Questions after the third session (first one with #TheMalkavs ):
Can a character assist a leading companion?
One of the players argued that since they were all testing, they were already “assisting” the test. I argued that his character not only was testing following the lead, he was going an extra mile and assisting his companion, which caused him stress.
Was it okay to let them loot the Red Sashes vault, leaving with 3 art pieces (2 Coins each) and a heirloom sword (fine item, 4 Coins)? It “stacks” with the Coins gained after a score, right?
I actually want to have them test something, like Resources to have Amancio fence the art pieces for them, but again, I’m not sure if you can actually “loot” stuff in game.
Yep, one (and only one) backup character can assist who’s ever on point, taking 1 stress to +1D. See the teamwork rules on pg 8.
You don’t value the loot. Under the Advancement & Coin (pg 19) it says ” after each score you roll dice to find out… how much of their hard-won riches they manage to hold on to…”
Blades in the Dark isn’t the game where you count the coins and explain every step of extracting a mahogany boudoir from the third storey of a brothel. You cut between scenes, and gloss over hassles, assume bribes were paid, etc. I mean a coin is not meant to be an precise amount, it’s a pacing mechanic.
They may keep the stuff and gain thereby a fine item, though from what I understand they won’t be able to sell it and keep the coin to be spent on Downtime stuff.
Regarding the fiction they’d sell it and then people show up cashing in their feels, maintenance bills come in, things get stolen, normal vice indulgence eats it up.
They might even have to make an “aquire fine item” roll to see whether or not they can keep that heirloom sword into a condition that lets it count as fine.
Yes, I get the impression that without being too careful and sticking to the Acquire Asset actions, the crew could end up with a host of fine items before too long.
Blades are stealing nice stuff from people every day, but seldom does that stuff work as well for them as their signature goodies. Maybe I lifted a top-notch sword or pike yesterday, but I’m really a knife or maybe club guy. I think I would still stick to the playbook item lists and crew upgrades to determine which characters can make effective use of various types of fine items (aside from anything gained through Acquire Asset rolls). Is that too stingy?
Oliver and Jennifer have it right.
It depends on your players. I considered adding a coin or two, maybe more, so that after a successful roll they got a better chance to clear stress and to somehow build up that retirement fond,.. maybe after each modestly successful score a coin or two might be added automatically?
My players will be pissed. That means that no matter how “juicy” the score is, they can only get what their tier lets them have? After all their effort? That sucks pretty bad. I mean, what motivation do they have risking big heists if they’ll never get more than standard coin? It feel pretty un-thievery. they get what they earned
I get the assist rules, one of the players felt that it was too benefical to be able to contribute to the test and assist in the same teamwork move and thought that it was a mistake. I can assure him now that those are the rules as intended.
It’s a classic problem in gaming. Players love to count every coin of income, but then gloss over their commitments and expenses. Piles of loot and wealth result. The need to be a thief evaporates.
The Development roll accounts for all the myriad expenses and debts that people in Duskwall (especially the poor) accumulate. So, sure, you looted the treasures and the jewels, but how much do you hold on to when it’s all said and done? That depends on your crew’s Resources rating.
It’s an abstraction, and it must cut both ways. If we abstract the debts, we must abstract the income. Also, there’s a thematic element at work here. Being a low-down dirty criminal in Duskwall is not the way to become rich and powerful. It’s barely enough to scrape by. The road to the upper tiers is long and tough. You don’t simply steal some jewels and bathe in riches.
I’m not surprised at all that this annoys some players.
Is not a problem of abstraction (for me), is a problem of challenge vs reward.
In Torchbearer/Burning Wheel, for example, Resources mechanics are punishing but there is a transparent challenge-reward dynamic (for the player). Here I can intuit that the pace is: heist > get more status > level up tier > get more income, but is a long, long cycle for players to see, even more for players who still have to buy in the game.
Please give something to give them for their effort! Can’t I give them extra dice for the Development roll?
They might run a big heist as small heist may not even count as a score at all. There might as well the political reasons to do bigger heists. A tier 2 faction may not care to shift their standing if the heist has been just a small one.
Plus mostly they work for other people. If they do so they’ll get paid what they get paid. In some cases even way less then they expected,.. theres a reason while an every increasing number of Oceans rob one Casino / Bank / Stuff after another.
Other then that I briefly considered what to do if my players want to turn the fine ectoplasmatic art piece they cashed in for them self – opposed to delivering it – to hard coin. Having a picture thats worth a coin, maybe two, doesn’t mean you get those coin. Even if it doesn’t haunt you or acts as an spirit beacon. You can’t get to the next vendor and sell it.
So,… maybe use it as a starting point for a new score?
Have the player figuring out a fence, have the fence be aware of the political implication of buying hot art, get a gang (mad scientiest, mad cult, mad ghost,…) to try to interfere and get hold of the picture.
Then, in the end, do a development roll how selling or maybe even getting rid of the contraband actually worked out for your crew. Maybe they get a meager coin for that thing, maybe they can please a faction, probably they upset another, maybe they’ll get heat thanks to it.
If you want to do more haggeling,.. this is one suggestion that came up after my actual play:
Haggling over the Job
Crit: Masterful negotiations. +1 level of Effect to post-score Development roll.
6: +1 level of Effect to to post-score Development roll but you’ve tapped their goodwill and/or funds to offer scores or help for a while.
( danger 0/4 lasting effect to recover from)
4/5: Take it or leave it (first try, next try see risk), otherwise the deal is off!
Abandon or try again by taking a bigger risk and making an even more Desperate move
( danger 0/6 lasting effect – increasing on next tries)
1-3: The deal is off! -1d to post-score Development roll and you abandon negotiations with the faction or try again by taking a bigger risk and making an even more desperate move.
( danger 0/6 lasting effect – increasing on next tries)
Maybe, just as I am a bit confused. How does leveling up a tier increase the reward?
(might be something I missed)
Apart from that you can always give them extra dice at their development roll or add an +x figure behind the coin / hold outcome.
John won’t come visit you and bite your head off,.. I guess ^^
Yeah, Duamn, I understand. You want the risk / reward to be more fair. Perfectly understandable. You’re free to tweak it, of course, but the mechanic does what it’s supposed to: Duskwall is in no way fair. You play to find out what happens when these low-lifes try to get ahead. Not to watch them get ahead. Maybe they will. Maybe they won’t. The development mechanic is harsh and loot slips through your fingers. It’s supposed to be a bad deal.
That said, the full game has options for tuning the pace of play, for both XP gain and tier / wealth advancement for groups that are playing a short series and want to tier-up several times or whatever.
For now, sure, go ahead and give them bonus dice to development. Your version of Duskwall can be a kinder one. 🙂
For me, it’s about setting the right expectations. Blades in the Dark isn’t like some other games with wealth and leveling, where you’re on a constantly upward-ticking track, inevitably rising to level 20. Advancing your crew is something you struggle to do. It’s a big challenge! Failing to rise up or accrue lots of wealth isn’t the same as failing at the game! The game is finding out.
Lots of players will be frustrated by this, feeling like they have “nothing to show for their efforts” or whatever. But the game is what happens when they engage in the struggle, not simply the coin-count when it’s over.
Jennifer Fuss
“John won’t come visit you and bite your head off,.. I guess ^^”
Yeah, I know, but I hate tinkering with a system that I haven’t had some extensive play on. Having the opportunity to ask the designer for a solution that falls inside the rules, I couldn’t let it pass.
I like your Haggling rules, though.
_”Maybe, just as I am a bit confused. How does leveling up a tier increase the reward?
(might be something I missed)”_
After the score, each character gets 1 + Tier level Coins. Effectively you earn more when climbing the crime ladder. Great design.
The main problem I see is that:
– it conflicts with one of the GM good practices, my players did earned that loot. They did broke into the Red Sashes vault, and could get their hands in some of Mylera’s fine art.
– it doesn’t matter how hard the score is, the players always get the “same reward”. I get the rules encouraging players to enter the “factions game”. The thing is, as written, it is the only game that actually benefits the crew. If they have the option to sabotage a Red Sashes headquarter for the Lampblacks and stealing the Cranium Mask in the Forgotten Gods temple where no one ever returns and great riches await, the first score will always be the best one to follow (because it lets you gain status, and the Coin reward is the same for both).
Right now the only advantage I can come up with for the players is having this art pieces count as fine item for the Development roll effect. Does it sound reasonable? I think that is a too little.
Great discussion here. Definitely a valuable topic to raise, so players can set expectations properly and not meet unanticipated disappointment.
It may also be worth considering crew xp as a form of abstracted payoff, since it’s the means by which the crew procures, installs, and maintains crew upgrades. It may not be as satisfying, but pulling a heist may satisfy a number of crew XP triggers, depending on your crew type.
How much did that vault or lair security cost to build, man, and maintain? How much do you pay out to retain your gangs, update your building plans, or buy rare, quack ingredients for your whisper rituals? You may pull more lucrative scores at higher tiers, but then you also have greater scales of overhead to consider.
I’ve run afoul of the tracking-income-but-not-expenses problem in far too many games, so I am personally a fan of this game’s rough shake of it. I know my bookkeeper players won’t necessarily be, but I anticipate they can appreciate the growth in advancement and politics more than coin.
Could a compromise be offering characters a coin or two directly for their stash? Most Blades characters may not trust each other with the crew funds so they do what they can to skim off what they can from the scores and secret it away from the others’ knowledge. This wouldn’t shift the play tone that John articulated well, it just lends a nicer retirement to those who make it there.
PCs get the coin payout when the Crew levels up, not after each score.
Counting an especially nice piece of loot as a fine item for the development roll is totally by the rules.
You can offer a devil’s bargain, too, say +1 heat for +1d, since they cleaned the place out and are now fencing all the hot items.
I’m taking your feedback seriously, Duamn. I’m talking about the rules as currently written, but I’ll consider a change to create the incentive you’re talking about. It hasn’t been an element in our years of playtesting, but it’s certainly worth thinking about.
Yeah John Harper, I get it, but one of the selling points of the game was a Thief: Dark Project, this is pretty un-thieflysh. No problem, BitD is not Thief, and I might have missplaced my expectation.
Now, I’m definitely not kind with the characters. I like to GM harsh, deep-in-the-mud, style games. But also I like to give them what they’ve earn, and above all, the option to push forward and choose their fights.
Again, I love the game, I think is great fun and has a lot of potential. As I said, my problem is having a conflict between GM best practice (give them what they’ve earned) and the Development rules. If I have to choose, I choose give them what they’ve earned. I’m only asking for the best way to give them their hard earned edge without tweaking the rules.
Heh, I’m always two posts behind. I thought about the devils bargain, now I have tools for them. Thanks a lot to all of you.
Now: they had stolen three art pieces from Mylera’s collection and her family sword.
– One art piece can count as a fine item
– One art piece can count as a devil bargain, as John Harper said.
– The sword is proof for Baz, but also has a freaking ghost inside it, so it will probably turn into a long term project for Lovelia the Whisper.
– The remaining art can only be fenced in the next Downtime.
Again, thanks for your response, you guys are great. It was just what I was asking 😉
Cool, glad we could help.
For the record, we do disagree on a couple points. Which is fine. I just want to be clear.
I think the mechanic is very thiefy-ish (you have to honor your debts and seldom manage to amass any wealth, thus driving you to steal again.) We have slightly different expectations here.
Also, they get what they earn is firmly in place. You get something even if you totally fail your Development roll, because you earned it on the score.
They get to keep the fine art pieces or whatever cool loot you described and they stole. They earned that. What they don’t automatically earn is the certainty that those things will magically turn into assets. They have complicated promises and debts in their lives, which we gloss over. The development roll sorts that out.
Jennifer Fuss’s post also helps me realize that with the rules as-is the more scores you spread a given set of in-game loot across, the more coin the crew legitimately gets out of it. Cash a whole vault’s contents fast after a single score and you’ll lose coin through the sieve of lifestyle, networking bureaucracy, and mismanagement. Maybe that’s something the Spider helps with, stringing scores together thematically toward bigger-picture goals?
Could liquidating a physical score of goods be a long-term crew project in some way that would help align challenge and payoff? Maybe a massive vault score makes a bigger cash-out clock while getting paid by a faction to rough up an enemy probably doesn’t need anything but the standard development roll. Completing segments of the cash-out clock could require scores in themselves.
Another intangible reward of pulling lucrative heists over less lucrative ones are the detriment to the faction affected. Maybe you can’t really make functional use of all those juicy goods, but you definitely thwarted their plans for its use for a few months, or ruined their relationship with their would-be buyers who already paid for the now-missing shipment.
Yeah, I really like Jennifer Fuss’s idea to turn the lucrative fencing of a big loot haul into its own score (or several). That’s a really clever application of the system.
Yepp, just proposed my players that. Also they could try and sell those items to one of the factions, gaining status with gangs outside the Crows, Lampblacks and Red Sashes.
Good insight, Jennifer Fuss. Up for a play by post – hangouts game? I could really use seeing the game in play from more than one angle 😉
Well John Harper I do agree in that we disagree (and I’m not the kind of person that leaves it at that 😛 ).
What I see is that there is no relation between score and reward. A small score that benefits them “politically” is always a better option that a big heist that promises great danger and gold (’cause reward is actually the same).
What I fear is that most players [i know] will go for the clearly beneficial one, less risk, more profit on the long run. There is nothing “mechanically” enticing about higher risk, less faction-oriented, scores.
Some might say: that if the players want to be daring, that’s their choice, they know their rewards beforehand. Or that a daring heist is a reward in its own. And I agree with that. But this game has progress deeply ingrained in the mechanics. Entering risky but “rewardless” scores will lead, naturally, to tests which will lead to complications, short and long term, that will make it harder for them when pursuing faction-related scores. And nothing for their effort.
Maybe I’m reading it completely wrong.
Duamn Figueroa there’s also the subtle benefit of getting wildcard advancement ticks from every desperate action you take. So there is some mechanical intrinsic reward for choosing a riskier operation over an easier one.
Further, I think you’ve already mentioned this but the fictional gains of a riskier cash-score could significantly modified the risk of future scores in a number of ways.
Finally, I’m not sure there is ever going to be a completely unpolitical heist option. Someone cares that you lifted others’ goods, if not the owner, then a potential heir, a supplier or buyer who the haul was owed to, a competing faction that had plans to rob it, or even other factions that are impressed by how your crew pulled it off.
Forgot there’s also the crew advancement trigger of facing challenges above your current station, which—in the senses I mentioned in a previous comment—also equates to abstracted wealth.
On the back of this great conversation, I’m considering this rule change:
For the Development roll, add:
+1d for a high profile target.
This mirrors the Heat roll, but it’s beneficial for you on the Development side.
Yeah, I hear you Adam Minnie _”Finally, I’m not sure there is ever going to be a completely unpolitical heist option.”_
What I meant is… picture this:
The crew finishes Downtime, one of the Lampblacks told them that the sashes are expecting a cargo of spices to pass through the docks at midnight, stealing the spices under the red’s noses will please Mr. Baz. On the other hand one of the cultists that consort with the Whisperer (faith vice) told her that Gondoliers tell of a sunken temple under Crow’s Foot, he believes is the temple of Vassago, a forgotten god, that houses one of the seven masks and a s***tload of gold, but is protected by a demon.
The first score is simple, and will raise the status with the Lampblacks, maybe leaving them at 3, just about to get into tier 1. The second score is exotic, promising, but dangerous.
Mechanically both scores work give the same “Coin” reward. The first score is easier, with the added benefit of increasing the crew’s tier. The second one gives out the same loot reward but has no “political” benefit. Yeah, they might gain favor with the Forgotten Gods cultists, and lose with the Gondoliers, but those factions never got into play yet, so, not so great.
Now I know, after this conversation, that I can turn the loot into something more meaningful: Asset rolls to keep some fine summoning candles from the temple, +1d of fine ancient gold to the Development roll, +1d devils bargain because demons can see through the mask, turning the mask into a long term project for the Whisper, pursuing a score to sell the gold coins to a collector… But none of these benefits are as “sure” as the first one, and the score is way more dangerous. I can’t entice the players to push their characters forward and come back with artefacts from another era. Valuable artifacts.
My fear is that a game with the potential of BitD will only turn around the gang-wars and politics. And a crew of Thieves could do so much more than that. And I feel the game can easily support that.
_”For the Development roll, add:
+1d for a high profile target.”_
This sounds awesome John Harper. I love a game that gives me the tools to Sway my players.
You make excellent points, Duamn. I’m thinking deeply about all of this. Thanks so much!
You nuts? Thank you for making games!
Any way you cut it, Duamn Figueroa that under-inkwater temple score sounds like an awesome scenario that I am definitely “borrowing” for my game.
I hear you about the disparity of various risk/reward psychological incentives. You’ve inspired me. Maybe the easier/harder continuum has more to do with scope or investment than just inherent risk? Risk is already a loosely scale-able fictional concept based on the severity of effects players can expect to face, or the positions they’ll likely be put in.
For example: The spice shipment could just be a single short score, one of a couple in a session with downtime in between. Players get little, but invested little.
Meanwhile, the temple might reward the players’ sense of challenge/scope by spanning a few diverse scores, National Treasure style. First a score focuses on getting more details (where/how/who else knows/what dangers should we expect) or gear (boats, breathing apparatus, dredging equipment, access) off the Gondoliers. A second score focuses on achieving access to the temple (keys, passcodes, riddle answers, trap-countermeasures, kidnapping or extorting a priest, whisper, or some far-flung descendent if blood/retina/DNA/sacrifice is required. A third score could then focus on actually hitting up, navigating, and surviving the temple. As you mentioned, future scores could then center on keeping it all quiet, fencing the goods, staving off other factions’ attempts to rob your hard-earned ancient artefacts, or going back down to snatch more of the sunken haul (since getting it all up in one go seems unlikely).
Overall, players get more mechanical reward for greater game-focus invested in any story element.
Duamn Figueroa As another option to reward stealing a lot of stuff and to avoid having repetitive fencing runs you might motivate the players to use their goods to setup up a “side job”. Which would help to enlargen the crew. To have the side job tick and generate XP along the score their fencing and maybe money laundering / stuff obscuring operation would have to be filled with new stuff.
Though something I do find challenging is that with a starting crew, after having done a score, and rolling crit on development, there is not enough coin that every character can have one if they like to spread. As well as there isn’t a general more personal reward apart from the XP.. though that might reinforce teamwork.
Tho if I got it right after two, maybe three score they can level up their crew tier at least ^^
Perhaps an alternative is to reward a single very big or wealthy heist with multiple development rolls?
I think the most elegant answer is that if you want a bigger loot reward for your risk, you gotta do another score. Otherwise, you get the regular reward, which takes into account all the vicissitudes of being on the lowest rung of the criminal hierarchy of Duskwall.
My instinct for players insisting on cashing their loot themselves would be to:
1) convert it into scores
2) explain that the abstraction covers paying their ongoing debts – that is, being shaken down by the bigger gangs who WILL KNOW the crew just had a big score because the fences will tell them.
If the players don’t follow the abstraction rules, devil’s bargains on the cashing in score will include getting -1 to one or more factions. Some factions with -3 will start projects working against the crew. Then they crush the crew (stealing their stash, injuring their gangs etc, with a desperate action required to resist) because they have more resources. And that’s how you find out, in play, why the small fry prefer paying the “protection money” to open warfare.
Re: why a small crew always ends up with a small amount of money. The fences give you worse prices because they know for a fact that you’re desperate. And the bigger players only ever leave you enough money to survive, just, if you’re lucky. They don’t want you to use the extra money to move against them and do a takeover, right?
And also the less high level allies you have, the more vulnerable you are to further attacks. No one wants to be the gang with no friends in the middle of war. And when you want jobs to earn their trust back, you get the most dangerous and least rewarding ones (generating even more costs to yourself and forcing you to spend that fortune you amassed earlier).
Great thoughts Jane Olszewska. I’m sure I’ll be using similar political tactics in my game with coin-happy cultists.
That’s a perfect breakdown of the development roll abstraction, Jane Olszewska.
Sorry to come to this thread after the fact, but I wish I had read it before last night because I ended up having the same problem as Duamn Figueroa and agree.
My players also looted the Red Sashes vault and made off with several art objects and I, with an incomplete understanding of Development, decided to just throw them some extra Coin, specifically thinking of they get what they earned. (Also, because the Advancement & Coin page states, “When the crew completes a profitable score, they’re rewarded with Coin.”) The main reason I wanted to especially reward them is because they went out of their way to look for valuable items in the vault (with some Discern rolls to appraise Mylera’s collection). With the Development roll as-presented I feel like there’s no way to reward them for all of the effort they put in and the extra risk they faced. (There was also a safe they decided not to crack as it was too dangerous- but if they had, apparently it wouldn’t have made a difference.)
All of the ideas in this thread are great and I’ll probably use all of them. As the Quickstart is written, though, I completely agree with Duamn Figueroa that there is a conflict between the GM practices and the Development. I think the PCs expecting a payoff relative to their effort is completely expected, and in the moment I don’t want to tell them, “Actually, it doesn’t matter exactly what you steal here, because the abstract Development roll will determine how much coin you earn regardless of your fictional actions.” That’s not satisfying for me or for them.
Yeah, I get what you’re saying, Jason. I’m making some changes in this area.