I was doing some math on AnyDice, and from what I gathered, it looks like a character in BitD “decays” over time, to the point where, at some point during play, death becomes unavoidable. Play a Blade long enough, eventually they will run out of Trauma.
For example, looking at the rules, I found that on average, a starting character will recover (on average) 3.5 stress from indulging their Vice. I also found that, on average, a given character will take 1.5 stress when rolling 2 dice to resist a consequence. Taken together, it means that a character could resist a maximum of 2 consequences (again, on average) before the average amount of punishment they take outpaces the recovery they get back.
Furthermore, there are no hard stress clears, the only way to clear all your stress is Trauma. So, unless you resist on average only 2 consequences, eventually, your stress track will fill, and you will take Trauma, and after you take 4 Trauma, your character is off the board.
Yes? Yes.
Speaking of averages, the average player doesn’t resist every consequence (especially when they’ve got less than 6 remaining stress). Unavoidable is a strong word, considering how avoidable it is. Also, 4 trauma =/= death.
You can clear stress from criting resist rolls so that offers 1 additional method of management. And you are only limited to how many times you can indulge vice by your own coin (and crew coin). It’s entirely possible to leave every downtime with 0 stress heading into the score.
Also, I created a ritual where my Whisper condenses stress into cookies, then gives them to orphans. Problem solved. Immortality, bitches!
Remember that players almost always have the choice whether to take Stress at all, so it’s not like they’re automatically accrue it. Although, I wouldn’t say it’s a bad thing that the game represents death as unavoidable in the long run. After all, death is unavoidable in the real world too. At least in Duskwall you can come back as a ghost.
Chris McDonald
Ah! Yeah, being able to spend coin to gain more downtime activities is key. Thanks!
you can also indulge your vice more, or spend coin to upgrade – averages here seem near to useless for determinging anything. But yes characters are not immortal :p
I think Ben Liepis has it right. Yes, this sounds like it’s working as intended! Unless of course you’ve given yourself over to a forgotten god (Hix), carved out a piece of your soul into a familiar (Oskarr) or you know, come back as a Ghost and clear all your trauma, or become a Vampire and fill it all up!
Sean Nittner , this character’s life is amazing…
Tangent: I love that one of the gods is Oryxus. Not sure of it’s a deliberate shout out to Oryx, the Taken King, but in my mind, it is. And me loves it!
Also, your PC is likely to continue gaining skills over time. So at some point they’ll be resisting with more dice.
With the right abilities and careful play, it might be possible to break even or come out ahead in the average engagement. Maybe. I’d have to check the numbers.
Yes. I admit, I’m failing to see if there’s an issue here. Stress and trauma are resources to be managed that allow characters to do amazing and terrifying things, while providing a mechanism to reflect the change these actions take on the characters. If you’re playing a game high in stress expenditure it should be with the intent of challenging players and encouraging change in characters.
Erik Bernhardt are you finding yourself in positions where you feel forced to take stress, rather than having it be your choice? Are you basing this solely on the numbers you ran?