Framework for Convention One Shots?
Experienced Blades GMs: if you were planning to run Blades at a convention in a 4-hour session, how would you frame the session to give the players the best Blades experience? Would you:
– Go all the way through crew and character creation, then improvise a score?
– Start with pregenerated characters and spend the whole session running through a pre-prepared, multi-part score, with a little down time in between scores?
– Something else?
I like to do character creation and then either pick a problem one of the PCs has (like their enemy) and focus the first score on that (skipping crew creation) or start with a starting score premise (I’ve got a few here http://www.seannittner.com/blades-in-the-dark/) and then ask the PCs to make characters (still skipping crew creation) around that score.
Sean Nittner Thanks! Even if you skipped crew creation, would you still ask the players to pick a crew type, just to set a theme for the characters and their activities?
It depends. For the scores I made crew type isn’t really important, the job is what’s the driver. If you’re basing it off the PC’s troubles then I might say “oh, you’re issue is that you stole a back of Black Lotus from Marvin Gull, so what are you a bunch of low level Hawkers trying to sell it on the street?” But I wouldn’t go much further than that.
Having both run and played at conventions, my best advice for you is to do what you’re comfortable with and interested in running. Time management is the most important factor, but quite doable in either of the situations that you’ve presented. I can tell you what I’d do:
I’m someone who is very comfortable with improvisation, so my inclination is to do a 15-20 minute setting and inspiration primer, then 30-45 minutes for character creation. It would probably be best to have a set of pre-gens on hand in case someone in the group just doesn’t want to make a character.
During that time, as the players got into their characters and ideas of a crew, I’d generate a random score and choose the 3-4 factions that I might want to highlight, most as antagonists. I’d talk through the presentation of a job and use it as an excuse to start teaching rolls. Then, calculate and make the engagement roll and a big fictional jump into the middle of the score’s first dramatic moment. This would be sometime before the second hour, and a good time for a break if people want to stretch their legs.
I’d do rules explanations as I went outside of the basic concepts. You’ll likely get an immediate flashback scene as someone will have felt they forgot something, which is great, and then the meat of the game gets started. Ultimately, time management is the most difficult and important thing. Let the dice decide if the score is quick and smooth, or if the job goes pear-shaped and takes the whole con slot. As for downtime and the like, if I had at least 30 minutes and the players were still into it, I’d do downtime.
To keep the momentum up, give the players their victories then tell them the next challenge. Hit them hard with defeat and give them the explicit opportunity to resist. Don’t drag things out or overcomplicate the story, just follow what the fiction seems to tell you is interesting, dramatic, or dangerous. In a home game, slow consequences can be fun to build into, but for a one shot, keep trying to tie in and recapitulate the same set of problems.
For both Blades and Scum and Villiany spot, I’ve done character creation, two random scores, and two downtimes inside of 4 hours. Keep up the positive reinforcement and momentum, always follow up with the next thing before anyone gets distracted or bored, and keep the spotlight moving.
Thanks for the suggestions! Knowing what’s possible and enjoyable in a 4-hour slot is super helpful.
Seconding everything John Dornberger​ says.
I’ve tried both and they both work well. It’s really a question of what kind of game you want to run — do you prefer a “Session One” feel, where everybody’s throwing together a character from scratch and getting a feel for the game and choosing the direction that appeals to them most, or, whether you want to run a “Session Three” feel — a very specific type of mission, where a lot of the premise and background and setup are preestablished.
Personally, there are so many corners of Blades that feel worth exploring, it makes a lot of sense to me to introduce it at cons in a way that shows off specific styles. A Smugglers game is different from an Assassins game; an Ambitious crew could be very different from a Weird crew; a game in U’Duasha would be a whole different flavor. At least some focus makes a lot of sense, for a convention game — it lets you aim for the more unique aspects of the game, rather than going with everybody’s default.
I’m running a game at my local convention this week that takes this pretty far — I’m running a very specific crew of Hawkers, and I wanted to go deep into Weird, and steer the game away from muscle and physical violence: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1tA5tivR0OP2RSFzPbj4IlyBXDCYs8oNBXPc5I56jhRs
But the wide-open way is awesome as well! “Here’s your character choices, here’s the decisions you need to make, GO” gives you LOTS of material. Coming up with scores on the spot is easy, and tailored to your players. It’s not better or worse than something preplanned — it might be somewhat more generic, which is fine .