Running my first Roll20 game of Blades in a few hours.

Running my first Roll20 game of Blades in a few hours.

Running my first Roll20 game of Blades in a few hours. I haven’t played or run a game in a long while, and I’ve never run one virtually. One of my players has never played a tabletop game, and the other two are well-versed in D&D but totally new to this game.

Anyone have any Blades specific tips for online games? ..or a “must have” resource either for online games of introducing new players?

13 thoughts on “Running my first Roll20 game of Blades in a few hours.”

  1. *Roll20 specific:* Add the rules reference (pages 2-3 of the blades_sheets file) to handouts in Roll20, so everyone can always refer to them easily. Put the character and crew creation sheets as images on the tabletop, so you have easy access to it while creating characters. Prepare another page on Roll20 for a nice background with maybe a city map.

    *General new players:* Ask them to read the “Players’ Best Practices” part of the rulebook. This is crucial to understanding how you’re supposed to play Blades, especially if coming from a D&D background. Explain to them, slowly, stuff like flashbacks and items when the time comes to do a score. Nonlinear roleplaying can be confusing at first.

  2. Thank Jakob Oesinghaus

    Do you have all the players track crew/factions individually (even though the information is the same)?

    Considering making a “The Crew” character sheet, giving them all privileges, and just keeping it in Crew Mode. One person each session can be in charge of updating it.

  4. Remember that the PCs are already competent scoundrels. Don’t bother rolling for trivial stuff (Can the Leech have prepared a powerful laxative? Of course! Zero stress flashback to a lab work montage, no roll needed, the potion is ready.) Don’t be afraid of Controlled actions when the fiction suggests them. There will be enough complications that come about anyway. If you need a moment to think of some fallout from a roll, take it; all the players for suggestions as well.

  5. 1. Use the Blades character sheets that Roll20 provides. That will help automate rolling dice and all that kind of stuff to get some of the mechanical bits of using Roll20 get out of your way. (There’s a mode toggle so you can make a new character and decide if it’s a player sheet, a crew sheet, or a faction tracking sheet.)

    2. DON’T try to change the playbook/crew type of a player/crew sheet after making it initially. You’ll get a bunch of duplicate rows of items for special abilities, gear, etc. Make the decision first (maybe have them use the PDF to read through at first) THEN make a Roll20 character sheet.

    3. On the various “fills over time” bars in the Roll20 sheet you should click on the “destination”, not try to individually click each box you want to fill/clear. (For example: if your stress bar is at 2 and you want to raise it to 5, just click 5, the steps in between will auto-fill/clear as appropriate.)

    4. There’s a couple different bundles of artwork floating about with images you can import to Roll20 to use for clocks with various numbers of slots with each filled. Take a look at how to make “rollable tokens” so you can make clocks you can just plop onto the page and then choose how many slots you want filled as things progress.

  8. As ready as I’m going to get today…

    Not a horribly original tabletop idea, but fun. I made some rollable token clocks out of the clocks from the character sheets. Might splurge and get the fancy Roll20 marketplace ones if this takes off. 😉

  12. So it went alright. I kept forgetting things and my consequences weren’t so hot, but I’m mostly concerned because I spent way too much time talking.. I love the way the players banter and build the fiction in the games I watch and I want to figure out a way to foster that better.

  13. Because I should be more positive sometimes.. I was actually kind of proud of one of my consequences.

    The character attempted to sway the crew’s bluecoat contact into diverting patrols away from the area of the score. He failed. So, Laroze turned the tables and tried to get the character to incriminate a member of the Wraiths (a friendly faction).

    The character resisted, and it was a controlled roll, so the two smiled and had a “finger wagging moment” where they realized neither was going to help the other out this time.

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