So that damn Leech player is at it again, this time with a character idea that we’re working out how to/if we should implement it.
The basic idea is a foppish dandy slide with servants who all count as the one “character.” So rather than taking harm himself he would throw his servants in the way and have to replace them.
My gut reaction is to say no and make him take a gang for it, but I have a reputation for being very “literal” with rules and I’d like a second opinion.
My main concern is that as Blades is fictional positioning the game this could lead to confusion about effect down the line. I’m curious what others thoughts are, how you would implement such a character or if there’s anything we should watch out for (the harm system immediately springs to mind). It’s not that I don’t trust my player but we’re all new to the system and still figuring things out.
Thanks very much for helping out a blades newbie. 🙂
It’s an interesting idea. What would happen if there were no servants around, not from losses, just positioning?
Good question, I think that would make it a desperate situation to go up against a single target, as we’re dealing with a scale even lower than a single person (because in this hypothetical character, the slide and servants equal one in terms of scale). we’re dealing with like, 1/5 of a single character.
I’m not sure I get “all count as one character” bit.
Do you have a different starting situation? Because with no stash levels filled it’s hard to see how he pays for them?
But that’s a question the player should answer. Also the question where that loyalty to the death of the servants comes from and/or how they feel about being used this way (once it first comes up in play).
I’d say, just go for it: it is in the responsibility of the player. Like xp it’s not really for you to say yes or no to; but it is his job to help you understand and make sense of it in fiction and rules-wise.
He’ll probably want to be good at command to reliably get these people to do what he wants them to do, etc.
Because in the fiction he wants them to be unpaid lackeys who will do whatever he says and die for him as needed. This isn’t a gang that he can order around, this is just a part of his character sheet
After the first one or two servants die due to the character I’m sure all the others would resign in the spot and warn all their peers about the dangers of working for “That Fool”
Oh, so it’s a weird situation. He is a collective of Hulls, maybe? This is not so hard, I think. Just equate the harm table with the number of individual lackeys he is. Level 4 harm means all of them are wiped out. Recovery means regaining lackeys.
I would ask for an in fiction explanation of this weird setup.
Yeah he’s wanting to bend the rules after two sessions of play. He’s one of the most creative yet vexing players I know. It’s why I love him <3
I don’t think you need to bend the rules. Just ask how he gets this done and then judge position and effect and have him roll for it.
Hence me referring to command. Or maybe he is going for attune to control them.
I can see there is merit in this idea for fanatical cultists or for ancestral servants of an old family line or something. I agree that there is room for coming up with special abilities for characters or crews that govern that sort of thing, in time. However, I think you could try it out right off the bat with few if any rule adjustments.
First, see these hangers-on as ideal targets for devil’s bargains and complications. Always have them revealing their identity, saying too much, over enthusiastically escalating the situation, getting lost and separated, boasting about their master, and so on.
On the other hand, I think their greatest use is in adjusting the fiction. So, their presence can change a situation from desperate to risky, or from risky to controlled. They add numbers, and so there’s a factor on the roll.
Then have an understanding where each lackey is an ablative layer, like armor, if the fiction supports it. A consequence can be diverted by sacrificing that lackey, and if the fiction supports it, maybe the lackey can return to the fold with a successful fortune roll.
Trying to sneak or be quiet or blend in to a background where they don’t fit would also be negatively affected in the fiction.
And there should be fictional cost to keep their unswerving loyalty, too. Coin is a possibility, but that’s boring. Maybe they need a weekly event to whip up morale and rededicate to the restoring of the houses’s former glory, or to the downfall of the house’s enemy, or they need human sacrifices to maintain their dark god’s favor, or they need the central character to keep them supplied with a drug that reminds them of the last days before decadence claimed the estate.
I think there is a way to play this where the character gets some benefits from the hangers-on, which are “paid for” by giving the GM a tool to endlessly complicate the character (and crew’s) efforts.
I’d suggest you make the most of the rules that already exist, rather than inventing new subsystems from scratch.
What your player wants sounds very similar to a pet, such as the Hound can get. You can use that as a baseline. Another point of comparison is special armor — which you get ONE of per score.
If you want to create a new ability as a reskin of existing, reasonably balanced mechanics, these are what you should be basing yourself on. Now, the difference between “pet” and “cohort of flunkies”, or “one-use armor” and “cohort of flunkies,” seems pretty stark to me, which is a sure sign to avoid that, or to put in some pretty serious limitations which bring it back in line with existing abilities.
But you’re quite right that the closest mechanism is getting a gang, so that’s probably the direction you should aim for. Maybe the best move here is to homebrew some new character abilities that make it easier to recruit, maintain, or command such a gang. That would give him the effect he wants, and also keep everything fairly well-balanced, and within the game’s existing systems.
Mechanically, he is asking for a cohort, so I’d try to figure out how to balance a personal cohort against what the other PCs have. I’d probably ask him to come up with some story reason why this particular foppish dandy can command such loyalty, and then write it up as a “Permission” ability and make him spend Veteran advances on it.
I wouldn’t “just go with it.” The game already has mechanics to deal with followers, and I don’t see a strong reason to bypass those mechanics. This isn’t an effect-based game (like Risus) where all character traits are measured only by their numerical rating. Trait specifics matter a LOT to positioning and effect. That’s why certain things (like equipment, cohorts, permissions, etc.) are defined in more detail.
Certain character traits are so lightweight that they can just come up during game play, due to GM questions. Like, “I’m really buff” or “I’m really handsome” or “Yeah I worked as a rail jack for six months.” But “oh, hey, yeah, I’m multiple people” does not sound like something that can be glossed over in this manner.
Subsequent comments also underscore another key difference in my mind. Cohorts are cool in part because you can delegate things to them. If you went with these lackeys, they would be incapable of independent action, and they would need to be near the character as much as possible–which could be as much a hindrance in many situations as an advantage.
This does mess with the idea of SCALE and that being the case I wouldn’t just let them have this for free.
That said, Blades encourages players with big goals to work towards those ends with long term projects and appropriate character and crew upgrades. Encourage them to look towards getting an Expert or a Cohort to fill this role and maybe even consider writing up a new special ability to account for this unique style of play. The old Cutter move that implied the character fights like a small gang would be perfect.
Honestly the most challenging aspect of this from my perspective would be the role play. Role playing multiple characters is hard, hence why, if I were the player, I’d choose to go with a man-servant over a small cohort of them and just role play two characters over half a dozen.
Also point out that stress and trauma don’t make a lot of sense spread out over several entities. There needs to be something grounding the players in one character even if it’s just perspective.
A thought: This might be most easily accomplished if we flipped the tables a bit. Maybe the players class is spider but the character they role play is actually the servant? You still get all the spidery benefits but have to deal with the complexities of being the humble loyal servant to a criminal mastermind.
This sounds like a logistical nightmare to me. I agree with everything Will said, and I personally wouldn’t allow this at the start of play.
I’m liking the range of answers. Everything from “it’s easy to implement” to “it’s a logistical nightmare.” I like the idea of taking an advancement, i think my player is mostly concerned about “wasting” one of the crew upgrades on his personal lackeys. I also completely agree that this is a perfect source of complications and devils bargains.
Maybe just an advance that is: “you pay money to the right people, acquire a few hollows equal to a gang of your tier that follow you around and can take harm for you, but have no agency of their own. Try not to lose them.”
I’m deeply confused. Why does this player think he can have this? Maybe I want a personal army of Hulls. That doesn’t mean I can have it. And honestly, that’s not any more silly. Why would a bunch of unpaid lackeys be willing to die for him? It makes no sense. This is Duskwall. He’d be lucky to have unpaid lackeys who will get his mail for him.
I think Ziv Wities has the easiest solution in treating it like a pet. You can make him spend a veteran advance, say that the lackeys get potency when defending the honour of the house (ala ghost hunter) or you can have him swap out a slide inventory item for a “handful of bumbling lackeys”. Mixing and matching parts of different playbooks shouldn’t be a problem.
If the rest of your players won’t feel that they are being cheated, maybe just let him have some lackeys. I don’t think it would be a huge balance issue since their bumbling would often fictionally counteract any scale advantage. It’s not like PCs can really die in blades, right? Only thing I see being an issue is if the player tries to use it to avoid making resistance rolls. Either make him roll resistance when a lackey tries to take the bullet, or – if that’s what he really wants them for – just have him take Battleborn as Ziv suggested.
Friends at the Table’s playthrough had a player who had two brothers who we treated as one character. You could check out that series to see how they handled that and if something similar would work.