I just ran our group though our second session of Blades last night.

I just ran our group though our second session of Blades last night.

I just ran our group though our second session of Blades last night. I think I speak for all of us when I say the game rocks! I had a quick rules question though. How are people running combat? We had our first scene involving violence last night so I assigned a four section clock to the adversary. Our hunter rolled a 6 with extra effect due to quality and potency and so completed the clock with one roll and defeated the enemy. Am I running this correctly? What if he wouldn’t have completed it first roll? Keep rolling and match the dice to the fiction until a final outcome?

6 thoughts on “I just ran our group though our second session of Blades last night.”

  1. Definitely no need to worry about a combat finishing in one roll. That speed and professional efficiency at criminal efforts is one of the great things about the system. In fact, in itself, quicker than expected combats is common for me since I seldom even make clocks for fights or anything unless a situation is considerably complicated or a foe is particularly noteworthy. If the PC had an advantage with both quality and potency, then yeah, one roll seems fine.

    On the other hand, while I haven’t looked at the rules recently, I thought 4 ticks from a single roll is particularly extraordinary and the kind of thing I’d expect to see once in a number of sessions. Notice that the factors don’t equate to +1 tick each. Once factors increase an effect to Great (3 ticks) further increasing it to Extreme (4 ticks) will likely take more a single additional factor of advantage. At least that’s how I’d rule it.

    So in your fight scene, depending on where the potency came from, assuming it was a straight-up fight, I would probably have had the PC achieve 3 ticks on the first roll with the question lingering “What’s left to do, if anything?” On the other hand, if it was an assassination or hunt and potency came from a special ability specifically related to the situation in the scene, then it would be perfectly rewarding to achieve the expected result of quick triumph, since the character is set up and built for just such actions. In that case, the clock wasn’t so necessary, since this brand of violence is the sort of job the hound does as a matter of course.

    So long story short, violence can and probably should work just like any other action mechanically, whether the hound was hunting someone or hunting lost lore in a library vault of musty books.

  2. I speak for myself, this is unofficial. What I do is I tell people every round they are in a fight that is ongoing, they are going to need to resist taking an injury.

    For basic fights one on one or where the characters’ target is greatly outmatched, let it be a basic roll. If they succeed, great! They win, target down. If there is a complication, it’s either turned into a chase or maybe someone gets hurt and has to resist the injury. On a failure, they take an injury and the target is still up.

    I only involve a clock if numbers are involved or there is some other reason to expect the fight to be more prolonged or complicated.

    Also, if there is a clock for “guards” and they jump a specific guard, it can make sense to either let them engage the whole clock or to tell them if they knock this guy down fast and quiet the clock advances one, if he gets to make noise then they lose two segments progress.

    How bad an injury do they face? Depends on the fiction. The injury represents the target fighting back, and adds an element of danger to using violence.

    I think of the rules as tools the group can use to mechanize outcomes when that’s helpful. So, if you can think of a way to repurpose or implement a rule that really seems to fit the range of possible outcomes, go for it. I don’t think any of what I’ve described is AGAINST the rules, it is just my table practice for how I USE the rules already available in different situations.

    (I believe you handled the rules right in that one success with extra potency fills a 4 clock.)

  3. Perfect, thank you both. Thanks for the info on how you run it Andrew that is really helpful. I’ve been checking out your play reports as well and they are very inspiring.

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