First game of our Blades in the Dark Trilogy with Jason Bowell, Robert Bohl, Jason Corley and Richard Rogers.
The Charterhall Walking Guild was once a legitimate gentle-folk who got together to discuss community issues and walk in the brisk night air, back when the Charterhall area had gentle-folk, before it all went to hell. Nowadays, the C.W.G. is a band of thieves with a fine library and connections among the sailors, deadland scavengers and carriage drivers.
They used to answer to Roric, so they were surprised when in the middle of planning a job Roric’s ghost appeared with an axe in his head, asking for vengeance against his second-in-command, Lyssa. They asked their former boss how much such vengeance would gain them and he offered a cache of silver in volume equal to a husky Duskwall child.
They had a plan. They’d get Lyssa to buy drugs from the Lampblacks. They’d get the Red Sashes to crash the deal and make off with the drugs. They’d frame Lyssa for the whole thing, convincing both sides that Lyssa had set them up.
It is a mess of a plan. I’m not sure we all got it but we went with it and got moving.
Holtz the Cutter went to meet with the leader of the Red Sashes, cut down some Lampblack kids to prove his loyalty.
Cyrene and Pool go to Lyssa and find out that she hired Ulf Ironsblood as new muscle. They convince her. Turns out Ulf is very superstitious and thinks Cyrene is a “wyrding woman.”
Then Canter, the mastermind behind the mission goes to his contact in the Lampblacks. He rolls and fails, hitting 3 of 4 necessary effects.
So, that is where we start next game. Pool is sneaking out Lyssa’s HQ, a beached whaling dreadnought. Canter is with the Lampblacks, having NOT convinced them to take part in a drug deal that is the cornerstone of his plan. Holtz is with the leader of the Red Sashes, having sex with her in her armored carriage after murdering a Lampblack kid for her.
Questions
Do you roll the Action and Effects dice at the same time?
Is it a separate Devil’s Bargain and/or Backup stress for both Action and Effect?
would also like to know this
Listening.
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The Action roll happens before the effect since the result of the action can give a bonus to the effect. Generally it should be action, then effect, then resist the negative effect from the action’s danger. According to the rules, a Devil’s bargain is only an action roll offer, but I see no reason why making an offer for the effect roll isn’t appropriate at times. I personally wouldn’t offer both for a single action since it would just bog things down and it would water down the interest in the mechanic. The purpose of a devil’s bargain is to add interest to the characters life, so I believe in making sure if I put one on the table that it’s meaningful. Backup is also for a single roll, and it seems from the example of play it is for the action roll. That makes the most sense to me as it can be easy to help somebody succeed but difficult to help them do it well, but then again, if a pc wants to support on the effect roll and it makes sense I would go for it. Again, I would avoid having PC’s do a back up on both on the same roll, at least until you and your group have more experience. I’m personally unsure what it would do to the system so I would avoid making that you can do both an expectation.
I have considered making action and effects rolls together too. It would probably grant a slight statistical edge to the roller. Also, it could see there being a lot of dice for one roll. However, I do really like the idea of one roll resolution. I’m interested to hear others opinions.
We played the way Dave describes.
Helluva AP Judd!
The action only gives a bonus to the result of the effect roll, correct? In other words, it doesn’t boost up any of the die results, instead it adds additional segments to a successful roll?
I am eager to see where this story goes next. Great flavor so far.
I would think you could theoretically roll action and effect with different colored sets of dice, but it may not help much. The action roll result determines what effect you would roll and if rolling effect is even possible. Also, it may turn out that you end up using a different effect rating than you initially imagined, or you fail and instead may choose to roll to resist a danger’s effect (which again may be a different rating than you initially imagined).
I believe the answer to a similar question was yes Devil’s Bargain and Backup bonus die (and thus stress) are separate for the action roll and effect roll. You may even have a different character take stress to give you backup for the effect roll.
Look on page 26 of the Quick Start, +1D for the Devil’s Bargain and +1D for Backup are listed as options under both Action rolls and Effect rolls.
Action and Effect rolls are separate rolls. Devil’s Bargains and the Backups each give an extra dice for one roll. So if you want these bonus dice for both the Action and Effect rolls, you have to pay their price for each roll. So you could choose to pay the price of a Devil’s Bargain and 1 stress for the Action roll, the same again for that action’s Effect roll, and if you faced the danger and resisted you could pay the price again for the resist a threat Effect roll. Obviously the stress and other problems will rack up fast if you always go for the dice.
That’s why I see no reason to not offer these for each roll, they are optional so the players don’t have to accept them.
This is one reason I wouldn’t roll Action and Effect rolls together. You’ll have too many optional dice options to parse, especially since some of the options are the same for Action and Effect rolls. Additionally, some of the Action roll results let you abandon your current approach (1-3) or try it a risker approach. So either you’ll be re-rolling Effect unnecessarily (when you abandon or retry) or you’ll hold the Effect while re-rolling the Action roll and already know what the effect will be, which may skew your decision making.
Thanks for pointing out the 1-3 result. We didn’t hit any of those so didn’t think of it.
Yep, you roll Action and Effect dice separately. Can you point out what lead you to wonder if they’re rolled together? I need to make sure I kill that text with fire. 🙂
It’s separate DB and/or Backup for Action and Effect. They’re different rolls. You parse each individually. Like a skill roll then damage roll in a standard RPG.
Also, this:
Then Canter, the mastermind behind the mission goes to his contact in the Lampblacks. He rolls and fails, hitting 3 of 4 necessary effects.
Hitting 3 out of 4 on the clock doesn’t mean he fails. It just means his initial effort wasn’t enough. He has to do more (again, it’s just like rolling for damage). Progress clocks are for recording progress toward a goal. They’re not all or nothing.
Out of curiosity, which plan type did they choose for their “mess of a plan?”
I don’t think Judd made that explicit
Sounds like it was a social or deception plan? In fact I would hedge my bet on Deception since the detail was the social connection (Lyssa).
Another reason not to roll the action and the effect together is that one possibility for risky actions is to escalate to desperate actions. If you see that your effect roll is really high, then that reduces the motivation to escalate; you have an idea of how protected from consequence you’ll be if you don’t escalate.
I remember the last thing said about the plan was:
Me: So it sounds like we are doing a deception plan.
Several: [muttering assent]
I remember that too. We talked about it and made it explicit.
I realize that getting 3 of 4 doesn’t mean the plan is done. It’ll mean we start the next game with the Lampblacks refusing to bite on the bait and Jason’s character in dire straits to make them go for it as time ticks away. It’ll be a good start along with the situations everyone else is in.
Jason came up with an overly-complicated mess of a plan. I had him summarize it and what each play would be doing.
Then I cut to the actions of what they had to do. When they were confused as to their goals, I cut back to a scene with Jay’s character, explaining what their character’s role was in the scam.
It went alright…I needed another hour of play to bring it all together.
Next week!