What if you want to play Blades in the Dark, but don’t want to commit to a campaign? What if you want to be in one or more one-shot games?
Here is a two page rules mod for how to play a GANG instead of a CREW. I would like to know what you think! I plan to try it out on Saturday.
Players can choose a type of gang to play (which gives a single advantage, instead of having to choose a special ability.) They also choose what underboss to work for, which tips the GM off to what kind of missions they want to play. There is no long-term advancement for gangs, as they form and split and reform all the time; however, characters can gain reputation, which may help them start their own crew with the backing of the Crows! =)
https://fictivefantasies.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/gang-generation-4-22-153.pdf
I like the idea of this for quicker pick-up play and flexibility with varying groups. Would players use all the full features of the playbooks and character creation? Would they use PC advancement the same way, or only personal reputation.
It does take a bunch of the metagame fun of faction politics out of it though. Maybe each character can have personal positive and negative status with the other factions, and can benefit from or be harmed by the Crows’ larger faction friends and enemies?
I like the underbosses, but feel like I’d want more. I also like the simple benefits from the gang types, though I’d be curious if all the playbooks could ‘fit’ into all gangs. Is the gang type more related to what sort of thing you’ll be doing that what sort of characters you ought to be?
Some of the descriptions are grammatically ambiguous leaving me with questions, but certainly not insurmountable.
Adam Minnie My intent is that all things player character remain player character, and all things crew are taken over by gang. Characters still advance the same way. The main down side to an individual character is that they are stuck at 2 on actions, and cannot train up to 3 or 4. But that would be a LOT of one-off games with no crew before that was an issue.
There is no reason the person running the game could not keep a faction sheet for the Crows, and solicit input in the form of missions from the players. You guys want to make friends with the gondoliers? Here is a mission where you can reach out on behalf of the Crows. Did a mission go south and burn a lot of sailors alive? Oops, now the Crows have made the sailors enemies.
I am confident every play book could fit into every kind of gang. That is why I focused the gang on STYLE rather than CAPACITY. How do you try to accomplish your goal? Like with adepts, anyone could use tools and charms, you don’t have to be a whisper.
That’s why I used the style separate from choosing an underboss to work for (at least for now.) That’s how you determine what sort of thing you want to do.
Like any of the lists of friends and allies and such, I would expect people could use different underbosses than the one I supplied. Or change them over time if some get murdered, disgraced, promoted, etc.
If a group has the extended focus to hit the limits of what gangs offer, they should be playing crews. This is designed to make this game friendly for open game tables and one-shot games where you may not need a proliferation of one-and-done crews drifting around.
As it is, if you want to play with different people but use the same character, the crew structure makes that difficult.
This is really cool.
This is great! I was curious how one shots would work with this system as it is so geared towards campaign play. This is a great option. One question does the Killer special ability work anytime for every player or only once per session? The former seems overpowered since burning one stress to get an easy roll which is likely not to gain stress is a HUGE benefit.
BTW., I love how you went from critical of the system to taking it on with gusto and making awesome new rules mods!
I particularly enjoy the Liar options such as Boathouse, Stable, or Armory. Those lend a different flavor of inspiration to players about how they can go about things.
I also enjoy the cheaper flashbacks related to some of the gangs, to promote that key aspect of play up to to front-and-center.
I like this a lot – It might be fun to run it as an interlude during a regular campaign – the equivalent of a Doctor-Lite Doctor Who episode, especially if the Crew has a gang they rely on (my crew had a gang comprising Shaky Joe and the Rovers throw a tea party on a boat and take away electroplasmic oil on a skiff, and we handwaved it, but it might be neat to play out jobs like that).
I may have to steal Boathouse and Stable (or Carriage House) for crew upgrades… 🙂
Yes! Business with boats on the canals (or other fast-moving vehicles) are the best! My group gladly raised their tier by quickly befriending the Gondoliers and Cabbies. 😛
Boathouse could instead be something broader like Private Docks or just “Docks” which could then inspire accommodation for variously-sized vessels from gondolas to larger steamships, as well as drydock or trade facilities that may not seem appropriate for just a boathouse.
Colin Fahrion The reason I do not feel it is unbalanced to spend a stress for a controlled murder chance is because ideally lethal combat would be a pretty quick and decisive event for a gang of killers. So, the system encourages that part to be pretty perfunctory.
Where the gang would need to focus their attention, then, is getting into position and getting away. The other elements of the heist. The stabbing or shooting itself? Bah.
Besides, if a bunch of characters choose to be killers, chances are their personal strengths as characters will already be bolstering the killing part of the adventure!
John Harper You are welcome to any of this you want to have. =) Ultimately, you may not go this direction to provide open table options, but I do hope there will be something like it.
Scott Slater Yeah, you could play as one of your crew’s gangs, especially on a night when not everyone can make it. Call of Cthulu 1890s had something like that for the English, with an upstairs investigator crew and a downstairs street crew that the players could switch back and forth. The investigators want information, send the grubby lower class characters to go find it out, then switch back to the investigators.
I’m loving this plug and play. A+ work.
Colin Fahrion Much of a GM’s energy comes from the players. Having players in the online session who got really excited helped a great deal, and having the prospect of running an open table online where people could come and go was also pretty galvanizing.
Players, if you want great games, lend your enthusiasm to your GMs. =)
Andrew Shields I see what you are getting at but it seems antithetical to the “Killer” narrative. With murder overly easy all the time it makes it so that there are no “Hard to Kill” targets, only “Hard to Find” or “Hard to get to” targets.
Looking at John Woo style or any other professional killer narratives the protagonist certainly kicks ass and lays waste to most but there is always one “Hard Target” who doesn’t die easily. not sure how to make the special ability map to that except “ability cannot be used on the main target”
Colin Fahrion I could certainly see downgrading it to once per heist. I guess for me assassination is very seldom about a fight, but so often about poison in the cup, sniping through the window, a blade to the ribs from a killer who looks like a servant, that the whole toe to toe battle for a killing mission didn’t occur to me as frequent.
For a more “Double Dragon” or “TMNT” style gang battle, it would indeed be overpowered. I think I’ll go ahead and make that change.
Yeah with the change the GM could easily adapt the story to suit. If they want the players to go toe to toe with an “Hard Target” accomplished killer than make them to use their ability on the gang of thugs protecting the target first. If they want the target kill to be easy then make the slipping in any away the biggest part of the mission, with no real guard adversaries. Also with only allowing it once per heist it forces the players to make a choice: “alright there is a phalanx of guards, we could use our ability to lay waste to them but we won’t have it later. Maybe we should sneak past instead?”
Colin Fahrion And if you want a hard target, give the target a 6 segment clock and start your lasting effect consequences out with lopped off limbs. Offer devil’s bargains that involve blood loss clocks. Let the target’s skill put 1 segment back on the clock each round.
Maybe they one-shot him, or maybe they invest in prosthetics. =)
I hear Leviathan bone makes for great prosthetics!
It wasn’t the best test drive, but I got to use Gangs once. I like how it worked, it did just what I wanted. The players only had to make a few decisions, and those decisions benefited us all; they told me how they wanted to play and what they wanted to do, and in return they got some in-game advantages like what you’d get from a crew. I will use it again.
Andrew Shields what gang/boss did they choose, and how did the cross-type play books fare?
Adam Minnie Much to my surprise, they picked Rovers. Then they went with keeping crime organized, answering to Virgil.
They had two slides, a cutter, and a lurk. The slides had plenty of opportunity to talk to people either setting up the heist or when things went sideways. The cutter got to help out quite a bit, and also flex and growl appropriately at a meeting. And sneaky lurks are always in demand. I don’t think anyone felt there was no role for them in the gang’s activity.