Questions about Long Term Projects. Can they be used to gain claims? Recruit Cohorts? Acquire permanent assets (from the crew playbook)? Is there anything that should specifically NOT be a LTP? I’m afraid I’m not providing appropriate clock lengths, and/or that my players are getting ridiculously lucky.
Any suggestions about Long Term Projects in general?
My general guideline is that if it involves some degree of risk, then it’s a job, not an LTP. Other than that, I’m really flexible. For example, my crew had an idea to gain the Quarters and Workshop upgrades by turning them into LTPs, since all that was involved was breaking down the factory equipment, carting it out, and putting up some interior walls & such.
I think it’s a good question since setting a clock length is an interpretive process, and guidance is sort of spread around the text. Circumventing mechanics and setting are suggested in the text as uses for LTP’s (p.8), however. So there’s your answer to the first part.
As for whether you are providing “appropriate” ones, I’d say it depends. I found examples of 8-ticks like learning a ritual, creating a new chemical formula, and assembling an exhaustive contraband buyer list. Do you have examples where you (or your players even) felt things were inappropriate?
It’s pretty hard to mess it up, actually. If the crew gets a few things too easily (or too difficultly), it doesn’t hurt the game very much.
As the GM, it’s well within your rights to say, “No, that’s a score, not a long term project.” But don’t feel pressured to do that. If you want to gloss over something with an LTP, even a crew upgrade, go ahead. The game won’t break .
In the case of a claim, just maintain the idea that they’re taking it away from someone else. That’s the most important part.
Don’t feel bad about allowing LTPs to grant permanent benefits. PCs can use downtime to train and gain XP! So gaining other sorts of permanent or semi-permanent benefits (equipment, crew upgrades, etc.) should be totally fine. (And, coincidentally, filling an 8-tick clock will take roughly as many downtime actions as filling an XP track!)
Not sure I follow Will Scott at 1-2 XP per downtime action, and 1-5 ticks on an LTP per downtime action, I’d say it’s way faster to do an LTP (I do agree with the rest of what you said though)
Well, you might be right. Let’s math this out.
Assuming uniform distribution, that’s 1.5 XP per downtime action; so it takes 4 downtime actions to fill an attribute track (6 XP) and 5 1/3 actions to fill a playbook track (8 XP). Assuming the 1-5 ticks on LTP are also uniformly distributed, that’s 3 ticks per downtime action, so it takes 2 2/3 actions to fill an 8-tick clock.
However, I think these things are not uniformly distributed. XP training is either going to take 3, 4, 6, or 8 actions depending on crew upgrades. Rolling for a LTP is much harder to estimate. Assuming a character has 2 dots in the relevant action and is involving a friend/contact for total 3d6, by my math, the expected value of a single roll is 2.7 ticks. On an 8 tick-clock, that’s almost exactly 3 downtime actions; on a 12-tick clock, it’s 4.5 actions. Obviously more dice speed this up and fewer slow this down.
So: It IS a bit faster to do an 8-tick LTP; it should take around 3 actions, vs. AT BEST 3-4 actions to fill an XP track.
That’s true in isolation, but don’t forget that you’re also getting end-of-session and desperate action XP, too, so training advancement will have a boost.
Thanks for all the advice.