Ran my first session last night, and Blades seems to have been quite the success. I come from a very traditional RPing background — Rolemaster, AD&D, GURPS, Hackmaster etc… Plenty of games with heft. Blades is extremely different from what I’m used to, in a lot of ways.
One of the things I wondered about is what it would be like to GM without rolling dice. Turns out, I didn’t miss it at all. I rolled a d6 at one point to choose between one NPC and another, and I rolled Entanglements near the end of the session. I don’t think I touched the dice otherwise, and it didn’t feel like I should have been.
My players all seem to have given the game the thumbs up, with attitudes ranging from being solidly pleased to seriously impressed.
After some introductory free play to get a feel for the setting and the crew’s sales territory, the actual Score started with an Engagement roll of 1. That resulted in the Whisper all alone in a bar with a dozen angry Skovs, all on their feet ready to cut him to pieces based on one Skov confusing him with someone else entirely.
The group quickly came to realise extent to which failure and complications lead to interesting and escalating situations.
I’m also happy with how a very simple Score can provide plenty of entertainment. The “I like combat, all this talking is boring me” player enjoyed watching other players have their spotlight time doing non-combat things, and was very satisfied with the “combat system”, even though his first Action also resulted in a 1 – 3 result.
I still have no interest whatsoever in games that push further into giving players active narrative control or which run extremely rules-lite, but I’m very happy with how John has integrated some of the concepts that have emerged from that end of the spectrum into what we have with Blades.
I’m extremely interested to see where the Crew takes things.
Welcome to a great game and wonderful community!
Phil, what is the average age of your group? I run with a bunch of mid-forties who are old-school and averse to change. 😀
Average is probably just under 40. Averse to change has never been a problem for me. As someone who much prefers the GM side of the table, I’m fortunate that the method by which our group selects a game is usually:
* I indicate what sort game I plan to run next.
Occasionally:
* I mention two or three concepts of interest to me and ask the group which of those options most interests them.
And rarely:
* Either someone else really wants to run something, so we jump in on their game, or I decide I want to take break for 3 – 6 months and someone else volunteers to run something.
I ran Rolemaster almost exclusive for my first 15 years or so, and whatever has taken my fancy since then.
At the moment, I’m running Hackmaster fortnightly with a group of 8 players, four of whom had the time and inclination to jump into a Blades game on alternative weeks.
Welcome to Blades and the community. Glad to see your first game went so well!