I have some thoughts about this game that do not line up with the thoughts of others, and that’s okay; as John Harper said, the game is like a guitar, and different musicians will play differently.
There are many RPGs, and when I start running a new one, I look for what it does well. What is the specialty that inspires you to use this game instead of half a dozen others?
For me, the answer is in the heist structure (specifically skipping planning, and player-facing challenge mechanization) and the down time structure (quick mechanization of ongoing life.)
Characters emerge through play, downplaying the significance of the individual encounter and instead building characters by shading with many light washes. Patterns of behavior emerge, rather than focusing on individual encounters being role-played through.
If you want a game that goes step by step through the days, and spends a lot of time delving into character backstories and looking at how they are connected, there are dozens of games that do that. If you want to role-play through conversations and take on a leisurely pace to address many details, you can do that in this game. That can be done in Blades in the Dark, but using those methods turns aside from what makes the game unique.
I feel the game is more successful when it DOES NOT go into backstory before you start, when it DOES NOT establish everyone’s relationships in detail. You are a crew, drop in and play, and as you improvise flash-backs and act out the heists and make decisions for down time, THERE is where we’ll see who the scoundrel is. Players are even rewarded for revealing the character in play rather than in exposition, with the experience structure.
I feel like in a half hour or less the play group needs to be on a heist. Leave the detailed backstories and languorous explorations with developing questions to other games where that process is a feature–let Blades in the Dark be fast, crisp, and focused on heists.
The players move around the house of the characters’ lives, peeking in different windows to see scenes play out, but not following them around their daily routines. Player experience of the characters is incomplete, jump cuts, telling moments, and flashbacks. Let that mosaic build a portrait, and let it be sketchy for a while.
If we follow the characters around and role play all their encounters, then it’s jarring to try and use the heist structure and downtime structure around that, since it is so much less granular. Also, individuals or pairs of characters can dominate play time while everyone else watches and waits to get back to the shared action.
My two cents!
Well said! Emergent play, as they say. I too like the way everything starts out in media res and the story develops during
backgroundsflashbacks and such.I love the structure of downtime and hope that hold/tier interactions between gangs get more structure. I like the minigame aspect of the crew’s rise in the city’s underworld.
Eloy Cintron Right! I mean, if I’m going to play because I like Duskwall, but I don’t want a heist focus with abstract downtime, there is NO REASON I couldn’t play in Duskwall using another game system.
Playing thieves in a city can be done with any RPG. Planning heists and carrying them out has been attempted for years. What Blades adds is a structure, a method, a mechanism, which dismisses the “planning for 3 hours” conversation and goes right into the action. It really captures the feel of watching a good heist movie or reading a good heist novel… and my players have only done infiltration missions so far… I’m dying to see what a social/deception mission looks like, at a nobility ball or some such gathering of high society in Duskwall. Seductions, con games, deception and misdirection… for really high stakes! Can you weasel your way into the masked ball and steal the Governor’s wife’s jeweled necklace right under everyone’s nose?
Eloy Cintron I think where the game gets into trouble is if you have a group where the person getting past the door wants to have five or ten minutes of going through all actions and having a lengthy interaction with the door guard or other people on the way in.
Everyone else is reduced to observer, so the longer each encounter goes on, the more spotlight time it is for one or a few people. I think Blades in the Dark does well to avoid long encounters. Keep it moving!
I played with my players 3.5hrs without any heist and it still worked for me and them. Next time will start with a flash-forward when they encounter the final “Enemy” of a heist, shortly before the action starts, I will resume to the start of the heist, and let them flesh it out by flashbacks and groupactions/ actions.
You are right that this game dont intent or seem to intent for long daily life roleplay, but I thought it interesting to construct information gathering (at least in the first session) as if its a heist itself.
Ten minutes sounds like too much. Less than 5 minutes is probably best, but you don’t want to rush it too much either. Otherwise it becomes a mechanical “roll the dice” game.
There’s a balance that needs to be achieved by the group there, with enough substance to make it feel immersive and to make the player on point really shine, and enough speed to keep the action and the tension and to allow the next PC to shine… It’s a fun journey finding that sweet spot.
Eloy Cintron It is also a difficult journey to find that sweet spot. I don’t think I have yet, but I’ve only played three times.
Josephe Vandel The way you describe the session, I wouldn’t say that play style is wrong. The system is very flexible and you can do different things with it.
What I want to do with it is get the characters dropped in and go through multiple heists and a pretty good clip to get a feel for who they are and the sorts of things they do.
I am more likely to want to have leisurely development sessions after we’ve played a few sessions of heisting, when we’ve got a pile of hooks built up IN PLAY and a lot of shared experiences that both the players and the characters were there for.
The main reason I put this conversation here online is because I want to recruit from this pool of people for online games, and it can help to have somewhat similar expectations for players and GM from the start. Now I can refer back to this before we begin.
I felt the need to show them around a bit to get them Jobs. Basicly, they had to vote for who is the Leader, the Book-Keeper and the Whip of the group (inspired by House of Cards) so each one has a field of the crew activities that he feels responcibel to. Than they went around looking for clues and ask their allies for jobs. And well, that took my 3.5hrs.
How are you jumping into a heist so fast?
Andrew Shields 1) Definitely agreed that it’s difficult! I find myself improvising rules and such during flashbacks, and worrying whether I’m keeping a good pace without feeling like I’m rushing the players thru a situation. I’m still uncertain of whether I’m playing the game ‘right’…
2) if you’re recruiting, tell me when, as I’d love to give it a go as a player.
3)We had an interesting situation on our last session (I’ve also only played the game 2 times) where the PC’s came up with the idea of running a heist against the Lampblacks. We sort of brainstormed together that the Lampb’s have a drug lab in an abandoned mine outside the city, and they decided on an infiltration mission. So I said: alright, you’re at the city gates and one of the guards is coming to talk to you. Who’s on point?
One of the players says: Wait, we need protective gear to head out to the Deathlands. So I said: Okay, flashback… How deep do you want the flashback to go? 1 or 2 rolls?
Long story short: We wound up postponing the original score and turning the flashback into a heist on it’s own, stealing gear from the Ghost Line workers. Session ended with downtime, in preparation for the run against the Lampblack drug lab, which will be the next session…
Josephe Vandel I used the quick start. They made characters following the steps (but with little interaction) and we whipped together a crew with a hideout. Then I put them on a rooftop overlooking the heist location, we did a flash-back to them taking the job (understanding they could go a different direction and be on that roof for a different reason) and we did some background questions.
The context for getting the job, and the context for doing the background, was that we were flashing back to them; the characters were already on the roof when all that was going down.
Maybe they were hired to steal something and they decided to betray their employers, or they had already betrayed their employers and they were on the roof to get the leader after their employers sent thugs in; there’s room to subvert the meaning of the mission. But they were already on the roof, and we answered questions and flashed back before getting into it.
That way they were not deciding whether or not to go; implicitly, it was GO TIME. So they were answering questions of how and what, there was a built in nudge of momentum.
That way taking the job and doing background were IN THE CONTEXT of the job, rather than dealt with before it started.
I will post here when I’m ready to run the next online session. At this point I plan to wait until after I’ve had a chance to see the next version of the quickstart, and let it simmer in its juices in my brain for a while.
I would be interested to join as well, to see your mind in action 😉
But I think the timezone differences may be tough for me.
Josephe Vandel I used the quickstart for the first session. I asked the players to prepare a character for the game before game time. They quickly agreed by themselves who was playing what (1 whisper, 1 lurk, 1 hound, 1cutter). On game day, I did the crew sheet with them and we had it done in a few minutes, no context. Just: what do you guys want to get for the crew.
Then, QS setup. Situation is the Crows have new leadership, Lampblacks are these guys, Red Sashes are like that, and their truce is now over. Bam! You’re in Bazso Baz’s office and he says this to you… are you with us or against us? What do you want to do.
They decided to help the Lampblacks, so Baz outlines the job against the Sashes and bam! You’re outside the Red Sashes HQ. What’s the plan and who’s on point?
We ran the entire heist and did downtime with advancement. Play time from start to finish: 3hrs.
Another element to speed play when I’m running for an online group is the use of gangs rather than crews. There are only a few questions to get started, and they still get some mechanical benefit as they would from a crew. However, there is no long-term commitment.
https://fictivefantasies.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/gang-generation-4-22-153.pdf
This may get a new draft after the new quickstart comes out, I’ll wait and see.