Last Saturday, we played our first session of BitD. All veteran roleplayers except for a new friend who had his first experience with tabletop RPGs. Three players plus me as the GM. We’re from Porto, Portugal, where we organize monthly events to try new games and find new players, so we usually feel comfortable learning different RPGs and hosting sessions for people who never played before.
We play in Portuguese but have no problems with the material in English. It was close to a five hour session, which included me explaining everything to the new player and everyone making characters. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to take a photo (which we usually do to keep an album of all the RPGs we play). I essentially printed out the whole quick-start and we had several copies of the pages that need to be used as reference. I normally also use clear acrylic sheets that I set over maps and use whiteboard markers to write on them. This was how we handled progress clocks.
Although I’ve been following John Harper’s work since Agon, this group had never played any of his games before. However, two of the players had some experience with either Apocalypse World or Dungeon World and had supported the BitD’s kickstarter.
Characters created were the Whisperer who used to build steamships before being involved in an accident, the Lurk that was cast out of his noble family for reasons he doesn’t yet know and the Hound that, while smuggling forbidden goods into Duskwall, discovered that he has a knack for making people pay what was agreed for them.
To put all the options on the table, I set it up so that each character spoke with each leader of the three factions and the group went for the score they liked the most: robbing the Red Sashes. Infiltration was the plan and the detail was obtained both by speaking to Mylera Klev when she offered them a score against the Lampblacks and by having a chat with Scurlock, the vampire that the Whisperer considers his best friend. Through conversation, we established that the Red Sashes used to stock vintage wine in a big cellar under their school/temple which has an underground access to and old gate hidden under the nearest bridge. We also talked about an old spirit that is revered by the Red Sashes and that sleeps in that old cellar.
I decided on the following progress clocks: Cellar Security (4), Old Spirit (4), Guards (4) and Treasury Security (8). I didn’t find anything about the recommended number of segments on the quick-start, but I noticed that the examples use a total of 20 segments so that’s what I did.
Progress went smooth up to the old spirit. Even after taking a devil’s bargain that will allow the spirit to find the scoundrels in the future, the danger of it awakening manifested and they had to run. This also raised a ruckus, the guards came running and quiet infiltration was no longer an option. However, the guards were quickly slaughtered by accepting the bargain of only pretending to fight them in a fair duel. On the other hand, this greatly offended a visiting senior swordsman that was at the temple admiring its treasury. This was to be the hardest progress clock to beat, which involved shooting, intimidation, and the Hound getting traumatized because his dog got severely wounded. It was a successful score, but the session ended with no time to do any downtime, heat or development.
A few relevant notes:
1) Turns out we didn’t play teamwork correctly. For some reason, I thought that the character on point only changes through Set Up, but it actually changes on any special move. This led to the Lurk always having point up to the Old Spirit, then the Whisperer up to the Guards and then the Hound for the rest of the score, spending stress for each switch.
2) When going through the dark underground tunnel, we didn’t find any item on the characters that could produce light. This was solved by the Whisperer spending 0 stress on his Channel special ability to create supernatural light, which sounded better than “I guess one you guys brought a lantern?”
3) There was some doubts if a group action can be attempted when one of the characters doesn’t have any dots on that action. I believe it can and that this is how teamwork compensates for the initial lack of dots. Who is on point takes stress to help these characters go through the action.
4) There was a question about Daring being used in a group action. Is it the character on point that needs to have this special ability? The wording of Daring also led a player to ask if the re-roll can be applied to Effect.
5) During teamwork, we always used special moves and I don’t see how you would roll just a normal action. If the team splits and each character faces the progress clocks alone, I guess you would, but why would the characters want to do that? Separating the team sounds like a cool possible danger that the GM can use.
I was already expecting some fiddling about the details, so despite the learning curve, I enjoyed the session. I can see how some people may struggle with playing BitD rules-as-written, but I like the game as it’s presented, specially in the way teamwork includes tension. A bit too much tension if you play it wrong like we did 🙂 but I’m eager to have another go next month.
Old ghosts are excellent obstacles. =)
You can do a team action if characters have no dots… They roll 2 dice and take the lowest result 🙂
Nathan Roberts Oh yeah, had forgot about that.
Fortunately, as John Harper explains in the quick-start, we can learn the game a bit like adding layers of paint with each session. No problem with sometimes spreading it a bit too thin.
2. I like how you handled the lack of light. This is also what a 0-stress flashback is for. A player can say, “I thought we might run across some dark passages. Good thing I brought my lantern.”
5. There are a couple of times to act individually. One is when only one person needs to do something. If you need to climb a tower and light a candle as a signal, for example, only one person needs to do that. The other time is when everyone has a way to get past an obstacle but everyone will do it differently. One wants to Prowl around the guards, one wants to Deceive the guards into letting him by, and a third wants to bash the guard over the head with Mayhem and stuff him in a closet. Leading the group is a bad idea; no one has the same Action to roll. Overcome adds stress to everyone but the leader. So each character finds his or her own way in and they reconvene. It’s a way to save on stress, but it also gives each character a little spotlight on individual methods.