hey everyone, Im new herer and to Blades in the Dark and am looking for some advice:
Im the GM of my RPG group and want to introduce Blades in the Dark to them. We were brainstorming a bit in advance on what kind of crew they might be interested in. And they went way wierder than I had expected:
A few of the players are excited by the idea of playing a Cult that focuses on Immortality => they basically want one of their goals to be to become vampires and maybe also spread vampirism into the general population later on.
I love the fact that they are excited by an idea like this, but am unsure if this concept is really the best way to introduce a group that has been mainly playing D&D to Blades in the Dark.
There has been talk about maybestarting out as some other kind of crew with the plan to change the crew into a cult later on, maybe after one of the PCs died and started on his way to become a vampire. And I get the feeling that this amount of planned story(by the players, not the GM!) goes against the “play to find out” concept. What do you think?
Do you think I should try to guide them towards a more standard criminal career?
If not, since the “normal” Cult seems to be focused on a forgotten god and this idea does diverge from that a good deal, what adjustments would you suggest?
What would be an interesting starting situation and factions they would come into conflict with? Obviously the Spirit Wardens would become a big problem at some point, but not at the early parts of the game.
Any advice is apreciated.
If they’re excited about being a Cult, I set let them start as a Cult. Player enthusiasm is the best thing! No real modifications are needed, I’d say, to serving a Forgotten God but also wanting to be Vampires — clearly their Forgotten God wants them to become Vampires too.
They will definitely run into Lord Scurlock, who is himself almost certainly a Vampire. Circle of Flame would be good for competing against for magical artifacts and other weirdness. The Reconciled might have a bone to pick with people who want to become Vampires, or see them as allies, who knows.
At first blush, vampires look insanely powerful, and they are, but it’s easy to overlook the fact that they also have some strict limitations in place. The fact that they have four Traumas to start means that they will need to feed each downtime (or they take 4 Stress), and that can cause all kinds of wonderful complications. Also, as they earn new vampiric abilities, they need to choose strictures, which will further complicate their lives.
Who is to say that Vampires don’t have religion? Who is the god of the Vamps?
Demons like Vampire minions since they don’t as often as mortals right?
Maybe one campaign is the ascension to Vamps and another is dealing with the politics of being the newest Vamps in the city?
Cult is one of the playbooks, so why not pick it? It sounds like a super fun idea. If everybody’s excited about it ,go for it.
To go off what Ben Morgan was saying about Vampires being tempered somewhat by their strictures and suchlike, the current group I’m running has had a vampire from the start (I was a fluffy GM and let him have his vamp), but he never overshadows the others.
Anyway, this is super cool, and if I was GMing I’d definitely follow through and let them at it. Spirit Wardens are a go-to for one part of a starting situation, as is Lord Scurlock, the vamp-master himself. Other occult-adjacent options include other Forgotten Gods cults, The Church of Ecstasy (they’ve got some Thoughts about immortality and vampirism), The Horde (can’t go wrong with a creepy army of hollows with an unknown purpose), The Reconciled (they’re sure to have aims that align with individuals seeking immortality, or reasons to get pissed off if the cult’s activities muscle in on theirs), The Path of Echoes (seekers of ancient, forbidden knowledge!), and the Silver Nails (ghost-hunting mercenaries!). Pick three, look at their enemies and aims, and draw some lines between them.