I had my first “session” with my solo Blades campaign. (I’m a big cheater, also I need a way to practice abiding by the GM Principles throughout the week). Here’s a little tale if you like to listen to these sorts of things. I rolled up some People (on the tables) and gave them playbooks based on what I rolled. It’s been very successful so far. Very entertaining for me.
CREW AND CHARACTERS
We’re a cult of sacred musicians. It’s Maestro and Swing and a quintet of Maestro’s loose acquaintances who “marveled at the opportunity to be conducted by the celebrated composer Edlun Templeton”. Our lair is this clockwork opera house in Brightstone and we dug the altars out of the basement and carried the shrines back into the landscaped lawn.
Maestro’s this old Akorosi composer turned whisper. He’s been friends with the Dimmer Sisters since they were young women. Last year, just after the Arkenvorn Celebration, they gifted him a pre-cataclysmic hymnal and he researched the ancient notation to correctly recreate these sacred songs. Anything with a spirit is compelled to listen and dance in an orgy of uninhibited emotion. He’s been complaining about his hearing and bellowing about new technology lately ever since he swapped the strings in the instruments and performed the music for the first time. He’s normally so young for his age.
Swing’s a Slide. Almost like Maestro’s reflection, turned back 45 years. A “temporary substitute” Diplomat to Skovlan. He’s an infinitely charming young man with sharp dress and styled hair. Smells like Brightstone air, too. His position was born from mesmerizing the former Diplomat to go into early retirement.
THE SCORE
We (royal we) performed for some nobles like fashionistas and diplomats and brought the godly presence behind our music into our landscaped, clockwork Opera House. Astounded and impressed a picky audience (they also wanted food afterwards, because of course, so we just spent our last coin on catering). Unfortunately, we also enchanted a ghost and Swing allowed himself to be possessed and contain it so that it wouldn’t disturb our clients. Old Man Templeton, the Maestro, performed the exorcism and consecrated his last ghost key to open a door to the divine realms of The Rapturous Chord. Portal eats the ghost as an offering, but the door being open just resounds through the ghost field for miles. They clean up the absolute trainwreck in the ghost field by sprinkling black salt on the ground and the shrines (but wouldn’t that destroy the garden? nope. They both have backgrounds as gardeners and cultivators and landscaped the yard to drain properly. The garden’s had ink-salts in it for since they’ve gotten there.)
<3
How did you go about it all? Would you be into going a little more into depth about it?
hari capra Uh, it was pretty simple for me. I’ve played a lot of Blades. Been both GM and Player before. So this time I just decided to be both so that I could get some practice out of sessions with other groups. I just performed all the duties of player and GM in my own head instead of communicating it aloud.
Of course, you have to be fair and play by the rules. You have to be a GM who hits hard and rewards generously. And you don’t give yourself XP for things you don’t do. I used Roll20 and just opened up a game for myself and didn’t invite anyone.
It’s pretty much like playing chess by yourself. You could just make white win or just make black win, but to have fun you need to embody the white player (the players in this metaphor), and then walk around to the other side of the board and embody the black player (the GM in this metaphor).
One advantage is you never have creative dissonance or player drama. One disadvantage is you’re not AS surprised.
Overall, it worked for me!
Yeah, that makes more sense than anything else, like overly complicated systems for running the GM. Thanks 🙂