First experiences of a GM running a game of BitD
Last week I posted a question on guidelines about running the game for 5 – 6 players.
In that I indicated I would provide a write up on how it went.
Well I ran the game on tuesday night and only now am I getting a chance to provide a write up.
It went well, the guys liked the system so much most of them went onto drive thru rpg to buy a copy.
The main issues arose because we all work in tech and there was a sev 2, meaning people could only slowing filter in requiring me to reiterate the system of play, due to my inexperience GMing this style of RP heavy play compared to more crunchy systems like d&d.
I will say that I was unprepared for the volume of things I needed to know, the crew want to setup in nightmarket, I need to know whose turf that is??
It took me ages to figure it out. Additionally I was completely unprepared for the crew’s decision to be smugglers, I mean what kind of score with the conflict and roles would smugglers even have.
I plan on watching lord of war, blow and narcos to get ideas but I mean have than getting stopped at the border by blue coats what challenges should the crew actually have?
I still have no idea how I can get 300 odd pages of the necessary lore into my head to run even the most basic of session, but I guess I’ll have to just make do.
Despite all of that it went well.
The crew decided they wanted to smuggle leviathan blood into the city, they had a buyer in the city and connections with leviathan hunters. So I made then negotiate a pickup outside the lightning barrier, smuggle it through as a ‘science vessel’ for the academy.
On the way from the docks in the nightmarket to their contact they stumbled across a patrol of bluecoats who the fighter of the crew (a 80 year old grandmother (think ma higgins)) crit her command role and made the patrol of blue coats carry the barrels of blood to the contact for her.
All in all it went well and Im looking forward playing again this tuesdays.
Lessons learnt. Break the D&D habit of requiring the player actions to be sane, rather than think of why not, answer yes but.
Get the players to tell me what they want to do, and what obstacles they expect to see, make them do that work for me.
Characters dont get rewarded for the amount of screen time they have, rather the quality of roleplay than the quality of the screen time.
It’s about hitting good answers to those questions at the rather than making rolls.
I feel like I should discuss role changes already with my players, the leech spent the entire time playing as a slide, my on of my cutters spent most of his time playing as a spider, my lurk played as a cutter.
I think it will take people time to get used to the system.
But it went well and was enjoyable.
My advice to anyone running a game of 5 – 6. Rather than making it like small ensemble shows like house, dark matter, x files, instead model it off larger ensemble shows like angel, firefly, or Hustle.
With one or two characters getting the spotlight that week and/score and other members getting to do cool support roles and weaving into the larger story.
Things like “memorizing 300 pages of lore” are really just a matter of practice. The more you do this stuff the easier it will be. One thing about Blades is that you definitely need to be ready to improvise. If the group wants to know who runs Nightmarket, don’t try looking it up in the book (the answer isn’t there, for one thing) and don’t worry about the “right” answer. Just pick one that feels right. (The mercantile moblike Hive seems like an obvious choice for Nightmarket, for example)
Regarding changing roles and what smugglers can do, bear in mind the book’s advice on the matter.
“This is why we call them “playbooks” rather than “character classes” or
“archetypes.” You’re selecting the set of initial action ratings and special abilities
that your character has access to—but you’re not defining their immutable essence or true nature. Your character will grow and change over time; who they become is part of the fun of playing the game.”
A sociable Leech, a plotting Cutter, and a violent Lurk are all valid characters. It won’t (can’t, really) hurt them. Intentionally or not they’ve rejected cliche and taken off running with the whold “playbook not character class” thing, and Veteran advances means you don’t even need to worry that they’ve cut off abilities they might find useful. You can certainly bring it up, but don’t push it on them. Most likely your chatty Leech wants to play someone who can brew up potions AND likes to trick people.
The same advice goes for the Crew books. What can Smugglers do? Literally anything any of the other crew books can do. They can rob, kill, extort, and sabotage same as anyone else, they’ve just got certain advantages and focus on the domain of sneaking stuff around unseen.
As for Smuggler-specific challenges some options are:
1. The cargo is not what we thought it was
2. Someone else wants the cargo
3. Someone else wants the cargo to never reach its destination
4. The cargo is dangerous, requiring careful handling and special preparations
5. The cargo is alive
6. The cargo crosses some kind of moral line for your crew (slaves, etc)
7. The cargo just ate somebody
If they’re typically boat smugglers, there’s something in the water. Or pirates. If they are road smugglers, there’s bandits to look out for, and cargo that requires them to go into the Deathlands and face the dangers there.
And cargo isn’t always going to be the same thing, anyway. Your crew might make their main income off smuggling leviathan blood past the tax man, but are they going to turn down an opportunity when a weird old wizard and a gormless farmboy show up offering a small fortune for discreet transport past Imperial lines?
Or what about when a job doesn’t go smoothly? You going to let your seized contraband rot in some Imperial warehouse, or are you going to get it back? How does the local Hive leader feel about that shipment you had to dump in the canal to dodge the Bluecoats? What do you do when some other jerk thinks he can start selling blood, taking your business away?
In this game you’ll also find, usually, that the players start to direct you themselves. Very quickly they’ll start forming larger plans and strategies of things they want to do, larger goals they want to pursue. Point them at the claims map if they seem to be stuck for goals, most of those probably call for plan types other than Transport.
It sounds like you got the most important part completely right, though. Everyone had fun and wants to play again. So don’t sweat it. The downside of this non-crunchy (less crunchy? “Moist”?) style of play is that improv is necessary, hard, and takes a lot of practice. The upside is that you basically can’t do it any real harm when you forget or mis-apply a rule, so you can relax a little more and go with whatever FEELS right.
Oh and on the subject of “Characters dont get rewarded for the amount of screen time they have, rather the quality of roleplay than the quality of the screen time.” If that’s about awarding XP at the end, keep in mind that that is (blessedly) not your job. The players get to decide what they’ve earned, and you should encourage them to be generous about it.
You still have to provide the opportunities, sure, but it takes a lot of pressure off when you don’t need to worry about doling it out in a balanced and controlled manner. The mechanics of the game are such that balance isn’t really an issue, and letting the players handle the “Did I earn XP?” means if they think they’re advancing too slowly (or too fast) the power to change that is already entirely in their own hands.
I originally come from crunchier systems, like you. I know that instinct of worrying that something’s going to break if you get it wrong. But this whole “hit the xp key” system is virtually unbreakable from what I’ve seen. It just takes a heck of an act of faith for crunchy GMs to trust it at first.
Something to keep in mind about the setting information: it’s there as a tool to help you come up with ideas, not a weight to hold you down. If you think of a cool idea for something, go with that without worrying about whether or not it fits with what’s in the book. The stuff in the book is there for when you don’t have an idea yourself and need inspiration.