Assessing the Assassin (OOC)

Where to start?
We have not yet defined the borders of your Hunting Grounds. It is up to the group if we want to start this Job in our Hunting Grounds (it need not stay there).

If the Job happens in your Hunting Grounds and is classed as 'Espionage' (your call) then you get +1d to all Gather Information rolls you make there.

If you start in your Hunting Grounds you get one additional Downtime Activity (of any type) for free. You will get this at the start, so can use it to set up anything you might want before the Engagement roll --usually you would launch straight into Engagement on the first job. You could use this Downtime Activity to research the best place to start, and then declare that it is within your Hunting Grounds (or pay for it).

Since Downtime is on the table, and you still have some Coin you can spend it to pay for additional Downtime Activities as per normal.

As a quirk of Nightmarket, you can always take an +1d to Acquire an Asset there, at the cost of 2 stress. This is in addition to Pushing yourself or Taking a Devil's Bargain.

Due to Second Story, if your Type of Plan is some form of 'clandestine infiltration' (your call), you would get +1d to your Engagement roll.

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If referring to or asking about particular post here, link back to the relevant RP post so we can have some context.

Ok, so one question about how we are going to manage this. Are we going to discuss and agree about those questions in the RP thread before posting? In other PbTA games I've played, the player who has the spotlight has most of the narrative authority in that moment, and then the next one would have it, etc. So you don't have to agree in advance.

For example, some of us could start with:
"Moon thanked Amancio for the information about the assassin... blah blah", thus stating that it was Amancio where the info came from. Other unanswered questions could then be taken by the next player. If someone takes a liberty the rest don't like, it can then be discussed OOC.

I've found that this way of playing usually helps speed things up when playing by post. What do you guys think?

That is up to the group. Some questions are directed at specific players, some are individual can have different answers ('why do you personally care...'), some can be group or individual ('how did you get involved...') the Crew might have gotten the case from Amancio, but you personally might have a vested interested and may have prompted Amancio to bring it to the Crew.

The scope of the question also dictates how much discussion it warrants. If it will have no effects outside the current scene/Job then 'first to post has the say, and others should live with it' is probably fine, but if it will effect things in the long-term then taking a little time to discuss is worth it.

The more we play together the better able we are to judge what needs a discussion and what the others would be happy with. These games are a bit slow at the start, everything is still new and we don't know the characters.

I think gnomius' suggestion sounds good to me.

In other games I have played in, I found that, not only does it go much faster when only one person has to answer a question, but also that discussing every aspect tends to either a) dilute the answer to a "safe" one or b) end up the same answer as the scenario where only one person had to answer the question, because everybody just went with the suggestion.

I do agree that, if somebody dislikes or has a disagreement with an answer that is brought up, a discussion is warranted, since the game is supposed to be a good time. But I think most of the time, at least for me, the answers that other people come up with are fine, and any discussion about those types of answers would likely come to the conclusion that the answer is indeed, fine.

I agree, and will often ask questions of one person in the future. These are mostly establishing questions and everyone should answer them.

The question of how long we have been a Crew is not for any one person to answer for everyone else, but for us to decide as a group.
The answer may be different for each player (presumably Kristov being the longest as a presumed 'founding member'). As mentioned in the question, introduce such aspects of your character as we see them, in play, no need to answer completely now.
Putting the question in the RP serves to put that in our minds, even if we don't answer it right away, we need to define it at some point. We have touched on this question during the Character creation, but I don't think we have anything like an answer.

The third question was to everyone and you should each answer in your own way, when it comes up for your character.

The Fourth was for Moon alone, and we don't need to see an answer till we either see the Lair or Moon goes 'home' for the 'night'.

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Is there a reason that --during a discussion about how to make this faster-- no one has voiced any OOC opinions on the first question? Even just to say "I have no opinion on how we got the Job"?
If we don't speak up, things can go very slow as we all wait for each other. This game has a lot of these sorts of setting and scene questions, when the dice start it gets even worse. Hence the concern I expressed right at the start of the recruitment thread.

Sorry about that. For me, it was because I was thinking about providing suggestions/answers to all the questions at once in a single post, and wanted to chip in two cents in the discussion about how we were doing these questions before I started the process.

I'll voice my opinion about the first question, and figure out the rest in play. I don't feel too strongly about this one, but I think it could be a good opportunity to see what kind of person Amancio is like, since we'll be dealing with him quite a bit. Although obviously part of his motive would be as part of his job, I think it would be neat to see him also have some sort of parallel interest in having us investigating this assassin (and their to-be victim).

Yeah, sorry about that. It was a lot to throw at you all at once.

These were things we will want to know, but they are not mechanical so they don't need to be answered right away, or at all if you guys have other things you want to explore. Questions like how long we have been together can be left undefined if we don't want to decide that now, though that should be a decision we make and not an oversight.
No more than you want to, which was part of the point of the question. You can get your Jobs from wherever you want, the Favorite Contact is someone we can fall back on if we can not think of another way. Or you can make them jealous and get most of your Jobs from them, possibly needing to keep any third-party Jobs secret to avoid offence?
We can do that.

No prob, I'll just take it a bite at a time.

I don't have a strong stance on who the contact is as much as I just think it'll be a neat opportunity to get a strong first impression of a character, whether it be Amancio or someone else. Could be a neat way to bring in a relationship or something. The point about the parallel interest ties into that interest.

OK, so I will develop more in my RP post, but here are my ideas:

Agreed that Amancio should be the one who proposed the Job. As we are a humble Tier 0 Crew, he is just offering money to get the info (who is the victim). We don't know his real motivations behind that, whether he wants the info for himself, or if he plans to resell it to someone else afterwards (probably this last one, as I see Amancio as a kind of information trader). Of course, we will want to know who this 3rd party is, because we don't like being left in the darkness.

As for how long we've been together as a Crew, I think things will work better if our characters know each other for a while now, let's say for example several months. So probably we have already done other minor Jobs in the past and we know how each member of the Crew works.

Finally, as we don't have quarters in our Lair, Moon will be just renting cheap flats, and changing place every few weeks.

Make it so.

Rattila can join the Job in progress when they get back.

Are we starting with a free Downtime Activity or launching straight into the Engagement Roll? Either way, how?

I'm good with gnomius suggestion too, it'll allow us to play along seamlessly. Same for Amancio, that sounds good for a start.

As for the group, maybe Kristov could have searched specifically for Freck with the files available on him ? Or he met Moon when she got in his hospital for a health checkup, with her drug addiction ? He could also lend her an empty bed to have somewhere to sleep at night, provided she lends a hand to the hospital.
I'd say let's jump right into the Engagement Roll, to see how this plays out for a first time.

If we are jumping straight to the Engagement Roll then we need to decide on the Plan and Detail. But this is still an 'if': just because one person proposed it does mean we all have to go along with it.

Remember you get a +1 if the plan is (about) 'clandestine infiltration'. But that is not a plan type and can fit many of them (I want to say 'all' but I there are very few Assault plans that would qualify:). Stealth uses the word 'infiltration' and is inherently 'clandestine', but don't think that is the only one you can use it on. You get to decide if it applies.

You pick a plan type, and supply the missing detail. Feel free to suggest off-book options.

• Assault: Do violence to a target. Detail: The point of attack.
• Deception: Lure, trick, or manipulate. Detail: The method of deception.
• Stealth: Trespass unseen. Detail: The point of infiltration.
• Occult: Engage a supernatural power. Detail: The arcane method.
• Social: Negotiate, bargain, or persuade. Detail: The social connection.
• Transport: Carry cargo or people through danger. Detail: The route & means.

See page 127 for full rules. If you have questions not covered in the book, ask.

OK, so here is where the line between roleplay and mechanics starts to blur, at least for me. :)

In my opinion, to be able to decide on one of the above methods, we should know some details "in game", like who this assassin is, do we know him from before (or maybe just his fame), what other details we know about him (how he used to work, where, what kind of targets he used to aim at, etc...)

Without any further info, I'd say that the preferred method would be Deception, and try to manipulate him in some way to give away the info on who his next target is. But without knowing the details, I don't know how to do this in game.

These detail are not defined yet, we only know what the single line prompt says 'A master assassin has come out of retirement for one more job. Many would pay well to know who their target is'.
Is this a multipart Job, where first you have to work out who the assassin is, and only then can you try find out who their target is? Maybe you first have to find out who hired them before you can find out who the target is... and maybe never know the assassin's identity, since that is not the job?

As asked in the RP thread. 'Do you think you know who the assassin is'? You could each have your own opinions/ideas about who --they could be your nemesis... or your father... or both-- and we might need to investigate each possibility; or the Crew as a whole might have an idea and we focus on that.

If the players think it would be more interesting to know who the assassin is (even if maybe just by fame) then we can define that detail and go from there. Else we can start looking for that detail. The decision about which we do is up to the players, we can don't need to define the details now, but we do need to decide which details exist.

I have no vested interest in keeping things secret or playing this one Job out as long as possible, nor in wrapping it up as quick as possible. If we want to play this as a quick Job, that is fine, if we want to turn this into a story arc that is fine, if we want to start it as a story arc and then change our minds and wrap it up quickly, that is fine. It is for the group to decide. This is your world, I just work here.

I'm feeling a bit stymied since the job exists in almost a complete void right now. I assume that this master assassin at least has some sort of reputation that we would be aware of (or informed of by Amancio). Without knowing anything, I think finding out who hired the assassin would be a good first step, although the method eludes me. Maybe a downtime action to gather information would be helpful.

The players can set the stage and make up more facts if we want to start knowing some things, the world is our oyster (though they are not technically 'oysters') and we have lots of freedom.

Some level of 'reputation' does exist since people care this assassin. You can know as much about this as you want.

A Downtime Activity to Gather Information is often the way to decide on the Detail for the Plan. "We want to assault someone!" "Who?" "Dunno. Guess we need to learn more? I will go to my friends and ask around..."

Taking that into account, I think it would actually be better to start with a Downtime Activity, as you both suggested, then !

If the assassin is known, I'd be to make them "known" -in the faintest sense of the term- by almost everyone, but without any consistent information, kinda like an urban legend. With many exaggerated or outright falses rumors that both bolster the interest of future employers and hide any legit info on them into a sea of lies.

'Rumors' are a good way to treat 'things known'.

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Which downtime activity do we think this would be? Maybe Acquire Asset, but it could also be the first step on a Long-Term Project to discover the assassin's true identity or the target (they could both be separate Clocks in the one Project). Acquire might be better if you want to do this quickly and be done, Project might be best if you want to have this span multiple Jobs.

Remember that you can still engage in all standard activities during Downtime, so you can make other rolls to Gather Information or enlist help or prepare in any way you want.

Maybe you have heard of someone who is rumored to have known the assassin in the past? Then the first steps might be setting up a meet with them and enlisting them as a contact (temporary with Acquire, long-term with Project).

Maybe you need suitable clothing or fancy transport (the Gondoliers like you and could be persuaded to help, or you can enlist the Cabbies to pose as your chauffeur and start a relationship with them?) so you can gain access to a high-society party where you think the (unwitting) target is.

Maybe you know of someone who definitely knows the answer to the question and you have to work out how to get it from them. This could be a single quick job of bribery, blackmail, trickery, seduction, interrogation or whatever.

I am just spit-balling, any ideas you guys have would be better.

Well, from a purely egoist perspective, as a noob player in BiTD, I'd prefer that our first score is something quick, to get a first grasp of the system. And maybe we can leave a Long Term Project for later in the game.

Having said this, I agree with this statement:
However, reading the book, I don't see any rules to Gather Information during Downtime (or maybe I'm not reading it well). Perhaps that would fall under the category of "Acquire an Asset"?

Gather Information
More details are on page 36.

'Gather Information' is a 'free action' and one of those 'standard activities' mentioned above, you can do it any time, you should be doing it all the time.

Sometimes you will need to roll dice to get the answer or to set the quality of the answers (answers are always true, though). Sometimes you can just get to say what the answer is (GM can overrule). As with all things in Blades, the GM might throw the question back to you, "I don't know. Where does she get her supply from?", along with the standard "How do you learn/know this?".
Sometimes the answer might be complicated enough that you need to ask it over many scenes/questions/rolls, building on each other (and that is what we call a Long-Term Project).

You could Gather Information as part of an Acquire Downtime. Or as the result of it; the source of the Information could be the Asset you Acquire, for instance. Focus on the fiction and tell me what you want, then we can work out how the mechanics allow you to get it.