So, I’m GMing a crew of occult Hawkers and I’ve been thinking about how to make scores out of doing big sales. In particular I was thinking about using Lord Penderyn as a potential buyer and make a score out of meeting him at an Arkenvorn masquerade like some of the examples in the book show.
My main question is: for the purpose of Rep, who would the target of such a score be? Would I use the buying customer’s faction (in this case, either the City Council or Path of Echoes)? If I introduced another faction standing in the way of the sale (but might not tell the players about their involvement before they get into it), would they instead be considered the target?
Also, in general, how have folks who have run Hawkers handled scores for the crew? Do you use sales as scores or just assume those happen off-screen and make scores out of other aspects of running an illicit business?
Regarding Rep/Tier: I would ask myself, where is the obstacle/danger in the score, who’s the opponent? Because overcoming it will bring the rep from my fellow scoundrels. So, is Lord Penderyn the “opponent” or is there no risk in selling to him? If there is no risk at all, maybe this is not a good score but should be free play/a fortune roll or even just given.
In my games that may be not obvious at the beginning of the score: Maybe Lord Pendryn is only the buyer, everything is fine first but a few desperate complications later you have not only a second buyer trying to trick you but a different faction who wants to steal your goods and some Spirit Wardens trying to bust those illegal activies. Just play to find out what happens and ask yourself in the end: Which badass did we cross and survive. This is where the rep comes from.
Regarding Hawkers: I think this is up to your table/players. What do you/them want to see on screen, what is exciting and what should only be in the background.
The only other Hawker crew I “knew” are the Bloodletters (from Johns/Seans/Stras’/Adams actual plays): There we saw those aspects which were fun to play/watch, like “Oh, we don’t have enough supply of leviathan blood”) and we did not see others (like “Yes, customers are using our tattoo parlor”).
If it’s cool, go for it. If not, don’t.
For the GM this is a bit of a challegene some times (it was for me, as an old-school-prep-everything-GM) because you have to improvise more but for longer games this will work out just fine. At a specific point you know what your players like, you could prep some scores and give them a choice etc.
So: Cool rules. Do what you/your table likes on screen and skip the rest.