Alternate version of hunting grounds for assassins

When we started our game a few weeks ago we picked the docks as a hunting ground (quite a wide area which i know is typically a few blocks of a district) and the game is going well but i’m noticing my assassins are being pulled in several directions, figuratively and geographically; a drug dealer on the docks, a red sash cruising silkshore, a nobel tucked away in their mansion on brightstone and realising hunting grounds might not fit as well for this particular group of assassins.

I have read through some play by plays of other groups and noticed many seemed to stick to their turf, take on small jobs and rise up in the ranks geographically quite a bit but even then i notice the hunting grounds often fell by the wayside as they got further in. So rather than assume i’ve messed up i wondered if assassins with a more wider reach of clientelle might be better served by a hunting grounds model similar to the smugglers.

The idea i came up with ran from the table of targets on page 306 of the book, namely; Civilian, Criminal, Political, Strange… I considered breaking these types of target down a little more (adding in institutions and nobility primarily) giving the crew the ability to gain the bonuses for hunting a type of target not a target in a particular place.

Curious if anyone else has done something different with their assassin hunting grounds (and turf)

“Each piece of turf that you claim represents abstracted support for the crew - often af result of the fear you instill”

So abstracted support I think works well with the targets. They should fear the crew and thus give support.

If someone assassinate a leading member of a community a member would think:

  • They are dangerous, let’s stay on their good side
  • Let’s use them to further our own agenda

But hopefully there will be exciting backlash too. :smiley:

But as turf is something you can lose control of it should be able to be attacked.
Either by long periods of safety or rival assassins, law-enforcers or other protectors.

Using Client types as turf for Assassins is a great idea actually.
Everybody in X social class knows the crew and respects/fears them, so getting social support from them helps to reinforce crew reputation (turf) and the contacts it comes with help with getting resources and information (hunting grounds).

Mechanically you can have 6 turf for a total of 7 hunting grounds, so a mix of both territory and social clout could also be a thing. Do NOT go to the Docks if you’re a Noble if the local assassin crew has both Political Clients and the Docks as turf :scream_cat:

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*looks at hidden list of assassins in our Duskvol… evil laugh
There may well be others providing the same service… If anyone looked into that

I also considered turf as a person with connections, maybe an inspector you could blackmail or a spirit warden (if you could find out who they were) nothing more vulnerable than a person; through being exposed or killed by rivals,nemisis or other world events… @stras clock of Drag getting fired might be a good example from bluecoats… If you had him as turf you’d have to invest in keeping his job aka upkeep of turf

I also like the narrative positioning of having social and material turf spread out for assassins or smugglers; you might meet noble clients in an apartment in nightmarket (hell own the building and change floors ala The movie The Game) whilst having a vice den in silkshore for allies and a occult shop front in six towers, maybe even find a recently departed import export merchants house and buy it up as a safehouse for -2 heat on jobs in that area… I feel turf can be powerful and flexible as both using this approach

If you make Turf a person you risk encroaching on other mechanical systems though, like Patron, crew contacts, Claims etc :thinking:
IMO Turf is a less defined and larger scale resource that relies on and reinforces your reputation and control.

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I can see where you are going with this, such as crew contacts could be considered turf if i did that. I guess you could in a way make the inspector in the example (totally not using our own game as an example) a crew contact on a clock… i was just thinking a character that hates you and is in a position you are forcing them into ergo blackmail isn’t viable for a crew contact imo. I see crew contacts has plus status contacts (which you can lose with entanglement rolls).

There is overlap but if you made a noble the “front” of your organisation, or an inspector give you access to the informants it would make sense in my head the first “turf” section could be a contact or person in the world but would then place them mechanically in high risk and upkeep territory.

I wouldn’t make you do upkeep on a crew contact (bar maybe a clock and some RP/a job or two) to get the negative contact off your back

With regard the idea of turf being abstract i’ve always read turf as literal in the book, and very mechanically a physical set of 3-4 blocks of turf that expand, until you hit the smugglers section but even then the turf is just spread out and hunting grounds are a type of resource you “smuggle”. The example for me is the bloodletters playtest where they literally took over the vice den across the street, effectively increasing their hutning grounds and adding turf. This obviously works well for hawkers!

Maybe i’m reaching with turf as people esp given the topic i’m pitching here as a hack. Maybe a seperate thread time! hmmmmm

If anything, i feel like turf is always tied to a person, because ward bosses exist and most definitely expect your tribute (at least, in my games they do). I’m doing something similar for my shadows who are mostly just spies - their starting turf was essentially “noble intrigue in the parlours of nightmarket”, with the second turf their acquiring being the protection of an Iruvian Leviathan Hunter so that they can operate in those “circles”.

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