, and those resources either turn to coin or are spent for advantages. And you don’t have to level up your crew anymore. It becomes the umbrella for managing the enterprises and the advantages they generate.
I like it.
So no mechanical crew advancement triggers? Enterprises are gained/lost only fictionally?
Adam Minnie Right. You want a new enterprise, either start one or take one over. As to whether they would get stronger and expand, or weaker and contract, that would be a down-time issue tied into the entanglements.
Excellent Ideas Andrew. As always you are adding some very interesting pushes to the conversation here.
Thanks Josephe Vandel!
Okay, I’m looking at the new crew sheet. To replicate what’s on it in the enterprise system, you’d need several base categories. Training, equipment (one use, ongoing), personnel, influence, lair.
Under training, you could spend coin to unlock training to higher levels (as is done now) and also to gain any current special abilities so they are available for crew members to buy. (Like Hardcases or Second Story.) Rather than being crew type specific, there could be a listing of possible training to add to any playbook that determined spending and networking could unlock.
Under equipment, use coin to buy one-use equipment to stockpile, or to maintain access ongoing to other equipment. You could have special abilities that have a fixed cost to purchase once, or maintain (like Pack Rats.)
Under personnel, each coin buys 4 gang members. Also, a coin makes a gang of 4 into elites. Also, a coin gives a gang special equipment. So, for a well-equipped gang of 8 elites, you’d have an ongoing expense of 6 coin. Or, the same coin could maintain an unruly mob of about 24 toughs. Why so expensive? The cost includes taking care of their families if they die or go to prison. (Double the numbers of thugs if you just hire them.)
You could also maintain experts on staff, like an assassin or a scholar.
Under influence, that’s your police protection, one-shot sage consultations, hush money, popularity spending in the neighborhood, bounties on enemy targets, invitation to social events, access to blackmail material, and so on.
Then all the upgrades you’d normally get for the lair, you could buy with coin (more expensive but last until destroyed, like putting in a vault door) or ongoing expenses (like a whisper’s workshop.)
So you total up the income (coin, influence, worship, or terror) and you match it up to your expenses. What money is left is divied up however the crew leaders wish; some to savings, some to crew members.
Also, heists generate income beyond living expenses, and that can be used to shore up a lair, line the pockets of the members, or whatever.
When generating the crew, start with 5 points of enterprises. Is it a single big business? Or maybe one at 3 and one at 2? They have enough enterprises to be a crew, not a gang; now see where their current livelihood comes from. =)
This means you could have a crew record sheet, but wouldn’t need a playbook. The up side to that is you could get your start managing fences and brothels, then transition into more legitimate businesses and pick up assassination contracts on the side, and conclude buried deep in politics managing the legal theft of assigning contracts for city services and issuing whaling licenses.
The action in the game follows the empire the characters are building, rather than focusing on how they got their start.
How do you keep the heist structure front and center? Generate threats, and use heists to solve those threats. Target the enterprises of rivals, or manage takeovers. If there is a threat to your enterprise, neutralize it.
If the characters get sufficiently advanced to no longer go on these heists themselves, start playing a stable, and generate their go-to troubleshooters. Do strategic play during down time in the persona of the bosses, then for heists switch to their agents.
That’s one cool thing about an enterprise structure; it can demonstrate the transition into legitimate businesses that so many well-heeled scoundrels try to make. Just tack on a 1 coin (minimum) ongoing expense for taxes and such, to keep it all above board. Even if the business itself is propped up by other illegal enterprises. =)
Also, every point of Heat temporarily shuts down 1 point of advantage from an enterprise. Either one or more are shut down completely (temporarily) or all of them suffer. So, you want to get rid of heat before it cuts too deep into your profits!
I adore your skill to discuss on your own. Its interesting to see the flow of ideas and connection here. Sometimes I wish such topics would be cristalised in an longer blogpost of yours maybe?
Josephe Vandel Thanks! Yes, I’m doing other things today and revisiting this as I’m able, but I’m turning it over in my mind and looking for holes. Looking for what problems it might cause that do not yet exist. =)
I do think the idea has sufficient merit that I’ll put it together as an optional but intact sub-system, like the gangs document.
Let me know when you have a final form and I can pretty-fy it with some design magic.
Josephe Vandel That sounds cool. I’d like to toss the gangs document in there too.
I like it.
Sub
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I second a request for a centralized document about this. Would details about Enterprises replace claims/hold?
Adam Minnie Mechanically, all an enterprise would have would be a single rating. If the game group wanted to differentiate it into coin, influence, worship, or terror, that would be an option. Then they would decide whether they got paid from it, or used the coin it generated to get other advantages.
The system of hold would be replaced by enterprises, where the number of enterprise ratings would determine what tier the crew was in.
I’m trying to be clear about a short answer “yes.” =)
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This is interesting! I had a resource-driven system in earlier versions of the game (you had to pay upkeep for the crew and track profit and loss from claims). I abandoned it as the general philosophy of the game moved away from managing economies. But in principle, it’s a solid concept.