Author: Adam Minnie

If anyone else runs a crew using the Cult or Hawkers sheets, be sure to note the following changes to the faction tiers on the faction ladder. I’m sure more may change before the final version.

All the Tier 0 factions were raised to Tier 1 and Dimmer Sisters were raised to Tier 2 (which is great since otherwise the players’ selection of factions to have starting positive and negative status is rather slim).

Meanwhile, the Crows were added at Tier II Hold 3.

As for cosmetic changes, Ulf Ironborn got a first name, Scurlock became Lord Scurlock, Lampreys became The Eels, and Gondoliers had a spelling fix. 😛

Had a fun first session discovering my players cult crew last night. I’ll post the AP details later, but for now here are some of the questions that arose. I’d love any input you may have.

1) Collecting dice pools was the most time-consuming part actually. I’m sure as people learn the system that will speed up but it led to a question about re-rolling for more risk. When you get a 1-3 on Controlled, you have the option of re-rolling at Risky. Do these kinds of riskier re-rolls mean a player just immediately grabs the same pool just rolled and roll it again (not requiring a new ally to take stress to grant a backup die, or offering a new Devil’s Bargain)? I’m sure there should still be some fictional development and dangers will manifest between each re-roll when you’re in risky and desperate positions, but soliciting new Backup assistance and devil’s Bargains as if it were a totally new roll just takes lots more time than seems fitting. However, if it is just an immediate re-roll of the former pool, then doesn’t that boil down to “Rolling twice for the same thing”?

The other side issue is that if dangers manifest in between these escalated re-rolls, rolling to resist those effects jam in and slow the pace of the seemingly quick re-roll. Am I expecting a faster pace than is realistic, or do groups with system mastery fly through these rolls without all the negotiating that bogged us down.

Another key point for the players to realize was that they didn’t need to roll to give a backup assistance die to another player, they just had to pay stress and narrate something believable. I think they were getting confused about the difference between Backup Assists (which give 1 die to a roll at the cost of 1 stress) vs Set Up Point actions (which hand over effect dice to the player that follow’s through at the cost of perhaps risking a roll).

2) Related to the riskier re-roll question above, if Player A is on point, gets 1-3 and decides to re-roll in a riskier position, do they stay on point and keep re-rolling until they finally resolving whatever Point action started the whole business? If so, then adding in all the danger resist rolls that such re-rolling may entail, the spotlight may linger on Player A for maybe 3-6 rolls and that seems to not be the pace this game assumes, especially if all this is also taking place within a flashback. In my game, this led to Player B poised overlong waiting to attempt his impersonation while Player A, setting him up using a flashback did a bunch of re-rolls, an effect resist, and whatnot. I must be doing something wrong.

3) The QS rules make it seem like the players can rise two tiers at one jump; is that true? The QS says: “Take advantage of a faction one or two tiers above you when they’re reduced to zero hold. Successfully perform a mission to seize their position in that tier (they drop down one tier and reset to 1 hold).”

Does that mean if the Lampblacks (Tier 2) are reduced to 0 hold, then the PC crew could supplant the Lampblacks at Tier 2 with a relevant, successful mission/score? The Lampblacks would now be Tier 1, Hold 1, and the PC crew would now be Tier 2, Hold 1 (and likely vulnerable to all kinds of threats from the resentful Lampblacks, their allies, and other big gangs feeling threatened by such a swift rise of an upstart competitor).

4) Does gaining Hold at Tier 0 matter much (EDIT: beyond the 3 Hold needed to rise to another tier)? My players finished 2 scores in the session and quickly got up to 4 hold, but that made me wonder why Hold matters at Tier 0. You’re in no danger of being reduced or supplanted by anyone below you, and when you finally do rise to Tier 1, you’ll reset to Hold 1. Is Hold at Tier 0 just a narrative barometer for how stable your operation is?

I’m curious why coin and hold gained from a successful score  are rolled as a single move/action

My other two recent questions about PC crew hold and NPC faction downtime actions circles back to the long thread by Duamn Figueroa (https://plus.google.com/u/0/+DuamnFigueroa/posts/9NSHAivGdH1) about rewarding PCs for what they earn in terms of more chance for coin for particularly profitable scores.

These issues cause me to wonder if the coin + hold gained from development rolls are linked set values for design or balance reasons. Or, what if players could choose either to specifically pursue coin or hold at the expense of the other.

For instance, if we pull a score that was mainly intended to fill our coffers, why can’t we have a full success give us 4 coin and 0 hold (or 3 coin and 1 hold) rather than 2 coin and 2 hold? Meanwhile, at other times your crew may choose scores that are almost completely meant to solidify your hold (such as whenever you raise your tier and reset to 1 hold): why couldn’t the development roll grant extra hold in place of the coin you might also have earned?

While pg 5 of the QS (under “Gaining Hold”) says that 1 hold is generally worth 1 coin, it looks like the development roll assumes hold may be more valuable than coin, or else perhaps gaining more than 2 hold from a single successful score would let the PCs’ faction grow stable too quickly. While I expect asymmetry since PCs are cooler than NPCs, PCs could much more quickly grow their hold than NPC factions (elaborated in my NPC downtime action question on a separate thread).

Question part B) So then I wonder: Why are coin and hold linked in a single development roll (other than for simplicity, elegance)? I can see plenty of legitimate reasons why hold could be gained dependent on crew effects other than Resources. Sure Resources elegantly explains how much of our coin we retain after all our expenses etc, but why can’t we leverage our gangs or our morale help strengthen our hold? Even transport could work if you spend time establishing vigilant and well-supplied patrols of your turf or invest in smuggling fleets, or investing in a better lair could believably enhance hold.

Since getting 1 entanglement always happens no matter what, why not separate coin and hold gained into 2 similar but separate development moves,  perhaps called Profit (coin) and Development (hold)?

Question about NPC Faction Downtime Actions (pacing and targeting the PC crew)

Pg 20 of the QS says that for each downtime phase, NPC factions both advance their agenda clocks, and can do their own downtime action. What is the difference between planning an operation and executing it? By which I mean, do factions have to spend a downtime action to plan an operation first before they execute it? If so, then in order for Faction A to reduce Faction B’s hold by -1, they would need to invest 4 downtime actions: plan to make B vulnerable; execute operation; plan to reduce hold of that now-vulnerable B; execute operation. Am I reading that correctly?

Question Part b) Is there any reason NPC factions can’t execute operations similarly against the PC crew to reduce their hold or make them vulnerable? Does executing operations against the PC’s work differently? I would guess the PCs can and would resist and play out such operations, rather than just returning to their turf to see trouble has befallen them and thus their hold is reduced. With regard to the PC crew, the concept of “vulnerable” as used in the Faction Downtime action list is maybe too vague. If another faction has succeeded on an operation to make the PC crew vulnerable, what would it take in play to end that vulnerable condition? Does the answer to that question always depend solely on narrative context?

The following thread of questions by Chris Boyd raised the issue of the value of a downtime phase in terms of coin, but if NPC factions can pull off operations that easily reduce the PC crew’s hold, then each phase of downtime becomes much more valuable, and therefore spending hold for another downtime phase may be sufficient (but spending coin is still rather cheap): https://plus.google.com/u/0/114451952512667903737/posts/idLkBSdb2EA

I had 3 semi-connected questions about PCs’ hold, NPC faction downtime actions (pacing and targeting the PCs’ crew), and why development rolls combine profit and hold together, but I’ll divide them into separate threads for more clarity of discussion.

PC Crew Losing Hold

Other than occasionally on entanglements, and optionally to gain additional downtime phases, how else does the PC crew lose hold? Could losing hold result from a nasty Devil’s Bargain (the QS suggests stress or heat, but not hold)? Could the PC crew lose hold as a result of NPC faction downtime actions?

Shifting My Mindset: The Tale of the Unreliable Narrators

In trying to 1) truly give power to players to call for rolls and actions and 2) use clocks to record narrative efforts rather than challenges presented to the players, as I think the game intends, I am finding I must restructure my mindset to more of the following (which is refreshingly different from most other games I’m used to):

In my gaming group, I am GM, but we are all telling the story of what happens when this crew tries to rise to the top. However, we are also all unreliable narrators.

As a result of our unreliability as narrators, the actual events of the scoundrels’ story are often quite different than how we initially tell it. With the dice, and through play, we find out how the story really goes. Are we really playing a metagame of the retired scoundrels sitting around reminiscing about the tales of their attempted rise to glory? Perhaps not, since that implies everyone lives.

So in practice, as GM, I set scenes. Players narrate the PCs doing things, impacting the world. Whenever the PCs face challenges or threats, I as GM can stop them and say “Wait a minute, tell it right, it wasn’t so clean and easy. You can’t forget the dogs.” I then describe whatever outcome of the threat seems natural, reasonable, and interesting: The PCs get face-gnawed by electroplasmically enhanced canines; or they set off alarms, get shot, drop the haul, kill their witness before he spills the beans, overpay on their debts or vice, fall head-over-heels in lustful folly, trash their fancy clothes, get tossed in Ironhook, etc. This is just like the rules’ example of the GM saying, basically, “The Unseen warned you not to meddle with their shipment. They firebomb your lair while you sleep. You wake up choking on thick smoke and trapped in by collapsing, blazing timbers. You roast your arms trying inneffectively to pry your way free, and soon after die ingloriously.”

Whenever players don’t want things to happen as indicated, they may “call for a roll” appropriate to their rationale for what really happened. They say, “No way, I would never let my gorgeous face be chewed by those wimpy mutts. Sure they pounced, but I laid them all out cold with my bare hands before any of them so much as yipped.” Another player says, “Well, you actually took about a whole 10 minutes to tussle them into submission, but lucky for you, I had formerly made a deal with the local spirit to dampen all the havoc you were raising. (Flashback)” “Oh yeah, right. Thanks for that.”

The Teamwork mechanics also seem to reinforce this mindset of authority bouncing among unreliable narrators. I say my piece then pass point (the narrator baton) to someone else. Other players, including the GM may (and likely will) change my story as needed, with backp actions, flashbacks, obstacles, or devil’s bargains.

John Harper has said a number of times that this game is a conversation, but what is key about saying that (to get my mind right about it at least) is recognizing that it’s a conversation among unreliable narrators mutually discovering what “really happened” through collective iterative narration and correction. That is why I as GM don’t need to call for rolls and don’t need NPC stats of any kind; I just need to state feasible and enjoyable outcomes and the other players can decide if they accept my take on the story or object. Players can also simply state outcomes similarly, but I may object or dice may indicate there is still more to discover of what really happened.

Conclusion

This perspective of playing as a troupe of unreliable narrators is likely not new or surprising to many of you, since it may in fact be the core of what makes something a “story game.” Nevertheless, while I have many gaming influences, this game seems to demand an exciting mindset that is not quite like any of those to which I’m accustomed. Therefore, I thought I’d share in case this musing on mindset might benefit others in a similar situation.