So I’m in an assassins crew, and I’m GMing a Shadow crew. Both crews want anonymity in the public eye – they’re very much oriented to being a “service” provider. Now some of the claims look good, having turf can be mechanically useful – but what does it mean to take turf from another gang in these scenarios? Why would murder-for-hire (accidents, low heat, very professional) want to have a stake on some streets?
What does turf look like to them?
getting rid of the competition is a general concept for that.
You know, none of the gangs listed in the quickstart are listed as assasins? Typically hawkers or breakers – the traditional “business model” roles for a gang.
Turf doesn’t have to be like hard lines in a map. Often multiple gangs control the same turf but for different purposes. Like if you want drugs in crowsfoot youre gonna deal with Hawker Gang X. But in that same space if you want contract killing, you’ll be dealing with Assassin gang Y. In that sense if someone started offering contract killings right down the block from you that would be infringing on your turf. In short perhaps for an assassin crew you could think of turf like local marketshare
this is also the “Nothing happens in these streets w/o [X] knowing about it…. its [X]’s turf” type of thing. Though some of these granularity issues is where hunting grounds and turf sort of… meld in my mind.
Turf doesn’t have to be about use of a space, it’s about the respect that having something set aside for your gang brings.
Tindal’s shop has a notice board. People put up flyers for missing people, rewards for jobs done, things like that. Every once in a while, even the far-out jobs get done. No one messes with Tindal or that shop, even though they pay through the nose for protection just down the street. Some people whisper that she’s connected to…
There used to be a bunch of old farts that got drunk and pushed around the neighborhood kids in that alley. One day they disappeared. Their apartments are still empty, but Sleepy snuck in one last week. He says it was full of stuff, like drugs and guns and cool stuff like that. The landlady caught him and told him he better never do it again if he doesn’t want to get visited by…
Listen, kid, if you want to survive down here at the Cannery, you’ll do like all us old-timers. Bring a big lunch and dump half down pipe number 7. Yeah yeah, laugh if you want. The ghosts never take anyone who does that, though. You mean you’ve never heard of the ghosts? Sometimes they get called…
I’m sorry, madam. I do understand who you work for, but that table is reserved. It’s the chef’s special table. He’d skin me alive and serve me with a mushroom sauce if you took it. It’s only for…
For an example in sharing turf, players in my game (The Bone Diggers, a Smugglers crew) did a deal with the local Forgotten Gods cult that they helped them out big and the cult handed over the protection racket they had going on in part of their turf. To the eyes of the various shopkeepers and others who lived in the district little changed at first. They still gave an healthy number coins to the creepy beggars who spoke in strange tongues, knowing that something bad would befall them if they didn’t. But the scrapping off the top went to the The Bone Diggers rather than the Forgotten Gods cult. The crew then slowly went door to door to the bigger shops and hawkers and other players in the district to tell them they didn’t have to pay alms anymore as long as they just gave directly to the new crew in charge. The cult members never left the area and they still had some influence as the Bone Diggers didn’t care much about the cult doing their thing but it was the Bone Diggers but everyone knew who was in charge.
For an assassins crew that doesn’t want to dirty their hands with maintaining a protection racket, this could easily be gaining influence and renown so that any hits in the district only go to their crew. “Sure the Red Sashes may kill people when the situation demands it but if you want to hire a real quality hit in Crow’s Foot you need to talk to the Stone’s Deep crew.”
Also, have you considered opening this question to the table?
Asking the players what they think a fence will do for them, and what “claiming” the fence means, and what they have to do to get the claim – that drove the plot for some of our best game sessions.
The players probably already have ideas about how they want to see these claims fictionally represented. Let them reduce your workload while delivering what they want.
You’ll find good inspiration on p. 64 of the QS, Table Turf Claims:
“For each, answer the question: What kind of operation would result in this claim?”.
In the table itself you’ll find entries like “No one dares to cross you around here…” or “An influential noble sees things your way…” which sounds applicable either for Shadows and/or Assassins.
Cheers for the suggestions.