Assets cover anything going in the Crew’s favor. This might be as concrete as a Screwdriver, or as abstract as their Mojo. Most often, Assets enter play when a player spends a Plot Point to create one. For a single Plot Point, you can create a d6 Asset that’s useful for the duration of a scene, and for 2 Plot Points it remains useful for the duration of the Job. Some Talents improve this ability—Hackers, for example, are often at an advantage when coming up with new gadgets—but the basics are pretty straightforward. There’s no such thing as a generic Asset. If you create an Asset, you need to name it.

Assets can’t just be used on every roll—the Asset needs to be applicable in some way or worked into your description of what your Crewmember is doing. This can be a little fast and loose, especially when players are creative, but that’s a good thing. It does, however, point out an important guideline about Assets: there should be situations where they’re not useful. For Screwdrivers and other physical objects, this is rarely a problem; but for more abstract Assets, there needs to be a clear sense of what it is and isn’t useful for. If Mojo is going to help with every roll, it’s too vague, and it makes for a bad Asset. If the Asset specifically helps with, say, engaging the opposite sex, then that’s much more specific and usable.

It’s also worth noting that Assets can go away, and there should be some reason why. Again, with tools, it’s pretty simple, but with more abstract Assets, it’s worth thinking about the logic of it. To come back to the Mojo example, that might be lost when the character fails to impress a member of the opposite sex.

This idea of transience is important because, even if a Crewmember has bought an Asset for the duration of the Job, it’s still possible something might happen to it. Suppose, for example, a character has a Big Knife d6. That’s handy for a number of things, but if it comes time to search the characters for weapons, the Fixer may pick up that die (for a casual search) or just take it away (for a thorough search, such as in prison). The Crewmember can recover the Asset later (without spending Plot Points) but that requires time and effort he can’t spare.

If the Hitter picks up a golf club to beat up some thugs but doesn’t spend a Plot Point, should he still get an Asset? After all, he’s still got a weapon, right?

Well, no. Here’s the thing—the Hitter’s a badass. If he gets into a fight, he uses whatever’s on hand to his best advantage—that’s just a given. Picking up the golf club, going after the weakest guy, or looking scary, this is all assumed to be part of kicking ass and taking names. Spending the Plot Point doesn’t magically make the candelabra he picked up into something that’s more dangerous than some other weapon. Instead, spending that Plot Point makes a statement. That statement is, “this candelabra matters.” When he tells the story of the fight, it’s “that time I beat up a guy with a candelabra” rather than just another fight where he picked up whatever was on hand. This is why Eliot’s Hors D’Ouevres d6 Asset made his fight in *The Wedding Job* so memorable.