I need an example:
Say you’re picking a lock at the start of a mission.
You roll finesse and get a 6/4-5/1-3.
On a 6 I assume you just tick 2 boxes off the lock clock for a standard effect.
On a 4 or 5 I assume the same as above but a minor complication happens. What minor complication could occur when picking a lock in a controlled situation?
On a 1-3 you fail at picking the lock and a bigger complication happens. Again, what bigger complication happens when lock picking?
Another question: if they make a roll and don’t fill the clock, how should I build tension, excitement, or fill in? I don’t like saying “OK roll…you tick 2 boxes off the lock clock…roll again…” until they unlock it.
Final question: say the lock is the first thing encountered, is this solved by the engagement roll? If so how does this work? If not, what would the enganagemt roll be doing?
I’m not able to provide example complications as you haven’t told us what else is going on around the characters.
Generally, an engagement roll isn’t for a specific thing like “picking a lock” – it’s “how good is the situation you find yourselves in when you use your detail”.
So if the detail is “There’s an old, disused door with a rusty lock that connects the basement of the house to the steam tunnels” then the engagement roll determines what happens when the PCs open that door – or at least, what happens when they approach that door. A 4-5 on the engagement roll could have someone else coming out of said door, or someone else already working on the lock. A 6 would be “Okay, you’re through the door and into the building. The basement is dusty and full of odd crates and things. There’s not much light, and you can hear the footsteps of someone pacing upstairs”. a 1-3 might involve the door being guarded, or swinging the door open to find someone is in the process of inventorying all those crates.
If you’re just talking about picking a lock as a non-engagement obstacle, then:
Is there a threat here at all? If the answer is “no” then don’t make them roll to pick the lock. Generally, there should be some kind of threat, even if it’s just “sooner or later, someone is going to notice that the guard you knocked out hasn’t been by.”
If they roll a 6, from a controlled position, with nothing super exciting going on, they should probably just open the lock. Why would this lock be important enough to merit a clock? Don’t use clocks on boring stuff.
On a 4-5 they also open the lock, but maybe the door is really rusted and makes a loud squeak when they open it. Or maybe it’s actually trapped. Did they check? Maybe they hear foosteps approaching. Or they break their lockpick, and now someone else is gonna have to produce some tools from their gear if there are any more locks.
On a 1-3, technically, if the roll is controlled, the only consequence needs to be “You lose this avenue of approach” – so on a 1-3, the lock is too rusty and old to pick. They’re going to have to find a new way in. They could probably escalate to a risky attempt to break the door down. If this was already risky, then you can engage with some of the complications from above.
I think it’s really important to keep an eye on the chart on page 36 that explains the different types of consequences for the different positions, because they really are different, especially for Controlled.
Mike Pureka thanks for all the detail! There’s not really a specific scenario at the moment. I’m gming my first game this weekend and was just working out some kinks on how clocks and more mundane tasks worked.
If the crew are attempting a theft from another gang, what obstacles might they face aside from locks and other gang members?
Antimatter I’ll just reiterate it because it’s important, but don’t use clocks for a mundane thing. You break out clocks for complicated actions where it makes sense to progress a little bit at a time. You could have a clock for “Guards and Wards” that covers an entire manor. Each segment on that clock represents bypassing a significant obstacle, and the players know that once it’s completely filled in they no longer face mundane guards, traps or locked doors.
It’s hard to give you examples of obstacles without knowing more about the two gangs and where the score is taking place, but here are some general ideas. The bluecoats could get involved, an ally of the enemy gang could be there, and rival of the PCs could also be attempting the same theft or trying to ruin the PCs attempt, the enemy gang could have a whisper so there could be ghosts or arcane traps. For a first score, I’d keep it relatively simple, there is nothing wrong with some gang members and locks as long as you keep it dynamic and think dangerously.
Say a lurk wants to pick a lock and there are no enemies around and he has plenty of time. The lurk player says “This is a controlled roll, right?” You respond that it’s actually a desperate roll because you know something he doesn’t, the lock is trapped with a poison needle that will give an intruder an instant heart attack. Of course the character wouldn’t know this, and I wouldn’t tell the player about the trap either, just that there are things at play he doesn’t know yet.
if they want to pick the lock, and its simple, then one roll should tell us if they pick the lock or not (dont use 4-, 6-, or 8-clock, use a 2-clock). If it’s not simple, a clock might be good to track progress, but knowing that complexity will tell us the fictional position from which they are picking it.
Assuming a Controlled position (where the risks of the action are relatively low; perhaps just that it takes too much time), and standard effect (finishes the picking of the lock), then I would say:
* On a 6.. [do it] You pick the lock after a try or two, quite deftly.
* On a 4/5.. [do it, but consequence] You can pick the lock if you are willing to stick around to finish but it’s taking longer than expected (standard effect, with narrative consequence). OR… You get halfway through picking it (the consequence IS the limited effect). Both might be suitable consequences related to time, depending on the context.
* On a 1-3.. [don’t do it, and consequence] So you are working on the lock for a couple minutes, and it almost opens, but its not well oiled and all the tumblers collapse to their starting position – forcing you to start over!
Sweat beads on your brow, and now you can hear the patrols down the hallway. Now what?
PS: I pretty much always add the risk-elevation consequence to the results (unless that totally doesn’t make sense, in which case a Fortune roll was probably more appropriate).
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re: Engagement roll
It’s possible it’s solved by that. The engagement relates directly to the initial execution of the plan though (the detail: the entry point, the method, etc). So if that happens to be “picking this lock on the front gate”, sure. However, the lock is probably the last thing, and the first thing is probably something else (the armed guards patrolling outside, or the whispers in the belfry).
IE: there is usually some fictional set up to get out of the way first before we get to the lock. Where is the lock? Who or what protects the lock? The engagement roll tells how the initial challenge in the score goes. You roll Engagement to get into the action, not resolve it. Which means you also need to frame the situation first – so we know what things make sense to go wrong going into that.
Antimatter
Ghosts? traps? Members of other gangs? Alarms? I’d be careful thinking of gang members as obstacles – if the crew is just starting out, odds are that gang members of the opposing gang are more like consequences, because there are going to be way more of them than the PCs can handle.
In my experience, a score like this can be surprisingly fast. Don’t expect it to take a complete game night. 🙂
My advice: think about what the different results on the engagement roll might be.
For example:
1-3: the other gang knows they are coming and has set up a trap/ambush
4-5: there are more enemies than expected, the other gang is preparing for a job of their own. Or maybe selling stuff to a customer who brought his own guards.
6: everything is as expected, just the usual guards. No need to charge stress for reasonable flashbacks (the characters of the players should be well prepared, after all)
Crit: the hideout of the other gang is completely empty, no resistance at all. Maybe because they knew bluecoats are coming. Or they fled because of ghosts or demons. Or they were all murdered, and the players must be careful that they are not blamed for it.
And then there is always the option that the players steal something that will get them in trouble later.
A good consequence is to tick a BAD clock. Like, make a 4-tick clock for “guards sound the alarm,” and on a 1-5, you tick a segment. Fictionally, you take too long, make too much noise, or leave too much evidence behind.
You should always avoid having players roll again for the same thing. This goes for any game really, not just BitD, but BitD is structured in such a way to specifically discourage it and offer you alternatives.
First of all the clock itself makes a huge difference, and this really goes more to the TITLE of the clock than any of the description surrounding it. A clock labeled “Pick the Lock” is very narrow and restrictive, offering only one solution and suggesting to players that there aren’t any options OTHER than picking the lock. A better title might be “Locked Door”, which can obviously be picked, or knocked down, or a player might use a flashback to explain how they got a key, and so on and so on. An even better label for the clock might be simply “Outer Perimeter”, with the locked door being part of your in-game description.
“Outer Perimeter” is the most flexible obviously, and you can do the most with it. A 4-5 roll successfully springs the lock and opens the door, but the door leads into a kennel full of dogs. The dogs are still part of the same “Outer Perimeter” clock, and your Controlled position means the dogs aren’t immediately alerted, so your players now have the opportunity to get around the dogs and continue filling the clock. If what they do is enough to slip the dogs without completely filling the clock, then you just add on another thing at the end of that. The dog-keeper is asleep in the next room, there are guards in the next hallway, an alarm or trap must be evaded to finally clear the “outer perimeter”, whatever. Again, a clock as broad as “Outer Perimeter” allows you to stick as many narrative elements as you need into it while keeping the representation of progress simple, as opposed to say a half dozen two-part clocks representing the lock, the dogs, the guards all seperately.
A more narrowly defined clock is good sometimes, though, for ease of clarity and “punchiness” of story telling. But if we wind it back to “Locked Door” you still have a fair amount of flexibility. Remember that a complication doesn’t have to be something “new”. While making a huge sound or hearing a guard patrol coming your way are fine complications, these are essentially “additions”, things that weren’t there before and now are there.
I personally like to use complications that are “discovery” instead of “addition”. Basically, rather than bringing in a “new” factor, like guards or dogs or sewer eels, the players discover something that was ALREADY there that they didn’t know about. In the sort of fiction Blades emulates you see this a lot. The crew arrives at the target and their safe-cracker gets ready to go to work, only to discover that the mark has recently replaced the safe he was expecting with a fancy new Uncrackable Monster. In your Blades game, the Lurk goes to work picking the lock, but as the last tumbler falls into place a previously unseen sigil starts to glow on the door, or there’s a quiet buzz as an electroplasmic device starts charging, or a soft ticking as an unanticipated mechanical part of the lock begins to work. The locked door, it turns out, is a more complex mechanism than we thought, and although the actual mundane lock is picked, additional steps (tinkering, attuning, wrecking) will need to be taken before we can actually get through the door. In the case of a 1-3 roll the Lurk is in a perilous position where he cannot remove his lockpicks and get out of the way without triggering the trap/alarm/whatever, placing the next roll (whoever might make it) in a riskier position.
You could ALMOST think of it as “flashback for GMs”. The players have successfully picked the lock, but aha! Flashback for GMs, the guy who built the lock also had a plan to deal with it being picked! Which can of course then be countered by “Aha! The Spider KNEW there would be an alarm and prepared appropriately!” Though I would caution against taking “flashback for GMs” too literally. What you’re really doing is just introducing something to the narrative that was already there (even though you just made it up).
TLDR
That’s another big old ramble from me, sorry about that. My basic point is that rather than being something new added to the situation (ie a guard patrol approaches) a complication can be something that was “always there” but has only just now been discovered by the players (ie a trap or alarm that is not obvious until you’ve picked the lock, but can still be overcome if you react quickly)
And stressing again that you should try to never make the players make the same roll for the same thing. If the first roll is a finesse to pick the lock and that only fills half your clock, then the second roll should be anything BUT a finesse to keep picking the lock.
oooh I love the “flashbacks for GMs” concept!!!
Sorry I just wanted to add that for the first game, you might not want to use clocks at all, just a simpler pass/fail (a one-segment clock, if you prefer). This gives your players time to come to grips with the skill list, the rolling mechanics, the setting, etc etc. It depends on the experience level of your players, obviously, but clocks are one more mechanic to learn, and one that can be put off for at least a little while to avoid over-loading players with new information.
Will Scott Well like I say it’s just a different way of viewing the tools you already have as GM. Your job is to add things that flesh out the world and the narrative, but too often we forget that we can do that retroactively as well as “in the present moment”. You have to balance it and use a gentle hand, but in general unless you’ve specifically told the players otherwise, any reasonable “fact” about the past can be made up on the spot. Just be very careful not to abuse it or it can get all Calvinball real fast. If they specifically check for traps before picking the lock and you tell them it’s clean, you aren’t allowed to bring in a trap after the fact. You can only make “changes” like that in places no one has looked yet.
I put “changes” in quotes because you aren’t really changing anything except what’s in your own head. This isn’t going into the adventure module and adjusting a monster’s hitpoints to make the next fight more dramatic, it’s just thinking “What’s something I didn’t plan ahead but can add to make this more interesting?”
EDIT: Sorry to keep babbling off-topic but I feel like I’ve potentially laid a trap for GMs.
The player’s normal Flashback move is a very powerful ability, allowing them to straight-up re-write the story. You tell them that they come into a room filled with guards, and a player does a Flashback to drug the guards’ food. The scenario of a room full of armed guards looking for a fight you imagined is literally re-written into a room full of sleeping guards.
The “GM Flashback” can’t do something like that. You can’t take the reality the players know and say “Well actually…” and GM flashback. You can only change what’s in the dark, what hasn’t been discovered yet or what’s undecided. So you can add an unexpected magic ward to a door, but you can’t go “Unfortunately the guards were checked for poisons so you DO have to fight them after all”.
Mike Hoyer, totally agree! Your examples are great ones too.
I just like the notion of “GM Flashbacks” as a way of setting the player’s expectations about the fluidity and improvisation inherent in the game. In some styles of game-play, the GM sets up the world ahead of time, and then it’s up to the players to explore it and instigate change. (This is one of the definitions of “sandbox,” although that term has come to mean many different things to many people.)
For Blades, the existence of player-flashbacks implies already that the world we see is not the whole truth. Phrasing certain complications as GM-flashbacks emphasizes this too. For example, I think “Unfortunately the guards were checked for poisons so you DO have to fight them after all” is a totally legitimate consequence for a 1-3 on the poisoning roll. It’s a way to make the PC successful and badass even during failure, while also making the villain seem intelligent and prepared.
Antimatter – In general you shouldn’t make a clock for a lock unless that’s in the context of something. Also remember that the fiction advances every time…
No context: Player is faced with a locked door obstacle. Great, make a finesse roll. On a 6+ you do it. On a 4-5 you do it but something goes wrong. There’s someone in the room. Your picks break. A guard might show up. This is a simple obstacle so it’s solved with a single roll. On a 1-3 you might either fail “this lock is past your skill”, something can go wrong “your picks break”, or you can go partway (make a 4-clock, fill in 2) AND have a riskier situation arise (a guard turns the corner and says “OY YOU!”)
In Context: You have a safe to crack. You have to do this either while your fellow crew holds someone/some-group off (making fight rolls and taking wounds) or before guards appear (on anything but a 6 they probably appear). Then you might have a clock with a few rolls where the fiction that is being forwarded isn’t by progress on the specific lock roll but in what’s happening around them while the lockpicker is frantically trying to open his goal.
If you make a roll you shouldn’t just say “whelp, I made it part way, let’s just keep rolling till clocks are full”. The position and situation changes with each roll. Sometimes you just get a six on a limited effect and make it part way, but it’s usually better to have a clock for locks/mechanical defenses and have players have to open multiple doors and safes till there are no more locks between them and their target. This makes it such that one roll will put you in a new situation rather than just standing in front of a clock playing “fill the clocks” game. It’s super important to keep advancing the fiction when you roll imo.
Mike Hoyer
Okay I have some questions about not using the same test twice. If you had a clock to convince someone of someone… How do you avoid rolling sway multiple times? Should convincing a person never be a clock?
“Telegraph trouble before it strikes”
“Convey the world honestly” [emphasis added]
I can’t stress enough how important these GM principles/moves are to the unique experience that brings my players back to this game. First few games, I ‘remembered’ consequences during roll resolution. But resist! The temptation to do this was strong when I began playing since that was how GM moves worked in anything else I played that was PbtA. But as I played and read more (and listened to more of the Bloodletters AP), I realized Blades’ is ushering in a different type of gaming.
And as I was listening back to my sessions (I record them), I realized something else: I totally wasn’t being honest by doing this, and I wasn’t telegraphing a thing. And my back and forths didn’t sound much like John’s.
Session wasn’t bad, I mean I got the players to return: but I was clearly making it up at the last minute and they knew. I wanted to be a surprising GM; but I realized I just needed to surprise them sooner. The change I made was to avoid making things up during the resolution phase of the action – instead, start sooner with a strong narration of the existence of risks before asking “What do you do?” I repeat the GM mantras to myself every game, and I am so much better for it.
Better still is when I can announce the trouble before the score, and then describe how it’s everything they feared when they actually face it. They are emotionally invested by then, and the jump from risk to rolling dice is very short when you play like this – resulting in what I find, imo, to be much smoother play.
My examples were kind of glib, but i was short on time when posting. Here are some more examples, that I’m curious how others would handle.
Bounty hunter is a rival of a Hound PC. Shows up near the tail end of a score where the hound is beaten up and running low on gas. I throw down a 4 tick clock, because its a rival and this encounter was foreshadowed earlier. The spider steps up and attempts to sway the bounty hunter that this isn’t the time. “that down the road this Hound would be worth more bounty if they were just patient.”. Not hwat I was expecting but I want to run with it. He rolls well, but I have no idea how to move the fiction forward. The clock says there’s still 2 clicks but I’m at a loss on how to re represent the situation, to show its still un resolved, and not just have the player blandly reroll a sway action.
Another example would be a social engagement. Say negotiating a truce between two warring factions. That’s a complicated thing and the heart of the entire score so to speak. So a 6 tick clock? I guess I would narrate forward by manifesting dangers right? They come forward with demands and the players have to negotiate it away and possibly extract concessions from their foes.
I guess don’t put a clock down unless you know how its dangerous.
But I feel like with the negotiation, it still might be several back to back sway rolls.
Aaron Berger
It’s only my opinion but yes, “Convince Thurgood to eat a bug” is not a particularly strong clock.
That said there are of course exceptions to every rule. In the case where you’re trying to convince someone of a particular argument, course of action, or whatever, I can see how building a clock for it would be appropriate. Like in the case that you’re trying to convince a judge of your innocence, or win a debate in a highly social situation. But rather than “Make argument, roll Sway” over and over until the clock is full, I would try something along the lines of “You’ve made your case about as far as you can, and you can see the judge is leaning towards your side, but you’ll have to find something else to swing him the rest of the way”. Consort to defuse the tension and get all chummy with them, you’ll be their friend whether they find your way or not. Command to push them to make the decision now, or suggest there’ll be violence if they don’t. Finesse to add an amusing bit of sleight-of-hand, like presenting a previously hidden flower or putting your hat on with a “I rest my case but in a cool way” flourish. Study to present a piece of evidence or cast it in a new light.
With only a little hacking you certainly could build a “Fill the clock to win the debate” system for Blades, useful in criminal court or the university or even just high-end hoighty-toighty social situations. But it would have to be something more than just “Roll Sway three times” to keep it interesting, yes.
My broader point is that clock should present multiple ways to fill it, and GMs should encourage players to use multiple approaches. But in the context-free case of “Convince someone of something” I would, personally, usually leave it at a binary pass/fail. A 6 convinces Thurgood to eat a bug, anything else you add a consequence or complication (Maybe Thurgood eats it but gets sick on a 4-5, and on a 1-3 Thurgood thinks you’re trying to poison him and it’ll be that much harder to convince him).
Aaron Berger
In the first case (Bounty Hunter) I would suggest something along the lines of “You’ve made a good point, but he’s going to want something for the time and effort he’s put into this tonight”. Giving him a couple bucks is probably a sway roll itself, though in that case the fiction is covering for it, making it FEEL different even if it’s the same roll. Another way to look at it would be that the argument doesn’t ENTIRELY convince him, but he’s certainly not going to put up as much of a fight or chase, since he’s got the Spider’s advice in the back of his head. “I’ll try to finish the capture, but if he starts running maybe I won’t strain myself too much THIS time.” He’s half-convinced it’s not worth the trouble, a little gun-pointing or muscle-flexing can convince the other half.
In the second case it sounds like the Truce is itself the score, essentially. The ultimate end-goal. Your clocks should instead be like “Captain Red Team” and “Captain Blue Team” and “Rights of Passage Dispute” and “The Matter of the Stolen Watch”. Convince (or eliminate) the two captains and resolve the issues of passage and stolen property, and you can get your truce. If you wanted to use a “Truce” clock to mark overall progress you could, marking an advance or two every time a given issue clock is completely resolved, or other major step is taken (I roll Consort and we all get drunk together! Mark another segment on the master clock!)
I think “roll Sway until you fill the clock” is totally fine if it makes sense in the fiction: remember that each of those rolls carries substantial risk, so it’s unlikely to be three straightforward boring rolls. It’s like “roll Skirmish until you defeat the thugs.”