Back again with the continuation of the prior debacle, this time with a question on the end.
So, let’s give them names to begin with. This week, we had three of our up to six man crew in Wulf, the Cutter; Vizard, the Leech and the Whisper only known as Shadow (I know). Now, from running into the Lampblack’s hideout, killing Baszo Baz and rescuing their friend who is currently absent, likely recovering, Wulf has a gunshot wound to the shoulder (moderate harm), Vizard is recovering from trauma after being severely burned by her own alchemical bombs (moderate harm). Shadow’s just dandy because it was translating this book of necronomical (should be a word) nefariousness during the whole “attack the Lampblacks” thing.
So, we decided that this whole: perform a ritual to kill a crew of Leviathan Hunters would in fact be two separate Scores, one after the other. Considering the magnitude of what they were doing. The first Score would be, steal items of sympathetic value to each member of the crew. The second part, would, of course, be the ritual.
So, the first part. They graduated from Tier 0 gang attacking a Tier III gang to Tier 0 gang attacking a Tier IV crew of super-badasses. That may not be official canon, but after I described who the Leviathan Hunters were our Whisper said, “so they’re basically all the main character of Skyrim” which I decided would now be part of our canon. Unfortunately that obviously wouldn’t go well for them.
They secured the poor gal away, discovered that she was being prepared for the Hollowing by the C of E of F, something she was very enthusiastic about and upset she would not be able to take part in, but somehow, these guys who lack a Slide and are generally useless at using their words, managed to Sway her into believing that that was what they were going to do to her, that they worked for the C of E of F.
Getting back to the point, so, they scouted out the ship, determined that there was only 1 Leviathan Hunter on the ship at all times, and came up with a plan to sneak onto the ship, nab the stuff and get out without alerting them. Unfortunately, this crew of Thieves, in addition to not being good at talking, are also historically bad at sneaking (they had a Lurk for one session and he suffered Trauma from how bad his friends were at sneaking; well, not really, but it sounds better that way). They’re muggers, not pickpockets, essentially.
So, we make our Engagement Roll. I decide the Leviathan Hunters are ill-prepared because, well, they are. They roll a nice 6. No trouble. Great, everything’s going well. Let’s start with the Prowl roll to get down into the ship. Group Action Prowl; everyone botches, because they’re really bad at sneaking.
I jump into the first-person perspective of someone sitting in a cabin…looking straight at his friend. They rolled a 4/5 on their earlier Survey so I decided they would be noticed and the crew would go to the trouble of maybe having one more guy on the ship for a while.
So, I now draw up five clocks. First clock: 6 segments, find stuff. The first four segments and they’ve found all the Hunters’ junk, two more for loot.
Second clock: six segments, Leviathan Hunter #1 Defence. Four segments, Leviathan Hunter #1 Resilience. Six segments, Leviathan Hunter #2 Defence. Four segments, Leviathan Hunter #2 Resilience. They’re the main characters of Skyrim.
We then have a series of botches on the part of the Whisper trying to Attune to Assist the Leech’s Survey, who then botches that, meanwhile, the Cutter is somehow rolling 4s and 5s vs. this first Leviathan Hunter. We do a little Devil’s Bargaining with their two fellow gang members, Wester and Cristof, getting double-headshotted by the first Leviathan Hunter as a kind of nice “hello, I’m a badass” scene. Well, we did a lot of Devil’s Bargaining, these guys knew they were, if you’ll pardon my French, fucked so they took basically all of my offers.
The fight between the first Leviathan Hunter and Wulf was quite the thing. Wulf waits round the corner to ambush him, the Leviathan Hunter spots him and smacks the iron walls of the ship with his lightning sword (oh, they have lightning swords btw) and blasts Wulf, but Wulf shakes it off and turns to fight him. Bang, bang, two more gang members dead. Wulf runs in, swings his axe, the Hunter ducks it easily and stabs forward. I describe the Leviathan Hunter stabbing Wulf so far through the gut it sticks into the wall behind him and then electrifies him until smoke comes out. Then we see the Leviathan Hunter’s eyes widen as Wulf isn’t actually there, having used his Battleborn to dodge with preternatural instincts. Then he pops his rage essence and I suggest this grabs Wulf, yanks him out of this ship, back through time to the Skovlan War, standing on snow stained with the blood of his comrades, an Imperial Soldier staring him down with a monstrous visage. Not knowing what it does, I gave him Potency, +1 Effect and the ability to ignore his shoulder wound.
Anyway, now they need to gtfo so they decide to flashback to having prepared a “gtfo plan” (although somehow I don’t think that’s actually in the Duskwall parlance) where they put the word out that the antidote to the Cold Slumber is on this ship. So, one last Attune by the Whisper to put the Leech’s Thought Essence to try and wrench Wulf out of Skovlan and back to reality. 1 Leviathan Hunter is on 1/6 Defence (4/4 Resilience), the other is fresh as a daisy.
They make a crucial Prowl roll…and they get a 5. The Leech loses one of their bandoliers to the mob of Cold Slumber victims, the Whisper resists the effects of it as it is tackled to the ground (per a former Devil’s Bargain) but nevertheless suffers Trauma. I describe how the victims all whisper the same phrase in it’s head, over and over and it is sent into a trance state where it just sees this horrific mass of writhing tentacles, arms, limbs, chaos that it cannot look away from. And that persists for the next hour until they get back to their lair. Turns out, some things can traumatise the Whisper only known as Shadow.
So. My question is: was I too hard on them? They ended up getting 3/4 of the Leviathan Hunters’ junk for the ritual, which means about a quarter of them will survive it. Do you think this is a reasonable obstacle for a Tier 0 gang to face against a Tier IV gang?
One last thing, as a result of this they got 3 Heat and lost 1 Rep. Would you say that’s appropriate?
I think if a heist is too hard for the characters then they need to go back to the drawing board and figure out an even sneakier approach. Difficulty should drive towards deviousness. If they use direct measures and are met with direct measures they deserve what they get.
If fighting the opponents is difficult, then by all means, figure out how to take them out of the equation without fighting them. Arrange the heist after you’ve lured one out with a fake note from his sweetheart, sent another a drugged bottle of his favorite wine, and offered a third a bargain basement deal on stuff you know he wants (even if the deal is for fakes) he can’t refuse checking out. Get some drugged darts. Bribe an underling. Get a cloak of invisibility. SOMETHING.
Crews can go straight at a foe if they can overwhelm that foe (and even then it is not always a good idea.) Otherwise, it’s fair to express an expectation that they’ll have to be clever, and if they go straight at it, wreck them. (Play NPCs as understanding these rules, using devious plans to spread out and weaken the crew before hitting one or more members, or their base.)
Likewise, getting 3/4 of the Leviathan Hunter ritual material? I’d rather plan another heist to get the rest than go for 3/4 success. Is that option off the table? Better to try again than lock in that level of limited success.
Death cranks up Heat, as does public disturbance; 3 Heat is fine, but I’d say on the low end. =)
I don’t play by putting all the clocks on the table at the beginning of the heist, personally. Once they pick a direction and express a plan, I mechanize its elements as they unfold. I don’t mechanize the site, and expect them to work the clocks; I mechanize their plan, and introduce clocks as they are called for by player choices.
Anyway, sounds like a fun game. Keep up the good work!
Sounds right on the money, to me, in terms of difficulty. Well done.
3 Heat might be low, but it depends on how you parse it. 2 heat for contained, +1 for high-profile target?
They should gain 4 Rep when they pull this off (since it’s a Tier IV target). Maybe that mission counts as success? If so, go ahead and give them the rep. They suffered for it.
Thanks for the answer! Yep, 2 for contained, +1 for high-profile. Nobody died that they know of and I decided to overlook the possibility that the Leviathan Hunters killed the Cold Slumber victims. I think, fittingly, I’ll give them 3/4 Rep.
With the head shots, did anyone die? If the crew didn’t trundle off the corpses of their fallen, that’s serious evidence of not only killing, but connecting it to the crew. Nothing I’d insist on, but just a question about corpses. =)
You make a good point Andrew Shields! I didn’t think of their crewmates. I shall have an interesting present for them when we meet next time: +4 Rep, +2 Heat.