Need some advice from the Blades crew!

Need some advice from the Blades crew!

Need some advice from the Blades crew!

So, played today and some things popped up. Some are rules questions and some are “How do you handle it?”. I’m pre-apologizing for any lack of coherance, as I’m rushing to see John Wick 2. 🙂

Anyway, here goes:

1) How does/should faction status, friends and contacts interact with gaining assets? The way I see it, they should, if only a +1d. In our game tonight, I went with Doll Consorting with the Dimmer Sisters (+2 status) in order to get loan of a spirit minion.

We could’ve gone with an extra DTA, but I didn’t want them to be drained of coin (a Tier 0 crew can go broke getting decent assets). I figured there needed to be some benefit to buffing the +1 with the Sisters up to +2.

2) How do you handle gear, heat and rep if an NPC faction retaliates between scores? Do you make them track loadout? Do you account for heat if fools get smoked? Does the crew get rep?

We used the fiction (they were at a recently acquired claim, ready for the blowback) to account for loadout, but I decided the only heat that might drop is from DBs and consequences. As far as rep goes, I said you don’t get a boost for holding a claim you stole. The bennie’s the claim and it’s boost; a crew’s expected to hold their shit (that’s why you get rep in the first place, when you first stole it).

3) A biggie was if, after getting attacked, there should be some free DTAs. I went with “No” to keep the mechanical structure coherent, saying it’d be rep or coin if they wanted to use DTAs. My fictional reasoning was that such blowback’s are expected and if a crew can’t deal, it loses money or face.

4) I for some reason remember hitting Trauma not only clears your stress, but you return healed. If I’m correct, could somebody give me a reference?

5) If you fill an ability track mid-session from desperate rolls, do you upgrade an action rating right then and move on, or are you capped until the session’s end? We went with the latter, but I’m not sure what’s a better way to do it.

Well, that’s it for now. Thanks, everyone!

7 thoughts on “Need some advice from the Blades crew!”

  1. 1. I don’t think the rules specify and benefit, but I think it’s fine if you want to play it that way.

    2. Yes for everything. I would just treat it like a regular score. You definitely get rep for protecting your turf from an enemy faction, it shows you’re strong enough to keep what you’ve claimed.

    3. I think it’s fine either way, depends if you literally want to call it a score or not. I’m pretty sure the blood letters got DT after they defended their turf from a red sash gang, but that was also many rule sets ago. Depends how nice you’re feeling.

    4. I do not believe that you return healed.

    5. I think you can do it immediately. That’s how I read the rules on page 48. Also I’m pretty sure I heard John say that once during a game.

  2. 1) I just find it odd that the only concrete rules are for a -3 faction status, but no biggie. The fiction demands what it demands!

    2) By the RAW, rep, heat, etc. are post score bits and while defending your turf is kind of score-ish, you’re forgoing the planning and entanglement, so it threw us off. I’m glad to know a better way to handle it. It might serve the game well to have a section on things like being the victim of a score! 🙂 Maybe not. John knows his stuff.

    3) I’m thinking that if you consider a defensive action enough of a score to warrant heat, rep and the like (I think coin would be heavily dependent on the fiction and an unlikely gain. Keeping your claim or lair is the “payment”), the two DTAs are warranted. I will change that.

    4) Bummer, but I might do this. It makes sense, especially if what put you into trauma was a physical resistance roll.

    5) I thought so but the player, oddly enough, didn’t. Since thst was their last desperate roll, it’s no problem.

    Oh, thanks a ton! We’ll try it out and see how it goes.

  3. As we were adjusting things it hit us that what happened was basically a score for the Foghounds and the Foghounds failed (they had the shit killed out of them). Their plan was Assault, the detail was the tower entrance and the fortune roll to see how much they could bring to bear was their engagement roll (same thing, really). Hmmm, that really helps.

    We decided to give the crew 2 rep as it was a Lampblack claim. The Lampblacks were funding the op as well as bolstering the Foghounds forces…until a cleverly placed Bluecoat patrol made them turn back, leaving the Foghounds on their own. Yeah, this works!

    Now watch John drop in and say, “No! You’re doing it wrong!” 😀

  4. Ben Liepis The right answer to all these questions is whatever works for your group. You did it one way, I might have done it a different way, but it got the job done. I agree with you the coin is unlikely, maybe a token 1 or 2 for salvaged gear if you kill a bunch of people. I could see it being more if they took out a hull or something.

  5. Yes, I think the same thing as far as doing what works for your group. I always prefer putting things out there for others to consider , give advice in and, if needed, correct.

    One thing we’re tossing around is that you get a +1d per positive faction level on applicable rolls, provided it’s in their wheelhouse. We’ll try it and see.

  6. +3d is pretty huge, and there is nothing similar to that anywhere in the rules. The real benefit to a +3 faction is that they’ll always help you, even if it might not be in their best interest. In the world of blades that is both rare and precious. Check out the most recent episode of the bloodletters where Oskar gets help from the +3 faction dimmer sisters.

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