Shadows specialising in Espionage:

Shadows specialising in Espionage:

Shadows specialising in Espionage:

So I am running for a group of Shadows who picked the Espionage focus. In general I am really happy with this however it has left me with a couple of questions and thoughts about the direction of the game.

1. How does the espionage focus play with Turf? The ideals of spies and covert ops are very much at odds with overtly holding ground, and restricting activities to certain areas of the city really crimps the options for scores. I described their initial turf as somewhere where potential clients could get in touch innocuously but I am stumped for good ideas to represent expansion… maybe offices/fronts in other/better parts of town?

2. Espionage as a focus seems to rely more on client-derived scores for profit – someone needs to want the information that the espionage will provide. Therefore it feels as though it places more on the GM to come up with interesting job offers… which is fine, but it conflicts a little with the idea that the best scores are player-derived. How have other groups running spies dealt with this, particularly with regards to Coin reward.

Thanks!

7 thoughts on “Shadows specialising in Espionage:”

  1. For 2: Players have to hustle to gain high quality clients in need of the shadows expertise. Without taking downtime actions to do this, they might be stuck scraping the bottom of the barrel for jobs OR being proactive and doing jobs that give them blackmail on a high quality target.

  2. For the first question, I’d say that Turf represents areas they have their eyes on. It’s not so much that they have their toughs their protecting it, but more that they know all the comings and goings, the secret passageways, dead drops and hidey holes.

    Additionally, when they acquire Turf, they get to pick an operation type, so it doesn’t always have to be espionage. When they decide they want to go after Turf, ask what they want it for (Burglary, Robbery, Espionage or Sabotage) and that will help define what it represents.

  3. 1. I think of espionage focused turf as having people in place to gather information to pass on to the crew. Those people can be anywhere and they are interacting with other people who tend to know and spill a certain type of information.

    2. Espionage lends itself to players stepping into the Hawkers wheel house: If they get juicy enough information, people will line up to buy it. Information is their product and the PCs become info brokers who don’t necessarily need patrons. All the PCs have to do is find targets who have a lot of secrets they don’t want getting out (basically every faction in Duskwall…)

  5. Stefan Struck

    I’m a late comer that didn’t get the opportunity to back the Kickstarter: I want some more of those types of tables!

    Furiously trying to throw money at the screen but no tables are appearing 🙁

  6. Omari Brooks I’m a late one, too, but I bought the Early-Access version and therefor I still have some of John’s older versions of the quickstart including charts. This is from V6

    John Harper You said that you will include the table again in newer versions, so I hope it’s ok that I post this here. If not, please say so and I will delete it again.

    https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2VafoP9krr8cug_qtY6xNCyQRE_C9pv8AfFfdc8Ff36CX0EsKkPCwPPJSs12B0Chi5nBO_11LXwD4HXV7577CxKeE_XQtZQMvK0=s0

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