Ok. I read the Quickstart. I liked lot of things (also, layout and graphics). However I feel it like it isn’t a full role play game, more like a tabletop tactic game without a map. Detailed procedural rules, highlights of missions and downtime. However, this can be viewed as a weakness: the main thing I disliked was the special abilities of the different playbooks. Very bland. Almost all of them are bonuses related to the procedures. I didn’t feel that wonder, that excitement I felt when I read Apocalypse World and Dungeon World for the first time. There, I said: these “talents” are freaking cool. I WANT to play this playbook.
In Blades, I see them like pawns of a tabletop game. Almost all the same, just minor differences for differentiate a little the “red player” from the “blue player” from the “yellow player” and so on.
Have you played a game of Blades yet or only read the QS?
Not played yet. However I have lot of experience with PbtA games, also I love to dissectionate almost all the systems, so I feel I’m good to make a solid idea of the whole thing even before the play. Still, those are my sensations. I feel my players could find the “classes” too similar each other, a thing they usually don’t like too much.
Sounds like you’ve found a game that isn’t for you I guess.
Well, sure I’ll try to play it to test the mechanics. I’m waiting for the next revision, I read John is tweaking the effects part.
Fair enough. On my side I always view the QS rules as hints of what is to come in the full version.
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Well, of course, I am not judging a game not completed. I’m judging the quickstart. I think this is quite obvious. However, it’s easy to predict the kind of game/mechanics/fiction we’ll have in game, from what we are reading just now.
Also, I think it’s easy to ask John Harper about the “special abilities” part: John, do you feel they are quite “final” for those playbooks?
I can understand why he did those abilities that way. We have mechanics quite abstracted, ’cause a single roll can cover a whole scene, so it’s quite obvious you can’t have Abilities like “you can run on the walls as the gravity don’t exist” or “you can easily manage 4 enemies around you with no penalties to your parries” *, or “you can make a ritual to get almost what you like, ask the Master for the requirements”.
They are more like “extras” in Fate system (and the clocks here are quite similar to the Fate stress mechanics too).
* I saw there are still rules for gangs as AW did.
About the “it just feels like procedure” bit; Mouse Guard/Torchbearer has basically the same “problem” if you just do the mechanics. Related to all of these mechanics are actions in the fiction though. You can’t roll for stuff without describing what you are actually doing. When you are backup and you help out you better describe how you are helping and when you take point and roll you better describe what you are actually doing.
Without description the whole system breaks but you also don’t get to roll when you don’t describe what you are actually doing.
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The overall design structure of the game is done, but the contents of each “module” are not set in stone. So, yeah, I’ll be revising the special abilities and adding new ones, etc. as I work on the final product.
This is good feedback! Thanks, Andrea.
While I agree that the special abilities could be more flavorful… I don’t think that ruins the game. I think a small inclusion of a rule that allows folks to spend advancements to gain a new new ability would help.
For instance… you have a project about training with Master Lo Pan. When the clock is filled you can spend an advancement and add, ‘Chakra Soles’ to your sheet… with a small note that you can run along surfaces that physics wouldn’t normally allow. Primarily a narrative ability but that means it could easily affect your position on an action roll or give you new avenues of movement during the narrative.
I agree with Andrea Parducci, really. Lots of *World playbooks make me really excited about the class. Blades doesn’t have that. The playbooks aren’t really flashy. Some of the ability names are great (Not to be trifled with!) but the effects don’t wow me.
But Matthew Miller said it: this isn’t a game that needs sweet powers in classes. It would be nice to have them, but the game lives and dies by its premise and mechanics, and I’m pretty sold on those. And also like Mr. Miller says, yes, I think it’s both fun and an obvious trivial hack to let people pick up crazy supernatural powers if you want. Channel is just the beginning!
Matthew Miller Yep, you can do exactly that with a long-term project.
Cool. I look forward to how long-term projects are going to be expanded upon in the full text.