I’m curious how other people are handling injuries in the game. I know it’s something my players have complained about a few times since level 2 harm carries a pretty serious penalty and since the new character sheets seem to imply that a healing project is 8 segments, it’s pretty much guaranteed that they’ll carry a wound through at least a few jobs.
I mean, I’ve told them to stop fighting people who have swords and guns if they don’t want to get shot or stabbed but…
So, is level 2 harm supposed to be a big deal? Am I handing out too many wounds? I mean, it seems pretty logical to me that if you get in a knife fight with a guy and roll a consequence, you’re going to get cut up.
I guess, as long as you’re not in a desperate situation you can always step that wound down to level 1, so maybe the issue is just a disconnect between me and the players about just how badass their characters are?
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I asked a similar question some # of weeks back. One of the answers I received was to try letting resistance default to knocking a wound down 2 levels instead of one (modulating that up or down based on fiction as necessary). Your mileage may vary based on how gritty you want the game to feel, but it could be worth a shot if you feel like your players are injured too often.
Seems legit, depending on the fiction you narrate. Someone shooting at them from afar might just cause easily-resisted level 1 harm (like pinned down, so “Afraid”)… unless..
Wait.. wow: are you narrating level 3 harm on them? that is pretty serious. I ask because that’s the only way I would take level 2 harm (is after resisting level 3 to downgrade it to 2). Unless I couldn’t resist because stress.
Either way, sounds like they got into a really deadly spot for that kind of harm to be going around.
I like narrating a terrible thing happening to them, and the players scrambling to rewind a bit with a resist roll.
“She rams a foot of honed steel into your chest. I’m thinking that’s a level 3 harm.”
“Uh, lessee, that’s a Prowess resist roll, yeah? I think I want to take the muscle strain to twist out of the way of that one.”
“Sounds good. Give it a shot.”
I think a good question here is: are your players taking multiple wounds and ending up bumped to level 2 and 3 or are you jumping to level 2 with certain kinds of damage that they seem to keep facing? Are you offering and proposing jobs that gives the characters some time to recover? You say that the players keep yelling “fight me” at some pretty dangerous people and, well, that might be the actual problem.
Allie Bustion makes a great point. If they are getting hurt a lot, then they might want to re-examine their tactics. =)
So, as far as I can tell, the rules state that a risky roll defaults to level 2 harm and a desperate roll defaults to level 3.
The players have (Had? They haven’t done it in a while…) a habit of jumping into outnumbered fights against armed guys, which tends to be desperate. I also had a player decide not to resist level 2 harm one time because it sounded cool. (They now admit that may have been a mistake.)
Like I said, it might just be a playstyle thing. Things have got a bit better recently though. I think now that two PCs both have their level 2 wound slots full, they’re being a bit more careful, but the grumbling remains because it’s taking them ages to get rid of the consequences of their mistake.
Andrew Shields The may want to reexamine, or perhaps the type of realism they’re looking for is more Firefly and less Game of Thrones. Scoundrels in some media are capable of getting into fights with fewer physical consequences, and if that’s the game they’re all interested in than Blades can certainly provide that.
My opinion, for what it is worth, is that if they are jumping into combat outnumbered, they deserve their shanking and prolonged pain.
There are lots of games that are great for doing video game style beat-em-up action. I think Blades in the Dark is not about more fighty tools, but instead using stress and flashbacks to do more scoundrelly underhanded maneuvers to outthink and outmaneuver obstacles instead of falling back on being a blunt instrument as a default.
This is not to yell “YOR DOING IT WRONG” or anything like that; the combat can be pretty intensive, and certainly is something the group can gear up to plan on inflicting. My point is more that this game is really good about giving players a whole set of tools to get around combat most of the time. Killing brings heat, and offers little reward beyond personal satisfaction.
I am reminded of the OSR, original Dungeons and Dragons style, where experience is given for treasure far more than for monster defeat. Combat is risky; getting into a fight is almost a lose condition. The point is the treasure–don’t get distracted. =)
Oh yeah, Mark Griffin you get a cutter up against some scrubs it’s going to be tragic. And even a normal scoundrel has stress to fall back on, in a way that NPCs don’t, and is quite capable in combat.
If you are getting hurt a lot, though, you aren’t stacking the deck enough maybe. =)
I come from watching shows like leverage and firefly and watching star wars. They never plan on having to fight, but damn if they always have to anyway. Those scoundrels faced superior foes with equal parts planning, bravado and skill, and then come back next week little worse for wear (except for that one time in carbonite). I think Blades is great at being that kind of game in addition to a game where combat should be avoided whenever possible. Talk to your players about everyone’s expectations and be flexible so everyone can have a good time. The QS basically says the same thing on page 11. The bottom line is that nobody who is having a good time using the system is doing it wrong.
Can I just add that If the players don’t like a mechanical effect from being injured (fictionally you can really ramp up the narrative consequences), the players may always offer up a flashback that mitigates or heals their injury’s effects buy the simple;e expenditure of stress (mwah ha ha!).
Plus you get a really cool ‘backstory’ or embellished ‘sidenote’ scene!
Harm is one of the many areas where you can scale the game to how you want it to be. First off, yes, Level 2 Harm, as written, shouldn’t even be on the table from a Dominant position. But that’s really just the tip of the iceberg.
Part of it is “How do you handle resistance rolls?” – It’s listed as an “option” in this version of the quickstart to allow resistance rolls to be to AVOID harm instead of reducing it; This is an easy way to get people to take less harm.
Part of it is also “How often do you call for ‘harm’?” – My instinct is usually not to go for harm as my “default”; It actually feels a little dull for the consequences of every fight to just be a bunch of injuries that are going to take forever to heal. I like to move things to a desperate position more often than I inflict harm.
But the short answer is, I guess: Yes, level 2 harm is really mean. It’s almost crippling to a character who hasn’t advanced their action ratings a lot, because their “good” skills become 1d, and their “decent” skills become awful. And unless they are prepared to throw a pile of money at it, it takes quite a while to shake that off.
So it depends on what kind of game you want – while Blades theoretically has a “default”, it’s insanely easy to tune to how you want it to be rather than play “How the game says to” (because the game doesn’t actually say you HAVE to play it that way. It lays out options.)
Also if the harm penalties are hard, it’s not exactly a death spiral. A broken arm gives -1d only if the action needs the arm, so for a crew of thieves, it’s an opportunity to show how resourceful they can be and get around the injury.
The simplest way is to go for a less physical job, another is for the wounded one to try a different way for a time, like the episode of Leverage in which Parker had a broken leg and she acted as the mastermind.
You guys are good at this game. 🙂