Scores against higher tier factions
Can the actions of a Tier 0 crew effect a Tier 4 faction?
I’ve been eyeballing my Score: The Apex and wondering if it is basically impossible as a starting situation for a fresh crew, because the odds are very much against a Tier 0 crew, and not until Tier 2 would they have any reasonable shot.
Say the fresh Tier 0 crew’s Lurk is trying to pick a lock on a crumbling terrace belonging to the Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh. Is the Lurk’s effect on the lock dropped by four levels, one for each tier difference?
The Lurk could use fine lock picks to reduce the tier difference by one, as well as take extra time to reduce it one more. But extra time would probably worsen their position if there was a risk of discovery by guard patrols or other stuff.
Yet, even with all that, the Lurk would have no effect on the lock. That is unless they rolled a critical, getting increased effect, then they could have limited effect on the lock. So basically impossible to pick.
Moreover, if it was a fine lock (or fine safe, fine door, etc.) belonging to the Church then they ain’t ever beating it. Likewise, a fresh crew ain’t ever picking a lock belonging to Ironhook Prison.
Am I grokking the rules right?
It all sounds right and makes sense fictionally. I’m just starting to realise I may need to re-calibrate how difficult it is for a crew to act against a higher faction, and work on getting that across to players.
My understanding is that factors (quality/scale/potency) are not a straight bonus/penality to the effect (+/- 1 per difference between factors).
So, if you go against Tier 4 as a Tier 0 crew, fine items aren’t enough: even if fine lockpicks makes you Tier 1 at “lockpicking”, your “quality factor” is still at disadvantage so your effect is reduced (from standard to limited for example).
Intriguing. /sub
Oliver Granger I think your interpretation is correct. I have not personally been using the “Factor (quality) = Tier” rule for a few reasons.
All of this boils down to what flavor of game you want to have. If you’re cool with having a simple mechanic that keeps a crew in its place and renders some targets off limits until they advance their organization, then I guess basing factors off tier automatically likely works for you.
Why doesn’t it work for me?
1. Criminal organizations are not monolithic. They are composite. With the flavor of game I want, there are stronger and weaker parts of an organization, and while the top-notch secrets and people will have the best protection, it’s wasteful and impractical from a management standpoint to apply that protection to everyone paying homage or within the scope of the crew’s activity. Even when you have money and influence, EVERYTHING you’ve got isn’t better. You make decisions on where to spend money. Part of the whole flavor of heists is that there are places security cut corners, creating vulnerabilities for scoundrels.
2. I’m not comfortable with “Tier = Contacts” as a reflexive assumption. If it’s something you can buy, and you want a better one, then I want you to be able to get it even if you don’t work for a more prominent criminal outfit. Maybe you have to use a down time action to get an object, or even fill a clock as a project to get it, or do a favor for someone with access, but you can put your hands on it whatever your tier. And, if you lack the proper contacts, then getting rare or masterwork goods may not be in your reach no matter how many thugs work for you. You can massage the fiction to support your point of view, whether you want to use tier as contacts or make it more personal and tied into backgrounds and exploits.
3. I want to encourage scoundrels to tackle daring scores, hitting well protected targets. I understand some people might want to say the target is off limits to a crew, and they are free to run their games that way. I don’t want to REQUIRE a crew to have a massive supporting organization before they can hit a museum; it’s not about your “day job” of managing your criminal enterprise, it’s about this heist. A smaller crew is likely to be more useful for the job than the bosses of a syndicate.
4. In a game that doesn’t have bonuses or penalties on die rolls numerically, that deals with a pitifully tiny dice pool most of the time, the flavor of having so many stops on the slider for factors irks me. The whole rhythm of the game is based on a few key moving parts, and strenuously limiting bonuses and penalties. To me, quality factors stand out as having too many plusses or minuses to the roll’s outcome. They seem inconsistent.
5. Interpretation of when tier quality applies gets interesting. The quality applies when the GM feels like it probably would. Not such a big deal when you’re dealing with binary yes/no “fine” quality, or even up to 2 steps, but up to 4? So, a tier 1 crew wants to go after a tier 4 crew’s grandmother. She lives in a nice house, out of the way. Are her defenses tier 4? Or not? Is she part of what is covered by the tier 4 crew’s automatic super-quality? Her guards, her locks, and her personal safe? What if the tier 4 crew has a safehouse in a bad part of town. Do you just look for quality 4 locks to spot it? That seems silly. What if a tier 4 crew hires your tier 1 crew for a job? Can they give you quality 4 gear for the duration, then require it back when the job is over? If you buy a house that a Tier 3 crew used to own, does it have Tier 3 quality locks? That doesn’t seem like how the tier quality should work.
Should item quality be measured in terms of the breadth and depth of the criminal organization that acquired it, rather than the master precision and craftsmanship of its creation? Does a criminal crew take the finest masterpiece, at +4 quality, and put those locks on all its doors? Those weapons in the hands of all its soldiers? Obviously not.
6. So, combat. “The quality factor considers the effectiveness of assets, tools, weapons, or other resources, usually summarized by Tier. A higher tier faction has better quality stuff. Fine items count as 1 tier higher in quality.” (p. 10, printer friendly quickstart 4.) Does that mean a Tier 3 soldier has a weapon that reduces a regular weapon by 3 effect levels in combat? What if you take it from the servant of the tier 3 organization? Or is that supposed to be a combination of weapons and armor, so if you take the weapon that alone cannot give such a heady bonus? Do player characters get a tier bonus in fighting those who are not from an organization of the same size? If that seems uncomfortable, then you may see my point.
7. A “fine” object now counts as being a “Tier 1” object. So, when you hit Tier 1 does all your gear automatically get a bump to fine? Yes. Does “fine” become now getting tier 2 gear free of charge? Well, no, “fine” means Tier 1 quality. In fact, a “fine” item is at a disadvantage by the time you get to tier 2. Why call out a special term for Tier 1 gear if you’re going to have 4 levels of bonus?
I have not implemented the automatic effect reduction due to factors based on tier in games I have run, and I don’t plan to. That’s an advantage of not playtesting, there’s no particular obligation to “rules as written.” =)
Yeah I have no problem with using quality to pace the players effectiveness. The issues you raise are good but I don’t have any problem hand waving stuff like grandmas fortress. So the bigger factions put more effort in maintaining their stuff and protecting there own. Sounds reasonable to me.
Plus the game already has mechanical levers for players to get better stuff. Raising tier is not just about getting more thugs, it’s about investing in the logistics to control those thugs and the bigger and bigger turf you need to afford so many thugs. The crew quality upgrade lets players spend their crew xp to have improved tools or gear or supplies etc. above their station. The time it takes to get these upgrades, including how they delay getting other upgrades, nicely emulates the difficulty of reliably improving your stuff. It’s not about getting one exceptional knife, it’s about getting a supply of exceptional knives without blowing your budget.
In looking over this stuff again, with the tiers and factors, I realized something I missed the last few times through. Each type of factor can only tip the effect up or down by 1 effect level, I think.
So, if the quality is a Tier 4, and your lockpicks are a Tier 1, then you still are only -1 effect level. If I understand it right.
As for the fictional explanatory backup, as I said, it works fine for some people. That’s how you see it and that’s cool. I don’t think it’s broken the way it is, it just doesn’t quite work for me and what I’m doing at my table.
“Each type of factor can only tip the effect up or down by 1 effect level, I think.”
Yeah that’s exactly what I’m not clear about.
First: The text says “fine items count as 1 tier higher in quality.” This does not mean that a fine item counts as tier 1. It means that a fine item adds +1. At tier zero, your fine item counts as tier 1. At tier 2, your fine item counts as tier 3.
Second: Yes, each factor is meant to adjust by plus or minus 1 level. If you have an edge in a factor, your effect is increased (by one). If you have a disadvantage, it’s decreased (by one).
The exception is a dominant factor, as noted in the text. If the Tier IV faction has commissioned the finest locks in the city, then no, your Tier zero burglar cannot pick them by making a single die roll. If you want to pick them, you’ll need to achieve goals to remove the dominant factor.
You can always achieve a goal if you work at it and succeed at the steps to get there. But some goals can’t be achieved with a single action or roll (obviously) and the factors / tier system is one element you can use to arrive at this.
Hm. So if I have a fancy sword with sentimental value at Tier 0, and the same fancy sword at Tier 3, its quality increases as my tier does?
Correct.
Could a character purchase a Tier 4 quality item?
Purchasing power is defined by Tier.
When you acquire an asset, its quality is set by the roll.
Poor (tier -1)
Standard (tier)
Fine (tier + 1)
Exceptional (tier + 2)
You can also acquire stuff (or do anything, really) by working on a long-term project.
Okay thanks John for clarifying those points. I’d missed that it was only one effect level bump per factor. Applying the dominant factor when facing a much higher tier seems obvious now.
Thanks also for pointing out players always have options to create opportunities. I was focusing on single roll but mainly because the situation about “picking a Tier 4 lock” came up in a game I was running and I wanted to confirm the rules. I fudged it because I hadn’t warned the player about the difficulty of acting against much higher tier opponents, they were already knee-deep committed to the heist, and they were expecting the lock picking would fairly straight forward. Now I’m clearer on how dominating some factors can be, I’ll make sure to set players expectations better, that even breaking-in may need planning (bribes, key copies, expensive tools, hired experts) which will of course mean more rolls, more resources, more consequences.
Next time, I suppose I could ask for flashbacks to show how the crew prepared to get past such a high quality lock, even if the players hadn’t realised it wasn’t going to be so straightforward.
To be fair, the text isn’t as clear as it could be. I’m revising things to hopefully make it better.
Flashbacks to setup actions and preparations is a good technique.
John Harper this is the bit I’m struggling with:
– how to fictionally justify the same old equipment raising in tier/quality as the crew?
– how can i handle the fact that you may steal and use equipment from a higher tier faction?
You have a old tier zero sword. Maybe it was your grandfather’s in weapon in the war. You clean and sharpen it when you can, but as a scoundral in a tier zero gang, you have a lot on your plate just staying alive on the mean streets of Duskwall, and so on average, you only keep it semi-sharp.
Then, your crew moves up on the food chain to tier one. There’s now less direct pressure on you, so you can take more time to keep your blade in better condition. At tier two, maybe you can afford to take it into a bladesmith to have it professionally sharpened occasionally. And at tier three, maybe you can pay that Smith to rework part of the blade, correcting some defect in the original design (swords issued to random conscripts during wartime aren’t known for their superior craftsmanship).
Taelor Mcclurg my thoughts exactly
MisterTia86 Here is how I pictured it:
It’s a good sword, it’s always going to be a good sword, but it’s only as effective as the person wielding it. Your tier rises as your crew gets more experience, so your cutter has been swinging that sword more and is now more effective with it. Or if you’re hiring muscle and than giving them a fine weapon, your higher tier attracts more talented thugs. That way, when you steal a fine weapon from a Tier 4 thug, it makes sense that it’s still just a +1 tier in quality for you no matter your Tier. It makes you a little better at fighting than a normal sword, that’s all.
Mark Griffin I think that breaks down when it applies to locks, for example. The lock is a passive object.
I also hesitate to endorse the idea that the bigger an organization you’ve joined, the better you are. To me, that’s like saying the business acumen, passion, insight, and verve of a mid-level manager in a huge corporation is inherently better than the leading light of a small start-up firm.
This game puts a lot of weight in the size of your syndicate, downplaying your individual capacity and network. Even many of the crew special abilities involve personal transformation as a signing bonus.
As Taelor Mcclurg points out, you can wrap the fiction around the rules to make sense of it. To me that’s a case of the fiction trying to catch up with the mechanics rather than the other way around. Your satisfaction with that may vary.
I wouldn’t say the system doesn’t work. After all, we are comfortable with some abstractions while others make us itchy, and we all have our own preferences.
Andrew Shields Ultimately the Tier = Quality thing looks like a rule of thumb and a suggestion. A lot of revisions in the rules appear to have been made in order to make play quicker and prep easier for the GM. When you’re too busy to think about it, or you have nothing else in the fiction that tells you how good a lock is, this system is convenient. The rules say:
“The quality factor considers the effectiveness of assets, tools, weapons, or other resources, USUALLY summarized by Tier”
Emphasis mine. It’s usually true, so use it to save time when you find it convenient, but don’t use it when it doesn’t make sense to you.
Mark is spot on.
Also, I’m sorry to say, but this statement simply is not true: “This game puts a lot of weight in the size of your syndicate, downplaying your individual capacity and network.”
The game system is exactly the opposite of this statement. (maybe you were just being hyperbolic, andrew.)
Compare what you roll Tier for compared to the individual Actions of the PCs. The characters are waaaaaaay more important to the game play. Tier 0 PCs can seriously fuck up higher Tier factions, and because of the way resistance works, they can’t even be truly stopped or killed by more powerful foes.
Tier is not merely an indication of size. You keep asserting that, Andrew, but it’s not true. Gang size is something affected by Tier, but Tier is a bigger concept, including overall clout and lifestyle. It’s totally possible to be a Tier IV organization and have no gangs, for example.
Tier summarizes a bunch of little details that you don’t need to track. It’s abstracted because it’s a background element. It is NOT the thing that the game places a lot of weight on.
If you DO track a bunch of little details regarding specific items and other elements abstracted by Tier, and you want to use those fictional elements instead of an abstract Tier number, then surely you’d do that, right? Tier, like Coin is an abstraction. It isn’t meant to work as fine details — exactly the opposite.
To put it another way, the quality of the lock is based on the fiction. A higher Tier organization probably has better locks, and if they do, then that’s a factor when you assess effect. There’s no rule that says “Subtract the Tier rating of the target from your effect.” There’s a reason why the effect factor system works the way it does, as an assessment and judgment call, not a comparison of numbers.
John Harper This is well said and marries up with how I was vaguely thinking of Tier, particularly about summarising a whole bunch of details I typically don’t track.
I also like your exposition that a higher Tier probably has better locks. Makes me think that if the dilapidated, crumbling terrace is dangerous to scale, maybe the faction hasn’t bothered to maintain good locks on it. Sounds like a good use for a Fortune Roll and some info gathering. Players could weigh up:
– lock picking a strong lock they can walk up to – the chance of beating a more mediocre lock after a dangerous climb.
Yeah, exactly. I just wrote an essay called “Abstraction vs. Details” for the game to address this topic. So thanks to everyone for pointing out the gray area here.
John Harper I’m looking forward to reading it!
The thing is: I was already on board with all the Tier summarising size/influence/lifestyle, in particular for NPC factions. It’s fast, it’s easy, and it’s a good simplification. My problem was that I couldn’t extend that same reasoning to equipment.
I still have some doubts about some details that my players may want to track, like specifics of claims they acquired.
I feel I could handle them just narratively, but the crew sheet seems to disagree because pretty much every claim seems to require a mechanical impact.