So I’ve read through version 6 and now 7.1 of the rules and I think it’s a great system. I’ve pitched it to my gaming group who are on-board with the premise. However, I’m currently travelling round the world and so have a few months before we’ll be able to start. I want to use this time to prepare so that I’m ready to get started as soon as I get back.
I guess my question is, other than having a good knowledge of the rules and the factions, what else can I do to prepare?
I’ve seen the quick start has an opening scenario and how to kick it off. Do most people use that when starting a new campaign?
And how much do people plan ahead? I’ve seen suggestions that you don’t plan anything in advance and just go from what the players give you in-game, but as a new-ish GM, this makes me a little nervous as I would like the campaign to have some narrative through-line to help drive the action forward. Other than NPC and faction clocks, what do other people do?
Thanks in advance for any help.
(Also, I hope this is the right section of the forum for this type of question. If not, can someone let me know where to move it to please.)
I started with the Crows Foot situation and got a great eight week game from it. I didn’t plan ahead; indeed, there were a few occasions where I couldn’t really plan for the start of the session because I just had no idea what the PCs would do next.
The prep I did was to sketch out a few jobs to dangle in front of the PCs just before each downtime session. I also thought of a few bits of colour (people, places, things in the street) that I could drop into play at different times.
Watch/read some APs. That’s the best way to prepare by immersing yourself in the world of Duskvol. That way you can quickly spin of ideas and describe the delicious dark cutthroat nature of Duskvol. Also I recommend watching the show Peaky Blinders to get a feel of how the faction wheeling, dealing, and fighting plays out. To get a feel of blades in the dark action with Devils Bargains and whatnot I recommend watching John Wick.
I’ve been running Blades for a few sessions now and it’s an interesting challenge running the game when you have little idea which way the players will go. By using the die rolls to dictate the events of how things will go you can pretty much riff off the players ideas and decisions fairly easily. For instance in the session today, which I have added a shortish write up for, the players had several options brought forward from their previous escapades. These were to investigate the murder of the Hounds friend and contact, push ‘product’ or sell spirits from their newly acquired ‘turf’ or obtain a ring for one of the players demon ‘friend’. Not trying to look clever, but as I sat down for the session I didn’t know which option they would take. This is how it went.
Cast of characters: Rusty a red scaley skinned Whisper and ‘friend’ to the demon Satta.
Badger a drove coated Hound.
Silco a dark hearted Cutter from Kovlan
Collectively known as the ‘Bone Pickers’ a hapless crew of thieves trying to make a name for themselves in the city of Duskwall.
For the finale of these series of sessions the procurement of the Ring of Hellsight for Rusty’s Demoness mistress, Sattara was the order of the day.
Silco had now perfected alchemical concoctions of Leviathan blood to the stage where he could ‘brew’ a product to pretty much do anything the crew wanted. They decided that to recover the ring from the mansion used by the Circle of Flame, they need to recon the set up before carrying out the heist to steal it. So they lured their contact in the Circle, Blake into a meeting at the mansion on the pretence of offering the Circle a more ‘potent’ brew than they were currently using for their demon summoning rituals, and whilst Blake was unconscious from the effects, to reconnoiter the mansion in full.
Information gathering about the mansion previous to this meeting had uncovered disturbing rumours and folk lore. The mansion seemed to have no physical security that could be identified. Previous attempts by other crews to burgle the place had resulted in deaths, entire gangs going missing or insanity of the few survivors that had made it out. Tales of hideous entities and ever changing rooms, muddied the waters.
Rusty had previously ‘summoned’ Sattara for more information or help regarding the mansion or the ring, but due to a poor role had seriously angered the Demoness in the process due to his sloth as she saw it. She did however grant him a metallic implant burnt into the wrist that could detect ethereal magic. Risking all however Rusty donned his spirit mask and his implant to commune with whatever was in the house and controlling the defences of the premises, only to discover that the house itself was a bound demon that had been ritually summoned in a pre cataclysmic ritual by a powerful Mage known as Bonisagos.
It wanted releasing and was prepared to release the ring in exchange. More research uncovered a pre cataclysmic tome entitled’ The summoning of the Manse of Bonisagos’’ which indicated that an unbinding could be achieved by the breaking of a rune embellished keystone within the building.
Another session with Sattara had invoked a ‘under no circumstances will you release that demon from its binding’ response.
The ritual undertaken by Rusty with the demonic house caused yet more pain to the hapless Whisper as blood was given and a rune tattoo of loyalty scalded into his flesh.By now the rest of the crew were becoming used to the smell of burning Rusty flesh, but couldn’t help wondering how they had become embroiled into this demon peeing contest.
They find the rune stone in the ritual basement room of the mansion, but are discovered by Blake and several acolytes. A fight breaks out in which several acolytes are killed, but Blake and a n other are possessed by 2 of the Green Goblin gang spirits that Rusty had forced into allegiance to the crew after the massacre last session. They take the ring, vowing to return to finish the job on the night of the ritual to be conducted by the Circle in 2 days time as Silco wants them all dead. Sattara is presented with the ring and shimmies off telling Rusty to do what he wants with the other entity and on his head be it.
Fast forward to the night of the ritual. Silco’s home brew, delivered the day before poisons the entire Circle of Flame retinue, which includes some high ranking nobles of the city, as the crew then break open the sacrificial altar and smash the rune stone.
Hideous laughter and a cyclonic vortex of epic proportions envelopes the crew as the house implodes and is sucked skyward in a blaze of light, and the crew find themselves standing in a half acre square of bare earth where once the house had stood.
They slink off into the night as an astonished gaggle of onlookers point open mouthed at the carnage that has just taken place.
The Actual Play videos that John Harper does with his group are, in my opinion, the best way to prepare. For me it wasn’t so much immersing myself in the world, it was wrapping my head around the way this game is played. Blades doesn’t operate like Dungeons and Dragons. It’s much more collaborative, and less linear.
Arguably the most iconic mechanic of this system is the Resistance roll. It exemplifies how Blades is a game of cinematic adventure where the PCs are larger than life, and if you’re used to more conventional tabletop rpgs it will be counterintuitive for you. You as the GM will describe a bunch of awful stuff that happens as a result of the PC’s action roll, but then the PC gets to pick one of those things and say “nope, that doesn’t actually happen.” It’s really cool, and takes some getting used to. I know it’s there in the rules, and you’ve read the rules, but Resistance didn’t click for me until just the other day. In my first mini-adventure, running the game for my brother as a solo PC, I didn’t use it right. I treated it more like a D&D saving throw. It does fill that role, but it’s much more than that.
Even the basic Action roll mechanic may have a learning curve for you, depending on what games you’ve previously played. Again, I’m saying this from a background of almost exclusively D&D/D20 games. The idea that the PC’s roll encompasses both PC and NPC actions, and that the player and GM jointly narrate that, is pretty far from my norm.
Use the starting situation, not only is it rife for dangerous opportunity and decisions, there is getting to be a sizable word count on running it. Read the intro part but you also should read all of “Starting the Game”. Then put it down for a night, and maybe read it again. Great stuff in there 🙂 for first session and beyond – there is detail you can introduce as you and the players ask questions to describe the cool things they want to do
Its worth noting that my players typically come from d20 backgrounds a lot like Kyle describes (hell, I did!). So I decided to slap a summary of the Players’ Best Practices right on the character sheets. I pointed this out to all my players, going over each point and then confirming they are understand them, and immediately after finishing this (took about 15 minutes of explanation/Q&A) saw more confident and focused play:
* Embrace the Scoundrel’s Life: Don’t shoot down risky ideas. Consequences are not failures.
* Act Now, Plan Later: Hold on loosely, but don’t let go. Plan with flashbacks during missions or projects during downtime.
* Take Responsibility: You are co-author. Think about what you have to say about the world.
* Don’t Be A Weasel: Choose the action that matches what you are doing. Actions are not skills; they are about what you are doing, not what you know.
* Use Your Stress Boxes: Spend it to push yourself and help teammates to improve your odds. Resist when you don’t like the consequences (of anything; just ask!).
I used the quickstart scenario as our starting point, and along the way threw in a bunch of other complications, so now we’re over 30 sessions in and the initial conflict has just been resolved.
I find myself improvising a hell of a lot more than with any other game I’ve ever run. A lot of that is only possible because of the tools John has given us; the random heist generator tables, lists of names, notable characters in the various neighborhoods, etc.
The great majority of my prep is going over what happened in previous sessions asking “what are the repercussions of what they did here? Who’s going to come after them?”
I’ve used the starting scenario many times and it’s a fine place to start.
For preparing, my recommendation is to spend some time with the setting material and identify what you think is cool. Think about what IS NOT there but you’re inspired to think of because of it.
Then once you’ve got a solid idea of things you think are cool, then as you and the players improvise together you’ve got stuff you know you want to bring in.
Don’t plan out the story. Just think of some elements that would be neat if they showed up.
That way if there’s a moment where they are at a loss for what to do next, you’ve got some things you want. Or if they’re going to target someone and you need a complication, you know you’ve been dying to bring in the Iruvian spirifers to cross their path, so this is a good opening. It lets you bring in your flavors to enhance what they’re up to instead of competing with it.
Thanks everyone for the advice. This forum is full of very helpful people and I’ve already picked up a lot from reading through, but this extra stuff has been particularly helpful.
It won’t be for a while, but once I’ve run it, I’ll let you know how it goes.
I am right with Neil on this one. My prep is thinking of imagery and character types,and rough out a couple of jobs – I use the Duskwall Heist deck and highly recommend it – but without specific locations, so that I have a selection o use when the characters do whatever they do.
That’s it from a technical side of things. The rest is managing the changing faction relationships in reaction to both the characters actions and the results of the NPC factions’fortune rolls relating to their stated objective or relationship with other factions.
The rest comes from the dice rolls ingame. Entanglements, 4/5 dice rolls and overindulging in Vices drives the rest
Mostly I have no idea what my guys are going to do next. I know that my spider is going to perform a Gather Information Downtime action at the start of our next session to find work, but he will tell me all about the details and I will react to it and the dice rolls.
It could end up being the whole session, or it may be over in moments.
I just hang on and enjoy the ride.
It is actually a nice change to have the players pick up some of the work, but you have to learn to let go first.
John has included a couple of pages of GM advice that is useful in the rules.
Have fun, I do.
Your guys will come up with stuff you could never dream of.
Ooh what’s the Duskwall Heist deck?
There’s a print and .pdf version.
https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/duskwall-heist-deck/
I got mine through Drivethru RPG at the same time as my early access.
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/172348/Blades-in-the-Dark-Heist-Deck-Print-and-Play