Source
r/bladesinthedark•
elementalguy2

Ideas on the next score for my players.

If you're the Hawker Greengrocer group turn away now.

In my players inaugural session they, through a mixture of disguise and distraction, gained access to the draft article and source material for a story that was going to be published about the electoral fraud in the upcoming Nightmarket Councilor election. For more see the lastest issue of the Doskvol Gazette posted the other day.

As a result of this in the faction downtime I've had the brigade start a 4 step clock in investigate the fire they set during the mission, and the journalist who wrote the story has gone to ground in a safehouse (owned by Verelis who my hound picked as his wronged party).

My players have yet to pick downtime actions but I'm unsure whether or not to suggest long-term projects to discover her location, as they've indicated they want to find the journalist so the story can't come out in time and then they can either use that favour to gain a better market position or just blackmail the guy to get that outcome too (though blackmailing the tier 5 council I don't think would go well for them). But that also feels like that could be a Gather Information roll to work that out too before they try and kidnap or kill her from where she is.

Either way the next score should be linked to this fraud angle but if it's not finding the journalist then I'm not sure what I could offer as an alternative idea so I can have a couple options in my pocket prepared for them.

Any ideas or advice would be welcome.

Posted Feb 28, 2023, 4:47 PM UTC

97
BellowsHikes•

You don't need to offer the players any kind of score. Ask them what they want to do and let them tell you how they want to do it. They may want to totally ignore the consequences of the last score and that's totally fine. Just let them know that ignored consequences will eventually come a knockin'.

If they really want to do the kidnap/kill thing I'd just have them roll a couple of Gather information rolls to find out the approximate location (a warehouse at the docks controlled by the Billhooks, a bluecoat safehouse, in the palatial estate of a noble who is prone to throwing masquerade parties) and than let them figure out their method and detail. Throw a rival in the mix somewhere or some other kind of curve ball, and boom. Baby you got a stew goin'.

8
ProjectHappy6813•

Instead of tracking down the journalist themselves, they could approach the interested party with what they know and let them deal with that loose end themselves.

Or they could look around to see if there's anyone who wants the truth to come to light and try to play that side. Maybe a political rival or special interests group.

Lastly, they could sell the information to an information broker and let them do with it what they will.

1
elementalguy2OP•

The current result of the score that I've told them is they were paid 2 coin by their contact who let them know that they heard about some dirt the Councilor was concerned with, and they have kept the documents that if they turn in I'll give them 2 more coin. Whoever they turn it in to I'll give them the same value but it'd would change the course of the election potentially for sure.

I might encourage them to gather information on the different candidates and maybe one of the other parties would be a better group to have control of that district so they can come out ahead more so than letting the status quo continue.

I think I'll definitely say tracking down the journalist would be a long-term project, if she was scared of a politician then a tier 0 gang would need to put a bit more effort in to finding her then just a gathering information normally, especially with someone who's against them helping her out.

1
ProjectHappy6813•

What Tier is the journalist? Is she well-connected? Does Verrlis care about her well-being, or is she just in a building he owns?

1
elementalguy2OP•

Just a basic inks rake gal so tier 2 but with the assistance of one of the PCs rivals I figure that's what's giving her an edge against them specifically. As far as I've worked out in my head I think that if the councillor gets re-elected he's going to try and reduce illicit activity as far as he can (I'm thinking increased heat if anything happens in that district), so if the PCs do find her and have a conversation maybe they'll decide to react accordingly.

1
DiegoTheGoat•

Copycat arsonist? Did they leave any clues for enemies to find?

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elementalguy2OP•

They weren't very subtle, they scared away a witness, and openly ran into the building to "help" "convince" people to leave. So it won't take long to work out it was them. The only saving grace really was it was early/late enough in the day that there weren't that many people around but they didn't go out of their way to cover their tracks.

1