Running a War
In my game, The Tycherosi Bat, the PC crew (Tier 1) has just decided to go to war with the Wraiths (Tier 2). (Don’t ask me why…) Some actions in this war will be the PCs doing unpleasant things to the Wraiths. Some will be the Wraiths doing unpleasant things to them.
The PC actions are easy to do: just set them up as Scores in the normal way. But how to handle the Wraith’s attacks, in terms of framing and the score/downtime cycle?
I can just pick a target for the Wraiths, make a Fortune roll, and see how effective the attack is and whether the PCs get any warning.
* Does handling the incoming attack replace the normal Score, then we do downtime afterwards?
* Do we do effectively two scores (Wraith’s attack and PCs’) then downtime
* Does dealing with the incoming attack take PC downtime actions?
* Does repairing the damage due to an attack (e.g. calming a vice purveyor who was robbed) count as a downtime action?
There will be a clock of the Wraith’s morale; when it’s full, the Wraiths will sue for peace. There’s another clock for the morale of the rest of the PCs’ crew, beyond the PCs themselves. The PCs can decide on their own when to sue for peace.
It’s whatever makes more sense to you. If the PC’s are around for the attack, you could make it an Assault Score where they must defend their turf, or if they PCs are busy doing other things and the Wraiths attack, you could make the cleanup a downtime action.
Depending on which NPCs are involved, you could had calming them down as a Social Scores, or perhaps rule it as a simple Downtime: Acquire Asset.
It’s really up to you. How much a challenge do you want to impose?
The crew I am part of was in a secret war with The Crows, The Lampblacks, and the Red Sashes, all at the same time, and all while Tier 0. We did jobs against all of them, and made it look like it was one of the other factions doing it. Used lamp oil to disguise a bombing on a Red Sash warehouse, making it look like the Lampblacks did it. At the bombing we stole Red Sash garments and weapons, and killed Crows with them. We basically took advantage of the ongoing gang war and we played a shadow game increasing tensions and undermining any possible peace, until they were all weak enough, or vulnerable enough for us to pounce on them.
when the war starts I would just show lots of approaching danger. Let them know what scores will lead to reprisal attacks. If they pick defensive scores then maybe they avoid an attack but if they ignore the warnings then I would have an attack happen right after they are done with their downtime. And I wouldn’t count it as a score. Defend the attack or lose claim. I wouldn’t make it exactly prolong either. John harper does this with the bloodletters series at one point. Just let them flash back around to prepare themselves.
Lots of legit ways to handle it. Curious what others think.
I think they’ll be calling for a truce as quick as they started it, but my group’s crew also started a war with the Wraiths.
They developed their last Score around stopping the Wraith’s “Secure an Arcane Ally” clock.
There was already an active clock where the Wraith Loop was going to blackmail the Lurk’s friend Frake & I framed a previous Entanglement result as the Wraiths having turned a friend against them.
But I hadn’t thought much yet about the Wraiths going on the offensive or how I’d handle that. I was going to wait until they got the last tick on their Arcane ally clock. Which the crew just prevented. What I’ve done previously is just downtime projects which get revealed/folded into the crew’s own score as additional complications.
A war with an enemy crew that has a hidden lair against a PC crew who also has a hidden lair is going to look different than other gang wars. First step might be a Wraiths project to find the PC’s lair. I was leaning instead towards multiple blackmail & reputation-ruining actions but wasn’t entirely decided on how I would handle that mechanically.
One downtime action is really painful after a Score goes poorly. Their last Score went goats-on-fire-bad. Incarceration. Two Trauma. Multiple serious injuries. So yeah… looking like truce time.
However you decide to handle the gang war, keep in mind that diminished downtime actions are already a big penalty so you may not want to over complicate the scoundrel’s lives on top of that.
Dealing with an attack probably shouldn’t take up the PC’s downtime. They already lose 1 downtime action each during the war, which they’ll likely often need for recovery (and healing is often harder during a war, besides). I’m also not sure what kind of action it would qualify as.
Repairing damage might be considered a downtime action if it falls under Acquire Asset or if it’s going to take a Long-Term Project, but it could also be handled in freeplay. It’ll probably be a case-by-case thing.
As for the attack being a score or not, that should be up to the players, I think. If they want to give up ground, and let the Wraiths hit them, that’s fine. If they want to spend a little game time defending, but aren’t interested in anything drawn-out, probably just do some freeplay after the score. If they want to mount a larger operation, or a counterattack, that could be a new score (which I would launch after letting them take their downtime from the previous score) (and they would get more downtime after finishing their operation).
In addition to dedicated attacks, you can narrate the Entanglements as the Wraiths hitting the crew, and/or have the Wraiths show up during regular scores to impede the players.
Thanks for the responses. I was also thinking that I should frame responses to the Wraith’s attacks as extra sequences, over and above any scores and downtime. But the PCs may want to spend downtime actions repairing any damage and/or gaining intelligence on what the Wraiths plan.
Matthew Gagan Yes, the PCs have a hidden lair, and they chose the Barge upgrade so they can keep moving it. I don’t know if the Wraiths know that it’s movable yet, so I’m not sure if they’ll spend effort tracking it down. But the Wraiths’ first action is likely to kidnap some of the PCs’ contacts to set up a hostage exchange.
Steven Dodds , I like the idea of putting Wraiths into the PCs’ scores as additional complications. It seems only fair, as one opportunity I was going to dangle in front of the PCs’ noses is the chance to ambush some of the Wraiths as they use their secret rooftop routes.
By the way, here’s a good general purpose Devil’s Bargain for any action attempting to put an end to a gang war that isn’t bargaining from a position of strength (i.e. the crew hasn’t seriously bloodied the rival gang’s nose and isn’t higher tier):
Truce: +1d And it’s understood the war is only off for now… The smallest slight or entanglement will restart hostilities.