Smuggling Scores
The standard “scores” all lend themselves to fairly direct ways to frame the action for Shadows, Bravos, and Assassins. But I’m finding it a bit trickier when it comes to Smuggler scores.
(Also, in the interests of keeping play Duskwall-centric, I think that most scores will be moving something from the “edge” of the city (docks, Gaddoc station) to a person or place within it, or vice versa.)
I’m currently thinking of breaking down smuggling scores into four generic “phases”, of which only one or two will be interesting to play out at the table. The phases are:
* Set up the score/opportunity
* Get the stuff at its start point
* Transport it to the destination
* Get it handed over and get the money
Most of the time, the interesting parts of the score will be the last three stages, with others done in flashback as needed.
(The first stage is the most nebulous, and includes things like persuading someone to let you have access to the goods or location.)
So, questions:
Is this a good way of thinking about smuggling scores?
Should the initial score setup fix which stage we’re opening with, or should that be up to the players?
I would say acquiring goods is a shadows thing. If they selected smugglers I would focus on the transportation. sneaking through check points or raiders are on the hunt. Early scores probably invovled higher tier factions needing goods moved. If you are smugglers I do think you need a better sense of the city as a land landscape. What’s their vehicle of choice and how to neighborhoods feel differently to move through.
Using the hunting grounds as suggestion is a good place to start. And that’s not to say thievery and assassination doesn’t happen. Or maybe they steal some whiskey and do some hawking. But smuggling is about the transportation. either over large area. Or maybe into a secure compound. A great smuggling score might be. Bazso wants some goods delivered to a friend who is currently being held in ironhook prison.
Aaron Berger Re the phases. By “getting the goods” I don’t necessarily mean thieving; it’s getting them from the source somehow.
Let’s say the score is to move some weapons from Gaddoc station to a particular safe house in Crow’s Foot. Is the interesting part of that score: (a) getting into the station, meeting the contact, and getting the guns on the cart, (b) leaving the station and traversing the city, avoiding checkpoints and undercover Bluecoats, or (c) unloading the guns and getting paid, avoiding the double-cross?
b
Most of the time, unless there’s some interesting obstacle in the way, I assume the crew can just meet a person somewhere and pick up their cargo without much trouble.
My justification for this is that the “Transportation” score type most fits smuggling jobs, and the detail is the route, not the meet. I think the meet would fall under free-play, if you wanted to explore it.
If they have to steal the goods themselves first, that’s fine. But in your example of moving goods from the train station, I would just set it up as “You go to Gaddoc looking like regular passengers, and sneak off when no one is looking,” unless there’s some interesting obstacle to tackle. At most, I’d make it a mini-setup-score.
I think the transportation part is the most interesting, and the only part that I would consider as The Score proper (everything else would be free-play for me). Who does the crew have to get through? (rival factions, Bluecoats, checkpoints, customs, inspections, etc.) Who knows about the job and is working against them? That sort of thing.
Getting paid is what I usually brush over. Unless your table is going hard into the Shadowrun-style where most of the time the crew is cheated or betrayed, I tend to just say “You get paid,” and maybe use some NPC interaction to set up later events. (The book specifically cautions against double-crosses and the like on page 146, but if that’s what you guys enjoy, you’re free to indulge. I personally want to save the double-crosses for a climactic moment down the road.)
Honestly, I think the setup and motivation for the job is more important than handing over the goods and getting paid. It has a lot more narrative weight, helps set up the stakes, and leads into how the city changes as a result of the job’s success or failure. (Though you can flash back to any of these things at any time, of course; flashbacks are great.)
Steven Dodds I included the “get the stuff” stage to head towards the Poldark story (Napoleonic smugglers in south west England) where the the key part of the scores is getting the brandy from the French boats and off the beach, past the watching customs men. Once the barrels are in the general country, the rest of the transport is normally glossed over.
(Which reminds me of another potential step, or at least a source of complication: keeping the goods safe and secret in the time between collection and delivery, with searches and informants.)
As for the types of score: there are six types of score. If smugglers only ever get to do one, that’s a lot of potential fun being left on the table. Yes, I’m sure we’ll have many transport scores, but not only them.
Well, a Smugglers crew is free to do jobs that aren’t smuggling. Maybe they want to steal something, or kill a guy. I was trying to say that most smuggling jobs are probably transportation jobs, but fair point; maybe they aren’t.
So, if the major obstacle and point-of-interest for the score is procuring the item, and the transportation is assumed to be easy, I would brush over literally everything else. Or use highly-abstracted group action rolls to fill a clock (which follows from your example, of course).
Or if both procuring and transporting the item is going to be difficult, that’s probably two scores, one as a setup to the other.
As for what the most interesting part of the score is, or where you should start the action, that’s definitely going to depend on the situation and on who’s playing, so I doubt anyone can give you a definitive answer. I’d say start with some basic establishing background, and then jump to as close to the action as possible. I also care least about the payoff, but maybe that’s just me.
Steven Dodds Ta. To clarify my original question, should the opening of the score be defined by the players or the GM? For Shadows-type scores, most of them boil down to “get into a place, do something, get out” and the action tends to open on the first stage, and sometimes the second. But that’s generally framed by the GM when presening the score. Should the same be true of smuggling/transport jobs?
In my experience, the GM usually frames every score, regardless of type. Depending on how collaborative your group is, the players may provide more details, and I usually encourage the players to decide where the focus of the score will be (“What part are you guys most interested in?”), but the GM typically knows the most about the little details and obstacles, because the GM typically makes those up.
Deciding if the smuggling job is going to be more focused on getting to the contact and goods, or more focused on moving them across the city, should probably be a collaborative decision between the GM and players. After that, I imagine the GM would take the lead in presenting the overall scenario, then the players pick their score type and detail, and it goes from there.
But the game is also about collaborative world-building, so if a player has an idea about some of the details, that can work as well. (I’m not entirely sure what you mean by players defining the opening of the score, so I’m not sure I answered your question.)
Steven Dodds Yes, that was my question, thanks. It’s similar to Rob Donoghue’s recent musing on long cons, and where you frame the opening of the action; in other words, where does the engagement roll come in the overall life of the score, and what does it decide?
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