So aiming at Mr. Harper or anyone who can help clarify this for me. How does the whisper’s ritual ability work?
From what I read from the book, rituals are 8 segment projects that you would have to roll study on to learn (Feel free to correct me on the roll). From how it’s worded it sounds like you just learn a single specific ritual from a source that you fictionally find. However, my player is arguing that he can perform any ritual at will just by making a sucessful study roll which seems kinda over powered. Could I get some clerification?
How it’s worded, would mean to me that the player has to have a context for the ritual. For example, he can’t just roll a successful study roll and say, “I can walk through walls.” He would have to find a spellbook or scroll that describes that phenomenon, or witness another whisper perform the same feat and then go through a process of experimentation to discover how. You know, there has to be something to study.
Take Oskarr’s Deathseeker Crow shield thingymabob from the youtube series. He was already aware of how the Deathseeker crows operated, and by gaining access to a Deathseeker crow whose magical properties had been modified, he was able to learn the basic functions of the ritual, allowing him to create Scapegoat Crows, who would absorb the impacts of the deaths, before the Spirit Wardens could learn about them.
So I would say that yes, he can learn any ritual, BUT it has to be restricted to something he has to observe and then experiment to duplicate, or something he has to physically read about. Perhaps even spend downtime actions learning it from another whisper, or a devil.
The rules allow the players to do quite a bit. It’s up to you as the GM to decide where there are boundaries, if any, and how they affect the players’ actions.
Okay that makes sense, and yeah that’ll be easy to take control of, they recently obtain a few occult texts, so there’s only four possible rituals they can come up with. I’m just making sure what the limit is. I have a good group, but they’re under the impression that they can argue anything over me and that the GM has no power in this game. I’m still fairly new and getting used to it all so trying to get estimates of where the cut off is. So thanks for that mate, really appreciate it and that helps clear up stuff for me.
Now my next question would be, if they did that as a flashback would giving them 2 stress for it be fair?
StringsNeverCry The 8 progress clock to research the ritual is a downtime long-term project action using downtime actions so must be done between heists — as such flashbacks don’t apply to this. Also note that rituals are limited by their drawbacks such as the question “What is the price and to whom do I pay it?” and the fact that any ritual requires the player spend a downtime action to cast or prepare for the ritual. So again flashback doesn’t apply for preparing for the ritual either.
Yeah, that would sound fair to me. As you described in your original post, rituals are are 8 clock segments, that are normally done in downtime. So yeah, if it wants to be done as a flashback, I believe it would definitely fit under that “hard to believe” category and be worth 2 stress. To me, preparing and performing a ritual in a flashback is like how Face planned the whole dock scene from the A-Team movie, up to and including the guy pulling out a rocket launcher and blowing storage containers all over. Pretty damn hard to believe, right? But it makes for great storytelling from time to time.
On the one hand, a GM in BitD doesn’t strike me the same way as a GM in DnD. In DnD, the GM controls the game and then the players enjoy the story the GM is telling. In Blades, the GM provides a sandbox setting, and then the players interact with the setting. But as GM, you decide how the setting reacts to the interaction.
I guess an example would be that perhaps your crew decides to not participate in the Red Sash/Lampblack war. They just avoid both sides and do their own thing.
In DnD, your choices would be to either force them into whatever story you had planned, or improv on the spot. In Blades, you maybe you let them do their thing for a few sessions, make some rolls behind the scenes, and then start out one session with “So yeah, Baszo heard about you guys, and has decided that he is offended by your neutrality. Your under attack by the Lampblacks. Go.”
The GM isn’t God in Blades, they’re Karma.
Karma? Sounds good. Well said
Yeah, they wouldn’t just roll a study check to cast any ritual. They’d roll whatever they like as a downtime action in an effort to learn the ritual in a long term project (so lomg as they explain how), answering the question at each 2 segment interval. Once 8 segments are filled, they know the ritual. Using the questions you can make more powerful rituals more taxing to use by needing special or rare ingredients which you need to acquire asset for (and roll exquisite for it). This means they have to spend more downtime (and potentially coin) to gather materials for the ritual.
Preparing and performing the ritual is a downtime action, depending on the magnitude of the ritual (up to you) they take stress (which I believe is resistible?). This makes even performing the ritual a pain, because now they have less stress to spend in mission. Once performed they can either hold the effect for later use or use the effect immediately.
If they do it as a flashback, it would cost them 1 coin to perform it if they had no remaining downtime actions, and depending on the fiction, stress for believability. If they need ingredients and materials which are rare, it’s another flash back and coin for the aquire asset roll.
So as you can see, whilst powerful, you can make more overpowered rituals risky by having it cos extra stress, coin, and time to do.
Hope this helped!
StringsNeverCry
This is what I get from page 69:
– When you take the Ritual special abiilty you automatically learn one ritual for free.
– To learn new rituals you need to find a source first and then learn the ritual.
– You can find a source via a score (as a payoff) or you can start a long term project.
– Once you have the source, you can learn the ritual as a long term project (8-segment clock): you create the ritual answering the questions.
– Performing a ritual requires one downtime action (or more, if the ritual is very powerful) and cost stress based on the magnitude (similar to the Tempest ability).
Also, keep in mind that:
a) Rituals are not a “scientific” process: every time you perform them, they can slighlty change (in fact, the GM or the player can ask for a new round of questions to re-establish the ritual)
b) Rituals are not meant to be reliable: if a ritual seems to “take over” the game, revise it as needed (with new question and new costs).
After re-reading the rules I still have one question:
No roll/action while performing the ritual?
While learning the ritual I have the 8-segment clock to fill, fine.
Performing is just one downtime action without a roll, right?
So, no chance that something will go wrong…?
Stefan StruckWhether you roll to perform the ritual or not depends on the nature of the ritual (the answers to the ritual questions). I’ll make that more clear in the text.