Our first session (using QS v2; where is v3? I’m seeing mention of v3 here, but not on the Kickstarter updates) was tonight. A Lurk, a Hound, and a Whisper. I think the most difficult aspect of our game was finding a way into the narrative. In part because we were parsing and struggling with the mechanics, but also because they chose the Deception Plan for Bazso’s job.
Detail the method of deception: they determined that they were going to frame the Lampblack ally The Fog Hounds with the Red Sash heist, and arrange for the Red Sash ally the Inspectors to catch those clues and make the frame stick. I determined that because they chose the Deception Plan, we weren’t dealing with the Infiltration or the making off with the loot, just the framing. The resulting experience was that we really struggled with the creation of Scene. (An Infiltration Scene seems well known, as does an Assault Scene. But Deception, Occult, and Social scenes seemed more tricky to envision for us.)
I set up three Clocks: Successful Disguise (4-segments), setting up the Witnesses (8-segments), and securing the Loot (6-segments).
The Hound took point on Disguise, saying they were going to Murder some Fog Hounds and take their clothes and gear. The Danger for the Risky move was that they’d be seen and tracked. The effect roll beat the Disguise Clock and the player took 4 Stress to avoid the danger.
The Whisper monitored the comings and goings outside of the place where the Red Sash treasury was stashed, studying the traffic/activity of the Fog Hounds and Inspectors in the area, setting up the Lurk. It was a Controlled action.
The Lurk decided to case/structure a route that would capitalize on the Whispers’s observation. I made it a Desperate move, b/c of the Red Sash defenses. Things went badly, and the Lurk took stress to avoid being captured by the Red Sashes, ducking into a vent in the building. Instead of abandoning the approach, he continued. He managed to case/structure a route, but had to avoid getting captured again. The Whisper intervened, taking two Stress for the Lurk, getting pummeled for bumbling in the way and interfering with their capture of the Lurk, who got away.
The Whisper then did a Flashback to when he forged a note detailing a plan to lift the treasury. A Controlled move, he succeeded without danger or obstacle.
The Hound then did a flashback of planting the note with the plan on an Inspector by slipping it into the Inspector’s pocket while he frequented a favorite brothel.It had a small Effect.
Finally, the Lurk did a Risky move to Deceive a Fog Hound into being in the wrong place at the wrong time, running the danger of tipping the Fog Hounds off that something was up. He overreached and critted on the Effect roll, overcoming the Witnesses Clock. By this point, lots of Stress has been distributed, as they had all worked to avoid consequences.
We have a bunch of mechanics questions (the main one of which I’ve since found — ‘how do you conduct Leading a Group Action when the people in the squad lack any pips in the relevant Action?’). But the main issue was that the entire sequence was talked through without any sense of place, other people, or objects. It was almost entirely a mechanical endeavor, though we embellished a bit on how specifically the Actions, Effects, and Resistances took place. We just never had a good picture of the descriptive elements, even as we built out the larger relationships.
Does marrying a descriptive narrative to the mechanics get easier over repeated play sessions?
There’s no v3 yet, afaik there are two docs published here with the content from unfinished v3.
Hmmm, i dont have much problems with narrative play, maybe thats just my GM style. As the QS says, i try to paint the World with a hounted brush. I am using descriptive technics i learned from Jason Lutes ‘ Dungeon World Supplements and aply the Adjectives and Taggs from the score sheet to describe people and locations flavor.
John said, tonight V3 might be published.
The v3 came not per email, but here in the G+ community, seven days ago
Look at the “Official” tag
Yes, it does because you don’t concentrate on the rules anymore.
Remember that the whole group has the duty to set narrative style, pace and mood.
In a game like this, I expect my character to do many things without talking. Everyone must describe.
We had the same problem our first play. The mechanics run against a lot of what I’m used to so they definitely took up more mental real estate. I can only hope repeated play will lessen that as the fiction could be so amazing.
Just reading your recap Brion has filled me with excitement! What a wonderful story your crew created at the table! The flashbacks were pure class.
In regards to getting more narrative out of your players, just model describing all the time, ‘Barf forth Duskwall’ at every chance you get.
It does become easier with time, and as Josephe suggests, use tags as narrative cues and embellish all the time.
We re-incorporate a lot too.
Yesterday, John said that v3 will be posted by end of day today.
Thanks, Keith Stetson, Nathan Roberts, and +Diego Minuti for assuring me we weren’t totally off base. We kept struggling with wanting to describe an Infiltration scene and I had to keep re-presencing for all of us that the Infiltration and Absconding went off without any hitches; the Story they’d chosen to delve into was how they Deceived everyone with a frame.
Now that we have a play session under our belts and struggled through the interrelationships of the mechanics, I’ll endeavor to follow your advice to ground the play more in Duskwall next time we meet. We’ve played Fate and Dungeon World, but this is a new style of narrative play for us.
Ah, thanks for the news, +George Pitre. I’ll keep an eye out for it.
I think the issue, Josephe Vandel, in addition to the parsing of the mechanics taking up so much of our mental space, was that we were super-focused on describing the Plot. Because we couldn’t figure out what the Scene was (we kept trying to make the Scene about the Red Sash location and infiltrating it, and then remembering we weren’t doing an Infiltration), it was more difficult to include other narrative elements like Place, People, and Things.
So we muddled through, learning the interaction of the rules and establishing a clear and coherent Plot, but without a sense of Place.
Thats a bit alien to how I game in general, so I may not be able to fully reflect on what you describe as your problem. I am having the oposite problem, as I am forgetting some rules quiet often and am more or less very relexed in aplying always the correct gameplay of teh rules, which I try to improve now with V.3
What’s interesting then, Josephe Vandel, is that the game allows both for mechanics-driven play that misplaces some narrative elements and for narrative-driven play that misplaces some mechanics. That seems like a good thing, and makes Blades more robust.
After last night, I think we all have a better grasp of how Actions, Danger, and Stress inter-relate and how Teamwork and Solo work function. Hopefully, a more fully developed Story is right around the corner now that we have a better framework for the Mechanics.
Don’t forget to fall back on your Scene Framing chops from Fate and DW. John said that the full ruleset will have much more detailed rules and structure for scene framing.
But even when you have discussed the mechanics and established the ‘crunch’ behind the narrative, the establishment of location, characters, action and tension is still a vital component to having the full Blades experience. Just take your time. If it feels like the players are wanting an infiltration scene, then flashback it or have a colour scene that grounds the current fiction.