This Saturday I ran / played Blades for the first time.

This Saturday I ran / played Blades for the first time. We had a great time and I look forward to playing it again. Here is a quick play report and some suggestions for improvements.

# Play Report

I was the GM and there were four players. No one had played Blades before and only I had read the rules. I played the trailer for Dishonored to give people a sense of the world of Duskwall.

We followed the quick-start instructions and it took us about an hour to create characters and crew. I mentioned some of the relevant mechanics as they players filled out their sheets but it was still a lot of work to do at once, without full knowledge of the rules.

I opened actual play with the scene in Baz’s office. The players had chosen to start with a negative relationship with the Lampblacks so they politely declined his offer and said they’d stay out of the Lampblacks way. They were soon approached by a representative of the Red Sashes and were told that their boss wanted to talk; a meet was arranged in a neutral pub. The crew also turned down the Sashes’ request for assistance and approached the bar tender, a friend of the crew.

The bar tender told the crew of a possible heist – the Dockers had helped themselves to some Spirt Essence off a recent shipment and it was sitting in a warehouse while they looked for a buyer. Our crew accepted the job and decided to go the Infiltration route. They used their gang of assassins to distract the dockworkers on guard and then picked the locks to enter the warehouse. They were leaving the building with the loot when a dockworker came down the side alley; one of the players zapped him with channeled lightening.

I did an okay job of enforcing the game mechanics – I wasn’t consistent in telling people which type of action (e.g. Daring) or the effect level but that didn’t seem to be a problem.

The score was a success but was witnessed by a nearby gang – the Eels – who asked for some coin or rep in exchange for their silence (they threatened to tell the Dockers). Our crew agreed to give them some rep – partial credit for the score – and offered future opportunities to collaborate.

During one of the player’s downtime, he kidnapped a Lampblack to interrogate him about the Lampblack’s plans. The crew persuaded the thug to switch allegiances and so they learned of the Lampblack’s scheme. The gang was going to raid an old city oil depot and then use the fuel to burn down the Red Sashes’s temple complex / base. The players decided that their next score was to sabotage the raid on the depot and then attack the Lampblack HQ in the chaos. Prior to executing this plan, they went to Lyssa and got her blessing to take action to ‘end the street war and restore peace’ – they didn’t explain how, though.

They infiltrated the depot a few hours prior to the Lampblack raid and planted explosives. They also had the Eels tip off the Bluecoats that something big was about to go down at that location. The crew then staked out the depot until a good number of Lampblack’s entered the building. They then blew the explosives, killing many thugs, maiming others, and leaving most of the survivors to be picked up by the cops.

The crew immediately followed up this success by storming the Lampblack HQ – there were limited members present and the crew outnumbered Baz and his lieutenants. They made Baz and his goons an offer: join the Imperial Guard and cede your territory or die here and now. Baz was intimidated into taking the offer.

The session ended with the players’ crew moving up a tier and taking over the Lampblack HQ. They probably didn’t have the Hold to do so but it made sense within the story.

# System Feedback

Let me start by saying that I really like where Blades is going – the theme is excellent and the core game loop around Scores is very fun and yields good stories.

With that said, there were a ton of new terms to learn and rules to track. I can see a lot of it being useful in a long running campaign but most of it could probably be cut for a first session. Similarly, the players found the character sheets a bit overwhelming at first.

I suggest an even faster quick-start that throws the players right into the story. This super-quick-start might have:

– Pre-gen characters, or maybe just a slimmed down character creation

– Skip the crew creation at first

– Start with a score already selected, so the players first choice is which approach to take

This would immediately get players into the action and allow the GM to only convey the relevant rules. After this opening score, players could finish character creation and then create the crew. This opening score could be the catalyst / origin story for the crew’s formation. The GM could then walk through additional rules and dump the players out into the bigger Duskwall sandbox.

I’ll point to the Fantasy Flight Star Wars Beginner Box modules as masterful examples of how to gradually introduce mechanics to players in a fun / exciting way.