So, this happened: my crew – the Nameless, are smugglers. Their lair is/was an old rail car. They are in contention with the Fog Hounds, from whom they stole a couple of lucrative scores. They are currently Tier 0/Weak
During one score, the street was awash in blood (7 heat) and for Entanglements I rolled: Show of Force.
_A faction with whom you have a negative status makes a play against your
holdings. Give them 1 claim or go to war (drop to -3 status). If you have no
claims, lose 1 hold instead._
As they had no claims, they lost one hold. Okay, on to rule #2:
If your crew is Tier 0, with weak hold, and you lose hold for any reason, your Lair comes under threat by your enemies
Under threat by your enemies? Their location was not secure or concealed. I ruled (perhaps too harshly) that the Fog Hounds, as a reprisal, burned their lair, leaving the crew “lairless” and that to establish a new lair would require Tier +2 coin or a score.
I further ruled that with the crew “on the run” they were limited to a single downtime action (without spending rep/coin) until they could establish a new lair.
Anyhoo, just curious how others would have adjudicated this one.
The way you have written it up it sounds like they lost their lair with no chance to forestall the arson attack. Is that how it went down? ‘Cuz if so, that sounds like a pretty harsh read of ‘comes under threat’ to me.
Give them one claim or go to war. Why didn’t you just let them go to war?
Luke: It was pretty harsh – that’s why I posted. The crew themselves pointed out the lair was neither hidden nor secure and bluntly, they were stessed out enough that a stand-up fight with an up-tier crew was probably unrealistic. What bothered me the most was the loss of agency – did they want to fight and die for an old railcar? Guess we’ll never know – and that was my mistake.
All of that said, what if they had decided not to? What then? “Your lair comes under threat and if if you decide not to defend it then ……”
That’s really the question. What happens to a crew that loses that precious “0/weak” hold?
Rebecca: We read the rule as if/then. Give them one claim or go to war. IF you have no claims….
As written, it looks like if you don’t have a claim, you move onto the next option – your HQ comes under threat.
One way or another, the crew didn’t want to go to war. Third session in, they had taken steps to avoid a war previously – paying people off etc. None of the characters are particularly doughty as fighters – yet.
Well, if there was a choice involved, go to war or don’t, then it sounds like the consequences were at least the result of player choice.
That should teach them not to leave such a bloody mess next time.
Harsh ?
Sure.
But given what they had left and the kind of trouble they were in it reads like a perfeclty logical solution.
They are on the run, nowhere to hide and in deep doo doo. (cue the A-team music ;-))
You probably could throw them a bone by having a npc offer them a ‘cheap’ alternative if they do this one thing … and it’s going to put them in debt for a fair amount of time.
It’s harsh but it fits the game. They brought too much heat down on themselves and paid the price. When your crew is small and starting out discretion beats bodies.
Seems fair enough to me. It’s harsh but you’ve got to expect big consequences to actions like that.