Hardholder loses a holding.

Two countdowns that would wreck the holding hit midnight simultaneously. The town was burned by a warlord, and then the landscape opened up and ate it. What happens to the hardholder? Thanks!

It depends on the fiction and whether there are survivors of the town and whether they would still follow him. Regardless, he won't be able to make his wealth roll until he commandeers a new holding.

It's lousy to be a hard holder without a hold, so as MC you may want to offer them an opportunity to take something over. However, there aren't rules for offering opportunities per se, so you'll have to make it a threat and make them work for it.

They could also build a new holding from the ground up if they still have a gang and enough citizens to help do the heavy lifting. It depends on the options they chose and how everything went down.

Or if they are close to their 6th improvement it may just be time to switch playbooks!

Yeah, the big thing is, are there still followers and is there a gang? The people of the Hold are more important than the location, right? It's totally possible for the Hold to be a roving band looking for a permanent home.

If there's no gang and no followers, that pretty much destroys the playbook and the Hardholder has nothing to do and no interesting moves to make. Without the followers, she's just some schlub. Personally, I would retire the character if that's the case.

More interesting by far is letting them keep the gang, made up of the survivors, and hand them the Chopper playbook with a good-luck shrug.

I think the ability to fail is important in this game. Just as you can run out of hitpoint by catching too many bullets you can run out of a town by fucking up.

Oh yeah, consequences are important and a town should fail. But the Hardholder's ONLY abilities are derived from running a town, so it's important to discuss where he goes from there.

It's okay to suck after shit happens.

A Gunlugger can lose his guns, a Chopper can have her gang killed off, a Savvyhead can lose their workspaces. The MC grants the playbooks these things without initial contest, but you if the game goes that way after a time, you stick with the consequences.

An AW PC is pretty boss even without the special abilities, and the Hardholder (a few advancements in as well, I assume) has default the default violence stat.

Get him options to do things he wants to do with what he has, which is not much. If he doesn't want to do anything, it's cool - you can treat it as de facto character death ("retire to un-safety") and have him make a new character.

Again, I think everyone's in agreement that Bad Things are allowed go happen. No debate there. The question was: where does the Hardholder go from here? So let's talk about the question.

As long as there are still people taking orders from him, he's still the Hardholder as far as I'm concerned. Maybe he wants to rebuild or settle elsewhere? That's all up to him, of course. Ultimately, the player has the choice to stick with the Hardholder or retire him. If there's no townspeople left, I think it's legit to switch playbooks. Make sure it makes sense in the fiction, but I see two obvious choices: If there's still a gang but no townspeople, the Chopper might make sense. If there's townsfolk but no gang, maybe he's a Hocus now.

In the end, you gotta just ask the player if the character's saga is over or if this is just a new chapter.

As long as there are still people taking orders from him, he's still the Hardholder as far as I'm concerned. Maybe he wants to rebuild or settle elsewhere? That's all up to him, of course. Ultimately, the player has the choice to stick with the Hardholder or retire him. If there's no townspeople left, I think it's legit to switch playbooks. Make sure it makes sense in the fiction, but I see two obvious choices: If there's still a gang but no townspeople, the Chopper might make sense. If there's townsfolk but no gang, maybe he's a Hocus now.

In the end, you gotta just ask the player if the character's saga is over or if this is just a new chapter.

I figure I'd ask the player between sessions what they want to do and take it from there. If they want to roll with it and move their stuff over to the Chopper/Hocus/whatever, as long as it's not already in play, why not? If they say, "Fuck that, I'm THE Hardholder. Let's get me a holding," then right on, time to find a place to settle or conquer, as the case may be. And if they want to just retire the character and start a new one, sure – but you gotta check off the box for it to be guaranteed as "retired to safety," at least in my book.

Yeah, I agree 100% Jason. This is the kinda thing where I'd straight ask the player if the character is still interesting to them. It's a great example of "no status quot," for sure: if you want it, you better fight for it.