John Harper RE: Recent change to Reducing Heat with an Action roll (replaces Tier roll): Reducing heat is one of those downtime actions that can carry risks to even get in position to do it as soon as the players want to try something creative. I have always wondered the degree to which we GMs are supposed to enable them to do it: should any criminal easily be able to bribe some bluecoats they’ve met because COIN? Shouldn’t we be having a conversation about the possible effect of the approach they take?
On that note: is the Action Roll for heat reduction only rolled after getting in fictional position to make this Heat reduction without much risk; or when the controlled/risky/desperate action is taken, do we roll that action to simultaneously determine whether those risks come to bear and to find the amount of heat reduced?
Related: a thought I had was “this is downtime,” but I remember early in the Bloodletters, Sean Nittner/Arcy, and some Bluecoats over a canal.. and several risks which I took to mean you adjusted to fit what was going on. Wonder if what you did with the multiple action rolls would go any differently as of 7.1
This is a returning mechanic I was excited for. Players got really creative with ways of decreasing Heat and when it got changed to a tier roll I was really disappointed.
As with most rolls in the game, fictional positioning is necessary for this situations. Also I like to followup on loose ends, so if a character with -1 status with the bluecoats starts trying to pay bribes to reduce heat, I will probably start a clock about it, or change their status.
We had a bit of this discussion in our Monday gang, that during downtime you get two downtime actions for free, but you’re not limited to that. For instance, the interrogation of Henner could have been a gather information roll if we started by saying that “I want to go grab a Lampblack and beat some information out of them.” But we didn’t treat it like one because Henner came to us in the fiction and we were playing off that.
Early on when Arcy and Marlane hunted down Sinda and Raif she had to make some action rolls to get in position but that was also because there was some information at stake. She learned that there was a warrant for her, that Julian was coming after her, etc. She also scared the crap out of those two, so they got the heck out of our turf. So, you could call it a “cost” but it was certainly an opportunity as well.
My thought on it is that it should always be based on the fictional positioning as well as the pacing you want for the game. Running short on time and really want to get to the score, describe something un-obtrusive (like Oskarr scattering decoys to throw off the SW investigation) and make the roll. Have time and something interesting you want to do? Play that out! (and make action and fortune rolls as needed).
Right, I mean after we get them there though: is the roll for heat clearing after the Thing which reduced the heat is done, or during?
Also I guess I should have just asked: If the player does the Thing, rolls and gets a 1-3, is this a unique action roll with a rider that includes a margin of success (successfully clear 1 heat) in addition to suffering consequences and failing? (which in a recent game I felt like should be: “You were reckless in your approach and rolled poorly. I guess you messed this up: taking 1 heat while taking that action to remove 1 so your heat remains unchanged”). In other words: is it like that^, or something else?
Oh, I get it. I always interpret it as outside of roll position (controlled, risky or desperate) and its consequences (complication, harm, etc) BUT I do take into account the implications of the roll beyond the heat reducing effect and take it to a specific mechanic if I feel it appropriate (maybe bribing the bluecoats once won’t change anything, but by the third time they might get +1 status).
Edit: btw, its totally personal interpretation of the rules. I figure its one of the spaces John leaves for each gaming group to make crunchier than not.
Most of the time I have a similar experience to Sean, where time constraints or pacing dictate the focus and crunchiness of the downtime action.
I think the action roll(s) is(are) independent of the downtime roll. A little of bit of this is from my Burning Empires background that I don’t think the micro love has a direct 1-1 relationship on the macro level. You could totally get your ass handed to you by some bluecoats (rolling a 1-3) but maybe they think that was all they needed to do and don’t consider you a threat any more (rolling well on reducing heat). Also, since you can’t “buy” success on action rolls with coin but you can on downtime rolls, I wouldn’t mix the two.
As an aside though… I know we did once. When Arcy was gathering info from Setarra about Strangford’s demon, John made it a desperate roll (as it should be) but after the roll I bought up the success with coin. That troubled me for a bit, but eh, like Duamn Figueroa said, a lot of this is intentionally left open by John for the table to decide on both in general and in the moment.
My players had gotten into the habit of always considering the fictional positioning when reducing Heat, and wrapping that into their description of how they accomplish it. “Constance goes around the neighborhood threatening everyone if they think of blabbing to the Bluecoats. “
The proviso for this is in the QS, but it’s tiny. On page 20:
“As always, you can only pursue goals that you’re in a position to accomplish. If a downtime activity is contingent on another action, resolve that action first before resolving the downtime activity.”
So, if you need to do something risky just to attempt to reduce heat, then you make those risky rolls first, before you roll to reduce heat.
The heat-reduction downtime activity is not risky. It’s a fortune roll to see how much heat you clear, using one of your action ratings. If you think the situation is dangerous, then say what the dangerous obstacle is, and handle that before the heat-reduction roll.