OK, here is a request: I want a squeaky clean setting.

OK, here is a request: I want a squeaky clean setting.

OK, here is a request: I want a squeaky clean setting. Something colorful, nice, light-hearted. Could be Anime-based, pulp, teenage urban fantasy, RomCom, animals, social stuff…. For my taste, the “darkness” is a bit over-represented in the strech unlocks.

33 thoughts on “OK, here is a request: I want a squeaky clean setting.”

  6. Well, one of the first things I thought of with regards to Blades was “Would this do Robin Hood?” and I suspect one could run a very positive and light-hearted game of Robin Hood and his band of merry men. You’d have to rename some of the skills (like Murder), and make the consequences/dangers less serious – like “you look silly in front of your friends/lover”, “you get a bump on your head”, or at worst “you get locked up by the Sheriff’s forces and the warden SNORES HORRIBLY AND HIS SOCKS STINK”.

    Even in the quickstart it says, “The players decide as a group on the tone and style of the game by making judgment calls about the dice and actions, along with oversight from the GM” and “here’s a bit of advice: if you think a combination of obstacle and action is silly, don’t choose it! Pick something else. You’re responsible for the tone of the game”.

    In your case, you could reword it to “if you think a combination of obstacle and action is silly, do choose it! You’re responsible for the tone of the game.”

    Also, for some reason I’m thinking of Lego: the Movie.

    (And yeah, I’m also tired with darkness and suffering in RPGs in general. You could try Golden Sky Stories or Chuubo’s for an alternative?)

  7. There is no doing it wrong if its fun. 🙂

    Other then that,…

    Toys under the Drape

    A toystory like setting where you play a band of newly shopped toys who try to be more popular as the established one. Destroying older toys would be a bad idea as it just leads to new toys being bought. One might as well try to play one of the older ones trying to fight against being forgotten.

    Actions could be like getting an educational edge on others, stealing and hoarding fancy stuff to draw attention, building up a reputation as powerful to be engaged in action heroe play, finding intel about the newest trends or sabotaging other toys so there’ll be a defect in the next playsession,..

  9. It may as well be interesting to have an Alice in Wonderland hack that’s closer to the original then towards the standard Gothversion of “actually its a freaking dark nightmare” of AiW that get regularly done,..

    (A bit like that old Anime or the first Disney version expect for the ending)

  10. Jennifer Fuss and your description is making me think of a book I read ages ago, “Blue Arrow” by Gianni Rodari, about toys escaping the toyshop and travelling through the city (with dangers being “drowning in a puddle”, “caught by the shopowner”, “kidnapped by a stray dog”, “falling through a grate”) in order to deliver themselves to poor kids that really love them, instead of being given to indifferent kids of rich parents that actually bought them.

    And of course this had to be a surprise, so as they travelled together, every delivery was a separate infiltration plan, sometimes toys broke down and didn’t get delivered, sometimes the wrong toy got delivered to the wrong person (but always ended up making their life better as an epilogue) etc.

    (And there was even a Ghost Lines-accent, sort of: the Blue Arrow is a model of a famous train which attempts to deliver itself to a sick boy who is the son of a rail worker and thus loves trains.)

    Looks like an English translation of the book doesn’t exist but there’s a movie that’s sort of based on the book’s storyline: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Toys_Saved_Christmas

  11. Could add in some of the levity of Fallen London’s take on a similar setting. Perhaps spin the theme like the anime Fairy Tale (or heck, One Piece) with a crew that is a relatively friendly group/guild competing with other guilds for prominence and jobs (still works with the scores-downtime cycle but has less drugs, racketeering, and murder). You’d probably need some variant crew playsets or at least vary the xp advancement aims.

    Swashbuckling also tends to be about rogues in a positive sense. I can imagine a revised set of factions that is more similar to the criss-crossing intrigues of Musketeers’ Paris. (Cardinal’s guard instead of Bluecoats or inspectors, courtier ‘gangs’ pursuing schemes at court, less creepy occult/ghost stuff if you want.)

    I would be curious what alternatives would work for vices as the vehicle for recovery in-game. Maybe more moody tendencies or character flaws rather than addictions?

    Shucks, now I will be musing all day about how well Blades could run One Piece with minimal changes (other than, you know, the superpowers).

  12. I had some ideas that the Leviathan part may mix well with the Sunless Sea Setting from Fallen London. Though that isn’t particularly lighthearted ^^;

  16. I was sad to see that the supers setting was going to be supervillains, even though I love Superior Foes of Spider-Man. I intend to see what it looks like, and if playing street-level superheroes instead (four color or otherwise) will be a simple hack.

  18. I am imagining the supers setting will work for any story of supers that routinely and unabashedly engage in vice and have ugly squabbles with competing factions while trying to become top dog (while minimizing heat from some authority structure). The trouble with purely heroic folk are that they may be less inclined to gleefully seek out mayhem, murder, manipulation, coercion, debauchery, etc, and they’re probably less inclined to justify means with the desire to come out on top. Of course, skill terms could probably flex somewhat, but heat, vice, etc seem like more core elements.

    Could a heroic crew generate heat and wanted levels from some powerful villainous organization? Could vices be construed as wholesome things like “spending quality time with my family,” “giving away/sharing my money or comforts,” or “helping people in need”? That changes a lot of the dynamics and decisions players face, since coin doesn’t contribute as easily in those ways, and overindulgence looks pretty different.

  19. Well, current vices include faith and affiliation, which don’t have to be unwholesome. Hell, even lovers don’t have to be an unwholesome vice. I think Family, Faith, Charity, etc., are all reasonable for a supers game’s vices (solaces? comforts? supports?). Heat could be about villains, or you could keep it kind of as it is. Spider-Man, Daredevil, the Bat-Family, and a lot more, all have to deal with the fact that they’re vigilantes from the law.

    Alternatively, turn Heat into Approval (or add Approval as an additional thing), and then you can track how the community feels about the team, based on how much collateral damage there is, how well they handle things, etc., after each crime-fighting ‘score’.

  21. Leverage and Firefly are both good examples of scoundrels raiding places and stealing things, but still doing good – so it should be possible to still have pro-active good-hearted thieves.

  22. Wow… Great responses! Firefly and Robin Hood are great examples of more positive/colorful settings that still fit the “Blades” idea.

    It would be nice to have at least one less dark setting. Judging from the many responses, there might be a resonance with that.

  27. I’d say it’s all in how much hacking you’re willing to do, and how much you feel you can strip out of or change about the system while still calling it Blades =)

    The basic mechanic of actions, effects and the three tiers of rolls? I find it hard to imagine any genre that part couldn’t work for.

    The emphasis on teamwork, now… you certainly could run the game without it, or adapt it somehow to NPC allies instead, but I think you’d lose some of the essential “Bladesness” in so doing. (Which isn’t stopping me from pondering it, as I have at least one good friend I’d love to run something for online eventually.)

    The vice/stress/trauma mechanic? Could be tweaked in various ways, I’d say. Coin and hold likewise.

    One thought I’ve been having is for a fantasy hack where the players have established an outpost in a new land. They need to build up resources, make trade treaties and alliances with local groups, recruit more people to make the outpost grow… it’d be a pretty minimal reskin, but still give a more hopeful tone to the whole thing. (Or, you know, it could turn into a dark and culture-game-y exploration of colonialist themes, but that’s not what this thread is about.)

  29. Very cool. I like the new action categories. You could probably consolidate backgrounds somewhat (Church/Monastic/Itinerant into clergy).

    Do you anticipate changing Heat/Wanted at all or Stress/Trauma?

  30. Adam Minnie there will be further changes, I’m just not sure what they will be yet. I’m happy with Stress/Trauma, though I might rename Trauma to Scars or something more suitable. Heat/Wanted might change, and I definitely need to think deeply on the gang hierarchy, Hold and Tier. With regards to completely new things, I would like to include something to do with food scarcity, to encourage hunting and feasting – big themes in Robin Hood stories. I might steal something from Apocalypse World.

    (Although, I’m conscious that John asked to wait with mods until the final game is done, so I’m tread lightly 🙂

    With regards to the backgrounds, Itinerant is there for anybody who spends considerable time on the road, including tinkers, entertainers, pilgrims and so on. (The “Traveller” heritage on the other hand means these folks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers )

    Church and Monastic I kept going back and forth on, but I think you’re right because a person who is a monk/nun would know what to do and how to behave in a church and vice versa.

  31. Nice. I don’t mean to be critical. It’s good stuff. My main impetus for consolidating Backgrounds is mostly to make each of them more beneficial and versatile. For instance, combining Knight and Mercenary into Military, or Peasant+Retinue into Commoner, allows your background to benefit you more often (rather than only with knights, or only with mercenaries which would specifically come up less often). Of course, factions could be more detailed than your backgrounds (thus splitting up say Monastics vs Priests vs Bishops perhaps into separate factions).

    I like the idea of maintaining provisions, especially since weather/seasons could greatly impact the fiction of such a game and keeping people fed is a big deal. Perhaps Hold could expand to include a concept of stability, including reliable access to such needs? Or you could just swap Coin for Provisions/Goods. Then, similar to how Heat rises based on actions in the score, perhaps Hold/Provisions could automatically reduce after each score, perhaps based on the crew’s Resources stat, with with more or less dice depending on things like season/weather and consumption/lifestyle/generosity during the score (ie like Oregon Trail’s choice of indulgent/normal/meager perhaps with a minor mechanical or narrative effect for each). Then of course players could also elect to spend Hold/Provisions for feasting to achieve various larger-scale effects (morale, faction status, arranging venues for trickery, etc). Then a new downtime action could allow for resupplying, working much like reducing heat perhaps. But of course I’m curious what you have in mind from AW.

  32. Some factions ideas:

    King’s/Prince’s Men (knights, soldiers, armies)

    Crusaders/Templars

    Mercenaries

    Priests (perhaps separate the upper echelons like Bishops who may have separate attitudes/agendas/resources?)

    Monastics (perhaps divide by ideology: Blackfriars, Brownfriars, etc. or Benedictine, Cistercian, Fransiscan, etc.)

    Cults/Heretics?

    Druids

    Possibly even Fae or forest spirits (ie Ladies of the Lake)?

    Sheriff (and lackeys)

    Tax Collectors (possibly combine with Sheriff)

    Gaolers/Headsmen

    Merchants (perhaps separate by Guilds)

    Burghers

    Nobility

    Servants/Retinue

    Yeomen/Freeholders

    Peasants

    Troupers (entertainment/rover troupes)

    Peddlers (perhaps combine with Merchants or make Drifters)

    Riverfolk?

    Outcasts (Lepers, witches, etc?)

    Highwaymen

    Outlaws?

    Poachers?

    Foreign Spies (likely French)

  33. 1) Criticise away. If I disagree with you, I will happily say “that’s my hack and I like my idea better.” With criticism, it mostly annoys me when people are being patronising while criticising. I’m not getting that from you 🙂

    2) Consolidating the Backgrounds. You’re right that the finer they are divided, the less useful they are. I’ll have to think on it because my internal OCD insists on keeping them separate 🙂

    3) Provisions. Definitely not a substitute for Coin – the band needs to rob the rich of their Coin! I would actually add it to Downtime rolls. Exchanging Coin for Provisions is cool, as is completing scores aimed at Provisions instead of Coin (this will need an alternative Development roll).

    In AW, if you’re a person responsible for a group ((believers, gang or holding), among other things at the start of every session you roll for what your group currently needs. Translated to Blades, this would result in something similar to Entanglements (needs such as: food, medic, faith, entertainment…? Plenty RH stories start with “Robin was bored”, one starts with “We need a monk” etc)

    Another source I like is the Resources stat and the Lifestyle Maintenance roll in Burning Wheel. Either way, I want to make it so that it encourages more story around food, and perhaps suggests where to get it from.

    4) Factions. That’s a great mine of ideas! It also touches on my problem. What does Hold represent? Your crew is meant to attempt to make it to the top of the hierarchy. What happens when you displace King’s Men? So my idea is to research how society was organised at the time and restrict them to county-level groups, or perhaps use mostly locations instead of groups. Foresters of forest X, Sheriff’s guards, village ABC, and so on.

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