Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere, but do we have a sense of what will be covered by the SRD?

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere, but do we have a sense of what will be covered by the SRD?

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere, but do we have a sense of what will be covered by the SRD? Normally “fluff” is out and “crunch” is in, but like similar PbtA games, Blades’ crunch is pretty tied in to its fluff. So for example,

(1) Are the playbooks part of the SRD?

(2) If they are, I assume that the Cutters’ ability text for Bodyguard is? (“When you protect a teammate, take +1d to your resistance roll. When you gather info to anticipate possible threats in the current situation, you get +1 effect.”)

(3) Is the explanatory text that is in the rulebook but not on the playbook? (“The protect teamwork maneuver lets you face a consequence for a teammate. If you choose to resist that consequence, this ability gives you +1d to your resistance roll. Also, when you read a situation to gather information about hidden dangers or potential attackers, you get +1 effect—which means more detailed information.”)

Obviously everything Duskvol wouldn’t be. I’m assuming task resolution is. But there’s obviously a grey middle ground. I’ve been basing my work on other class-based games’ SRDs, but would love a little clarification in advance of the Blades SRD release, if possible. THANKS KINDLY.

10 thoughts on “Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere, but do we have a sense of what will be covered by the SRD?”

  1. I’m working on the SRD with John now (it’s almost ready). Here’s the skinny so far. All core rules are in. All of Doskvol (including playbooks, ghosts, and all that business is out), except that we give some example moves culled from the playbooks as examples. GMing and playing advice is also out, but it will be included in a separate doc that can’t be reproduced but will freely be available as a general “guide” to making Powered by Blades games.

    So, specifics:

    1.) There will be a generic playbook and lots of examples pulled from existing moves, but all the playbooks (and crews) are out.

    2. Yep, the Bodyguard move will be there as an example and it will be intact (we’re just pulling moves that are too woven into the setting).

    3. Explanatory text will be there (how to use the protect action) but advice text (what a GM should say) won’t be in the SRD, though it will be free as reference.

    Yep, all things settings are out, but we did leave in a few examples (often with the names changed or removed) to help walk folks through things. The savvy reader can probably pick up a few tidbits from the Dusk.

  2. Sean Nittner: Thank you. That is about as I thought. I’m definitely finding that reskinning (as opposed to true hacking) is a tough row to hoe. I’m especially mindful that, while I know my IP rights as a former attorney, erring on the side of “respect for the body of work of the author and respect for the community” is a better bar to aim for. I’ll probably go through and make sure original verbiage on the more common abilities is in place. (All the Ghost Field / et cetera stuff already required a pretty solid rework.) Want to make sure my resource if useful for players and GMs while still requiring the book to use. Thanks so much for all the support, etc.

  3. Jason Eley, yep, what we have in the SRD will be what’s available for reproduction. Just like you don’t see Beholder or the Mind Flayer in the d20 SRD, we’ll have a few abilities that are closely enough tied to the setting they can’t be re-used. Those are are pretty few and far between though. I think I only pulled out 2-3 from the entire list of character abilities. Going through crews now.

  4. +Sean Nittner Do the examples basically include all special abilities, minus Duskwall-specific ones? Can an SRD playbook reskin existing abilities?

  8. Sean Nittner I’m so glad to hear the SRD is close! I began hacking Blades into other settings around.. the time the admonition against early hacking was put in the quick starts 😀

    I am also relieved to hear some early details – since I at least know the text for my first hack already mostly complies with the SRD in mind, and my backlog of text in progress isn’t far off either

  10. Hi all, I just sent the John-approved draft of the SRD over to Randy. He’s going to mark it up and then give us a look. We’ll do one more pass to make sure we scrubbed all the setting material out and that it makes sense after we’ve done that. I’ll let you know when we hear back from Randy.

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