While watching a lot of Blades games I noticed that a lot of players stay at a stress level of 7, unwilling to take that Trauma. Of course, who’d willing decrease the lifespan of their character? They then often end up taking that Trauma when resisting something.
I wonder if it’d be more interesting and enticing to players to reward them for taking that step, willingly pushing their characters into trauma, reducing their characters lifespan and removing themselves from the conflict. I think giving another die might be overkill but maybe increasing the effect on a success? This might also add some cinematic flair. The character performs their last all-out attack before being rendered unable to fight, that happens a lot in fiction.
There does seem to be a bit of a balancing act. You want to build up at least 6 Stress, otherwise you risk overindulging your Vice in downtime. However, when you have that much Stress, a single low roll on a Resistance can throw you into Trauma in one shot. It seems to me that this is entirely by design. There have been times when I had a player opt to take Harm as stated instead of attempting to Resist, because they couldn’t afford the Stress.
I’m all for anything that makes the characters more badass in the face of overwhelming odds. I am always my PCs’ biggest fan, even when I’m trying to kill them.
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I would say there are at least 2 rewards for being Traumatized: character depth from its “acquisition” (what was important enough to risk, and actually cause, Trauma?), and extra opportunities for XP from Trauma
I’m with Mark on this one. Trauma is itself an incentive in its ability to generate that sweet XP.
Mark(s), that all may be true but if the players aren’t biting they either are uninformed of the incentives or don’t think it’s worth it. It’s possible it needs to be adjusted.
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Carl Hickman I think that relies on the assumption they are being “motivated” properly. 🙂 They do still resist if they overstress by the way.. which is a fine motivator if the consequence avoided was bad enough (when that isn’t true, this is probably a different matter of communication, or a controlled position)
I find myself agreeing with Mark again. A player will resist with 7 stress if the consequence is bad enough. A player can decide what they think is worth it. A choice between death or trauma is easy enough. What else might be worth it? Losing the trust of an important friend, having your hunting pet shot in the head, letting their hated enemy get away? Lots of other horrible things.