Why does the game start a new crew at Tier 0 AND weak hold? I didn’t notice that until reading through the final book. My players are about to fill up their Rep bar, and are looking forward to advancing in Tier and finally not having to roll 2 dice and take the lowest every time they’re rolling Tier. Tier 0 is having nothing. It doesn’t make sense to me that a crew can have weak hold on nothing. I’m considering treating a Tier 0 crew as always having strong hold, so they can get out of Tier 0 reasonably fast. Will that mess anything else up in the game? We’ve already had four sessions of about 90 minutes. How long is it ‘supposed’ to take a new crew to get to Tier 1?
Why does the game start a new crew at Tier 0 AND weak hold?
Why does the game start a new crew at Tier 0 AND weak hold?
I think the real question is, how does someone have a Strong hold on nothing?
Its easy to get the shit kicked out of you and be left scrabbling in the dirt when you’ve got nothing going for you.
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I think the simple answer is that it’s less that you have a “weak hold” on your position, and more that you just have a long way to go before anyone takes you seriously enough to advance your position.
The same reason that D&D characters start at level 1. The short answer is that you don’t have to start them there, if you want to give them a bit of history together.
I’m not asking about people starting at the start. I’m asking why it’s weak hold on Tier 0. That just doesn’t make sense to me. To have a weak hold on a position implies you can lose that position. A Tier 0 crew can’t drop to less than Tier 0. I’m suggesting there shouldn’t be a “hold” for Tier 0. You’re just Tier 0. When you fill up your rep bar, you can go up to Tier 1, and THEN you’ll have weak hold on that higher Tier. Thoughts?
It won’t mess anything up. You all fully within your rights to make advancement for your group as slow or as fast as you’d like. I’d discuss it with your group and all decide together how you’d like to do it.
You have your headquarters, your gang, your gear, allies…that’s not “nothing”. If you lose that, your gang is over, you fall apart, your life of crime is over, you all end up in jail or settle in some bullshit dead end job, scrubing the floors of a bakery somewhere.
You could just rename the tiers, raise all the numbers by one (so tier 0 is 1, tier 1 is 2 etc.) if the “nothing” bit causes a disconnect.
I just disagree with you… Isn’t Tier an abstract representation of influence and power? Tier 0 means you have basically no influence and power. Your name doesn’t mean anything in the criminal underworld, or in the city at large. A Tier 0 crew can lose its headquarter, and its gear, and have its hired gangsters murdered, but it’s still a handful of lowlifes working together. Their life of crime is over only if the characters choose to settle in some bullshit job scrubbing floors. More to the point, though, in game mechanics a crew can’t go below Tier 0. Even losing all the things you’re talking about doesn’t reduce Tier if you’re already at 0. Because Tier isn’t the stuff itself–it’s the level of influence that allows you to have the stuff.
Mike Pureka I like your answer. There’s just a long way to go before anyone will take them seriously. I’ll have to talk to my players about this.
Sure, get rid of Hold for Tier 0, and double the amount of Rep you need to make it to Tier 1. So, you have neither Weak nor Strong Hold on Tier 0. After you fill up the Rep bar, you are halfway to being Tier 1.
There is a difference between weak and strong 0 tier, in the section on losing hold it says, “If your crew is Tier 0, with weak hold, and you lose hold for any reason, your lair comes under threat by your enemies or by a faction seeking to profit from your misfortune.”
So one way to look at it is, even a Weak Tier 0 gang is still a gang, if you “lose hold” your reputation becomes “a group of idiots who think they’re a gang and should be taught otherwise”.
Ooh, I didn’t see that part! Thank you, that makes better sense of it.