Question on Abstraction and Position / Effect
One of the things I love about Blades is how flexible the system is for pacing. If you want to abstract infiltrating a building to just one roll, fine; if you want to go through the various steps of breaking in and outwitting guards, that’s okay too.
One question with abstracting a scene to one roll is about position and consequences. If the players ares facing off against a group of thugs, playing it out over ~10 minutes with multiple rolls might result in harm and stress for multiple players. If we choose to abstract it into just one or two rolls, it can change the harm / stress balance.
What’s the right way to handle this? My initial thought is to bump both position and effect; i.e. a risky / standard action becomes a desperate / great. This also might be a group action if everyone is involved in the fight.
Does abstraction through increased position / effect have any unintended consequences I should be aware of?
I think the way to handle it is, abstract the elements that the group feels slow down their enjoyment of play. Conversely use the freed up space to naturally expand the elements the players enjoy. If there are elements that are crucial for the players to overcome from a fictional standpoint then they should play it out but outside of that I know myself as a player and the players in my game tend to find more than enough ways to get ourselves in trouble and use stress without forced segments of disinterest.
Chris McDonald totally with you – my question is just if worse position / greater effect is the best way way of handling it if there is interest in a short scene about it.
Increased position/effect as a trade-off shouldn’t cause a problem, I don’t think. A player might say “hmm, that sounds like it’ll take too long to drop these thugs. how about if I go all-out offensively instead?” which is obviously riskier, but with greater effect. Makes total sense as an option, since it’s already part of the system.
Though I’d caution against handling a group of thugs with one roll by one player, lest you get this weird dynamic where occasionally a single PC is a complete badass, and occasionally he or she, well. isn’t. Instead, a group action would make more sense. Could even offer a devil’s bargain like ‘one of the people participating in the group action suffers harm.’
Having less harm occur isn’t a huge deal, really. Especially if it’s to overcome an obstacle that isn’t a focal point of the score. Instead, just be a bit more aggressive with consequences when they get to the important part. Which has the added benefit of making their accomplishment of the major goals feel much more dramatic and rewarding.
In terms of other ways to handle it, one option is to just not have it happen in the first place. “A couple guards come around the corner. Actually, that’s just going to drag the scene out. How about: you hear footsteps coming, and one guard turns the corner, well ahead of the others. What do you do?” But more significant position/effect is a decent approach, if that seems cheap, or doesn’t fit the narrative. That, and small clocks, and group actions, and flashbacks. I’m not sure that there’s a “best way” to do it, I think just pick whatever fits the scenario.