Thieves Guild Crises

When your Looming Crises check comes up positive, roll on these (not a complete list below, should be expanded).

(This uses the conquest system; so read about that if "flags" doesn't make sense to you: http://detectmagic.blogspot.com/2014/03/conquest.html)

I'm thinking you can have separate tables for different ranges. One range for hard moves, the other for soft—one for warnings and another for the things warned of. 

At simplest, a 1 on the check is a hard move; a 2 is a soft move. 

FNPC = Flag-NPC = an NPC who herself represents influence or control in a realm. 

Warnings

leave grisly message for the guild

show faction surveilling, tailing, casing, conferring with law enforcement or another faction

capture / kill associate

threaten a member, PC, or FNPC

show something weird and dangerous

threaten an NPC a PC cares about

show the FNPC floundering, falling off the wagon, being irresponsible, generally managing the flag and/or himself poorly

show a faction fighting to retake a flag, giving PCs chance to intervene 

Crises

have factions ally against them 

have the FNPC lose it: the flag is destroyed, nonproductive, or captured

burned, looted, poison, plague a flag

kill / capture a member / FNPC, meaning the flag is either taken out or captured by faction

gank a PC, with opportunity to fight back

capture / arrest a PC with no chance to fight back but give opportunity later to escape or make a deal; remember, factions always want something

manifest something weird and dangerous as a threat right now

turn someone traitor

harm / capture / kill an NPC a PC cares about

have a faction capture a flag 

have an FNPC set them up 

 

Fractal Game Structure

Here's how I'm running my game. 

We know how things work in a dungeon: go in turns; when the players do certain things (like go in rooms), certain things happen (like they see what's in the room, have an encounter); and as the turns proceed, there's a time-pressure chance of badness: wandering monster checks. 

This works really well. It's easy and clear. 

So let's pull it back and toss it over the whole game. 

I'm running a thieves guild game. When not in a dungeon or whatever, the game goes in turns. I ask Player 1, what do you do? We resolve it: maybe he wanted to go shop for some gear. Then I ask Player 2 what he wants to do. Etc. Eventually, on say Player 4's turn, they agree to head for the dungeon. 

Here's the thing: at the start of each turn, I'm rolling the macro equivalent of wandering monsters checks. (It's a 1 on a d10 at start of each turn.)

What's the translation? In a dungeon, the time pressure threat is monsters. 

In the macro game, you'll need to customize it to your campaign. 

In my campaign, the always-on threat is war between the thieves guilds and pressure from the law. Specific characters have their own threats too. Others might pop up. 

I call these "looming crises" instead of wandering monsters, but they work exactly the same way and are just as easy to work.

You can have multiple checks if you want: a general one, a specific one to represent the hot war going on with the River Rats, another one to represent the ongoing murder investigation against one of the PCs, another to represent the spread of the abyssal plague, etc. 

And optionally step up/down the check die as things get hotter/colder. 

Make yourself some tables, roll on them, and interrupt with the badness.