7 thoughts on “Design question for John Harper:”

  2. There’s no such shift. Skills cover specific areas of use. It’s just much more explicitly up to the players to determine how they approach a problem, and the approach is the skill.

    This isn’t a paradigm shift, it’s just making explicit what is often explicit and therefore often ignored by “aggressive” GMing.

  3. Although simplified, I likened the process to Fate Accelerated’s approaches.

    If the players can creatively narratively explain how a

    Particular Skill (approach) is used, then that only fuels our imaginations as we visualise the fiction.

  4. See, that’s interesting Nathan Roberts – I always looked at that as a weak point of the Fate system. In games I played (which is admittedly not a lot), skills were less means than they were descriptors (i.e. “I do it with STYLE vs. I do it with FOCUS”), which to me didn’t really do anything interesting to the fiction at all.

  5. See, that’s where Blades shines. You have an obstacle with HP (Clock), a player-driven means to overcome it (action) and a possible strength of intent (effect).

    All three ‘touchstones’ have room for narrative input by ALL the players. This is far more empowering  (and tells some rather unexpected tales) than having a prescriptive action list with ‘use in these circumstances’ style descriptors

  7. Yep, Nathan has it right (as usual).

    Also, the choice of action is rooted in the actual action performed by the character, not just a general “approach.” So, you can try to get past the tower’s security by Murdering the guard, or by Prowling past in the shadows, or by Deceiving the guard. But you can’t “Prowl the guard to death” or “use Deceive to climb the tower.”

    There’s no such thing in Blades as “using a skill to do x.” There’s only “I do this action.” (which is why they’re called Actions, not Skills)

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