Having played a partial session of the game and read the rules a few times, I have a couple of questions about action resolution and the general flow of the game:
First, how do plans work within the context of the game mechanics? Is there an explicit point wherein the start of the heist has to be agreed upon, and, if so, other than choosing a detail, what specific ramifications does this have for play? In particular, does the type of plan constrain the type of actions you can do (e.g., when executing an infiltration plan, are you not permitted to use social or occult actions to advance any of the clocks)?
I ask, because the last session ended in a situation where our characters knew what we were doing for our operation (stealing from the Red Sashes, but doublecrossing the Lampblacks in the process), but hadn’t actually officially declared a plan at that point. My character had gone to check on one of his contacts to gather information on what we’d be up against for the Red Sashes; this got me to know what the relevant clocks were. At this point, I wanted to work against the first clock–getting past the guards–by getting my contact several different kinds of high and getting detailed info from her on guard patterns and when they changed, so we could slip through effortlessly. I figured this would manifest in game terms by me rolling consort, with the danger that she’d realize what I was doing and warn the sashes, resulting in increased security or something later. My GM maintained that this was an attempt to circumvent the rules, since we hadn’t yet formally announced a plan and a plan type, and forbade the action. Who was in the right here? I should note that at this point, none of the players, myself included, had read the rules and thus weren’t making our points clearly, which only served to muddle the situation.
Secondly, on a largely unrelated note, in situations where a clock is only partially successful, is it permissible to make the exact same roll to overcome it, or does the skill being rolled have to change? For instance, if a character uses cipher to analyze a magical device and partially succeeds, filling two segments of a four segment clock, would that character be able to roll cipher again to finish, or would she need to switch to, say, attune or something similar?
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For the last bit, about the clock, I kinda feel that if there’s only one possible check, it probably shouldn’t be a clock in the first place, but just a binary check?
My impressions:
1. Plans have practically no mechanics behind them. The whole idea is just to get a point where you jump into the heist instead of planning and to signal to the GM what you’re interested in doing. There’s certainly no constraint!
I think you weren’t really circumventing the rules and nothing at all breaks if you just jump into the heist without an explicit plan. In this case I think the GM might have said, “Hm, is this a social plan, and this contact is who you’re relying on? Or is this an infiltration plan?”
The real point is to avoid having players spend a lot of time on rolls figuring out the guards’ patterns, and the layout of the building, and so on and so forth. That’s the kind of setup and planning that Blades tries to skip, except as necessary in flashbacks. Once you have clocks and are working on filling the you’re in heist mode.
I don’t think anything breaks if you play out all that planning stuff, though. If you really love it, go ahead. But you don’t have to.
2. My impression is that you can keep rolling the same thing as long as no danger comes up to prevent it. For example, a risky Secure roll to pick a lock. As long as you roll 6’s there’s no danger, so you can keep rerolling. The cost of not getting a full effect is that you might get danger on the next roll, of course. If you do get a 5 or lower and danger manifests it depends on the danger. Pricked by a poisoned needle trap? You deal with that poison but you can keep on picking the lock. Guards show up? Obviously they won’t just stand around while you do your thing. Now you need a different plan and different roll.
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Daniel has the right of it. The GM’s responsibilty is not to ‘forbid’ actions but to help facilitate the conversation and get input from all the players.
It seems to me like a consort action (flashback) would have been excellent in establishing the context for your raid – which then everyone should be jazzed about as an infiltration – plus it gives the GM some ideas about dangers pending the success you had on the gathering of information.
I would applaud that as great Blades player behaviour and something like ‘player responsibilities / GM responsibilities’ would be helpful in the rules.
As to your second question, as Daniel says you can do the same action, but at that point the spotlight often shifts, so one of the other characters can step in or try another action to overcome the obstacle.
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Yep, Daniel and Nathan have it right.