GM’d my first game of Blades last night, and my group finished a barely successful score. They loved the setting and the dark and gloomy weirdness, loved the idea of sitting down to play a fledgling gang of thieves, and whipped up a really interesting trio of scum — but ended the night frustrated with the system. Of three characters, we had one take a level of Trauma and the other two at 7 Stress.
Feedback from our evening, apologies for the length:
1. Alas, my players complained nonstop about needing a six to get a full success – i.e. since danger manifested on a 4/5 it felt like they weren’t ‘really’ succeeding. They really, really wanted more dice to begin with, instead of grasping at Bargains and spending stress on Backup/Assist. (My comment: They are powergamers who are used to playing PCs who come out of the box Awesome, so maybe a little culture shock; their dice were a little below average on the evening which contributed to the grumpiness; I think a few more good rolls would have turned their attitude around. As it is they rolled mostly 4/5s all night which ate up a lot of stress, and we saw zero crit successes. All this contributed to their moodiness.)
2. The players were highly frustrated with the size of the stress track given the number of things that ‘require’ stress to function: acting as backup (to give +1D), triggering many flashbacks, group actions, and of course buying off effects. Especially since that 8th point isn’t one you can safely spend – it knocks you out of the score and gives you Trauma, right then right there. (My comment: I can understand their frustration; they got into stress trouble early. Maybe if that 8th box was usable? Also contributing to their frustration was that none of them carried Armor and their dice were not firing well)
3. They didn’t really ‘get’ Flashbacks and didn’t use them effectively. When we did use them, I think I may have made a mistake. You pay your stress do to a Flashback, then make your Action roll. If it’s Risky, there’s a danger, right? – so my players were frustrated at possibly failing that roll and suffering stress/effects/whatever during a Flashback, making their present situation worse rather than better. Should the danger for a flashback action almost always be simply, “And you failed at that, paid your stress for nothing, moving on back to the present”?
4. Shining moments where the system was working as it should be were the two times they used the Lead a Group Action mechanic. Everyone was really happy with that, although (in line with their complaining about stress) they griped that the bigger the group, the quicker you’d stress out your point man. Also, my question for those group actions – do you offer each PC a separate Devil’s Bargain, or one that (if accepted) gives +1D to the whole group, or something else?
5. Something I found a little ambiguous about the team Overcome action: if you roll something other than a 6 as the point man, do YOU ALSO take a point of Stress, on top of whatever you’ll need to use to deal with the danger that manifests? The rule sentence clearly states “all members” take the extra stress, but the flavor text immediately after states it’s hard to watch someone else fail – implying it’s everyone else.
6. I found it difficult as the GM to come up with a ‘danger’ that could manifest on a successful OR unsuccessful roll before the fact. Are you supposed to be speaking the name of the danger before the action roll or waiting until the table sees the dice result? Because if you’re trying to Prowl past a sentry and the danger is ‘he spots you’, that doesn’t work on a 4/5 roll at all.
7. Can acting solo affect task clocks for the entire team? I was confused on this – it seems to make sense in the fiction that the most physical git on the team can sneak forward alone and gut a couple of guards, allowing everyone to progress. However, since the whole team benefits from that – is it actually a Team Overcome action regardless?
8. As a GM I struggled a little bit with abstracting the amount of hazards based on the countdown clock. i.e. you find and successfully unlock the back entrance to the building, BUT since you rolled a crappy Effect roll, there are ticks on the Locks clock — so now I have to place a couple other locked barriers later in the heist that wouldn’t have been there otherwise? Was I doing it wrong –should clocks only represent a single fictional obstacle ever, rather than an abstraction of ‘there are this many locks/guards/wards/whatever in the place’?
9. If you have your gang do something offscreen, must you roll Command? None of my 3 PCs had a dot in Command and therefore they didn’t bother using the Thugs they bought during character creation, at all. The idea of rolling 2D-take-lowest for anything had them seething.
10. You’re abducting someone at knifepoint quickly, quietly — dragging them off to be interrogated. Murder, Mayhem, or something else? It seems like the precision-violence of Murder applies, but it’s clearly nothing like an actual bloody murder given that nobody is being cut. I was torn on this when my group did it.
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for the 10th item, I probably would have done prowl. I don’t think you need to be particularly skilled to hold a knife to someone’s throat. However the stealth aspect lends itself to Prowl.
Also, for number 6, two things. My group sympathized with my difficulty to declare the full, detailed danger before their roll, so they just asked me to declare the severity of the danger. Then they would decide if they wanted to go for it. E.g. trying to sneak across a street, would they face a light or severe danger? I could almost always give a gut answer right away, but maybe I needed a few moments or inspiration from their roll for a detailed danger.
Secondly, for your example of a 4/5 on a risky prowl with the danger of being spotted… the way I would go is to have two clocks: team successfully gets in, and guards are alerted (and then attack).
He was successful so he rolls effect to see how much of the infiltration clock gets filled. The guard spotted him so add as many ticks as is appropriate. I would probably add 2 on a four segment clock. RP it as such. The guard spots you and turns to signal his friend on the wall.
Maybe the guard on the wall doesn’t notice right away and needs a moment (this would be another action with danger manifesting by the crew) to figure out what’s going on and alert the guardhouse.
This also gave your other PCs who are following behind a chance to get on point and address the issue of the alerted first guard. He turn to ran towards the guardhouse but gets chased down by your cutter.
Almost verbatim, what you said is basically all the struggles I had tonight while GMing Blades in the Dark for the first time. I thought it was perhaps from playing D&D so much, but it may be just getting used to the mechanics of the game. Don’t know. Anyways, it was good to read your feedback.
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Good summary. I’ve run four sessions now, and I’ve come across most all of these issues in some shape or form as well.
A couple of thoughts…
1. Yes, and you’ll find luckier rolls at the outset of the game will improve the tone. This might be a learning curve for the players as well; to try to position themselves a little better so they are mostly in Controlled situations, at least at first. The game, from what I can tell, is designed to spiral failure, but always offer you a more desperate chance. This is meant to be exciting, but if the spiral hits too early due to too many Risky situations and bad rolls, then it can be a bit of a damper on the fun of the game.
2. See 1. I’ve found after a few games players learn to manage their position and thus preserve stress better. Interesting point about the eighth stress box though.
3. Yes. Both Planning and Flashbacks can spiral quickly and can take over from the actual mission, I have found. I’ve been learning to guide my players away from this situation, but it can easily happen in the rules as written. Generally I avoid making clocks in Planning or Flashbacks, as they expose the character to risk for longer. Good point about paying the stress twice for flashbacks. It’s quite disheartening when that happens. Perhaps the danger in flashbacks should manifest in the present scene. So failure in a flashback increases the present risk/danger only, and does not create a potential double up stress cost.
6. This seems to be a common issue. Going back to my Burning Wheel and Apocalypse World roots, I am tending to towards stating the danger, but thinking of a complication on a 4/5, rather than a new danger every time. Sometimes it’s the danger being worse than originally thought, but sometimes it’s an addition or a new twist altogether.
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To 9, the Thugs should certainly be able to do things in the fiction, sometimes succeed, sometimes fail, and sometimes fall afoul of danger. If the players ever want the mechanical ability to alter whatever happens to their gang, at that point they’ll want/need to roll, but not just always.
Dan Hall ” Perhaps the danger in flashbacks should manifest in the present scene. So failure in a flashback increases the present risk/danger, and does not create an potential double up stress cost. “
This is excellent!!! I’m stealing this 😀
How many hazards did you have the player’s overcome to complete the job, and how many player’s did you have? When we played the rolling was actually pretty minimal compared to what I am used to with D&D. This led to stress being important but not the overwhelming thing it sounds like it was for your players.
If we couldn’t come up with an interesting danger we even decided that no roll was necessary at one point, because without risk it really was just a matter of time (which wasn’t important at that stage of the job).
One thing that helped when it came to suggesting dangers and devil’s deals was to let the players help. For my play test the players enjoyed the conversation about what might go wrong or still be lurking as well as what would definitely happen in the case of the devil’s bargain (example devil’s bargains we used. A ghost attacked them in the sewers, there was an extra guard lurking outside of their field of view, and they left more evidence than they thought and therefore generated an extra point of heat) As the GM I think I only came up with the extra heat. The other’s were all brought up by my players.
The first group I played with had many of the same feelings and complaints. They didn’t want to play again. (Though one of them reconsidered, and wants to try running it when more players are around.)
I have run the game for three different groups, and had three very different experiences. While I have tried to get better at running the game, it also makes a huge difference who your players are and how risk-averse they are (and how much grit they bring to facing setbacks.) I’m still a novice at this.
And perhaps it bears mentioning: 4-5 means danger manifests, but PC’s get a roll to resist effect of the danger… more stress, true, but it avoids the more undesirable states of “They spot you” or “They stab you through the heart.”
A good part of the stress pacing may also be due to varying the severity of effects. Stress isn’t really like hp, in that players can always choose whether to take it or just suffer an effect. With the right player-mindset, taking effects can provide both dramatic opportunities for your character and a savings on stress. If you make effects less severe, players will spend take less stress, while still developing complications.
1. This seems like a common problem. I have no complete solution, but one major one is not to make the danger nullify success. Danger is not the same as failure and has to not feel like failure. The “power” of PCs is much more in how much you let them get from success and how you size clocks and how bad you make dangers rather than the number of dice. Consider this difference: sneaking in requires an 8 segment clock, and the danger is getting caught by the guards… vs. sneaking in has no clock, just happens, and the danger is the guards hearing something fishy and stepping up patrols.
You have to make 4/5 feel like a good result, not a bad one, or every single roll feels like punishment.
2. I also think requiring too much stress is a problem that’s shown up a few times. Backup costs stress. Flashbacks CAN cost stress, but they don’t always. Flashbacks that purely replace routine planning don’t. Flashbacks that require contrived circumstances that are highly unlikely do. So these should mostly be free, and overcharging for them makes flashbacks no fun. Group actions are actually an interesting case: the group has to decide whether the stress is worth the action. If the whole group is good at something, Lead is a good choice. If most of the group has no way to get something done, Overcome is the way to do it, accepting the stress cost to get everyone through the problem. If everyone has different ways to approach a problem (e.g. sneaking in: one can Prowl over the fence, the second can Deceive his way in, and the third will Murder the sentry) then don’t use a group action. It’s a bad use of stress, and this is a case where the group should split, do their own things, and reconvene. You don’t have to work together when it’s not to your advantage!
Also, going with 1 above, many dangers should not require stress. Some are just fictional situations that got worse. Some should be bad but acceptable. Stress should be used when the consequences of failure are bad enough that you need to pay. And the Effect roll to resist matters too: if you get the stress cost low, you can go for it. If it’s high, you need to consider much more strongly just eating the danger and saving your stress for a better resistance roll or worse danger.
If every danger is lethal or mission-ending you’re thinking too dangerously, at least for your players’ tastes.
3. No. FIRST you decide whether the flashback requires stress. Most don’t. THEN you make a roll, but only if this really requires an action. If what they want to do wouldn’t require a roll to set up if not in a flashback, it doesn’t require a roll to do retroactively. I do think that flashback mechanics might need some tuning-up in revisions, though, to clarify how they’re supposed to work and what the costs should be. My inclination is that it should probably either be stress for an automatic effect or a roll with no cost just to allow it, but never both.
4. Not sure about group devils’ bargains, but Lead is for a specific case: most people are good at something and few are bad. You use this to try to pile up way more dice than any one person could, and it’s the easiest way to get crits. It requires having multiple characters good at this action, though; it actually rewards shared expertise rather than differentiation, which is neat. A huge group can get more dice but is more likely to stress out the point man. I think it might actually be interesting to have huge groups split into sub-groups, each using team actions separately, but I haven’t tried it.
5. Huh. I think it’s everyone but the point man taking stress, but I defer to Mr. Harper.
6. Right, nailing danger is probably the hardest part for a GM. You need to figure out what the player is trying to accomplish and come up with a different danger. So if Prowl is being used to steal something, getting caught afterwards is fine. If it’s being use to sneak in… not so good. I think generally “you get caught” is a bad danger unless it’s on a clock of its own or you’re using it to set up a fight to knock out/kill the guard and stuff him/her in a closet. “Your mission suddenly became borderline impossible” is a lousy danger and no fun (for most groups, most of the time).
7. Interesting question. Tension between fiction and mechanics. If it’s a big clock over multiple rolls, I think it’s fine. If it’s overcoming a momentary obstacle, then no. It requires some judgment, and part of it is judging whether the players are just using the fiction or trying, intentionally or accidentally, to circumvent the rules.
8. It’s up to you! You can make the clock all about one particular obstacle, which means progress has been made but the entrance is still locked, or about locks generally, so there are more. Both are fine. The former is for when one particular obstacle is formiddable; the latter is for when you want something to be a recurring problem, like a heavily-warded building, paranoid guys with locks everywhere, or guards around every corner.
If you don’t want more locks, don’t have the clock represent lots of locks. If you don’t want more locks and don’t want this particular lock tor require multiple rolls, don’t ask for an Effect roll. Just take the Action and say, “Great, you got the door open!” and move on. It’s the GMs choice to use clocks and extend problems.
9. Don’t take gangs if you’re not going to be able to use them effectively? This one is on them. Understandable, as new to the system, but there it is. On the other hand, you also don’t need an action roll if you’re not assessing the possibility of success or danger. Sometimes you just nod and say sure, your guys take care of it. Other times you can have an Effect roll to see how well they do it but not if they can in the first place.
10. I’m also struggling perpetually with Murder vs. Mayhem. Here are some options; you might, as a group, like some more than others.
COMMAND someone to come quietly, intimidating with a knife.
MAYHEM to grab someone, headbutt him, wrestle him into a submission hold, and brandish a knife.
MURDER to suddenly put your knife to his throat and hiss a warning in his ear.
SLIP a knife against his ribs and tell him to come with you if he doesn’t want to lose his lungs. (A stretch? Maybe. But maybe not.)
Some things that I was thinking about flashbacks. I agree that it seems unfair that you have to pay stress for a scene that you will probably accumulate stress in for the possibility of a minor bonus in the current scene? I’m not sure that the flashback is worth it. the other thing is what happens if you stress out in a flashback? are you dropped from the current plan? or did you stress out there and then rejoin the group for the plan? Could you use this to reset your stress to zero in the middle of an operation? albeit with a new level of trauma.
So what is the solution?
do you make it so that you pay the stress upfront but automatically succeed in the flashback? or should flashbacks be free (or maybe the first flashback for each character should be free and maybe if your character type matches the plan like an occult plan the whispers get a bonus free flashback) and the scene plays out as a normal flashback with any accrued stress applying to your current stress.
Flashbacks really shouldn’t be full scenes – they’re just very brief flashes that explain how you can pull something unexpected off during the actual heist.
Like: “OK, we come around to the back gate of the estate. I’m going to do a flashback: me cozying up to one of the maids at a tavern, whispering in her ear. She thinks I’m going to come visit her in her chambers tonight, and she’s hidden a key for me.”
This allows you to completely alter the fictional positioning of the roll. Not only does it let you roll Sway to attempt to get past a locked door (which would not normally be possible), but it might also change the roll from Risky to Controlled.
Regardless, I would say that the stress happens when you’re about to find out whether your preparations paid off. Did she manage to leave the key? Or did she get caught, and accidentally spill the beans to a now-suspicious matron or guard?
The point of flashbacks is, I think, to avoid planning. Instead of doing the planning upfront, you just go. Flashbacks allow you to retroactively insert the preparation for the eventualities you encounter.
The cost is 0 stress for routine preparation. “Of course there’s a guard. We bought him off last week.” “Got the plans for the building and grounds off Slippery Aven, so have an alternate exit route.” “Me and what army? Why, the band of killers and thugs I told to meet me here as backup!”
1 stress is for having planned for things that are actually pretty unlikely rather than routine preparation for a score. “We’re not stuck here unarmed, I already tossed extra weapons over the walls last night. They’re in a bag behind the gardener’s shed.” “We’re not trapped at all. I thought this might happen, so I hired a gondolier to wait for us until dawn.” “It just so happens that the watch-captain tonight is an old friend of mine, and I think I can talk him out of investigating too thoroughly.”
2 stress is for crazy Batman preparedness and planning. “Oh, don’t worry about the dozen soldiers who’ve surrounded us. I thought the good lieutenant might show up for the banquet with his men, so I slipped poison into their dinners, and they’ll be keeling over right… about… now.” (Assuming the players in fact had no reason to suspect any such thing.) “Don’t worry, I’ve been whispering sweet nothings to the butler for a week to get in and have a chance to map the secret passages.” “It’s a good thing I took a moment to knick the matches and candles from the guardhouse. With the incense I carry just in case we have everything we need for the ritual we didn’t have any clue we were going to have to perform. Luck smiles, eh?”
Most stuff that a set of careful and professional scoundrels need to do is probably in the zero stress category. They set up beforehand so the players don’t have to. Don’t make them pay stress for it, it’s just their day jobs. Or night jobs, as the case may be.
Great post and examples Daniel Helman. That is indeed where flashbacks really shine and I love what players come up with when they’re empowered to play the game like it’s a clever heist movie. It let’s the group solve only the issues that come up when they come up. “Hey Hound, you would have known this debutante that you totally would have stalked has a dog. So we planned for this, right? Who’s got a lambchop in their pocket? Dead bat? Pepper to cover our trail?”
Daniel Helman Yea I +1’d this as well because that’s the exact approach that Nathan Black took when he GM’d a session for me. He literally started (after character creation) with “You’re in a sewer, lost.” No details about the score, no long, drawn-out planning session. We just went, and it was awesome. I think we ended up with a Flashback to bring out maps and also have one of our Elite Shadows meet us in the sewers to help escort us out. We built the score from there and built the story out of flashbacks. That’s probably the experience that got me hooked on Blades, because it was a real “off-the-rails” rp session.