My crew just got their first Wanted level and they want to Incarcerate one of the crew to bring it down. However, they also want to get him out early. They discussed a Score to break him out, but I feel like that would be counter productive (it’s unlikely a crew’s Wanted level would go down if the guy serving the time disappears before he’s supposed to). But also, Incarceration is easy enough to handle with a roll, some quick narration, and an appropriate jump forward in time. I’m struggling to see the value of expanding that to the detail of a full Score.
Any thoughts from the community?
I’d agree with you. Mayhap they get their Downtime actions while Dave is in stir, and then yea, you narrate some things that happen in that month or so (and it could be a quiet month even.) If they’re Tier 0, they’re rolling 0 dice for Incarceration and the prisoner likely comes out with Trauma. (hey, new xp trigger!)
If they want to do a Score, then let it have consequences. Wanted doesn’t go down, maybe even goes up. Ironhook gets a -1 to it’s faction with the crew. And they still suffer from the Incarceration roll. My $0.02.
One of the reasons why the guy wants to go to prison is because he says it fits the narrative of giving the other two scoundrels time to recover from their Level 3 Harm (twas a rough score, this last one…). So the other guys’ Downtime actions are basically decided, and involve laying pretty low. Lots of ways to summarize news from the outside world in that time! Thanks for the ideas, Arne.
You’re definitely right, but it sounds like you haven’t interrogated why they want to break him out. If they want to do a sweet-ass prison score why aren’t you letting them do a sweet-ass prison score?
Very good point, Adam Bloom! These ideas came about in messages we’re sending back and forth between sessions, so we’ve basically just put the ideas out there. My plan is to ask follow up questions when we meet tonight, and “_why_ do you want to break him out instead of just letting him serve his time?” is a top-notch question to add to the list. Thanks!
Eli Kurtz Doesn’t really seem worth it. The incarceration time for Wanted Level 1 is “A month or two”. If the idea is to lay low long enough to give the others time to recover, well, they’re not gonna recover from Level 3 Harm in one set of downtime actions anyway.
I’d say: “We could handle this one of two ways. We can skip ahead a little and pick up with Dankmire getting out of Ironhook. If we do that, he makes his roll for Incarceration, and the rest of you can clear all your harm. Or we can do a set of normal downtime actions, and then you can run a score to try to break him out before he needs to make his roll, but if you generate any Heat, you won’t clear your Wanted level.”
That sounds solid.
There is always the possibility of doing a score to get someone of Influence convince Ironhook to release your guy early. Maybe you do a favor for a well-place magistrate. Or maybe you blackmail them. Lots of options.
Keep in mind a low level of wanted may simply mean wanted for questioning, so their “time” may simply be a month of repeated summons for bad tea and stale biscuits while answering the same round of questions over and over…
It also depends on how they break the person out of prison. It could be a physical breakout attempt, which could generate lots of Heat (and Rep). Or it could be some blackmail of someone on the parole board so the prisoner gets an early release, which would have no effect on Wanted levels.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone. The game ended up falling through last night and we won’t get a chance to meet again until September. But I’ll certainly keep all this in mind until then!
Also, the objective of the prison-break is going to be to get their guy out of prison AND keep the benefit of reducing wanted by being incarcerated. They’d better have a body-double, or forged paperwork, or anything to keep the breakout from being noticed otherwise they’re going to generate a hell of a lot of heat, especially since they’re operating in the hottest and most hostile environment possible.