Help out a harried new Blades GM?
I’m running the starting situation from the book for a new crew soon. Although I’m not prepping, I do want some ‘bangs’ to drop into the session should things flag.
Whatcha got?
Help out a harried new Blades GM?
Help out a harried new Blades GM?
A Bluecoat raid. An explosion. A cart being pulled by a dude overturns and muskets fall out from a concealed section. A PCs enemy turns up and starts shit.
I like rolling up a few new characters from the “People” tables. Once they’re made, you can decide where they might be involved in the score.
I encourage people to make with the “ninjas attack” bangs, but my best advice comes from p188: to ask leading questions of the players. Let their answers guide your bang creation at the table.
With crew creation will come some things you’re curious about the PCs. Ask them about those things & the bangs will follow.
Since you already know you’re using the starting situation, feel free to get as leading as you want towards things you might like to see in play and see who bites.
Maybe Pickett or Henner (Lampblack lieutenants) have a weird expression on their face when they see the PCs enter the room to meet with Bazso. Ask the players who they’d guess Pickett is looking at and why that might be. If there’s a particular rival or enemy that intrigued you during character creation, get as leading as you want to. e.g. “Pickett gives you a strange look when he opens the door to let you in. Is it about that thing with Steiner? Where did that stand last time you heard? Think Pickett wonders if you were involved?” Etc.
Any of the cool bang ideas that come your way should ideally be tied to either a friend or a rival you asked about earlier. Then it’s not “Ninjas attack? What? Who?” it’s “Oh, this is going down because of Pickett & Steiner. Makes sense.”
Pick or roll some of the “Overheard in Duskwall” tables. Roll two or three other score offers the crew could go after. Let them know what they are before downtime actions, so they could prepare and gather information if they want. Pick out the aims of some of the other factions the crew are connected with. Start clocks for them.
Frankly, there’s never been a case when I’ve been short of a Bang in Blades. Devil’s Bargains, though, are another matter. Those can be hard to invent in the moment!
A fugitive from one faction dives into the vicinity of a character and demands they’ve been here, maybe romantically. Angry pursuers are confrontational.
Debt collectors put a character on the clock, as forcefully as necessary to make sure the point gets across. Two days.
A loved one’s cough moves to her chest. The medicine is expensive and the doctors are busy. You’re running out of time.
The group is having drinks when a tide of ghosts tear through the place, slaughtering everyone, including the PCs. They wake in a cold sweat as the third bell rings. A shared dream? Is that even a thing? What does it mean? What if it happens again? Who do they know who is an expert on dreams?
The PCs Rival follows their interest / instinct and complicates things during the score.
I’m about to run Blades for the first time and thought up a quick way to generate inspiration for plot hooks on the fly. Yet to test it, but think it will fit well with Blades more free-form nature. All of this is somewhat inspired by the essays on GM improvisation in Unframed – worth checking out.
Originally the idea was to use this in a similar way to Blades many tables to generate ‘rumours’ in downtime for the players to follow up or ignore – however it can be applied whenever you need a new story hook to revive things.
Create two separate lists of words you can ‘draw’ at random (I’m using two bags of cut up index cards) – one of qualities, the other of entities. When you need a hook, draw one quality and one entity and see what inspiration results.
See picture below – qualities left, entities right.
Also gave myself guidelines for choosing good words.
Entities – Concrete (not abstract) and atomic:
* Interesting things/places/people/events to centre a plot hook around
* Definitely exist in your world, perhaps in some ways characteristic of it
* Simple and non-specific, without too much innate character (‘blade’ over ‘kukri’) – supporting numerous visions or interpretations.
Qualities – Broad (not limited) and evocative:
* Vivid descriptive adjectives – a rich defining characteristic or state for something to have or be in.
* Fit the overall tone of world and events you’re trying to create – ask yourself ‘does this word feel like Blades’
* Go for evocative but abstract terms that could apply to more than one type of thing – avoid terms that can only describe one thing or aspect of a thing (people, places, colour, shape) etc.
I plan to tack the results onto larger index cards when drawn and write a brief summary of the inspiration on the card – then its there to use and be fleshed out (or not) as needed.
Given the shared narrative responsibility in Blades, you could even ask the players for their interpretations and choose the hook you all like most. Some combinations will require more liberal interpretation – but I think part of the fun is the oddly unique inspirations you’ll get from phrases like ‘masterful wine’ or ‘butchered fire’.
So there you have it. If you try this out, let me know how you get on!
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