Pondering over the claims map for Shadows (p. 54). Every claim has to be wrestled from some other faction, sure, this is great for gameplay purposes. But fiction-wise, how to justify it in case of the luxury fence? In real life, receivers control thieves, rather than the other way round, and any receiver would be happy to extend their business by drawing another aspiring gang into their network. One solution that immediately springs to mind is a fence who can afford to deal in only so many stolen luxury items per month lest they would arouse suspicions in authorities. Any other ideas?
Also, what exactly is meant by covert drops? I picture hidden places where messages and small items can be dropped and picked up, but how are these supposed to bring extra profit from espionage and sabotage jobs?
I will preface everything by first saying I know nothing about how actual crimes are done.
I picture a fence being a single guy who has connections and talents for selling illegal goods, but he himself isn’t necessarily a powerful man. Now there is a powerful organization that employs him and makes it clear they don’t want him working for anyone else, and he does so out of fear or loyalty or whatever.
I agree with you on covert drops, not sure why that would give you extra coin. -2 heat would make more sense. You could change that for your players, or you could ignore it’s nonsensical nature and just give players the extra cash.
There are several items on the Shadow sheet like that. Informants, too, are something that everyone presumably has access to even without the claim. I’d play these claims as exclusive, or near exclusive, use.
The luxury fence provides more coin because they aren’t wasting their cash buying from every small-timer, just a short list of half a dozen proven actors. Covert drops are the same drop locations the crew might’ve used before but there are now have allies guarding or promoting them. They’re more profitable because everyone knows that if you leave a package there it’ll get to the people you’re trying to contact rather than being skimmed by the first hungry urchin to spot it. Alternatively, your drop location might produce some coin; everyone knows that if you post jobs on the butcher’s board, they get done. The butcher throws in an extra cut of the business it drums up.
That “they don’t want him working for anyone else” doesn’t sound convincing, since a fence doesn’t work for thieves: rather, they work for him. He buys their catch for a fraction of its market value, because they have no safe channels to cash it themselves; he already runs some legitimate business as a cover; in many cases he can threaten them with selling them out to the police, for the criminal character of their activities is apparent and easily provable, unlike his. But your replies have sparked some ideas, thank you, Mark Griffin, John Dornberger
OK, two more possibilities:
– the fence must pay local thugs from faction X for protection, hence offers very low prices. You may fence to him allright at any time, but you won’t get any extra Coin from this, unless you drive faction X away AND provide a comparable protection of your own (and/or persuade the Bluecoats to look away from him);
– the fence works in “partnership” with faction X. Once you fence to him, they approach you with blackmail to inform the Bluecoats of your deal. You get your bonus Coin, but from now on faction X directs your operations, effectively making you one of their thief cohorts. Unless you find ways to persuade them to end their “partnership”. (Thanks to Mark Griffin for inspiration)
I had a similar issue with this. In the end I had the fence be forced into a Ghost Contract with the Hive, and the crew had to break said contract, to save the fence (who was now selling to the Hive exclusively at a loss), and get him to fence for them.
He can sell them out to the blue coats, they can slit his throat. Also the cops are easy to bribe and all on the take, and several factions are bigger than the cops. I still submit that a lone fence could be owned by a group such as the Hive, the Unseen or another large faction. Those groups certainly don’t work for a fence. Even a small faction could be holding a loved one of the fence to force his cooperation.
There is no gainsaying that a lone fence could be owned by a large faction, but why should such a faction be against him receiving goods from small-time thieves (which is what fences are for)? On the contrary, they should welcome it!
Also, if the Bluecoats are so easily bribable as to exposition not to be a threat, then why would fences exist in the first place? Just sell the stolen property in the open and bribe anyone who becomes too nosy.
Dmitry Gerasimov Saves People Money In bribery.
The faction would be against it because they don’t want their competitors to get the best deals that their fence has to offer. They’re essentially monopolising the fence “market” so that they get all the good deals and no one else does.
Bluecoats are easily bribable, but that doesn’t mean cheaply, and they aren’t the only problem with selling in the open. Ongoing “keep your head down” bribes might be easily affordable for a crew that deals in coin, but it takes multiple coin to shut up a Bluecoat that takes an interest and wants to push (just look at how expensive it is to shut them up if they’re an entanglement). Also, just because the Bluecoats don’t care doesn’t mean the Inspectors won’t. Also the local protection gang that was getting paid by those nobles you robbed. Also the Dockers who got chewed out or fired by their boss when those crates went missing. The law in Doskvol may not always matter, but the people hurt by the crime will care.
A fence doesn’t sell in the open like a pawn shop. They don’t attract the attention of the injured parties because they sell directly to people in the know. Their livelihood is made with the contacts they have time to make while you’re planning and executing robberies. Less storefront, more design and consultant to the wealthy. These are luxuries, after all. They’re a completely above-board tailor that also sells below-board accessories to complete the look; they’re designers who help the nobility decorate their new foyer for the week at an additional profit (and avoiding shipping time!) by having some other noble’s couches stolen. Still, they only have so much coin and storage space. If they bought from any and everyone, that eats into their dough and they can’t be so generous. If it got around that they’d buy from anyone, your crew wouldn’t have such a strong hold on them. And if they made it known that they’d buy from anyone, what’s your crew going to do about it?
Here are some more suggestions broken down by faction that controls the fence
Bluecoats – A group of bluecoats have evidence of a crime committed by a fence (could be real or manufactured) and they use him to sell off contraband they funnel out of their evidence locker. The bluecoat in charge of this operation is greedy and confiscates any other illegal goods the other factions bring to this fence, threatening him with jail if he holds out. Your crew either needs to find and destroy the evidence, pin the fence’s actual crimes on someone else, remove the specific bluecoats from the picture, or convince the bluecoats to let them use the fence as well.
Inspectors – The fence is actually and undercover inspector. The crew is free to use him and get +2 coin for their scores, but they also receive +4 heat as the inspector reports their crimes up the chain. The crew will need to get leverage over the fence or otherwise corrupt him so they can use him without the excess heat. They could also murder all his handlers so no knows he’s actually an inspector (Departed style).
Forgotten Gods – The fence is a fanatic of some god or another and refuses to deal with anyone else. Convince him that you are one of the faithful, brainwash him (or break his brainwashing) or gain some other kind of leverage to gain his services.
Ironhook Prison – A well connected and respected fence is currently in prison, break him out!
Twist: He was arrested for a minor crime but has been locked up for years because the warden is using his connections to sell off artifacts scavenged from the deathlands by his prisoners.
Twist 2: Some faction outside the walls wants him dead, and he leads a comfortable life working for the warden, he doesn’t want to leave.
The point being the story can be messy and complicated because you’re not describing every fence, you’re describing THIS fence. A workable solution can probably be invented for any faction you’d like.
Antimatter, John Dornberger That bit about “bribability” was in deirect response to Mark Griffin’s statement that thieves should not be afraid of blackmail on part of their fence. Now, I still would say that “monopolizing the fence market” is a peculiar construct, as a fence is generally a larger, higher-tier player than those who fence to him. And the bit about ‘being so generous” is off the mark: a fence buys from you only because he knows how to sell it for a higher price, so it is rejecting good stuff because it was delivered by wrong people that means lost money (and fuel for potential competitors). Yet I admit that with a fence specializing in unique articles of luxury and relying on his face-to-face contacts in high society, the general dynamics you are describing might work.
Mark Griffin That’s surely the principle, and your particular suggestions are excellent!
I too, (based on a notorious historical precedent) have been thinking about a fence who is an Inspector, running a gang of thieves under the guise of “informants network”, returning some stolen items to their rightful owners as if “recovered in a Watch op”, and framing rival criminals for burglaries they haven’t commited.
Dmitry Gerasimov The “monopolising the fence market” part was refering to a larger, high tier gang, owning/hiring the fence, or forcing the fence to work exclusively for them, thereby denying enemy factions profit.
Sure, the fence may be bigger than some tier 0 to 2 gangs, even on par with some tier 3, but a tier 4 (who are more powerful) or a tier 3 (with bribery and blackmail) could easily force a fence to work for them.
If I, as the leader of a tier IV criminal organisation, sell to a fence who makes me a big profit, I’ll want to sell to him again, and I wont want him buying from/selling to my competitors. So what do I do? I make said fence an offer he can’t refuse, because he tried to play with the big fish. Either he’ll be paid off to not work for competing factions, or he’ll be blackmailed, or he will be threatened, or he will be Ghost Contracted.
Fences are not the top of the food chain.
Antimatter They aren’t, but they buy from those below, not above them in said food chain. That’s what fencing is about. The very idea of, say, the Hive selling to a fence (and caling that a good profit) looks patently absurd.
Unless the Hive has some leverage over the fence and forces him to work for 0 profit.
Mark Griffin Good point! Actually, I would say that in case of a higher-Tier faction, seizing the fence usually means not so much taking over as creating a fence from someone with suitable skills and connections who has been fulfilling a somewhat different niche.
In my experience, in this thread alone we’ve put way more effort creating this NPC than the players will in thinking about it. Plenty of good ideas now.
My Players – Oh, if I kill this guy, and then blackmail this guy I make 2 more coin every score? Works for me!
And they never think about it again.
Mark Griffin Well, mine are never like that. They always want to see the full picture (sometimes even when their characters probably wouldn’t) and are very sensitive if some details do not click together.