Smack my brain into gear! 🙂
We’re having trouble wrapping our heads around hunting grounds for Assassins. Other crew types can generate their own scores for profit on a preferred place to crime, however unless assassins are hired they’re really just sociopathic dicks. To us it’s a huge fictional stretch that there would be a viable amount of “assassiny things” in a 3-4 block area.
Maybe we’re missing the obvious or does anybody else have difficulty finding logical ways to deal with assassin hunting grounds? Thanks in advance, awesome people!
Well I guess by the choice of Assassins as a crew in the first instance, your group is making a statement about Duskwall that there IS enough assassiny work to support that crew. Why could that be?
Perhaps Duskwall is super overcrowded and murder is seen to be as common as theft, or that life carries little value so that unidentifiable murders are well worth the coin to instigate.
So the hunting grounds are just where you can pick up a downtime ‘score’ action to generate a few coin, or a lead on a juicy new assassination score.
My take would probably be that the consequences of murder – the inevitable creation of a ghost is the real need for assassination. Make the liberation of ghosts from their mortal coil super valuable (if not to the crew then to some third party).
I can’t remember if there is a Whisper in your gang Ben? They could be the glue that connects the act of murder with the resultant ectoplasmic aftermath.
The Hunting Grounds are also their turf – where no one else can do their sort of work. So I’d look at giving them hunting grounds in one of two ways:
(1) Start with “low level” assassinations, as befitting their tier – which is to say, put their Hunting Grounds in the middle of a turf war, and have crime bosses hire them for a series of low level hits on collection guys, bookies, etc. before slowly escalating up the chain of command.
(2) Surgically-placed beatings are probably in the wheelhouse of assassins, and befit getting hired by a gang that’s moving into another gang’s territory.
(3) Put their hunting grounds somewhere super upscale and politically connected – and have them get their foot in the door doing political hits. Once the Governor (or whoever) finds them useful, they might get brought in to run all sorts of crazy with various politically connected folks. This would probably be a good fit for the Accidents and Ransom specialties.
(4) Maybe Assassins just don’t get that bonus for doing their kills on their home turf at the outset of the game – (sucks to be them) – and their Hunting Grounds just reflects the turf they own; if they want that bonus, they’ll just have to focus on aggressively expanding their territory…
Maybe their Hunting Ground is simply the place where they are at most advantage if they can lure their target there?
Don’t forget they aren’t restricted to only doing hits. Just because they’re assassins doesn’t mean they can’t set themselves up for some protection racketeering. Maybe they perform a very public execution of a target and convince people to pay to stay safe. Maybe they do a normal hit but leave a message. Maybe the hit is to remove the previous crew running an existing racket.
There’s also the political manoeuvring that other people have suggested, be that actual political or criminal political. If that’s what you’re in to, that could be amazingly fun.
These are also people who live in the shadows and strike unseen, so things like robberies might be an option, or even kidnapping.
If too much killing in one district doesn’t make sense to your crew, they either need to seize more turf or branch out in to other territories.
Also, Assassins are like Smugglers: they don’t necessarily do all their business or find all their clientele in their home district. More than likely, they should be getting jobs from people all over the city–and if they don’t have the reputation for that yet, well, going out and looking for clients is part of the hustle that young crews have to go through.
I mean, to my mind, Assassins are as much about hiring out their services to players in the faction game, so instead of thinking about it like setting up shop and stabbing people within a certain traits radius, the players should be looking to their contacts and faction relations. See who hates who, and capitalize on that hate by trading blood for silver.
Or put yet another way: play them like Hawkers, and the vice they deal is murder.
In case I derped my meaning, it’s that the bonuses other crews easily get from performing their one favored thing on their hunting grounds (or whatever version, depending on crew type) is harder for us to justify as often for assassins. Bravos and Shadows both have hunting grounds and each can generate their scores. They can do legwork and jobs for themselves on their hunting grounds. Assassins can’t; they need to be hired. We just can’t imagine that many people hiring murderers, needing a kidnapping, etc. Some? Sure, but for hunting grounds to be viable they should be usable more often than not.
Nathan Roberts, it’s not assassination in general. That’s a definite thing and a big tag, to be sure. It’s having that many people want other people killed, all in a four-block area. But maybe there are a shitload of jerks who want their neighbors offed. lol
Oh, yeah. No whispers! Makes me sad, my friend!
J Stein, hunting grounds aren’t turf. In fact, you’re on somebody else’s turf. That’s why you pay to play or make enemies. Your idea of the gang war bit could work and I really like the political assassination idea. Thanks for those ideas. 🙂
MisterTia86, we thought of this. It’s a stretch but doable. I’m just trying go make it less of a stretch for them to use their hunting grounds.
Jason Lee, it’s not killing it’s the number of people hiring killers.
James Etheridge, that’s a direction we were thinking of. Sweet. 🙂
Anyhoo, I appreciate the ideas, from everyone.
I was about to disagree about whether turf = hunting grounds or not, and I realized the book is actually unclear about it.
Points in each direction:
Turf=HG
“When you acquire turf, you also expand the size of your hunting grounds.” Also, the two are just… I don’t know, equivalent concepts in my mind? The area you do your jobs is the area you control, and vice versa.
Turf!=HG
Your claims map includes “lair” alongside “turf,” suggesting the two are somehow directly related (though I don’t think they are.)
I’m not really swayed about the “kicking up cred” bit. Everyone kicks up cred: everyone is on the turf of someone bigger than they are, even if the crew thinks of it as “their” turf – it’s just the piece that got allotted to them by the crew bigger than they are. A Tier 1 crew could fight out another crew for a piece of land, but only because the Tier 4 crew that ultimately owns it allows it (or fails to stop it.)
So, really, I guess you could consider turf, hunting grounds, and lair as three separate but overlapping-if-you-want-them-to-be or distinct-if-you-want-them-to-be things, ’cause the book doesn’t actually define it one way or the other.
On a separate note: other crews get “Cargos instead of hunting grounds,”(smugglers) or “Sales territory instead of hunting grounds” (hawkers). It wouldn’t be unreasonable for your group to just add Assassins to the list of crews that have job type bonuses alone, without an associated geographic area.
It could be fun to divide turf for assassins into “groups that hire assassins.” Aristocratic factions (whether groups of families or subgroups within a big family) and government organs with poor oversight, or religious zealots, or powerful individuals. Having turf means they come to you first and see a future in working with you so that halves the chance they’ll get rid of you to cover up their involvement.
You get turf with a group, then they only hire someone not-you if you pass on a job.
Andrew Shields,J Stein…yep. After a conversation that’s the direction we’re going. I jumped on the forum grenade and it’s now up to the players to figure out what they want. 🙂
Ben Liepis Have fun! Maybe pop back and let us know what they decide.
Jason Lee, I will. Thanks!
Here’s what we’re going with.
Preferred Prey
Choose a preferred method as normal (murder, accident, etc.) then a Background from page 54 as your Preferred Prey. You understand their ways and can use them to your advantage, gaining the benefits of a hunting ground (page 93) when accepting a score dealing with your preferred prey. Upon acquiring Turf, add another Background type of preferred prey (the Turf gained from crew abilities such as Fiends does not count for this purpose).
I think that’s a great idea. Going along with the above suggestions–in John’s Rollplay game, The Assassins’ initial “Hunting Grounds” was a list of targets provided by their patron
Jacob Spafford, I really need to continue watching actual play videos. I miss so many great examples and ideas.
An assassins turf might well be where people go to employ them, put the word out that they need a hit etc. Their turf is just the area where they have cutouts who actually meet with clients, fixers who can take the payment and bolt-holes should the meet turn out to be a set-up. They don’t need to actually work their own area right? They can accept contracts for other places.