My group is having a bit of trouble understanding the “acquire an asset” downtime action. Specifically, what constitutes an asset? From the different examples scattered across the book, I’m thinking it could be everything from a useful item to a witch doctor or whatever. This all seems fine. Our problem is that in the description on the rules reference for downtime, it specifically says “temporary access to an asset” – which makes sense from a mechanical perspective in terms of balance, since it just costs one downtime action, but in terms of the fiction it seems a bit more vague. It makes total sense if the asset is an NPC, but if it’s some sort of item it gets a bit weird. We can try to justify it by having the asset be something of limited quantity, or something that expires after it’s used. And if that doesn’t make sense in the fiction maybe we borrow it?
Say I roll to acquire an asset, and add 1d from my Thieves’ Pack Rats special ability, to try to acquire some heavy armor for some members of our cohort. We roll a 5. Boom! We have it! Should we just resolve how that’s temporary in the fiction? (because that maybe doesn’t sound super fiction-first – kind of like picking a mechanic first, and then making sense of the fiction afterwards, which gets a bit murki) – or should we handwaive it and say that no, it actually IS a permanent asset? – or should we use a different mechanic, like a project clock or something, to do those kinds of permanent gear acquisitions? Sorry for the super long nitpicky post, it really isn’t a big deal, we were just looking through the book for a long time for some clarification on this and didn’t find anything.
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You have the right idea, if you want something permanent than go with a long term project. As to why items you acquire don’t last? There are lots of reasons, such as borrowing from a friend, or something that’s just held together with duct tape, or they were granted to you by a supernatural entity for a brief period.
You can keep a temporary item if you want to. Just ‘acquire’ it again during the next downtime.
If you can’t or won’t do that, it was just borrowed and you give it back.
If you absolutely refuse to return it, then zoom in on that fiction, figure out who owns it and what they do if you don’t return it. Maybe pile on some heat and negative faction status ticks as everyone figures out that you don’t play ball.
“To do it, you have to do it” — don’t allow the players to use the Acquire an Asset action unless they can come up with a reason beforehand that the asset is temporary. If nobody can think of why the asset wouldn’t just stick around, then you can’t use Acquire an Asset to get it; use a LTP instead.