I just got the BitD PDF when backerkit orders opened, and I’m well into reading it, but I’m starting to plan a oneshot (for friends I’m seeing in 2 weeks), and since other people have been playing this game for months I’d love any advice.
See, I’m visiting some friends in two weeks and I offered to run a game (I’ve been playing for a while but only run a couple games, for other friends). I threw out possibilities and one latched onto Blades when I said it was “basically Dishonoured the ttrpg”. However, one of my favorite things about Blades is the downtime activities and long-term play. I’d love to incorporate those into the oneshot somehow (and these friends are in another state, so it’s not going to turn into a long-term campaign).
My current thought is to premade character sheets, talk about the general feel and setting of Duskvol, then start a score in medias res (basically, skip ahead to where a Risky engagement roll would drop them). Once they’ve learned the basics of the game, go to payoff. Then let them change the stats on their character sheets (and maybe give them a bump up with a few more dots and let them pick a second ability), do downtime actions, and then start planning a larger, “main” heist.
This accomplishes a few things:
1. In the few other games I ran, players had a problem building characters without knowing how the mechanics worked. This was partly because I didn’t explain everything they needed to know, but also because it’s hard to explain everything and have it stick before even playing and slows down getting to the action. This way, they will get a chance to customize their characters after they know how actions and teamwork etc work.
2. Getting them used to the low-planning engagement, flashbacks, and load so they know they don’t have to cover every contingency when they plan the main heist. I can encourage flashbacks (maybe ask them directly how they prepared for specific threats) in the intro score and suggest specific items from their sheets to make sure they use their load.
3. They may have stress or harm before they get to Downtime, and the initial score will give them some coin and rep to spend. Since they won’t be playing long-term they can burn through those for downtime activities in preparation for the main score.
4. The intro score can be a setup for the main score. A blueprint of a compound with a vault full of valuables, or an invitation to a party with lots of high-value marks, or a schedule book that details the movements and security of a high-value assassination target, or maybe even a treasure map that leads to a noble’s mansion with treasure unknowningly sealed in the basement. This just seems inherently more fun than, “one of your contacts gives you a lead on a big score”.
I do have some concerns:
1. With 4 players, should I bring 4 characters or pregen all 7 playbooks? With 4 I can tailor the score more closely to their abilities but 7 will give them more options (ie if I give them a big Vault Door and they don’t have a tinker or lurk to wreck or crack it).
2. How much detail to ask for once we get to the actual character gen, background and vice are obvious (actually, background may be good to ask for at the very beginning while they’re picking playbooks and names), but what about heritage, friends, and rivals? Also, should I let them customize the crew sheet? Maybe I could provide a premade cohort and let them pick an extra ability and two upgrades, or would that be too much complexity for a short game?
3. The score itself. I’m still brainstorming, and I’m halfway through the book, but if anyone has examples of premade scores that would be great. I would like prepare a map of the location of the main score, not for miniature play but just so they can see where they’ve been and where to explore, and possibly to track patrols or security. However, the “running the game” section says clocks should be used instead of room-to-room maps. How much detail is too much detail? My past games have been open-ended mysteries so they got a vague map and had free reign to investigate wherever they wanted, but I’d like this to be a more objective-oriented heist with danger for wasting time or exploring recklessly. And, of course, I would love to include a variety of obstacles for them to overcome rather than just everything being “solvable” by a Lurk that can pick locks and sneak past guards. I’d also love for it to start benign and ramp up the supernatural horror toward the end, having them unexpectedly face-to-face with an angry ghost or even vampire or hull guardians.
I have some other vague thoughts but this post is getting long and I still need to finish the book so I’ll cut them here – does this seem like a good idea? Any other general advice for oneshots or for my concerns above? FWIW my experience in APs has been all of Friends at the Table: Marielda (where I first heard about Blades and got excited to play or run it) and the first week of Rollplay: Blades (I’m planning to watch more as I plan, though it’s harder to find time for youtube recordings than for podcasts I can play on my phone). If anyone knows of a good recording of a oneshot like this, let me know.
Also, after writing all that out I’m already getting a better sense of what I want the main score to be – a forgotten treasure sealed in the basement of a rich citizen’s mansion. It does mean less exploring, as they will know where the objective is (they may have different options in their approach), but it means they’ll have to get past mundane and possibly sparkcraft security, and when they try to disturb the treasure they can be surprised by the angry ghost of the scoundrel that was sealed up with it.
I recommend not preparing any score to start. Here’s some reasons.
1. You can practice what you’re expecting of your players–light on your feet, reactive, thinking outside the box. PLAN to do a score based on the characters they make, and as they talk about friends and enemies and factions and quirks, sift that to hit upon a target they’d surely latch on to–or if appropriate, a reverse heist where they get hit right out of the gate and have to defend themselves and escape the trap. If Jake loves his top hat and Silvia hates the Skovlanders, then the elite refugees of Skovland are having a party with a variety of hats on display, and Jake has his heart set on one of them (while Silvia can monetize the terrorist strike with certain smug old-money Doskvol aristocrats.) Never let the players forget this game is about their characters!
2. When the game is at its best, the players and GM are contributing to a fictional situation–then the GM, who tends to be most familiar with the rules, thinks over the toolbox of how to handle the fiction at hand with mechanics. Think of a couple options, pick a good one, and resolve that situation and see what rules the fiction demands next. This is far better than trying to come up with mechanics, then fit the fiction of player effort to them. This game is more like drawing a flow chart as you go than it is about revealing a map a room at a time.
Now, there are lots of ways to be good at this game. Me, I tend to want a minimal character generation and then slam bang into the heist part! Fill out the backstory and details in play, not in the green room! I want dice hitting the table and daring deeds in 30 minutes or less or I get impatient with the process. Others can spend a whole session or more on lovingly painting their bespoke creations, and that has its own appeal as a sort of minigame. For me, if this scoundrel bites it, there’s another one behind her. =) For a one-shot, may I recommend gravitating towards the slam-bang approach. You can even start a heist with someone shooting one of the characters in the chest. (Pro tip: it’s a good idea to resist that one, or better yet, spend the armor to negate the hit. It wasn’t a very big gun after all.)
Good luck and enjoy!
One more thing–don’t get too hung up on doing “a heist.” You could have a heist be a brief clash, when you get down to it, and most of the time spent with forming the edges of a plan and flashbacks and such.
Then down time. Then another heist. These don’t have to be big and elaborate–they are “criminal actions” that could be as short as an ambush gone right followed by an escape gone wrong.
Thanks for the advice! The reason I’d rather plan a heist in advance is I know from experience my biggest weakness in role-playing is improvising, if I run into a situation I wasn’t prepared for, I will more often freeze up and wait for another player to come up with a plan than come up with something brilliant on the spot. In the games I’ve run so far what I enjoyed and felt confident in was creating a situation with set elements, but no set story or events, and seeing how the players interacted with it (and tying in their characters to the elements I have whenever possible), like a playset (even if some of the things I prepared never come up because of unexpected player actions). As for getting hung up on a heist, that’s what I suggested that grabbed the players’ interest and that’s what I’m excited about running. So while I’m sure a series of skirmishes in the street with rival gangs would be a fine session of Blades, that’s not what I’m interested in running.
If I were starting an ongoing game and we were going to have lots of sessions to build up their entanglements and practice running scores on the fly, I’d be more willing to see how it goes, but these are friends I only see a couple times a year so I’d rather risk overpreparing and having it feel inflexible than risk underpreparing and floundering without anything particularly interesting happening after several hours of play.
That’s cool, David Johnson. I still recommend instead of having the whole thing worked up, to have some pillar ideas and weave the connecting tissue based on the characters. Like, “They’ll hit the warehouse, but let’s see what they do for characters to see how I hook them in and what their objective is.”
There are heist generation tools in the book that are super useful. There used to be starting situations pinned at the top of the community, but they’re not there now; some looking could discover them. And I’m partial to the Duskwall Deck; here’s some of that. Draw some obstacles, someone hiring them, someone targeted, and a treasure, and off you go!
https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/blades-in-the-dark/
Well I bought that now. Love game decks. 😀
Thanks! I hope you enjoy it. =)