Here’s a draft of what I’m thinking for actions right now. These are things that ANYONE can do.
PROWESS
* Fight. Engage in ranged, melee, unarmed, or emotional combat.
* Finesse. Detail work, sleight of hand, sensitive touch.
* Handle. Manage vehicles, animals, and heavy machines.
* Move. Climb, swim, run, dance, dodge, cover ground.
RESOLVE
* Attune. Sense supernatural energy, connect with it.
* Clatter. Manage chaos and mayhem, bend it to your will.
* Command. Order others, get the most out of them.
* Intimidate. Frighten or coerce others through threat or force.
WITS
* Shadow. Move undetected, follow targets unseen.
* Study. Research, write, break code, analyze character.
* Sway. Persuade, set the emotional tone, manipulate, seduce.
* Watch. Observe detail, remain alert over time, detect tells.
So, what got renamed and adjusted?
* Battle. I like fight better, it’s clearer but can still apply to a variety.
* Cipher. Study is broader and makes more sense to me.
* Observe. I like watch better, it feels more active and menacing.
* Prowl. This is a specific word for a huge variety, so I broadened it.
What got cut?
* Invoke. I’m still not sure what this meant, and I’d rather use Attune to line up with a supernatural force then use other actions on it.
* Stitch. This is about training, and I’d rather see that as a special ability than a generic health care. Use watch, study, finesse, etc.
* Tinker. This is about training, and I’d rather see that as a special ability than generic machinest skill. Use finesse, clatter, or study etc.
What got added?
* Clatter. I miss an action for managing chaos, whether in battle or navigating a crowd or generating a piratical ruckus as a diversion.
* Intimidate. Both part of violence, and a major means of avoiding it. Many flavors, but this is something anyone can attempt, and the intent is not really covered anywhere else. Make someone back down.
* Shadow. Seriously, both surveillance and stealth require this constantly and it doesn’t fit neatly anywhere else.
WE DON’T HAVE TO AGREE. So don’t get nasty. Just sharing a draft of some thoughts I have had.
Totally don’t agree but nice to see your thought process anyway 🙂
I’m pretty much loving these, but I have a couple of doubts/questions/suggestions:
– Why “emotional combat” is under Fight and not Sway or Command, for example?
– Why did you decide to keep Finesse as “misdirection”+”detail work”? I don’t see misdirection as something that contributes to your Prowess and that is actually related with manual dexterity. Maybe use Shadow for misdirection and move ranged combat under Finesse?
I think intimidate is pretty much a means to command, otherwise I think you’ve done a great job!
MisterTia86 Of course with these there will be overlap as there would be with any list of actions, so here’s some thinking in that direction.
Sometimes when you get in a fight with someone you’re not just trying to persuade them or tell them what to do, but it turns into a shouting match where it’s more about frustration and passion and anger than anything more intentional. Of course you can do those other things; but if you’ve got a character who is not good at Sway or Command, they may resort to Fight in an argument.
For Finesse I should add the clarity that for misdirection I mean sleight of hand and prestidigitation, rather than a social application.
For putting all combat under one action, the reason for that is because I’m pitching it more as instinct and training and natural ability rather than specific skill sets. If somebody wants to make a warrior, I’m cool with them having one-stop-shopping for making people bleed. Combat isn’t really the focus of the game, it is one tool in the toolbox, so I’m content to put it all together.
Now, if someone wanted to use Finesse for a sniper shot or a quick stab, I would let them. if they wanted to use Move to tackle someone, I’d let them do that too.
The actions are more about identifying the center of the idea, and letting it drift out to ambiguous fringes, rather than drawing a clear boundary around each one.
Heng benjamin My reason for breaking it out is more mechanical than conceptual. Command is pretty hugely powerful for delegating anything, through gangs or allies or whatever; if you want something to happen offscreen or if you want others to do it, you roll Command.
Intimidation is something to spread fear on the broad scope, and in the narrow scope to head off conflict or shift the circumstances in your favor (from risky to controlled, for example.)
I want a game where there is room for the mad dog killer to scare people who look in his eyes, without also suggesting he’s a good leader. It’s a matter of taste, I suppose.
(For what it is worth, I have no ambition to have my thinking adjust the official game. I’m working on my hack. Some of what’s going on here will mesh with other elements, like special abilities for occupational training, and a big pool of special abilities that are open to all characters, and different use for social rank and cultural background, etc.)
Colin Fahrion I appreciate that we can be civil about our disagreements. I like seeing what other people are doing even if it totally doesn’t line up with my style.
Sometimes it reveals to me something I feel strongly about and didn’t even know it. Sometimes a reaction to an idea provokes another idea. And sometimes you just get inspired to adapt something or do something unrelated that the rabbit hole escorted you to when you ran down its length. =) That’s one reason it’s useful to show your work when ruminating on things like this.
I just finished up an Actions draft for a modern hack I am working on and I also made separate Move and Intimidate actions. So I agree!
Andrew Shields Re: Command, I also think leadership encompasses a broader range of activity than just Commanding obedience. I see a lead action (which I am calling Direct) as more organizational/logistical/operational /managerial than just cowing someone into submission, especially once you get into the upper levels of the game where your crew would be running a large organization with territory, sub-businesses, and dozens of employees with their own middle management.
My two cents…
In general I like where you changed the nomenclature without the underlying action descriptions: I too hate the term Battle. Fight works. I was thinking Clash as it’s more in keeping with the thematic word choice. Watch also is a bit better than Observe for a word choice. Cipher always felt odd and so Study works better.
I like your thinking that “actions are more about identifying the center of the idea, and letting it drift out to ambiguous fringes”. I’d further this by saying that the best actions have strong centers that show obvious use in BitD style stealth action play with interesting outlier uses that allow for creativity. I mention this as I’ll refer to this when I make specific comments below.
Prowl while it was broad in that it covered climbing, swimming and stuff and doing stuff unseen it served the purpose of being more thematic. With Prowl split into two actions Move and Shadow, if someone wants to climb/tumble/run unseen you have an issue where it’s two skills so which do you roll? Frankly Move is boring. If someone wants to run or climb or swim they should just do so and assume they are being obvious about it, if they want to run climb or swim unseen that’s more story important with stealth action style play so make them roll, which is where Prowl came in.
Mayhem was a great action centered around melee combat but with interesting outliers of usefulness. You seem to have taken that outlier area and made Clatter but I don’t think that there is enough there for a whole action. It seems too abstruse and it’s hard to come up with it’s use case. I could see it being more of a special ability: +1d when working in chaos.
I like Invoke as I can see dealing with runes and demonic shit (Invoke) as completely different than dealing with ghosts and spectral stuff (Attune).
Intimidate is too specific. It’s an action with a strong center and no outlier usefulness. If you want to intimidate through force of personality use the Command. If you want to intimidate through by over physical threats of violence use Fight (aka Battle)
Stitch rubs me the wrong way too but I’m not sure what to do about that. It has a center but not even a strong one as BitD doesn’t feel like a game that needs a healer ability — either you resist damage or you don’t. Maybe a special ability as you say but learned skills that doesn’t feel like what special abilities are for. Maybe it’s just not needed.
Tinker I like as an action in that it involves traps and engines and alchemy whatnot. Solid center with lots of outlier use.
I really like this. I need to actually run or play a game where there’s a whisper again; I have gone back and forth on Invoke. On the one hand, I think it’s a cool skill. On the other, I feel like the difference between Attune and Invoke isn’t always clear, to me, and it might lead to players trying to do things that either make having both skills irrelevant, or the GM being a big awesome pile of Nope. Obviously that could be avoided by making things clear from the start, what things do, but still.
Like you said, we don’t have to agree. I think the biggest disagree for me is splitting out intimidate and command. Of course, then I’d need to suggest another Resolve-based skill… Back to having invoke! 😀 Nah, I dunno what would fill that hole.Â
I also like the shadow/move split. You’ve brought up Prowl before as a little too broad, and I think this makes a case for a new world where it isn’t both run/climb/swim and sneak/surveil. The stitch/tinker removals are very interesting; I feel it could make Study a super-skill, but it also seems like Watch or Clatter would be good fits for ‘operate on someone in the field’ or ‘break the shit out of this lightening-wall’.Â
Useful ideas, Colin Fahrion!
Part of my thinking about Invoke is that I plan to unpack some more system support for both Whispers and potential demonologists, so for me the question is, “what can EVERYONE do?” and I like Attune as the sense the unknown ability, the ability to detect the supernatural and potentially interact with it. That feels strong and like something everyone can do.
Then I’d unpack it more getting into more specifics with special abilities and potentially other little corners of the system; if whispers get a playbook to deal with ghosts, and demons are a whole other thing, then it makes sense for demon interaction to have a playbook (for example.)
I’m drifting towards having “training” categories as special abilities. When dealing with something you’ve been trained to do, then for the primary task (your specialty) the situation counts as 1 calmer (desperate to risky for example) and if already controlled, you count as having a six rolled before you roll (so you get full success, and much higher chance for a critical.)
With that in the background, then, you could do what is now “tinker” as a training category. When actually using it, you would use finesse, or clatter in a chaotic situation, or watch to figure out what’s wrong with a machine, etc.
Same for Stitch. Take the training category, then use a variety of actions to implement your actual training. If it is simple, like stitches, do it with the actions. If it is more complex, then your average poorly educated Duskwall scoundrel won’t have any training with it and I don’t want to assume they do.
In my play style, there are LOTS of differences between move and shadow. I like having shadow to use when people do flashbacks or preparation questions to follow someone around all day and see what they’ve been up to. I don’t want to conflate that with the physically demanding tasks of escaping pursuit, or climbing a wall, or trying to swim low enough to use the water as armor against gunfire.
Move is prowess, shadow is wits. Players decide what they’ll use. Sometimes a little bit of thinking ahead and cutting down an alley can save you from having to pursue someone and keep up while climbing a fence, for example. Do what you do well.
I find Clatter (Mayhem) has a strong center in my play style. If you need to cause a distraction, there it is. If you need to fight or move through a crowd, it’s Clatter. If you are trying to live large and play up a big personality as a cover, Clatter is an option. If the house is burning down and you’ve got to get through it, keeping your head and exerting your physicality under duress has Clatter as an option.
I think of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and the wide dividing line between scheming bureaucrats and civilized men on one side, and pirates on the other; when it all falls apart, can you keep your head and navigate quickly? That’s for the outlier applications.
As for intimidation, well. That’s for instilling discomfort in your foes. Maybe through a cryptic note, maybe through a midnight visit, maybe through eye contact, maybe through discussions with their employees, whatever. If you face off with them and get them to back off, or disrupt their sleep with anxiety, there’s lots of ways this matters.
But I’m a Batman fan, and that might color my thinking. =)
Charlie Vick My first thought on “attune” and “invoke” separate was that one was sensory and passive, the other commanding and active. You detect things with one, and alter them with the other.
For another (more official) interpretation, the description seems to separate the spheres of “ghosts and related services” and “demons and related services.”
John explained his perspective in a post shortly after the split came out, but I don’t have that at my fingertips and I did not quite understand it at the time.
I’d rather make that level of detail baked into the playbooks rather than something everyone has access to, especially when there are only 12 actions. =)
Many good choices. I have a base pool of abilities and Profession Rank Abilities too. Seems we still do a lot devellopement parallel 😉
Thanks for sharing this, Andrew. It helps me crystallize my own thoughts for the core game.
My pleasure, John Harper! Good luck with the ongoing development. =)
I dont realy feel like we have already found THE final composition. And the Stitch/Invoke/Fight actions are not completely satisfying in my opinion.
In another note, Andrew Shields gets my personal Award for most engage playtester ever 🙂
Well, you know, Da Vinci said that art is never finished; it is abandoned. =) I agree that there may well be further exploration. It will also be interesting to see how the kaleidoscope of derivative games handle the action list.
One thing that makes engagement possible is a really gracious atmosphere for musing and experimentation. I don’t take that for granted, it is a rare thing.
I think another thing that keeps me coming back is that I’m not yet really good at running Blades in the Dark, but it’s still a compelling setting and I feel like it does some really interesting mechanical things, so it keeps me coming back trying to find my sweet spot.
Btw, I really like Watch. That’s a good word for Blades.