Hey folks,
I’ve got a few cohort related questions you might be able to help me with!
So, I recently started to play BitD together with my group, for now we are only one session into the campaign/game of a Shadows crew. The players decided to go for the Cohorts upgrade and took two Edges and Flaws:
Independent & Loyal
Principled & Wild
How does a “Independent” cohort manifest in your game? I mean, the players choose this specific edge, so it should have an impact on the game. We haven’t really discussed the implications of this, so that’s something we gonna do the next time we play. By then, I want to get some ideas on how to handle this Edge.
The next thing I struggle to wrap my head around is the “Principled” flaw. We weren’t able to come up with something neat, at least for now.
We could chose something like “will never kill a surrendering opponent” or “will never steal from the poor” but that’s a little bit too obvious and stale for my tastes. I thought about “devout and faithful believers/Church of Ecstasy followers” which could lead to potentially interesting conflicts with the players and their gang.. but I dunno 🙂 any suggestions?
Independent means they’ll take the initiative and go off on their own and do stuff. The good news is that works out sometimes. The bad news is that they can get themselves into trouble.
Well ain’t that a coinkidink! My crew of Shadows also just took a Cohort of Rooks. They chose Independent & Loyal, Principled & Savage. I let the players define the ‘Principles’ and then questioned them for some context. They chose ‘Solidarity with the Poor’ for the Principle. They decided that the Rooks were twin brother/sister named Sid and Nancy Grine. They were a noble’s bastards from a liaison with a servant girl. They lived in the noble house until Dad died when they were young (6?) and then the rest of the Noble family turfed them (along with Mom) to the streets. So now they are fiercely class conscious.
As for Independent, I plan on taking that based on context. It might help when rolls go well. They take initiative to distract the approaching Bluecoat patrol while on lookout. Perhaps they track a fleeing mark without being asked. But when rolls go wrong, or during ‘Gang Trouble’ entanglements, that Independence will be problematic. Since they are still Loyal, I don’t think they’ll actively mess with the Crew, but they might decide to set up their own side jobs or perhaps try to help by ‘solving a problem’ but in a way that complicates life for the PCs.