How do I allow my players to aquire a gang or crew? Mechanics and belief advice.

Burning Wheel Subsystem Advice and Guidance
1

I am having issues and I need some advice.

On page 96 of BWG there’s a small section on creating a gang or crew on the onset of character creation which require three elements.
1- The character must have a ‘relationship’ with the leader of said gang or crew, or BE the leader of the organization.
2- The character must have an affiliation with said gang or crew.
3- The character must have a reputation with the same gang or crew in #2.
(4- Though not official, in play, I feel that beliefs and risk / reward should play a big part here.)

I have a player who claims to have gotten all of these things, though we have spent no time directly engaging in the narrative to suggest it has even taken place.

-----This is my review of his character in the current contex.

The characters are all on a caravan with a mixture of cultures on it. All are either clanless (cast offs who have been lost clan protection and support for one reason or another) and/or people fraom various clans trying to gain something (noteriety, fame, glory, find a new home, ect).

Within this group are a small number of striders which agreed to join said caravan in order to support it and prevent people from dying (and have done so with help from this character and a clan of hunters that had joined the caravan.)

1- The character has circled up a close friend of his from the striders enouch to gain him as a relationship (but despite having influence and camaraderie with these striders he nor the striders necessarily consider him their leader.)
2- He began play as a member of this strider group in the form of an affiliation. (of all points this one I feel actually does apply. He gained it fairly, and I have seen it in play.)
3- He has a general reputation as an ‘Outsider’ bu never specified the scope of the reputation. (Given that they have left the town he was originally living at the reputation may no longer apply. However, he has been playing this up on the caravan so I should probably shouldn’t split hairs on this one. Maybe the reputation is following him on the caravan or has somehow changed along the way.)

(4- In spite of all of this he has had not created any beliefs to help sculpt this gang or crew. He skirted the mechanics in other ways in order to aquire the above elements, and wants to have this gang / crew as his own now.)

  • He claims that his character is falling into a leadership position rather then gaining it directly, but without any beliefs to back that up I have nothing to work with narratively.

  • I also disagree, because he’s been in the shadow of the current leadership of the caravan itself. Though he hunts to provide for the caravan he had killed someone in cold blood and the people of the caravan demanded a justice they never got (he escaped into the wilderness.)

I want to see him develope this more because I think it would be an interesting turn for his character, but we are butting heads on the intent of the mechanics here.

I could use some help.

What would be some good milestones for the developement of his character to get what he wants out of play?
Is it possible for him to craft a belief around this to satisfy what I want to see in play along the way?
Let’s say he somehow wanted to gain the entire caravan as a gang / crew what would he need to do then?

2

TL;DR - Your player is wrong.

The requirements for creating a gang during chargen, don’t have anything to do with forming a gang during play. For that, you need to play.

  1. Circling up someone isn’t a Relationship. If he’s not their leader, sounds like he needs to write a Belief about becoming their leader.
  2. He bought the affiliation during Chargen. Cool, he’s affiliated.
  3. He bought the rep. He has the rep.

He doesn’t get to say he’s their leader unless he got that during Chargen. Don’t think about milestones for his character to get what he wants. The player needs to write a Belief and tell you what his first step is in the master plan. That’s it. Belief and what he’s going to do about it right now.

How does he gain the entire Crew? He writes a Belief about it, pursues that Belief while you challenge it. You both roleplay what happens from successes and failures.

At the end of this he isn’t necessarily going to have a gang on his character sheet like he would have after character generation. He’ll have dudes that he tells what to do and maybe they listen.

3

My only disagreement is that even having a gang or crew from character generation isn’t some kind of automatically obedient addition to your character sheet. It’s still dudes you can tell what to do and who will maybe listen. Having them not listen, or undermine you behind your back, or mutiny, those are fodder for failures and, if applicable, ways to test Beliefs.