Blades in the Dark FAQ
I started a doc, here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_kr-InpgZnOKEjtgp6Tt9Iiqzya6hR-JZD4WKtA80yw/edit?usp=sharing
It’s also perma-linked on the top of the community page. I started it out with one question and answer. Feel free to go through the forum here and populate it with anything already asked and answered. I’ll check it periodically and clean it up and answer anything that’s still missing.
Thanks for jumping in an building out the FAQ, everybody! It’s a huge help for me.
I’m also curious about the Set Up question.
Andres Ernesto Aguilar assist gives a bonus die for only one roll, either the action roll or effect roll. That means a different player can assist the effect, or else the same player can assist twice for both roles (resulting in 2 stress).
A Set Up move requires a roll if there’s an obstacle or danger, as normal.
Any effect modifiers that result from the Set Up roll apply to the character that Follows Up.
Eep, so your set up may make things worse. High risk, high reward.
So Set Up may have an Action roll, but don’t need an Effect Roll, right? They’re essentially adding their effect to the Follow Through action?
Right.
How easily could you combine characters and crews from different sets. Could your sea captain, whisper, and blue-coat team up for multi-genre high jinx?
Yep! All the Duskwall playbooks should be easy to mix and match.
What about other settings playbooks? Is there more of a hurdle?
They will likely have different actions, so you’ll have to be okay with that. I’m okay with that.
With the armor special abilities that each playbook has (Battleborn, Cold, Shadow, Suspicious, Beyond), I notice there is a second grey line that looks like an additional armor box. What is this for? Do those special abilities convey 2 armor in their special circumstance? Or is this for having a different special armor?
The second box is for adding an additional special armor, if you get one from another playbook.
Ah okay. Could you theoretically get more than one additional special armor (there’s only one extra space, so I wasn’t sure if that indicated a limit, or if it just isn’t likely enough for players to utilize both Veteran upgrades on that)? Also, what happens if you crit on a roll involving your multiple special armor abilities? Do you recover more stress?
Yeah, there’s no limit. I just didn’t have space for a third one.
And yes, if you somehow crit doing two different things at once, you’d recover 2 stress. Not sure how that would happen, but both mechanics would apply.
Reading the Quick start, I only see cash mentioned on the crew creation as starting with 2 cash, and then on the sheet itself as a vault providing space for 8 cash – is cash different from coin? Thanks for an awesome game! I’m super pumped to try it out
Cash is a typo. It should say Coin.
Thanks!
Within the context of the mechanics, what is the downside of a rising Wanted rating? Since your Wanted rating rising means both more Renown and wiping the Heat clean, it seems like it’s a pure benefit.
Within the context of the fiction, why does a rising Wanted / Renown rating help reduce Heat?
Your Wanted level determines the size and threat level of the force sent after you when you draw the attention of the law (see page 29, last para under Wanted Level). At level 0, they send around a small detail of Bluecoats to round you up. At level 3, they send 50 of the hardest skull-crackers in the force.
The higher your Renown, the more clout you have as a formidable force in the underworld. People don’t want to get on your bad side. So clerks are more likely to lose paperwork from your case file, magistrates look the other way, etc.
John Harper The Wanted Level determining the size and threat of the forces sent against you seems to work against the Entanglements (pg 29)- higher Heat equates to more dangerous / expensive Entanglements.
And the reasoning behind Renown seems like it’s conflating Renown with Tier- a stronger organization is more intimidating, not necessarily one that’s more on the radar.
Well, okay. If you look at it your way, the mechanic doesn’t make sense. If you look at it my way, it does.
(I’m not sure why finding a way for it to not make sense is useful. This seems to be a thing people like to do on the Internet.)
Can you imagine a case where Renown makes it easier to reduce Heat? (Al Capone is an easy touchstone) If you can imagine such a case, well, that’s how this works.
Can you imagine how there’s a separation between an entaglement occurring (based on your current heat) and the threat level of that entaglement? (based on your wanted level).
I bet you can imagine how these things work out, rather than assuming a version where they don’t work out.
John Harper Capone was infamous, but also in charge of a high Tier organization with great Resources and Gangs, often using both to bribe and corrupt local law enforcement.
Contrast him with some other candidates for renowned criminals- Billy the Kid or Bonnie and Clyde. Becoming more recognized didn’t help them reduce Heat- on the contrary, it made it harder for them.
As another contrast, take the story of Frank Abagnale- someone with low Renown, but a high Wanted rating as a counterfeiter. He could vanish without a trace pretty easily (effectively dumping Heat), but when the hammer fell, it fell very hard.
Or, for a fictional example- the Gentlemen Bastards in the first book. Pretty low Renown- they were careful to not draw much attention to themselves- but the Thorn of Camora had a crazy high Wanted rating.
My point isn’t that being Wanted, being Renowned, and being able to dump Heat is never correlated; it’s that being Renowned doesn’t seem like it should always and only be associated only with being Wanted, and that reducing Heat can be accomplished in a variety of ways- perhaps by leveraging your Renown as a Ruthless gang of killers, or perhaps by using your Resources to buy off the right Bluecoat, or perhaps by simply being sufficiently inconsequential that attention fades away.
What kind of effects can you get from channel? There don’t seem to be any example of what kind of effects are possible, also, how are the summoned entities handled? The quick start literally leaves me with no clue.
james Bartow the full game will tell you! For now, you’ll have to make it up yourself. Or start a thread about it here. Everyone will help out with ideas.
The renown/tier thing is easy.
When you’re at the top of the sheriff’s sh*theap, he throws all his doods at you. When you get even worse, the FBI steps in. Sheriff backs off, but the FBI still thinks of you as smallfry… For now.
So you go up a level of notoriety, but you go down a level of interest. The sheriff isn’t going to sep into FBI jurisdiction, and the FBI jut doesn’t care about you as much as the sheriff did.