Hi, so I’m pretty new to Blades, but I have an idea for a vice that I’d like to talk about. Basically I’m thinking about having my character be a good guy deep down, and as a detective (a lurk, I’ve made him an ex-inspector), he’s going to find himself getting pulled into helping people and solving cases during downtime. Does that sound like it could work? Would the vice be obligation?
The idea is that he was kicked out of the inspectors, and set himself up as a private eye. He’s deeply into drugs at the moment, but if he gets cut off, I can see him turning to what he used to be addicted to; his work helping people.
That sounds like a great character idea.
Vices are often something that is indulged off-screen. Like “I head home and make sure my mother is taken care of” or “I’m off to the markets to buy more diamonds and shoes!” – so this could certainly work if your character ditches the rest of the crew to run around helping people. “Oh, sorry I didn’t make it on time. See, there was this neighbourhood kid, and his house had been broken into and…”
But, the way I’d play it would be to have the drugs be his vice, and have “helping people” be his trauma. That way you can play him as being deeply into drugs (and roleplay that as much or as little as you and your group wants), and you can still have him help people. Then, during the scores and other actions, if someone’s in need of help and your character tries to help them, while complicating the lives of your crew, you get additional XP. And you get to roleplay out how your character’s desire to help creates problems for the crew. Or maybe how the crew slowly shifts into a group of do-gooders.
(You don’t start with trauma. But that’s OK – just spend your stress freely, kick ass as a drug-addled ex-inspector, and you’ll end up with trauma quick enough!)
Usually a character’s overall Vice doesn’t change. When a character is cut off, they lose a particular purveyor, and have to find a new one within the same vice category. So if the character takes Stupor and does a bunch of drugs, he might get cut off from his dealer, or den, and have to find a new one. There are mechanics that change a character’s vice (being a cultist and taking a bunch of trauma, for example), but I’d say your other idea is way more interesting, and you should just start with that one. The guy can do drugs on the side, that’s fine.
Obligation also covers charities, so if he helps people on the cheap, or for no charge, I could see that working really well. Obsession if he’s insanely dedicated, or Weird if he only takes the really odd cases, though the last two don’t feel as solid to me, but it’s not my character so who cares. It just depends on what you want his driving motivation to be, I guess.
My main concern from a GMing angle would be that if you consider your purveyor to be clients, you’re really insulated from overindulging: you can just say “my current client cuts me off, so I just get a new one, which I would have done anyway at the end of the case.” If your character and his clientele really care about his reputation though, you can play that up in the fiction. Alternatively if your purveyor is your whole business, choosing to be cut off would get really interesting.
Plus, literally all of the plot hooks with this idea. Cases can turn into scores really easily if the whole crew takes an interest. So I’d say definitely give it a shot, it sounds like it has a lot of potential.
Steven Dodds The purveyor thing is really interesting, actually. I hadn’t thought of as clients being purveyors, but I’d probably have an Inspector buddy who would through me cases or something?
Tony Demetriou Sounds a little like playing it as BITS from Burning Wheel, right?
Oops, I’m dumb, Obsessed is a Trauma, not a Vice. So ignore that part.
You could totally have a contact like that, but it doesn’t have to be where you get your cases from. You could just as easily say you have a classic noir-style PI office (which is the only thing my brain allows me to see when I think of private investigators). There are bound to be some freelance investigators, right? Say you operate at cost, to explain why it doesn’t make you any extra coin. Personally I like the idea of having your office/business be the purveyor, but either approach can work. Though having the Inspector buddy cut you off after you overindulge and screw up a case, and being forced to set up shop on your own in response could be a cool arc as well. Lots of options.
Tony’s approach can work as well, but I’d point out the XP trigger is “You struggled with issues from your vice or traumas”, so if you help people either because of your Vice or your Trauma, you’re covered both ways. Plus this can pretty easily overlap with “You expressed your beliefs, drives, heritage, or background” as an ex-inspector. So you’re pretty much covered for XP triggers.
I think the main thing to consider is, does he help people to relax, or does he do drugs to relax? I can totally see a character who was pushed out of his job as an inspector, forced to take up crime, and he feels like he has to give back to people somehow to make up for his criminal actions. (And just so you know, I may steal this idea for some character in the future.)
I don’t think “solving crime” as vice is a good idea.
The problems I see with it:
1) BitD doesn’t work well with murder mysteries: a GM can’t really design such an adventure because player actions are far too unpredictable. One flashback or resistance roll can easily destroy everything that the GM had planned.
2) don’t try to be a good guy, this game is about being criminals. Unless your group is using the vigilantes-playset, of course.
3) you are setting yourself apart from the rest of the group. BitD is about a crew, but the concept you want to try sounds more like one player, one GM.
4) solving crimes doesn’t really help anybody!
What would you think about a more Robin Hood like concept as alternative: giving food, medicine, protection to people in need? Maybe to children who have to live on the streets after their parents were arrested by your inspector for stealing medicine for their youngest?
Jörg Mintel, while I see what you’re saying, I think I’ve not explained what I’m trying to do very well. I’m not going to actively go around solving crimes, it’s just a narrative piece that sits in the same place everyone’s vice sits. My vice will be something along the lines of “Obligation: Try to make up for my badness by using it to help others” or something. It’s not about being a good guy, its far more anti-hero, far more like a person who is trying to justify their criminality through good deeds, or via versa. My character is 100% part of the crew, but just like the Junkie might want to be alone while they get high, or the whisper might want to commune in peace, when I’m in my downtime mode, I slip off to do my own thing (which is just narrative, so it doesn’t really mean much in terms of time at the table). Solving crimes helps people. The jobs you’re talking about as an alternate could totally be the sorts of things my character might get asked to do, too.
As your Vice, in downtime, I like it. Good idea. Lots of easy complications can come from that.
I have a cutter with the vice “good heart”. He run an orphanage and his nickname is “Korchak”. That kind of vice can totally work.
Jörg Mintel I see your points but I don’t necessarily agree with them. Yes, core Blades is about being scoundrels, but that doesn’t mean being unquestioningly evil. Plenty of scoundrels throughout history have been praised by friends, communities or countries for the good deeds they did for them.
Also, the crimes that Andy Owlington’s character is solving would probably be completely separate from the main threads of story the GM might have planned (otherwise they wouldn’t be vice, they’d be gathering info/investigation). As such, it doesn’t separate you from the rest of the crew any more than any other vice does. As for whether it helps anyone, while society might not get better, for the victim, closure/recompense/revenge/justice can be really important, and for the detective, it might be rewarding (hence the vice) due to the same reasons, or feeling like you’ve made a difference, or just knowing that you solved a puzzle and beat someone.
Please don’t take this as a personal attack. Like I said, I see your points, I just happen to disagree with them and think that Andy’s character could be really fun to play. But as we all know, Blades is what you make it, so if in your world of Blades, the character wouldn’t make sense, you’re probably right.
Andy, if your GM and group are happy with it, I’d say go for it. But like someone mentioned before, consider making the Obligation vice your first one if that is more interesting to you and have drugs be a secondary thing.
In terms of overindulgence, if you wanted to go with a freelance or PI and you didn’t want to have the bluecoat contact, your overindulgence could be that your office gets torched because you upset someone, your reputation is tarnished, someone puts out posters saying that you can’t be trusted or puts a bounty out on anyone found to have hired you. Lots of options. Have fun and let us know how it goes!
i think that it will be good but you need to be more specific like when you say that he solves things during downtime is it during his down time of other peoples