First timer to the game, and to G+
I’m running the game for a crew of cultists. Their Tycherosi Lurk who has 3 Attune, wanted to use his attune to trap a group of Bluecoats in a mind-maze and to locate Margete Vale of the Foghounds, as if by magical sonar.
I didn’t say no, but I did say that it sounded more like sorcery and less like attuning your mind to the ghost-field – and that surely he would need some kind of arcane foci or relic to attune through, to accomplish this? This made me think – am I thinking about the ghost-field wrong? I know it’s intentionally vague so you have space to get weird with it, which is why I’d like some input. What can people accomplish, only by attuning, in your games? Just to be clear, when I say “only by attuning” I mean without rituals, without objects of arcana, just straight-up attuning on the fly?
For our group the ghost field lets you peer into the surrounding area. You might witness echos of dramatic/emotional events. It also allows you to see supernatural creatures, but they are aware of you as well.
If someone was running scared I’d probably make it greater effect to track them. If it was some stranger somewhere else in the city, probably no effect or even impossible.
Trapping a group of bluecoats sounds like a ritual to me.
Kind of steps on the Whisper’s toes, no? Compel and Tempest and what-not. Personally, I don’t see Attune as a general “magic powers” ability; I agree with the above, I imagine it as letting you see/feel “spooky stuff” – echoes, spectral traces, weird energy, that kind of thing.
In the spirit of “yes, and”, I suppose you could look at the magnitude table and let them try it anyway – but at a substantial cost of stress. Even just locating someone “across the district” and with “good quality” results adds up to a 7 stress cost! Same with trapping some Bluecoats in a mindmaze – small group + one hour + a powerful effect = 7 levels of magnitude.
Also, I would rule that this kind of off-the-cuff hocus pocus is certainly a desperate position and would lead to all kinds of deep trouble on a bad roll.
I suspect the problem was that your player assumed the number of dots would determine the magnitude of what can be achieved (as it is for example in the World of Darkness rpg).
But in Blades the number of dots have nothing to do with the effect level.
For example: if you want to use wreck for ripping an iron bar out of a cell window with bare hands, it doesn’t matter if you have 0 dots or 3; unless you have “not to be trifled with” you get zero effect.
And of course zero effect doesn’t mean you cannot do it, it just means you have to get creative to push the effect level.
As what can be done with attune: I would assume noticing something supernatural, seeing a ghost as more than a hazy mist, using a ghost charm for defence.
You can also try to hurl a lightning bolt, but without tempest even a crit just produces a spark of static energy. Unless you do something desperate like grabbing a life wire from a street lantern…
Like others have mentioned use the magnitude table to calculate the stress cost and have their position be worse than if they had prepped a ritual ahead of time.
At the end of the day if a player wants to blow all their valuable stress on something that is only going to affect a scene or two and adds a cool moment to the fiction then just go with it.