What do we think would be an useful way to use Lifestyle Rolls vs Spending Coin? Right now, I’m leaning on an idea that Coin specifically comes out of payoff, claims, etc. and plugs back into the rules in the book like your Downtime actions, creating your Stash, advancing in Tier, Entanglements, and Devil’s Bargains, and Lifestyle Rolls are meant to cover everything else?
Also how would you narrate a bad or mixed outcome on a lifestyle roll. “You don’t have the money” just seems like a boring thing to say on a 1-3, maybe it’s better to talk about how they lost that Coin on their Vices. What the heck do you say on a Mixed Outcome? 😛
I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking, are Lifestyle Rolls a mechanic in House Haunters and if so, what do they do/what are they supposed to do?
Dylan Durrant No. I’m talking about Blades, you know how you can roll your lifestyle as a Trait and when you stash away 10 coin, your Lifestyle goes up by 1?
Adam Sexton Well. That I did not know. You learn something new every day. I’d view the Lifestyle Roll as AW jingle, just cash you have laying around, Coin is massive piles of currency. Lifestyle cash is petty.
As for how to treat the roll…it doesn’t specify it’s a Fortune Roll, so give the PC a Position and Effect and then react according to the situation and what the Action Roll table specifies. Some people don’t take kindly to being bribed, some people mention it to others, if you don’t have the money, how does the person react?
I think your answer lies in Acquire Asset downtime action. This is designed to serve that role. When you describe acquiring temporary use of an asset, “roll the crew’s Tier. The result indicates the quality of the asset (1-3: Poor, 4/5: Standard, 6: Fine, Crit: Exceptional).”
So a low roll doesn’t mean you don’t have the money, it means you got a crappy one. Note as well that Poor quality simply means it counts as 1 tier lower for Quality/Tier, not that its basic functions are worthless.
If you spend coin to bump up the result as usual, then you have a way to abstract borrowing/renting petty things without loss of coin, as well as a way to spend it when you need something spectacular. Note that actual purchases can cost coin (at least, they did in the case of the Canter’s bombastic coats in the Six Towers/Bloodletters AP)
As for using the Lifestyle roll, it is only mentioned as a way to throw around some jingle (bribes is the example given), but it seems to me that rolling a higher Lifestyle trait in place of Tier for Acquire Asset makes plenty of sense.
Adam – you can lose stash on mixed/poor results. Or you are good for it, but can’t liquidate – what do you put up for collateral? Or what do you have to give up and for how long … etc. Tons of good mixed results in there.