Hi everyone! I’m a new Blades GM (30-year veteran of many other systems) and ran our first score last night. It was fun – our old group has a bit of adjustment to go yet but we can see the potential.
One thing that totally stumped us though was the Spiritbane Charm item on almost every playbook sheet. Its effects are vaguely described and I was happy to just make up that it helped keep at bay the first ghost that they encountered (the very first engagement roll they ever made was a 1-3 despite heavy prep and 4 dice :o) – BUT a sharp-eyed player spotted that it cost 0 Load.
Since carrying a Spiritbane charm is zero load, why wouldn’t every character who has access to one (all except Leech and Whisper) just always carry one? In which case, doesn’t that basically nullify its advantages if everyone always has one – that just becomes the baseline defence against spirits? I’m confused about how much advantage to factor in for that if they’re always carried.
Maybe I’m overthinking it in systems terms but in my head you burn a Load box to give you an advantage, but if it doesn’t add to your Load it’s just a freebie and so maybe shouldn’t be that useful in mechanical terms? On the fly I decided that against an average ghost it gave you a minimum of 1d instead of 0d if you had no Attune dots. How does everyone else handle this?
Thanks in advance!
In my games, Spiritbane charms are somewhat useful against weak spirits but interfere with Attunement (that’s why Whisper don’t carry them).
In my game, they have been extremely effective in preventing possession.
Keep in mind that in Blades, more than other games, the mechanics serve the fiction. Also keep in mind that spiritbane charms are fairly weak; ghosts prefer to avoid them.
I have a few possible suggestions:
1. Maybe they are only effective against weak ghosts; risen just a few days ago, echoes or imitations, or ghosts that have already been weakened somehow.
2. Maybe they are only effective against ghosts that have been around awhile: the ones who have lost their minds and become further attuned to the ghost field.
3. Maybe they serve as mechanical “armor” kinda like Ben Morgan pointed out.
In the first or second case, they might serve to better someone’s position: “Well, trying to punch the ghost would normally be desperate, but the ghost is hesitant to attack you due to your charm’s repulsive aura.” They might give someone greater effect: “Shooting the ghost with electroplasmic rounds would normally be standard effect, but it’s already under duress from the charm, so let’s call it great effect”. In the third case, maybe they replace armor for possession and/or ghostly harm. In the end, totally up to you.
I’m blessed with a group that plays story first and not mechanic first. So even if the rule say that everybody may have a spirt charm because it costs no load we have situations like “… but I don’t have one, because to scene is too cool to let it pass. So ghost, show me your best effort!”
Thanks for the feedback everyone! So my group is very much one which enjoys story (Blades wouldn’t have been on the list otherwise), but when it comes down to their characters being in perilous situations, they just can’t help but try to give them the best chance they can – they care about them a great deal. Perhaps it’s also 30 years of habit of working with more mechanical systems, even though we always tended to add more story than many groups, the inclination is still there!
I’m trying to keep the feeling of menace from the spirit world intact so I think I’ll go with the approach that the spiritbane is not 100% reliable – sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t – perhaps related to the age of the ghost, its motivations, pure luck etc. I like the idea of it being a bit of a last resort, like sailors rubbing a lucky rabbits foot in a storm. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something in the lore; while I’m happy to make things up as needed, with a new system it’s nice to try to avoid obvious missteps that I have to retcon later.
Thanks again!