Hello!
I’ve just finished reading the book, and my friends are gathering in less then 24 hour to try the game. I’ll be the GM, with a less-than-good grasp of the mechanics but ample experience with other action-oriented games. The other players don’t really know the rules at all.
I’m looking for a good scenario for a starting game, which won’t involve making everything up from the top of my head. It can be very loose, but I’ll be much more comfortable if ilI had something structured to work with. I read the starting scenario the book offered but it just didn’t seem as inspiring as I’d hoped. Any ideas?
Thanks!
I suggest that you read the mechanical portions of the book explaining the Position and Effect system for rolls. Also read The Score and Downtime sections thoroughly.
The book has a suggested starting scenario: the Crow’s Foot War. There are three gangs vying for dominance of Crow’s Foot and depending on the PC’s chosen crew type they can be of use to their chosen faction.
Sean has some alternative scores on his site:
seannittner.com – Blades in the Dark
Gaddoc Rail
Charterhall University
Scurlock Manor
These are not fully fleshed out, it’s one page each. Similar to the starting scenario in Crows Foot.
And half of the page consists of questions you are supposed to ask your players.
I think it’s an interesting concept to create the starting score together with the players on the fly. It gets them involved into the world building right from the start.
Thank you all so much!
I ended up re-reading the action resolution rules and the district & faction descriptions, and came up with an idea for a starting score for them:
To simplify things, I said they will be a group of Shadows, waiting to meet a mysterious client at a sleezy hotel in Silkshore, when bluecoats started knocking down doors down the hall. They had some non-violent interaction to diffuse the situation so ths bluecoats won’t wreck the place, posing as poor junkies not worthy of a shake-down. They met with the client, and learned that a recent murder occured in the same hotel, and were asked to trap the victim’s soul before the spirit wardens get there. They ended up summoning another ghost to cause a distraction (the Whisper was almost choked to death by it before she was able command it). The Cutter used his awesome strength to break the staircase, but the spirit warden got a glimpse of his face (extra heat for the crew). The Leech trapped the spirit they were there to steal and rigged the place to explode when the spirit warden entered, and the Lurk got them all across the alleyway to the next building on time. After the hotel room exploded, they started using downtime to make friends withe the Sallies (fire fighters) as a long-term project, and had a great time describing their vices and roll to reduce stress by getting high on spirit dust, fighting in the pits by the docks and gambling on the results, and the lurk had a new tattoo done. We ended the session with everybody getting another job from the same employer, a score involving the knowledge gained from the same spirit they stole. We finished when I described how the spirit warden they blew up was watching them from afar, looking through the eyes of with Death Crow, then limping away on his new mechanical bronze leg.
It was SO EPIC! They really liked the system and fell in love with the setting. Just how I imagined BitD to be 😀