I have a question about Faction Advancement. When you gain enough Rep you may either increase your Hold or your Tier by 1. Why would you ever want to increase your Hold instead of your Tier? Tier appears to be used for a number of different rolls and Hold is used for nothing. If I’m Tier 1 with a weak Hold and I advance I can either become Tier 2 with weak Hold or Tier 1 with firm Hold. If i’m attacked and lose 1 Hold, regardless of my choice I end up back at Tier 1 with weak Hold again. It seems like Tier is the obvious choice for every upgrade then?
I recall from a previous version that you couldn’t go up a Tier without tearing another faction with weak hold down a Tier, but that is gone now (and maybe has been for awhile, I may have missed a revision or 2). It seems like hopping up Tiers is much easier now, but, of course, staying there can be as hard as the GM would like it to be. Any thoughts on the ease of moving up Tiers as well?
Yeah I had the same question.
I though you damage Hold down to weak before you loose tier?
You do, but that doesn’t really matter. At Tier 1/Hold weak I can choose to increase to Tier 2/Hold weak or Tier 1/Hold Firm. If I lose 1 Hold in either case I end up back at Tier 1/Hold weak. If I chose Tier 2/Hold weak I get an extra die on a bunch of different rolls, but if I chose Tier 1/Hold firm I get nothing.
Ah, whoops, there is a missing rule there. Moving up a Tier also costs an increasing amount of coin. I’ll fix that.
There we go, now it makes sense. Thanks for the response John. Is it a linear increase between tiers?
Not having played it this new way, I am thinking I will prefer the faster tier rise (and fall). My players took months to rise tier, and so it felt like I as a GM shouldn’t just smack them back down (even though the world and factions would definitely do so in the fiction, in a heartbeat).
Rising tier means you get another die on a few rolls, but it also means your asking for bigger threats to come at you. Do you want everything to be drastic in your scores, including many dire, permanent consequences including PC death and worse (beyond just mechanically making most actions desperate with scale, potency, quality disadvantage)? That’s fine, then raise your tier and see what happens when the crew overextends itself. That’s a very valid way to play and see what happens to your scoundrels. You’ll likely get smacked by all the factions that see the crew as viewing itself too highly for its own good. You have to make enemies in this game, so there are plenty to hit the crew back.
On the other hand, different players may prefer to work up firm hold on each tier before expanding, since it makes a different sort of story. Maybe they prefer getting allies and improved PC and crew stats and all their ducks in a row before publically asserting their influence in the game world with tier (and in my mind, with fictional scope). Both ways are valid and can tell great stories. Higher tier means a bigger, more complex operation, with a broad scope and sweeping themes where individuals are less actors than components of the vast machine (fleets, revolutions, wars, upheavals, etc). Smaller tier play will likely be more intimate, more about the PCs as individual people (grudges, identities, guilt, sacrifice, loss, love). That’s my take anyway.
I’m not sure that answers the question, but I like the idea that it allows players to seek that sweet spot of flow where perceived challenges balance perceived skill. Of course the GM can provide fictional challenges of any level at any time, but as a long-time GM, I prefer the idea of players clearly telling me what scope they’re shooting for, rather than feeling soft or like a gotcha trap. Again, that’s just me.
(Next Tier x 4) is what I have right now. I want it to hurt. 🙂
Oh yeah, that 20 coin advancement to tier 5 is really going to hurt. That’s as much coin as a crew of 3 could conceivably save up(8 for a vault and 4 per PC), correct? Will there be ways in the full rules to hold more coin than that? A better vault for higher tier crews, or perhaps an honest to goodness bank?
And a crew with high Tier but weak Hold is almost begging to be pounced on by multiple factions at once, so that they can be knocked down to (Tier-1)W, then (Tier-2)W, before they stop the hemorrhaging and strengthen their grip.
Mark Griffin Yeah, some ways to hold more coin will be possible.
Also, there’s a crew ability that halves the cost of tier advancement. Smugglers currently have it, but I’ll throw it on the Thief sheet when I update the v4 QS so people can see it.
John Perich On the other hand I could say that a crew with lower Tier is a weaker and easier target, and are more likely to be bullied by other factions. This view is actually borne out of the mechanics, because Tier effects the quality of your assets, and therefore the effect levels NPC factions will have when they attack you. It could also effects fortune rolls NPCs may make when opposing you.
Also, moving my faction up twice and then getting knocked down twice always leaves me in the exact same place regardless of whether I choose to increase Tier or Hold.
Yeah, it’s weird if increasing tier and hold are exactly equivalent in cost. Tier is more valuable, so it also costs coin.
I’ll update the v4 PDF with this correction soonish.
Mark Griffin this could work both ways. If an ambitious crew ramps up their Tier without improving their Hold, they will probably draw attention from both directions: the factions they stepped on getting to the top, and the factions still above them who see them as a rising threat and an easy target.
And you’re not in exactly the same place if you take 2 steps forward, 2 back in terms of Tier or Hold. If you drop in Tier, you’re out the Coin you spent improving your Tier. Hold (unless John tells us otherwise) costs nothing in Coin to improve.
Yeah. Losing a tier is a big waste of coin, so there’s a reason to protect it by improving your hold.
Unless you’re rolling in coin, then maybe you just go for it and try to rise fast.
You always keep hold on the same niveou? I would concider risind from every second tier would always also need to sacrifies 1 hold to reach tier 2 and 4.
Growing needs an expansion of controll too. And criminal enterprises aint the sweet store around the corner.
I considered that, Josephe, but it ends up being equivalent to charging more rep to advance, which slows things down. I’d like crew advancement to be a bit faster than that.
That said, I expect a lot of people will tweak advancement rates with house rules to suit the amount of time they want to spend with the game.
Aha! That makes sense now.
John Perich Well yes, now that I know there is a rule missing it all makes sense. To avoid losing the coin you spent going up Tier you would of course increase your Hold. My point was that without that rule, the system was a little broken.
I suppose answering your previous comment supposing the rule didn’t exist, when I knew it did, was confusing.