How hard do you guys make people work for non-playbook items?

How hard do you guys make people work for non-playbook items?

How hard do you guys make people work for non-playbook items?

For example, I have a Whisper who wants to be sort of a Whisper-Lurk, sort of the Corso-esque magical assassin, and wants to acquire a Fine Shadowcloak. I’m trying to figure out how many clocks this sort of thing should take. Maybe an 8-clock for acquiring a fine item? Or a 12-clock for acquiring something that isn’t normally available to them which is also fine? Or two or three 8-clocks?

Any advice/input would be appreciated. Thanks!

13 thoughts on “How hard do you guys make people work for non-playbook items?”

  2. I believe an earlier version of the rules allowed you to spend an advance to add two(?) items from another playbook to your list. I’d be fine with bringing that rule back, for cases like this where it’s basically standard equipment that the player wants as a permanent part of their arsenal.

  3. Page 154 has an example where a player starts an 8-clock to add a fine sword to her permanent items. I wouldn’t do anything less than an 8-clock, but if it were something particularly substantial, I could see it being larger. The Spider’s fine cover identity, for example, might require two or three clocks to represent setting up the network which would allow the character to create and use different identities.

    In general though I think just the 8-clock is sufficient. Let people have their cool new items–they’re already limited by load, so having options isn’t too big a deal.

  4. Merging playbooks is a thing too. Once the player ‘switches’ to the new playbook – items can become available with fictional positioning. A downtime personal clock is a neat way to handle the mechanical side of things, but the story threads generated from that? Gold.

  5. I would not charge less than a 8-clock for fine stuff like that. BUT: I love cool stories how this is made possible, so I may give a discount for a good/interessting story or a new story hook (what, you gambled for it and he’s looking for you now, yeah ok)

    BUT(2): If the PCs don’t bother with a story at all or it’s just a lame on, the price goes waaaaaaaaayyy up, like 2 or 3 three clocks (find a vendor, get access to him/her, maybe do a score for it).

  6. In one of the most endearing stories of the Doskvol Spectral Society, Elke (Karen Twelves) sought out a shadowcloak to give as gift to Arquo (Adrienne Mueller) as thanks for all the sacrifices he had made for the game. We handled it as an 8 clock and had lots of fun first watching her round up bolts of shadow silk from Irruvians, then taking them to Dundrige and Sons to have one made, and finally needed Jadvyga (Eric Fattig) to sneak into Arquo’s home, steal his old Lampblack coat, so they could use the meansurements from that (as she wanted it to a surprise and Malcome Dundridge doesn’t know the meaning of “off the shelf” clothing).

    8 ticks felt like quite enough to create this very special gift.

  7. Thank you all for your help! This is such a fantastic community!

    I’m curious, Sean Nittner, did it turn into an entire score then? It sounds like it was a lot of fun. I’ve got to work on my time-management because you guys always seem to get so much more role-play in during a 4-hour session than I seem able to manage.

  8. Etrius MacGuffin it took three downtime actions (consort, a lifestyle roll, and prowl I think) to fill the clocks which were done during the downtimes between two (maybe three scores). So while not a score itself, we gave it enough attention that it really felt like a big deal when Elke presented it to the very confounded Arquo (who had just convinced himself she wasn’t into him).

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