Good morning everyone.
I am running a vanilla BitD game for some friends. We have 3 characters; the Slide, the Spider, and the Lurk. They form the Shadow crew, The Glassfish.
We’ve had two scores so far, and during downtime after the second score, the Spider announced plans (cause that’s what Spider’s do).
The Spider is going to start looking for an old Asylum or similar building to acquire and convert into a secure facility. This facility is primarily going to be a “White Collar” prison. They want to start the long-term project by looking for contacts within Ironhook and the Bluecoats to pave the way. Mainly they will take on prisoners from Ironhook who are of a class of people that don’t belong there and house them in prison more befitting their status. Also, this gives them the ability to provide anyone friendly to their crew a safer prison experience should they end up in trouble.
Assuming I let this proceed, I am thinking this is going to be a seriously long-term project. At least 3-4 large clocks and I am planning they need to run a score in between each clock to close the deal.
Clock 1: Gather contacts and allies.
Clock 1 Score: There is one last holdout they need to get everything lined up, and they need a clandestine job done.
Clock 2: Acquire a location.
Clock 2 Score: The location they have decided on has disputed ownership or similar. They will need to clear up this “mix-up” before they can acquire the site.
Clock 3: Recruit staff.
Clock 3 Score: They use a crew upgrade to acquire an expert. However, the expert needs something before they can do the work. I think they will also need at least one gang of (very high quality) thugs to use as guards.
Clock 4: Set it all up
Clock 4 Score: Renovations are complete, and the guards are all trained and in place. There needs to be one final obstacle to get this all together. Not sure what.
My questions are:
1: How many parts should these clocks be? (my inclination is at least 8+)
2: I think that each phase of the project requires that their crew be at least that tier. Clock 1 = tier 1, Clock 2 = tier 2, etc.
Their purpose for this isn’t really to set themselves up to make a ton of coin. They want a “White Collar” prison so that they can steer certain prisoners allied with The Glassfish into it. This means those prisoners will have a much easier time of it and thereby even more friendly with The Glassfish.
Thoughts? Advice? Comments?
I don’t think its necessary to gate the the project clocks by Tier or predetermine the shape of the scores they will need to execute once they finish a clock.
The players need to describe what they are doing to fill in the clocks which should provide plenty of material to influence the final scores.
Players can usually acquire a “business” by claiming turf (like the Gambling Den on the Shadow’s Turf map), something that doesn’t require any long-term projects at all and only 2-3 scores; that might be an option to consider. So instead of a campaign focused around will the crew finally get the prison it’s a game focused on how does the crew keep the prison up and running.
I feel like the placeholder “Turf” is perfect for things like a “white collar prison”.
Yes, perfect “turf” and hard-earned, too.
That’s terrific and perfect. Thank you both! 🙂