Question regarding quality/tier as they relate to the effect of rolls.
Page 24 states that the quality of tools or other gear affects rolls relative to the relationship between the tier of the PC’s crew and whatever they’re acting against.
This seems to mean that if a new crew (tier 0) is fighting a group of Bluecoats (tier 3) in an even fight, the PC’s skirmish (or whatever) rolls to effect them will be degraded by the difference (3). So, if they are making a bog standard roll (Risky/Standard effect) that they get marked down to zero effect (really -1 effect) and have to have 2 edges (fine weapon and pushing for effect, say) to even have a limited effect on the roll? This seems like it’s pretty hard for the PC’s to have even a small chance in a fair fight. I guess this is intentional (don’t take on factions that are way above you in fair fights)?
I believe you are correct – especially as regards the last sentence.
Yeah, but think about what a fair fight is.
The blue coats and the tier 0 crew both taking to the streets to fight? The blue coats are going to surround and arrest the crew.
But the crew taking out a few blue coat guards as part of a heist isn’t a “fair fight” between the factions, and wouldn’t have the same penalty.
Indeed. And I think this is where the mechanics of the rules are also instructive about fictional positioning. It might seem harsh, but:
– The fact that the crew starts as Tier 0 really means they are right at the bottom of the ladder – the rulebook makes this explicit. They’ll need to hard-scrabble to find a foot-hold. This is by design. Tier 0 does mean they’re roughing it.
– Even once they’ve found their feet and become a Tier 1 gang, they’re still underneath the starting-situation mobs like the crows and lampblacks, who are all Tier 2.
– The bluecoats are described as the “the meanest gang in the city” which is reflective of Tier 3.
So when you think about it, if some Tier 0 nobodies try to take on “the meanest gang in the city” in a straight-up fair fight? Sure, it makes sense that they’re probably going to lose.
Or – if you’re a low-level criminal with nothing to your name, it’s probably not a great idea to punch a police officer in the face 😉
Sounds like a great way to both lose the fight, but also to build rep. And an opportunity to get a few prison claims.
“Losing” in a conflict with another faction can be a great way to move the story forward, and a stepping stone for the crew.
The A-Team were arrested before they escaped. It’s part of their rep that they’re on the run from the law while doing their missions.
Thanks for the replies. When I say “a fair fight”, I mean n pc scoundrels going up against n Bluecoats, with no big extenuating circumstances (i.e. no factors for Scale or Potency). I’m ok with starter crews not really being able to take on the higher tier gangs right off the bat, but it seems to me to be a lot of bookkeeping to constantly be calculating the tier of any group or thing the crew interacts with involving tools.
Tim Denee why would the PCs taking on a small group of Bluecoats (lets say a group roughly the same size as the crew) not be a fair fight to the point of the bluecoats not getting the benefit of their tier? I could see if there were extenuating circumstances (a station thats cut off from the rest of the city due to a riot, or something), but that would seem to be a special case.
I don’t think you have to be too exact with the book-keeping, I would just use it as a rough guide to start from. The gang’s Tier 0 and they’re up against Tier III enemies? Things are going to be hard.
Jonathan Berkhahn there’s no objective case to be made and you should play it whichever way you find most fun and satisfying.
If you’re Tier 0, a typical bluecoat is better-fed, has more experience on the street, carries better weapons, wears better armour, and has the deadly self-confidence of knowing they’re above you.
To me, Tier is also about narrative positioning rather than simple objective reality. It reflects training and quality of weapons and armour, sure, but also some intangible meta-quality of bad-assery.
It’s the conceit of a lot of crime fiction, and I’m thinking of Peaky Blinders or Boardwalk Empire, that there are certain forces out there that are in a whole different league of bad-ass. Part of the fun, for me, of this genre of fiction is seeing the scrappy scoundrels rise in tier until they can take on the big fish; seeing later-season Nucky Thompson take on the big bad italian gangsters from New York, or Thomas Shelby’s crew taking on Sabini’s mob. Enemies who were unspeakably powerful earlier become suitable prey over time. Not necessarily because of any particular difference in your skills or training or weapons (they’re all still just thugs in suits with guns), but because it’s a conceit of underworld fiction that there’s always a bigger fish, but you can eat your way up the food chain.
The bluecoats are relatively big fish, and (again, just for me and what I enjoy), the scoundrels should work their way up to taking a bite out of that fish.
If you’re talking about, say, 10 scoundrels vs 10 bluecoats…
… I think it’s fair to say that the bluecoats are a higher tier, and therefore better.
I also think it’s fair to say that the bluecoats are a higher tier because they have so many full-time employed members and therefore at least some of their high tier is because the bluecoats usually outnumber their opponents, rather than because they’re better in a 1-to-1 sense.
It depends on how you want to interpret the fiction.
I think both options are totally reasonable.
It’s reasonable to assume that a standard bluecoat is better trained, has been on the streets and earned experience, and is probably naturally tougher and smarter which is why they have “good employment” rather than joining one of the other street gangs. If the bluecoats pay well enough to get better quality recruits, provide better quality training, have better equipment, and regularly see more experience – I’d expect the average bluecoat to be pretty amazingly hardcore.
It’s also reasonable to assume that a standard bluecoat is the typical guard or policeman from most crime fiction – competent at what they do, but not particularly skilled or loyal. That opens up storylines like the drunk bluecoats starting trouble in the bar, and getting put in their place by the PCs – but then abusing their power as bluecoats to make the scoundrels miserable.
Planting evidence, watching carefully for actual crimes, giving intel to the scoundrel’s enemies, refusing to help when the scoundrels get robbed, and other abuse of their faction’s power. The scoundrels are still dealing with a “tier 3” problem that they have almost no chance of winning against – it’s just that the “problem” they’re dealing with isn’t whether they win the bar brawl – it’s whether they have any way of stopping the bluecoats from harassing them. (And they probably can’t.)
So they might need to look for ways to either appease the bluecoats, or for a way to take out that particular bluecoat who dislikes them. The individual bluecoat wouldn’t be a tier 3 threat, if they can avoid it becoming a conflict against all bluecoats. So opportunities like framing that bluecoat, or quiet assassinations, or paying another faction to take him out in a street riot, or other things that would avoid the rest of the bluecoats coming down on them.
In game mechanics terms, framing or taking out that individual bluecoat making trouble for them could be a score to improve their faction status with the bluecoats. (Just as the bar brawl – whether they win or lose – could be the event that reduces their faction status with the bluecoats)
While we could go either way with the tier 3 bluecoats, I don’t think this works for the higher level factions. At that point we really need to acknowledge that some of the high tier level comes from their political influence, resources, or other advantages.
Look at the military, it’s something like level 5.
Presumably that’s not because a standard soldier can kung-fu their way through highly trained scoundrels – presumably it’s because in a conflict between scoundrels and the military, the military has the ability to arrive with multiple units of troops, cannons, and tanks.
I wouldn’t expect a bar brawl between 3 scoundrels vs 3 off-duty soldiers to be a faction 0 vs faction 5 conflict.
But I would expect a fight between the soundrels and the military for control of the clock tower to be a faction 0 vs faction 5 conflict.
And even then, only if it’s a fight where the military can use their might.
If I was the scoundrels trying to fight for that clocktower, I’d try to shift the battle. I’d try something like getting the Spirit Wardens to claim the tower as critical for their job, bribe some politicians to support the spirit wardens, and then have the spirit wardens hire my crew as guards to protect “their” tower. That way, the military are still powerful (if they want to claim that the tower is necessary for the city defence, that’s going to hold a lot of weight) but not so powerful that I couldn’t possibly win the fight.
For me, this is what the whole game is about – looking for multiple different ways to address the same problem, rather than tackling it head-on.
A level 5 coven of witches, though – maybe they have 20 witches? That’s a group of only 20 people who have as much power and influence as an entire army. I’d expect each and every one of them to be absolutely terrifying. And 1 witch vs 1 soldier, the witch is clearly going to be more powerful.
Lord Scurlock is one individual that is a tier 3 faction. He personally is as influential and powerful as the entire Bluecoats organisation. Why?
How you answer that is up to you, but will tell you what his strengths and weaknesses and areas of influence are, and those strengths and weaknesses and influence will help shape the game.
Same for all the other factions!
Take advantage of this feature, it’s a really easy way to bring the setting to live, while also making it easier to run plots.
Jonathan Berkhahn
“Why would the PCs taking on a small group of Bluecoats (lets say a group roughly the same size as the crew) not be a fair fight to the point of the bluecoats not getting the benefit of their tier? I could see if there were extenuating circumstances (a station thats cut off from the rest of the city due to a riot, or something), but that would seem to be a special case.”
I think you actually answered your own question!
If the PCs taking on a small group of Bluecoats (roughly the same size as the crew) why wouldn’t the bluecoats get the benefit of their tier?
They should get the benefit of their tier. Unless there are extenuating circumstances.
But catching a group of bluecoats roughly the same size as the crew, out in the open away from their faction resources, absolutely counts as extenuating circumstances.
Your example of the bluecoats being in a station that’s cut off from the rest of the city is exactly what I was trying to explain in my above post. If “being cut off” can reduce their tier benefit, then… that shows that support from the rest of the bluecoats in the city is part of what gives them their tier rating.
Their ability to call in help makes them more powerful – it means any fight with them needs to be quiet, or it needs to end quickly, because reinforcements will be arriving soon.
They’re in a station, though – so that probably has strong walls and a locked door. They probably know the layout well. They might have spotlights, or at least floodlights. They probably have lockers with guns and other weapons. Their guns are probably maintained properly and won’t misfire or fizzle out. They might even have a gattling gun or a machine gun. Those are all “bluecoat faction” things that we’d expect them to have – which means they’re also part of the tier level. So attacking them while they’re cut off from the rest of the city might reduce their tier benefit – but won’t remove it entirely. They’re still getting a lot of the benefit.
And then we’d expect them to be trained – they probably have to practice sword fighting drills, and spend time at their firing range as part of their job. So that’d make them better at fighting, and that’s also part of their tier.
Which means if you jump a group of off-duty bluecoats (roughly the same size as the PCs crew) in an alleyway, I’d expect them to get some of their tier benefit. They’re trained, they are probably armed with swords and pistols.
But not all of it.
They don’t have their station, they don’t have reinforcements. They don’t have their rifles, they can’t take advantage of the protection of their station house, they don’t have floodlights making it easy to see who’s attacking them.
They might have a whistle that they blow so that other bluecoats will come running. That won’t help them immediately, but I’d start a countdown clock for those bluecoat reinforcements. As reinforcements pour in, I’d expect it to become a fight that the crew can’t possibly win – so they’ve either got to win before the countdown is over then escape, or just escape now.
So even catching the bluecoats off guard when they can’t use most of their tier benefit – it’s still a risky thing for the crew to try. Even if I decide that the off-duty bluecoats only count as tier 1, it’s still riskier than if they’d fought a similar number of tier 1 guys from a tier 1 faction.
And if they win the fight, whether they kill the bluecoats or not, they’ve also possibly reduced their faction status with the tier 3 bluecoat faction. Even if they only pick fights where the bluecoats can’t get a tier bonus, and even if they win every fight, sooner or later they’ll end up at war with the bluecoat faction. And then they’re pretty screwed if they’re still at a lower tier.
If they attack a similarly-sized group of bluecoats at the station during a riot, I’d expect that the bluecoats get most – if not all – of their tier bonus.
Since a station is also designed to stop criminals getting in, I’d expect that the crew would take that faction penalty if they’re trying to sneak in or break in, too. But, if the station isn’t designed to stop the supernatural, I wouldn’t expect there to be much or any penalty if they used magic to walk through the walls. That’s the PCs playing to their strengths and playing against their opponent’s weaknesses.
It’s also worth noting that I wouldn’t reduce the tier bonus for bluecoats if they’re working as a group, even if they’re away from their resources.
A patrol of bluecoats sent out to arrest the PC crew would get their full faction bonus, there aren’t really any “extenuating circumstances” for why they’d be at a disadvantage.
Even though they don’t have every faction advantage (they don’t have the defensive walls, floodlights etc.) they still had the ability to bring enough power to do what they’re trying to do.
They have the ability to bring enough bluecoats to guard the back entrance, they brought enough weapons so that they expect to win the fight, and so on.
They don’t have their defensive station house or floodlights, but that doesn’t give them a penalty because they don’t expect to need those things.
If the PCs can do something to turn the tables in a way the Bluecoats couldn’t reasonably be prepared for, only then might I consider reducing their faction bonus.
We can answer everyone’s question with, “you should do whatever works best in your game/whatever makes everyone happy/whatever seems fun,” but that doesn’t give the question much purpose. You can always do whatever you want. Specific situational questions don’t call for the same non-answer over and over.
Sorry, I’m cranky today. Let’s actually address the question:
We actually have mechanics for relative group sizes (individuals, small gangs, etc.), so for my money, under normal circumstances, yeah, an evenly matched gang of tier 0 thieves will be at a disadvantage against an even number of Watch, which are Tier 3.
It’s NOT a fair fight.
Lots of people have already pointed out that the Watch, the army, etc., are going to be better equipped. That’s already baked into their Tier rating, and why the “fine” weapons on everyone’s playbooks are there- that’s one element of how you can even the score when you’re punching above your weight class.
Taking the example of a straight brawl- a group of tier 0 scoundrels mixing it up with a Watch patrol- there are numerous, narrative-supportable ways you can even those odds:
If everyone’s got a relevant fine weapon or acquired an asset giving the equivalent of one (a box of pipe bombs or something?), that’s a +1.
If you get enough people together to get a medium gang to their small gang (team up with another Crew, have a cohort), that’s + 1.
If you’ve got a Cutter with Potency (or any of the other similar effects, like Rage vials), that’s another +1 (at least for her).
We’ve already brought our effect to break-even, and no one’s even spent stress or worsened position to push themselves.
The fact is, a gang of Tier 0 SHOULD find it nearly impossible to directly confront a Tier 3, whether they’re the Watch or another Crew. You SHOULD run away. You should avoid pissing off bigger things because they can crush you. You shouldn’t get in running battles with the police (yet another of the many things RPGs can teach us about real life).
Following John Harper’s actual plays and in my personal reading of the rules, I think that the idea is that you quality/tier (as other effect factors) it’s just a structured way to evaluate the final effect: it’s not meant to give you a hard modifier to the effect.
When you are at disadvantage in the factors evaluation, you’re usually at limited effect.
When you are at advantage in the factors evaluation, you’re usually at great effect.
Zero effect and Extreme effect should be reserved for extreme unbalance in factors. For example:
– Zero effect: you’re trying to crack the Tier 6 safe of the Imperial bank with standard tools, you’re fighting a demon bare handed (without the “Ghost Fighter” ability).
– Extreme effect: you’re firing a cannon to kill a guard, you’re using a demon’s true name to bind it.
MisterTia86 Ah, I think you are correct. That is much less of a headache, and makes it more in line with Potency and Scale. Thanks.