Hi

Hi

Hi,

I suspect a bit of understanding is maybe lost in translation, but I struggle with the «Hold» concept…

I have no trouble with Claims & Turf concepts, but the Hold is a bit more/too abstract for me, and I have difficulties imagining situations that would reflect the rules.

Could you give me some examples of situations that would come up in the fiction and illustrate the rules as stated pp.44-45 about «Hold» and «Reducing Hold»?

Is any successful Score against a target sufficient to reduce their Hold?

Thanks 🙂

6 thoughts on “Hi”

  1. From my readings, Hold is all about how hard it is for the crew to hang on to what they’ve got. So, if they’re stretched too thin, it’s easy to take things away from them.

    Example. Our Crew of Tier 1 Hawkers wants capture a drug den controlled by the Skovlanders. Currently the Skovs are stable, having had some time with no major conflicts. They are say Tier 2 and have Strong Hold.

    So the Hawkers stir up trouble for the Skovs – plant evidence that gets them grief from the Inspectors or Spirit Wardens, or directly ambushes some of them as they wander home late one night. (“You may perform an operation specifically to reduce the hold of another faction”) They succeed, and the Skovs’ Hold drops to Weak. They are undermanned, or are having to lay low for a while. They also are pretty pissed at the Hawkers, so their Faction rating for the Hawkers drops to -2.

    Now is the time to strike! The Hawkers start moving into the streets outside the drug den. Do the Skovs risk going to war with the Hawkers? That would drop them to Tier 1 and Weak, and the Hawkers can more easily handle them then. (“If their hold is weak and it drops, the faction loses 1 Tier and stays weak.”) Or do they back off, let them have the drug den, and work to rebuild. A clock might be used here to simulate that.

  4. If you reduce a faction’s Hold while they’re already at Weak, they drop one Tier. My group did this a couple of time to even the playing field against the Dockers. They pulled a couple of jobs and kept it quiet (so they didn’t lose faction status with them). All of those reduced the Dockers’ Hold enough that they ended up being the same Tier. Then they went all out with one giant assault, and wiped out the Dockers’ leadership in one shot, with overwhelming effect. The end result was that they took over the Docks, and since they were careful and methodical about it, they never technically went to War (or at least it was over before they had to deal with the mechanical effects of going to War1).

  5. Olivier Murith The short answer would be that running a score like that against a higher tier faction is by definition harder. Their guards are tougher and more numerous, their locks more secure, their lookouts more observant. And they know that.

    Weakening them first puts them in a position of having to choose how to react to your aggression. If they come back at you hard before they’re Strong again then they’ll give up a serious strategic advantage.

    Weakening their hold makes it easier to take things from them, and makes it harder for them to take things back.

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