All right, I’ve read the relevant portions of the book a few times and searched through previous posts here in the community but I’m stumped about Claims. My question:
Assuming the Crew is comfortable pissing off a bunch of other Factions, is there anything stopping them from seizing a Claim every time they do a Score?
The book says you can seize a Claim like any other score. You must seize a claim from a different faction, so you’re probably going to suffer -2 status with that faction as a result of your action. Otherwise, there seems to be no restrictions on choosing to seize a Claim. It even seems like seizing a Claim still grants the usual benefits–Rep, Coin, narrative development, etc. So is the threat of too many wars at once the only thing stopping a Crew from grabbing territory like mad?
RAW, you can only have 6 claims at a time.
How do you resolve that -2 faction status? Have that faction be the default answer to bad rolls? Go to war with them? Help them get 2 other claims instead?
I’ve seen games where the crew gets a claim in the first 1-2 sessions, then spends the next 8+ sessions dealing with that -2 faction.
I’ve seen games were a -2 faction is mostly ignored because the story was fun without adding that faction.
Some groups even limit themselves to 1-2 claims per Crew Tier, but that is more pacing the number of factions you piss off.
Getting -2 faction status with a new faction every score requires you to ask the group a question, “Is this group okay with character death often, even party wipes? Or does this group want to play super humans that can fight off 100s of people solo?”
Not wanting half the city and their friends coming after your head is reason enough.
Point of Order: You can have a maximum of 6 Turf, that’s not the same as 6 Claims. There are lots of Claims that aren’t Turf.
As to the OP’s question, it’s a balancing act. When you run a score to take a Claim, the Claim itself is the payout, you’re not getting Coin on top of that (except whatever incidentals might be dictated by the fiction: “after you take over the warehouse, you find a small safe in the back with 2 Coin in it”). So if the crew is only going after Claims, sooner or later they should be REALLY hurting for Coin. And the solution to that problem? Do a job for someone that will pay.
Thanks Toimu! My GMing style definitely falls into the “the story is fun with faction repercussions” camp but I didn’t even realize it until you said anything. Out of curiosity: do you have a page number for the rule that no Crew can have more than 6 Claims at a time?
Thanks to you too, Zachary Miller. Haha I completely agree! But so far most of my players have really glommed onto the “drive your character like a stolen car” advice so I’m trying to plan ahead. 😛
Even moreso, I think you can only BENEFIT from 6 Turf at a time, but you could theoretically HAVE as much as you like.
Ben Morgan you ninja’d my post. Thanks to you too.
I’m not sure I agree about Claims being a reward unto themselves. Or rather, I think if I follow the fiction about additional rewards, 100% of the time I would expect seizing a Claim to also generate Rep (and probably also Coin). Is there a place in the book where it says otherwise?
All jobs generate Rep (unless you keep them completely quiet). Whether it generates coin is up to you.
I usually treat the claim as the reward in and of itself, but my players often find other ways to earn coin in missions… with costs.
You can keep siezing claims for as long as it makes sense in the fiction for you to be doing it. Don’t forget that enemy factions can sieze claims as well. As a GM, if the players are being agressive about siezing claims, then I’m probably going to play Duskwall’s factions as pretty agressively as well.
If all you’re doing is seizing claims instead of going for the big payouts, you won’t be able to save up the Coin to go up in Tier, so you end up having to defend a vast territory as a small Tier-0-1 gang with lots of enemies. Sounds like fun!
Also bear in mind one of the Entanglements includes a rival attempting to seize one of the crew’s claims, so even if the GM isn’t immediately hitting the players with the consequences of war with another faction, the system can naturally place those claims under threat eventually.
Eli O’Sullivan Kurtz Claims can absolutely be a reward unto themselves, especially if they grant ongoing advantages or bonuses beyond the narrative. The book doesn’t state that seizing Claims should or will always grant Coin. (Though you could often make the case for it, as Ben said.) In general, the special effects of Claims are pretty damn valuable and are probably your main motivation for taking the thing in the first place.