Question on gangs that Steve Moore and I were having during a game on Wednesday. When I am running a player and his gang, do I roll them as 1 if they are using the same move? Do I use the player’s stats for both?
What about if they are doing something different? Say one is sneaking and the other is attacking.
What happens if one of gang members turns against the players? Like in Pack Alpha.
Our MC basically measures my gang’s success by my player’s success. I had my gang off doing something while I was attacking another hold, and when I missed a roll sometimes she would mark off harm to my gang. I don’t ever roll for my gang to do something unless I have a move that I’m using (like Leadership).
Pack Alpha, I feel, is a separate thing, because if the gang decides to disobey an order that can either spring up when you’re issuing the order, or t can be a consequence of a failed roll later on.
Most times it works to think of gangs as a weapon. When a PC seizes by force or goes agro, they can chose to use their gang. This will usually require the use of another move like pack alpha or leadership, but sometimes the gang will just go along because they want to. For other things like act under fire and such, then the gang is just a collection of NPC’s.
As far as what the PC is doing, that’s up to them. They could be a leader who sits back and let’s others do his dirty work. If that’s the case they may need to make rolls to control his gang more often because he’s distanced from them. Alternatively, you could have a PC who wants to be in the thick of it. That could make it easier to to control the gang since your leading not directing, but it also puts you in harms way.
The gang is a threat in addition to everything else it is. When a roll is missed, it is entirely legitimate to use an appropriate threat move based on the gang.
In the simplest case this can be when Leadership or Pack Alpha are appropriate to roll and it is missed. The unfortunate stuff of that move happens, plus / rolled into the hard move from the gang. Of course, those moves aren’t required every time you use the gang as a weapon–or for something else–even if you aren’t there. If you tell your boys to rip up a soft place, you aren’t imposing your will or making them fight for you in dangerous circumstances. When you stand strong against invaders with them you are also unlikely to need to use those moves, it is their home as well. My rule of thumb is if it is inline with the gang’s threat impulse, the make them do shit roll isn’t required. And the move is the PC’s Hard based violence roll (or if they have To Die For it is their Hot based violence roll).
In the trickier case where you’ve told your gang to do one thing and you are doing another, I generally agree with the idea that it should peg to a move the player is making. Are they covering you while you sneak in? Are they escaping to secure home while you kill as many scouts as you can? That sort of stuff is mostly color, and it is pegged to your action. Failure can, if appropriate, be from the gang or from your circumstances or however the fiction goes.
I think the situation where your gang is taking totally unrelated actions under your orders is actually not that tricky, though it does show off the extra fictional reach gangs give you. You make the move for the gang to sneak in to your enemy’s compound or whatever. In this case it may be the do what I say type thing, or maybe just straight up manipulation to explain things to them. And then you do whatever it is you are doing that’s not related, like securing a good deal on some needed supplies, or whatever.
Amazing at how different the MC role is from other games, both easier and far harder. No rolling, sometimes less fiction, but it holds all of those for far more greater fiction from you when called upon.
I don’t think you ever roll for the gang’s success (unless we’re talking about, say, Leadership). They’re not your character, and their stats are limited. I think, rather, you fictionally position them and look at the MC — who now has to make a soft move for them. So the MC uses one of his options to disclaim decision making: ask a player, ask an NPC, or make a clock.
Now, fictionally positioning them is a big deal though, so that’s cool. You could be scoping out an enemy camp, and you want your gang to get in without getting chewed up by MG fire… and you could try and, what?
Maybe Seize [Their Attention] by Force? The point of SBF is that violence is incidental when you want things, so maybe that works. At this point, you may find out if the Gang sneaks in by “asking a player” — ie, if the player chooses to take definite hold of their attention, then, yeah they’re in maybe.
Or instead you start tossing Molotov cocktails to Go Aggro and they’ll Clear The Hell Out or suck it up aye? So the MC let’s the NPCs make a choice and they choose to bail, so hey your gang succeeds at sneaking in.
Or maybe the MC makes a clock and knows it’ll take This Long to successfully sneak in, and he ties it to your number of die rolls, your number of times you take definite hold, or maybe just once every time you guys have an exchange to simulate keeping the bad guys busy.
Lots of options, but you don’t roll for the gang. They don’t get to use your Cool when in danger, or your Hot when manipulating. You roll (and maybe the MC punishes your gang for whatever), and you either use them as a Weapon or they’re NPCs moving in the fiction.
That reminds me of the other thing with gangs. It is totally legitimate to make a move with them, possibly even one that their owner would like, whenever someone makes that opening and it is appropriate. After all, they are NPCs.