Hey all. Was playing around in R and made this network graph of the BitD actions. Actions color-coded by attribute. An arrow pointing from action A toward Action B means that, under the description of A (p 58-59), the phrase “but B might be better” appears. Obvious caveat that these aren’t all the possible “but B might be better”‘s that we might come up with. These are just the “official” ones.
Things that jump out at me:
1) The centrality of Skirmish, suggesting that being decent in melee is an important and versatile skill.
2) The “social skills” component is separate from the rest of the network, meaning that situations in which they are relevant are generally expected to be distinct from where other kinds of skills are relevant.
3) The importance of Survey as a general purpose perception skill.
4) Study, Attune, Prowl and Wreck as skills that are kind of specializations (i.e. they apply to particular circumstances but aren’t expected to be used outside of those).
Anyone notice anything interesting? Does any of this mean anything? Sorry that “Command” got clipped, there.
Skirmish, Survey and Consort seem to be pivotal common places in the game.
I noticed the importance of Skirmish in the examples, but I think that’s just because fighting is such a central part to the general concept of roleplaying, not because of an inherent trait of the Actions. I can think of a bunch of situations where you might want to use Command or Sway instead of Skirmish, for instance.
Interesting! I wonder the “Big Three” (Skirmish, Survey and Consort) are pivotal because they’re not the more focused/specialized actions. While actions are not skills, I do feel a certain measure of skill is obviously part of how/why/when they’re used.
Either through training, intention or circumstances, most people might be more inclined to commit violence by Skirmishing in a bar brawl or boxing match than have a duel of Finesse or by Prowling up to a victim.
Most people are probably less comfortable with Commanding others or Swaying them with a silver tongue, instead most often Consorting with friends and loved ones.
I’m probably just talking out my butt about all of this, but it did get me thinking. Sweet find, Penguindigo.
Fascinating. I wonder if a specialist in tinkering, studying and wrecking is any worse than a skirmisher, surveyer and consorter.
I wouldn’t think so, they just have the training and inclination to pursue those actions.
If you’re a thief who prefers to avoid verbal and physical confrontation that isn’t on your terms, preferring to stab people in the back, with both blades and words, you probably Prowl and Sway a lot.
The career military officer may find it difficult to stop Commanding others and when her brusque words cause tables to be flipped over, she prefers to face an opponent one-on-one, with the Finesse of her sword.
The vengeful sparkwright who was thrust from the guild finds simply Wrecking the guildmaster’s new Pacifier-class hull frame distasteful, much preferring to Tinker with the prototype so it turns on the Bluecoats it’s designed to aid, thus shaming his former mentor.
You know, stuff. 🙂
I would point out that the combat skills are ones many people take up even if it’s not their specialty.
Meanwhile it might be that only the Leech Tinkers and only the Whisper Attunes, much.
Also, during combat, the combat skills are often rolled multiple times whereas a single use of one of the other skills may simply succeed or fail, cutting off that avenue.
With the new crafting rules Tinkering might not be as uncommon for other playbooks, which is awesome.
Another thing to consider here is how Resistance works. Sure, if you’ve got four dots in Skirmish, you’ll be able to handle yourself pretty well in most fights, but unless you can Finesse, Prowl and Wreck as well, those are going to be some stressful and/or painful fights.
Very cool! Penguindigo, would you be up for sharing your code for this?
Nathaniel James Sure. Given csv files with, respectively: 1) the names of each action, in alphabetical order, going down the column; 2) a matrix of dichotomous indicators that in some case of the row action, the column action “might be better”. These each took me less than five minutes total to produce.
Again, in R (3.3.1… I really need to update)
# use the network package
library(network)
#load in the network matrix
bitd < - as.network(read.csv("bitdskills.csv", header=FALSE))
#load in the names of the actions
skillnames < - as.vector(read.csv("skillnames.csv", header=FALSE))
#plot the network, with customizations
plot.network(bitd, label = skillnames$V1, vertex.col = c(“red”,”red”,”red”,”green”,”green”,”green”,”green”,”blue”,”blue”,”red”,”blue”,”blue”), main = “Blades in the Dark Actions (p58-59) “, vertex.cex = 1.5, xlab=”Red = Resolve, Blue = Insight, Green = Prowess.”, ylab=”Arrow points toward action that ‘might be better'” )
Messy, and definitely not robust to different orderings of actions or whatever, but it worked for the quick mock-up I was doing.
Hope that helps!
Thomas Berton To your comments:
1) On the centrality of combat to RPGs and the ability to think of situations where Command or Sway might be more useful or a better strategy than Skirmish. That is true – heck, that’s how I play, erring on the side of the proverbial cunning word rather than a cutting sword. The “best” action will always depend on the situation, the obstacles, and what your goals are.
However, that is beside the point I was making here. My point is that, looking at this graph and knowing that an arrow from A to B means that B is “better” in a situation normally covered by A (but not vice versa, unless there’s an arrow pointing that way too) means that, on the margin, B will be more likely to be the “better-est” in a given situation than A. One could avoid the dominance of Skirmish by avoiding fictional situations in which Skirmish is the “better-est”, but that’d have to be a conscious choice. Which of course would be successful to the extent that the GM let it be.
2) On Resistance. You’re right, there’s a tradeoff in the rules between “avoiding bad stuff through good rolls” (i.e. a high action rating) and “avoiding bad stuff after you’ve ‘failed’ the roll” (i.e. a high attribute rating). I should’ve been clear that none of my analysis is meant to say “And therefore you should load all your pips into Skirmish.” At most, one could make an argument based on this graph to put whatever level of specialization you want to have into one of the more broadly useful skills – Skirmish, Survey, and Consort, and maybe Finesse – rather than specializing in one of the narrower skills that might be at least partially covered by one of them (e.g. Wreck).
Not trying to pick fights or anything, just clarifying.
Ben Liepis I like all your comments. I think you make a good point that the “big three” are also kind of “the most general three” in terms of their conceptual focus. There might also be good in-world (dare I say psychological) reasons to prefer those skills – being savvy for when things are about to go south (Survey), being able to handle yourself when they inevitably do (Skirmish), and being able to rely on your network (Consort) all seem like they’d be very handy “survival” skills in the world of BitD, and the kind of things you wouldn’t want to have to rely on other people for.
While they might be the Big Three, I wouldn’t ever think of them as must haves or you’ll drown in failure. I see them as what most people might have..the common folk. It’s when you’re Prowling, Tinkering, Finessing and the like that you’re an outlier, a specialist. And it’s awesome.
Penguindigo Oh, don’t worry, I don’t think you’re trying to pick a fight! I’m not either, FYI. I just think this is more a case of “these were the examples John thought was best to use in the book” rather than “these skills are better more situations”. It’s an interesting discussion though.
This is a great discussion.
This might be a wee tangential, but I wanted to focus on the “actions vs skills” distinction. It’s subtle but very unique…brilliant, actually… and tweaks play in the most interesting ways. As I mentioned, skill is obviously part of taking actions (why else would you get better?) but it’s the fictional push towards using actions you’re poorly rated in that really sets Blades apart from other games.
You may have no dots in Skirmish, but can pull off some amazing results (even if rare) in a brawl, simply by pushing, teamwork and DBs. In most other games you only use skills you’re not good at if there’s little choice, often forcing your strengths into a moment. That’s not necessarily bad and it makes sense to play to your strengths, but it’s nowhere near as interesting as petite, demure Doll diving at the gun-wielding Lampblack to claw his face off, distracting him so Longshadow could bury a knife in his skull. The fiction didn’t really allow for Prowling, Consorting and Attuning, it demanded clear, immediate violence to the enemy, the system supported it and the players were rewarded by their daring.
I’m not suggesting that you never try to find ways to roll your four Command dice, only that it’s best to do so when it’s fictionally interesting, not to simply use your best rating. Obvious things, I know.
Where all that intersects with our lovely graph, the Big Three and the rest of the discussion is that even though certain actions might be more prevalent in the “fiction of the populace”, you aren’t hamstringing yourself if you don’t focus on the actions of punching, carousing and watching.
It’s great because you can focus on your Thing but not feel useless in non-Thing situations. So, you’re usually going to want your Whisper to be the one Attuning, but when the proverbial ghost hits the lightning wall, it may surprise you how well your Hound handles that ravenous spirit.
Tanget over. 🙂
FWIW Ben Liepis I don’t think it’s a tangent. I do think there are three different moves that John Harper (Thanks for dropping in!) is making in BitD that relate to this discussion. You touch on two of these but I think it’s useful to distinguish them and the third (and, actually, a fourth).
One, using the word “Action” instead of “Skill” prevents me from thinking of high-“skill” characters as specialists who I should let be in charge of whatever they’re specializing in. Two, there’s a litany of options – pushing, DBs, teamwork (at least three of the options), flashbacks, armor, resistance – to make it so I have plenty ways to gain “temporary” pips or avoid the fallout of a botched roll. And to boot, the ways to get extra pips are always fictionally interesting. Three is that usually if you’re bad at something (relative to the obstacle you face), rather than feeling it “In the Action ratings” you feel it in having a reduced Effect. So you get the “I succeeded!” shine while still having an appropriate (for your scoundrel’s skill level) impact on the fiction. And bonus #4, the order in a resistance roll plays out – GM states the consequences as if they’ve happened, player says “Nope – I resist!” – makes you feel like a badass even when your character fails a roll. So many different design choices all point toward the same psychological impact on the player – feeling like a cunning scoundrelly badass – it’s pretty dang brilliant.
This might just turn into a gigantic love-fest for what you’ve done here, John Harper . More praise for BitD is probably not super helpful to you at this point. But then again, BitD is awesome design (and, as I just experienced for the first time, really fun at the table as well), so… Sorry, not sorry?
Getting back to the graph, I’m not sure I buy the “Skirmish/Consort/Survey are the common actions” because I’m not recalling anything in the mechanics or the fiction or the lay-out of the game to support the particular assertion that they’re common skills among scoundrelly folk – not saying they’re not, just that I don’t recall anything in the book that says something to the effect of “many scoundrels are good in a scrape… so they take Skirmish”. EXCEPT insofar as, with some assumptions, one could argue that the scoundrels who put some pips into these action are marginally more likely to do well in a larger number of situations, and therefore more likely to survive. Then it’s sort of a “natural selection” effect, but I don’t think that was what you were arguing, right?
It should be a lovefest. Every so often a game comes along that takes the community by storm, whether it’s universally played/liked or not.
Fate’s a big one as was D&D 3, there’s Monte Cook’s Cypher System and Apocalypse World. There are others, of course. The last was obviously an inspiration for Blades, but Blades has become its own thing and I’m of the opinion it’s going to change some thinking.
As far as my comment on “common skills” I was theorizing that the Big Three are things I can see the common man having, but things rapidly change once scoundrels and specialized individuals are involved.
I think reading the “skirmish phenomenon” as skirmish being common or best, is misleading. From a fictional standpoint, skirmish is generally the worst option if one’s primary goal is to prevail** through violence. An ambush is better than a mano-e-mano fight. In order to hunt, prowl or wreck an opponent
with the same position and effect as one would skirmish themfictional factors (advantages) must be in play. If you want to prowl effectively, you need to be hidden and/or unnoticed. If you want to hunt effectively, you need distance and/or surprise. If you want to finesse effectively, the situation must allow you to focus all your faculties on a single opponent, with some reasonable assurance you won’t be struck in the back of the head. If you want to wreck effectively, you need overwhelming force and/or specialized equipment and the means to employ it. If you don’t have these various advantages, you might try to prowl, hunt, finesse or wreck, but will likely be in a worse position, have reduced effect, or both. And, if you do try them, and things get complicated, you will likely lose your opportunity to do them, and be stuck skirmishing. That is an inherent advantage to something like a prowl. You attempt to prowl an opponent and fail, an easy consequence is being noticed and stuck in a skirmish, but not necessarily having suffered harm yet. If you skirmish and fail, it’s a lot harder to justify not taking harm.Bottom line, skirmish is better understood as the “oh crap” combat action, as in “Oh crap, I have no other option but to get in a big ol’ brawl with these guys.” This is not to demean its importance. Blades is kinda built on “Oh crap, what now?” moments, so skirmish is certainly quite useful.
**There are certain fictional circumstances where goals other than prevailing might secondary to, or as important as prevailing. For instance, the opening fight in Gangs of New York had to be a skirmish, because it had to be perceived as a “fair” fight, so the winner’s dominance would be unquestioned. Similarly, silently slitting the throats of a guard camp is a poor distraction when compared to charging into the camp and skirmishing the guards.