Con artists, theives, hackers; sometimes, when you need something done correctly, you need a criminal. A county judge in the pocket of the mob; corrupt police, thieving bureaucrats. To solve certain problems, you need to step outside of the law…
Music Credits: “There It Is” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
PLAYERS
- Axe – Jeff “North” Wingate. Mastermind/Grifter. Former logistician for the PMC Impartial Force, fired by the company and accused of embezzlement when he blew the whistle on their illegal diamond smuggling operation.
- Kevin – Lyle Rutherford, Jr. Hitter/Grifter. Iowa farmboy and Marine Corps veteran whose one tour of duty in Iraq left him with a lot of baggage and one less foot.
- Matt – Kayla Fox. Hacker/Thief. Former cellular network engineer who got out of legal work when she realized how impenetrable the glass ceiling truly was.
- Nate – Elizabeth “Miss Magpie” Ueda. Thief/Hitter. Catburglar extraordinaire and infamous diamond thief.
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Hey, I’m just wondering how much you planned out in advance for this adventure. Like, how many locations did you stat out in advance? And when did you decide on the judge going to the governor’s ball?
Hi! I’ll be honest, it’s been quite a long time since I did the prep for this adventure. However, I can say generally that besides the plot central locations like the ball, I didn’t have much planned out, and the judge probably only started going to the ball the moment it would help the plot. As a GM, I’m already not great about planning a whole lot in advance, and Leverage in particular is a system that rewards the GM for thinking on their feet. Player planning is the last great foe of GM prefabrication, and Leverage makes player planning the central theme. I’m curious though, why do you ask? Is there something peculiar about the locations, or were you just wondering?
Oh, I’m just asking because I’m getting ready to run this game for my own group, and I’m not sure how much I need to have ready! Is it enough just to get the main characters and basic setup? Like, I know who’s cheating whom, but I hadn’t planned for public opportunities to get at the Mark (like the ball), and I was wondering whether I needed to put some in. That’s all!
I suggest you get the characters in order, have a strong understanding of the structure of the mark’s operation, and have a few opportunities for them to take advantage of, but Leverage in particular is a very collaborative game, storytelling-wise! The deeper you get in planning, the more you’re just asking for the players to make a snap decision and make two-thirds of your notes meaningless. Once you get the players planning and engaged, things will go fine!
Belated thanks for the advice! We’ve had two sessions so far, with our third coming up in two days, and although we’re stumbling a bit as we learn the rules, we’re all having a good time.
I have another rules question, if you don’t mind: What do you do when a player is rolling to convince an NPC of something, and the NPC has a trait that’s relevant but should work in the PC’s favor? Do you roll the trait as part of the stakes or not? For example, if the Mark has the trait “Greedy D8,” and the PC appeals to his greed, how is that reflected in the roll? Does the PC roll the D8 instead of the Fixer to reflect that it’s bolstering the PC’s chances of success? Does the Fixer leave that trait out of the roll, since it’s not providing any resistance? Or does the Fixer roll the trait for the Mark because it belongs to the Mark and is relevant to the situation?
Oops, never mind, I found the answer! (Page 64 of the rulebook, under “picking up dice.” Feel free to delete this comment thread!)