Any advice on a good approach for putting some pressure on the crew from other factions that they have angered and lost favor with, but not dealt with? I’ve been using entanglements, but I’m at a point where I feel their adversary needs to bring the fight to them to get their attention.
Has anyone done an attack against a crews assets? How would you establish that and still give them an opportunity to participate? Is there any particular rules there I’m missing?
It seems like I could set the scene and put them in a spot, then let them do the planning and engagement to determine how they want to go after it, and treat it as a score. Allowing flashbacks to fill in their prep gaps as usual.
Yes to 3rd Paragraph. That’s totally what I did before and it worked. Had them come home to find their lair with the leader of the Red Sashes sitting out front in a chair and table being served tea waiting for their presence. Then up on the rooftops members of the Red Sashes were watching with rifles and electroplasm fire bombs. They didn’t have much of a choice as they were on the loosing side if they decided to fight then and there so they had to sit and deal with the ultimatum the Red Sashes were handing down. However, this scene-lette definitely set them on a path towards how they were going to deal with the Red Sashes. They decided to find a way and double cross them to wiggle out from under it all. This decision totally set up the next score.
My original plan was what you describe, as an entanglement. Though in my case, if they already had the hold, they wouldn’t talk and leave, so this seems to take a lot of choice away from the players (forcing them to burn stress on flashbacks for any enablement).
This leaves me in a situation where essentially, my players are being “engaged upon”. I’m defining a score with a reverse reward. The score is “defend your hold”. If they win, they keep what they have and what the enemy leaves behind. If they lose we determine how much they lose and if it is the asset itself.
Narratively it seems okay, but it flips a lot of the mechanics. The game is pretty harsh and I don’t want to take things away the players have earned, but I need to send a message that enemies can’t be ignored.
Good Advice so far!
Other things I’ve done is to place Friends and Rivals in danger, consequences that target them. (John Harper is very good at using this technique in the Bloodletters game).
I totally threaten crew assets, especially if left unattended. The scoundrels have plenty of wherewithal to resist these consequences, so hit ’em hard.
I think it is totally fine to put the things the players have in danger. What I did is the crew was on a score just outside a newly acquired piece of turf. The rolled a 4 on engagement so i had the previous owners of the turf show up mid score to try to take it back.
When in doubt, firebomb an orphanage. Breaker crews can be extremely easy to manipulate, simple because their focus on conflict requires them to always be prepared to defend turf. My group loves to take turf, so sometimes it’s fun to take it back, via firebombs and soot covered blades. The true mark of a hard crew is their ability to take as much as they dish out.
This is about 98% relevant because a) it happened in my Shadowrun hack of Blades, and b) it happened when they had no Claims.. but..
I brought the fight to the Lair on my group. Until the last moment, I was digging to figure out what rules exist for this, and seriously all I used was an Engagement roll, and Fortune rolls (for enemy actions). Also, the Hold mechanics, but I will get to that in a second.
I gave the players +1d on the Engagement roll for a score they did earlier to weaken their enemies in prep for an assault, and went from there. Because they got a 6, I told them to describe their location as anywhere on their compound or immediate vicinity as their starting point, and I described the enemies approaching. No matter the roll, they would have still picked a location on base of course, but on a 4-5 my description would have been at the start of the action (the enemy exploiting a small advantage). If they had gotten a 1-3, it would have been en media res and much more surprising.
They survived by the way, despite being Desperate in most cases to cause even 1 effect. while did they did Flashback once, Resist is also a powerful tool (just sayin: Don’t be surprised if they totally own whatever you send at them!).
Bottom line: Run it as a score. They should be there if they want to be. And make the win scenario a weakening of the other faction’s hold. Lose scenario: Don’t lose.