A few n00b questions on Factions & Tiers, if I may:
How are Tiers of citizens/districts reflected in play? Does robbing a random civilian from Charterhall count as a score against Tier III faction?
Also, what is the logic behind Skovlander War Refugees being Tier IV?
I think it’s something to do with both the size of a group that the faction could pull together if they needed to and also the quality of that group. Someone also mentioned in a pervious thread that it suggested that the community might be more tightly knit so they may be less willing to work with groups who haven’t yet proved themselves.
I think a random robbery might not be against a tier 3, but certain aspects might be more challenging (e.g. tougher locks, more guards in the area, etc.) and the consequences might be more severe.
You might also be able to convey higher tier with narrative descriptions of the buildings/people/things to help convey that this is either a richer area or a tighter community or whatever.
(A bit long, sorry!)
My understanding of tier is that it is a simple descriptor for organization and readiness. Tier effects the engagement roll at the beginning of a score as well as limiting the position or effect of rolls made during it.
So if a tier 0 crew decided to break into a house in Charterhall, they will likely start the engagement in a desperate position (audible alarms? private security? modern style tumbler locks well beyond the capabilities of the primitive picks the crew has access to currently?)
I’ve been allowing tier to effect rolls that make sense in the narrative and not effect rolls where it does not feel appropriate.
Examples from a session where my players’ crew (tier 0) attempted to seize a claim from the Gray Cloaks (tier 2):
Tier effects this roll: (after our engagement roll results in a risky engagement) the crew attempts to sneak on board an archive of juicy blackmail the Gray Cloaks keep floating on an old barge in the Dusk. The crew uses a prowl group check to approach. I tell them it is a risky position (due to engagement check) and while the crew isn’t expecting trouble (which would offer an initial effect of ‘great’), they are going up against a much more organized and well equipped group that is actively keeping watch and using electroplasm spotlights to survey the waters nearby (organization and access to gear determined by tier), making this roll’s effect limited. The player’s decide to pause this roll to trigger a flashback where the Whisper calls up a thick fog to cover their approach, giving them +1 effect.
Tier does not effect this roll: after sneaking on board, the Hound decides to murder the lookout patrolling the side of the boat closest to their get-away skiff. Since the individual patrollers are not wearing combat armor nor do they have specific benefits against sneaky folks, I decide to ignore tier. I call for a skirmish roll with a risky position and standard effect. I also start a 6 section project clock for “Dealing with the patrol” and offer a devil’s bargain that this patroller will make enough noise to attract his mates (which the crew rejects and the Hound take stress instead).
I honestly have no idea if I ran any of that right, but we’ve been putting our heads together on system mechanics and were satisfied with the set up and enjoyed the results…
As for the Skovland War Refugees being tier 4, that question has come up a lot. Our interpretation is that a large portion of the refugees that have ended up in Doskvol are very well organized and living in very insular enclaves around the city. They know their neighbors. They have cultural cues in conversation and behavior that non-Skovlanders would have a hard time emulating.
They have plenty of weapons and gear smuggled in after the war and are not waiting around to be victimized by the native Doskvoli.
If you mess with one Skovland War Refugee, you mess with all of them and word gets around very quickly. They protect their own businesses and enclaves tenaciously.
Also, at tier 4, maybe – just maybe – these ‘refugees’ are in the middle of a project clock to become the Skovland Insurrection and seize a district of their own?
relevant: plus.google.com – I know I’ve seen it before, but I think it deserves revisiting now. I have been…
Jason Lee : Yep. That’s the idea.
Evan Louscher don’t sell yourself short! You’re running the game exactly right. Well done.
Jason Lee, Evan Louscher, Mark Cleveland Massengale, John Harper Thank you all for your replies! I totally get it that, say, people in Charterhall have larger purses and sturdier doors than those in Crow’s Foot, let alone Charhollow. Yet (a) using Tier and Hold to represent this seems redundant, as there are Wealth and Security ratings in district write-ups; and (b) most other uses of Tier don’t seem to apply in case of citizens.
In particular, I am skeptical about gang size. Wealthier and more upscale neigbourhood means weaker community and family ties, less propensity for violence and mob justice, more reliance on the Watch, etc. It’s in the slums that you can expect a large mob to assemble quickly, not in Belgravia. Although the numbers may make some sense if one reads gang size as “that’s how many Bluecoats will be dispatched”…
in the thread I linked, I had similar thoughts [skeptical about gang size]. It was clarified to me, however, that the figures given for gang sizes refer to that of the faction itself
I believe about everyone in that thread, including John Harper, has actually stated the opposite. “There are more than 40 people in Six Towers”, and all that.
I was responding more directly to your comment, differentiating that it’s not Bluecoat response, it’s the faction’s response (that which They can muster)
Also, I don’t think anyone thought that was what the numbers meant either [that the numbers for gang size by Tier represented the number of people total in it], the confusion I had was about how Scurlock could be T3, at the same time as the citizenry of a neighborhood which was clearly far more people – and so the numbers were seeming to be abstracts for response (and they are not – they are the actual size in number of people for expected response)
Yep, and in this light I can’t see how Six Towers can be expected to muster more people in response than Charhollow. Especially given that they are much more likely to respond by calling the Watch.
Evan Louscher Thank you for your nice example. I think I would run this situation quite the same.
As for the Skovlanders, I buy into them being great in number, but other consequences of being in Tier 4 seem far-fetched. They are refugees of war, people who have abandoned what little they had in order to get as far away from violence as possible. They are destitute, underfed, underemployed, stygmatized, distrusted. And we know that they are not necessarily “all for one” in any situation, as Ulf and the Grinders are separate, if allied, factions. So, numbers, sure. Wealth and influence? Unlikely.
Dmitry Gerasimov I appreciate the vote of confidence. This system has been a real departure from my usual games and style and its not quite worn-in yet. 🙂
I guess I take the tier rating of the citizen groups a bit differently (and totally recognize that this is me interpreting system and making a house rule, so please take it with a grain of salt). If your crew rolled into Charhollow (Tier 1) and started to cause a major ruckus (wrecking buildings, lighting fires, etc), you might get a mob of 10 people turning out with makeshift clubs and boning knives to protect their homes.
If you tried the same behavior in Charterhall (Tier 4), I agree that saying 80 angry, wealthy and soft aristocrats coming at you is downright silly. What you would get are their hired guards, bored second and third sons looking to prove themselves and the able bodied household staff turning out to protect their income and safe jobs. Would there be 80 of them? Probably not in any one neighborhood. But they would be armed well, with dueling pistols and the well made swords and knives of nobility (giving them quality and potency bonuses instead of scale).
Of course, in both of these situations, the Bluecoats would be responding as well – simply at different speeds.
Re: The Skovlanders – by your description, I agree entirely that tier IV does not encapsulate them (maybe a 3 based on scale?). I read the tier rating in the factions section and immediately installed my own narrative – the Skovland Refugees are incredibly organized and well equipped with illicit and foreign gear and magics. They are laying low, have goals that fit the narrative of a particular game, but are a sleeping bear that will react badly when poked.
The only real description we have is “Desperate refugees from the Unity War, turned to criminal opportunities when denied all others.”, which is incredibly open to interpretation. I’ve read it as “they are organizing into a criminal enterprise out of necessity, but have the massive person-power and equipment to essentially be a desperate standing army spread throughout the city”.
Thank you, Evan Louscher! Tiers definitely make sense as a measure of strength of hired guards, etc. As for the Skovs, I see that we have somewhat different notions of them, but I can surely understand yours.