John Harper What guide lines are there for acquiring permanent high quality equipment?
Can a Hound (or anyone) acquire better than fine quality gear permanently?
Or is this a function of their character’s personal vault effecting their quality of life?
Should a scoundrel who decides to spend 10 coin on a exquisite (tier +2) light armor be able to acquire it?
Obviously most of this could be arbitrated by the GM I just haven’t seen any guideline in the Blades core rules that really covers this?
Would almost certainly have to be a long term project. Otherwise, where are they even getting such rare goods?
Also, what do you see said armor doing?
A couple different ways you could tackle it.
The inventing/crafting rules allow you to create things that are higher than Tier +1 (which is what “Fine” effectively does).
Or, like Mike Pureka, suggested, I’d call it a long term project (length of which depending on what you’re trying to get).
But if the player has the coin to spend, why make it when you could just buy it?
Sean Nittner for armor I see a couple of vectors, take less gear slots, negate one additional harm, or get +1d for resistance rolls possibly when used.
John Potter, fine armor would let you contend with a Tier +1 enemy. AFAIK, you can also stack “fine” equipment from a playbook with crew upgrades, which should grant a Tier +2.
For what you want I would see that as a bad-ass artifact, possibly pre-collapse, which would be awesome. Or not. 🙂 You can always just things out and see what works.
That went afield, apologies! 🙂
John Potter, my take on it is that technology is this weird thing that seems really great when it’s supported but it’s next to useless when it isn’t. I love my ipad but the moment wifi is down, the thing is a paperweight.
So if you wanted really fine armor, but you’re not in a state to take care of it (i.e. you trying to get something above your tier) you can just buy it sure (use the Acquire Asset action and pay till you get up to Tier +2) but you won’t have the technical savvy or staff to maintain it with along with your normal expenses. Thus each time you want to use it, re-Acquire the armor (taking it to someone to get fixed, etc).
If you want to make sure that you’re prepared to not only own it, but also maintain it, that where a long term project makes sense. Maybe you get someone who will take care of it, or you learn the steps to do it yourself, etc.
Sean Nittner but doesn’t the 10 coin example get you there anyways? 1 coin for a downtime action, you roll poor and roll a 1 for 1 tick, spend 3 more coin to increase the effectiveness resulting in a crit effect and 4 ticks on said clock, you send 1 coin again for a DT action and roll a 1 again, spend 3 more coin to increase effect again for 4 more ticks
With 8 coin you have gotten 8 ticks on a long term progress clock in the worst case scenario.
I don’t see the difference as 8 coins spent = an eight segment long term project at worst.
That is unless I am missing something about how downtime actions and upgrading skill rolls during downtime work.
Yeah, that would be more than enough coin. I was just talking about the mechanisms you’d engage to get it (acquire asset to have it once or long term project to add it permanently to your gear)
If what’s fundamentally in question is – I have x resources. Can I have y item? – I would agree there is not a great deal of difference between engaging the long term project mechanisms and simply exchanging currency. There is some mechanical interest in finding out how much Coin the item will cost you. Using the long term project mechanism engages the gambler’s brain. It also provides an opportunity for the other players to help you using their down time actions.
I still think there is value in engaging the system for long term projects that goes beyond the raw mechanisms. Certain expectations go along with engaging the system. When you work on a long term project we get to find out how you go about it. Do you rough up some street toughs using Skirmish to find out where the shopkeep keeps his keys? Do you reach out to some local fences using Consort to setup a meet? Are you being helped by a friend or ally? If you spend Coin for effect – how are you doing that?
If you are spending Coin on extra down time actions that implies you are delaying the next score and have to spend additional resources maintaining your holdings. what does the rest of your Crew think of that? Does that present an opportunity for one of your enemies? Do you have to depend on an ally for support? Where does that Coin go?
All of this generates fiction that may be of interest for its own sake. There is also possible fallout in the process that might have an impact on play down the road. We may choose to elide this fiction if it does not interest us, but there is plenty there that might be interesting.
A final thing to consider is that in Duskvol someone always gains what you lose. I would probably allow a player to outright purchase something, but that Coin might end up going somewhere they would not necessarily like, possibly allowing one of their Crew’s enemy factions to gain some ground towards raising in Tier. I would definitely warn them first though.
Sorry for the wall of text. I had some thoughts.
All good points. I like the idea of not just going on a shopping trip. I can also see the fact that you’re a criminal being another reason you can’t just go buy a suit of electroplasmic armor, instead using LTPs to navigate whatever is needed to acquire the desired items(s).
Again, it will be known in Doskvol that such an item not only exists but that there was a buyer / a provider / a meeting of both / an agreement. Maybe some High Rank Bluecoat (TM) wants to have it, too. Can’t let that stay in the hand of filthy criminimal, right?
One likely problem with spending 10 coin to buy an exquisite item is: who the heck is going to sell a lowlife like you an exquisite item?
Those things are rare and valuable and incredibly specialized. You can’t get this at the supermarket; you need to go through dealers and expert high-class outfitters and who knows what else, who aren’t going to give a Tier 0 ruffian the time of day, let alone haggle with them over masterpieces of their craft.
So, viewing this as a long-term project (or a very lengthy acquire asset roll) makes a lot of sense.
Ziv Wities I totally get what you are throwing down, but I think we should be somewhat careful about justifying current design, but instead see what we can do to allow direct purchasing in a way that works with the rest of the system. I see it as a possible design challenge.
We want the decision to outright purchase a long term asset to matter. There needs to be a cost, both from a mechanical perspective as well as in the fiction. When outright purchasing you are playing it safe, relying on an open market rather than a match making market. The forces of supply and demand will have a much stronger impact.
Personally, my instinct is to make the gamble of the long term project to feel like the better choice on average, but purchasing to feel like the safer choice. We probably want purchasing to fit somewhere like a standard deviation above the median for acquiring something with a long term project as a starting point and probably want costs to be relative to Tier.
I might just have to draft up some rules for Acquiring Long Term assets. Why did you get me thinking?
Although I will probably be pursuing this as a design challenge I totally get why Blades does not have rules for purchasing of long term assets. You are playing scoundrels who live at the margins of society. You live your lives on the razor’s edge. Nothing is certain and nothing is cheap. Safety and security are things other people get to have. You must claw and scrape for every advantage, but it’s okay. You are a daring scoundrel and you might get what you need to survive. You might not. We play to find.
Beyond all the in-game, fiction-based reasons, there’s also another point here, which may be a little meta or design-y:
The game draws a distinction between “get something single-use right away” and “get something long-term, and it’ll take you a while.” *It draws that distinction very intentionally,* and changing it will affect how the game feels and balances.
I know being able to buy something feels sensible. It’s something you should be capable of doing, in-game. But… Blades is not much of a simulationist game. Things work using fiction-logic, scoundrel-logic; not “well, listen, Baszo Baz shelled out for a really good assassin so now you’re all dead.”
The game is deliberately weighted so that getting things long-term is (a) harder, and (b) loosely-defined — so spending money is one option, but the game encourages other expenditures just as much. That also changes how you treat your resources — as something you had to spend time and effort to achieve in their own right; not as an awesome reward for doing some other thing.
Being able to spend money to buy long-term assets would make sense, but it very explicitly isn’t how the game is written. It’s not about making sense; it’s about guiding the game towards a certain type of thinking, atmosphere, and opportunity. Figuring out how many coin you need to buy exquisite armor is like figuring out how many hit-points the Dimmer Sisters have — it’s not that it can’t be done, it’s that it’s taking a system that’s intentionally very flexible, and trying to nail it down to set, solid numbers. It’s trying to introduce a ::hushed voice:: economy (man, wait until all the other crews figure out you’re walking around in armor that’s worth more coin than most treasuries…). It can be done, but it changes the tone and dynamic of a game. You’re trying to make something easy which the system specifically tries to make a little harder; why, really, is it a problem for something in the game to be difficult?
I would recommend anyone who is interested in markets to pick up Who Gets What – and Why: The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design. It really gives an in depth treatment of how economists now understand the series of markets that make up our lives.
In reality most decisions we make in life are not subject to a simple supply and demand curve because they are subject to matchmaking markets which are all about how we choose the things that choose us back. One of the core concepts that we should understand when it comes to markets is that in any market we all get to choose our level of participation.
Matchmaking markets are actually a series of related markets. Consider the labor market. It is actually comprised of markets of autonomy, wages, satisfaction with the overall work, etc. When we reach certain thresholds in a given market, other markets take priority.
I would actually recommend it for anyone who is interested in Systems Analysis and Design, Business, Game Design, or Game Mastering.
I’m still working through it, but eventually I plan to write a blog post on Google+ considering its impact on game design.
amazon.com – Who Gets What – and Why: The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design Reprint, Alvin E. Roth – Amazon.com
Ziv Wities I would disagree that the mechanics of the game or the way it game is written does not directly infer a difficulty in simply purchasing something a player wants. In fact I would say that it has two very specific ways to allow a player to get what they want as long as they chose to do it. Spend downtime actions on a long term project or spend currency. I would argue that the intended setting by default infers a difficulty in getting expensive things.
But I simply counter with if a player has gotten either lucky enough or worked hard enough to get the coin then mechanically there is no reason to say no to an expensive purchase as a permanent asset. Its not like I am envisioning them wanting to buy a Leviathan Hunter ship… wait for it…