7 thoughts on “Has anyone tried to play Blades solo?”

  3. like it says in the book – just play 🙂 However A Cautionary Tale – solo game

    The brothers are second gen immigrants from skovland. One cutter one whisper they set up a gang to make some money and further their occult agenda.

    After bungling their way through a low level ‘protection racket of local shop keepers and befriending Magilicuddy the local beat cop, the gang managed to obtain a juvenile owlbear from the ‘Menagerie’ but not without getting some serious ‘bad vibes’ from the zookeepers ghostly hectoring father; ticking up a debt with the Cabbies; and stealing a Dockers fishing net with a dozen onlookers in the process.

    With the Owlbear cub Creepinwulf (the brothers whisperer) performed a ritual which gave them crystal ball type surveillance abilities which will no doubt come in useful in there planned war with the Red Sashes. Creepinwulf seriously stressed out from the ordeal and preceding incidents proceeded to overindulge his vice and went beyond the crunch making himself unavailable for the next score.

    Wolfcricket now alone save for 2 half-hearted adepts, and short of claim and coin made the rash decision to bust up a Crows card game and seize some turf. Although evenly matched he could not get Marlane (his sometimes girlfriend) to make more than a token effort to hold up the crow captain from reinforcement. The cult backed down which in game terms meant that they completed their clock as ‘pushovers’ gaining a new reputation descriptor to reflect this.

    Back at the den Wolfcricket drowned his sorrows. Head in hands he heard a knock at the door ‘you’re off to Jail Son’. It seems that 3 small time scores with some moderate noise was enough to become wanted by the bluecoats.

    Creepinwulf came to days later with a cosmic hangover. More loud voices at the door. It became apparent the good folk of crows foot, fed up with being bullied by ‘black magicians’ were about to burn them out of HQ. The whisper used every desperate action he could think of to sway the pitchfork crowd but with limited effect. he called out of the windows to any and all contacts he could think of to save him from imminent death, but they turned their backs. Only one contact remained. In extreme frustration, crystal ball in hand he went to the highest point of the rooftop and screamed out ‘Setarra!’…

    The Demon answered. She quickly dictated terms. In exchange for rescue the cult would immediately forsake there old Skovlander religion and serve her. With no option Creepinwulf acquiesced. They would have to find a new lair. Now how is he going to break the news to Wolfcricket? On the bright side they levelled up to tier 1.

  6. I have Mythic GME (and coded it up into a Windows App) and have also run my first session solo (but without the GME).

    I created a Lurk (called Garrett), with an Infiltration specialisation and 2 in each resistance roll. His crew, such as it is consisting of him (tier 0 is 0 to 1 crew members… so 0), is a crew of Shadows operating out of 6 Towers and performing Burglery in Silkshore – it has Thief rigging, Underground maps and Everyone Steals (Tinker).

    Amancio, a contact of Garrett, found a job. It was was a burglary for the Red Sashes (who are actually doing it for Ulf Ironborn in exchange for support in their Turf War). The specifics were to steal a new formula from the Alchemist “Ray the Mixer”, who works for the Weeping Lady.

    Garrett starts by trying to gather some information, and so he starts asking around. Cutty, Garrett’s regular fence, has visited Ray as few times with special deliveries (Fortune roll 5) – he tells me the Alchemist has a basement laboratory with a fancy safe in it. The basement and ground floor looked pretty well locked down when he last visited… However Cutty tells me that I owe him (progress clock 2 segments for “Cutty calls in a favour”).

    So Garrett’s entry point is going to be the rooftop, an attic skylight or window (Engagement 2D). The result is a risky entry point (4) – a rusty looking window into the attic. Garrett breaks in (Tinker 5), but the rusty window is old and falls inwards as he enters making a terrible noise! (2/6 segments for “Alerted”). Garrett decides to listen out for trouble, in case he has attracted unwanted attention (Survey 4).. and sure enough he overhears 2 guards complaining that it is probably birds again – and then hears them arguing over who has to check it out.

    Garrett hides and waits – if they get too close to the window he will have to sap them – otherwise he will wait it out (3D with a cloak and a roll of 4). The guard comes up and goes to look at the window, calling back that there might be trouble, so Garrett ambushes him, knocking him out cold (3D, and a 6). He catches him and quickly moves him out of sight so that he can do the same for the 2nd guard. However the guard is likely to be far more prepared and then an ambush will have a limited effect… Garrett nevertheless goes for it, getting lucky catching him unawares (rolled a 6 and burnt stress to get standard effect). So the guard drops.

    Blimey, how much security does an Alchemist need? Maybe there is more going on here than Cutty was telling me…

    OK time to find the lab… Garrett works his way through the townhouse (Prowl, 2D as the cloak probably won’t help – he gets a 4) – as he gets to the ground floor a door starts to open, so Garrett dives under the stairs to avoid being spotted, the noise causes the guard to look around, he moves on but is suspicious (4/6 segments on Alerted).

    Garrett then uses a flashback to discover that Cutty explained the basic layout of the ground floor, the tradesman’s entrance, the basement being the important elements (as Cutty had already told Garrett about the basement and the safe, I figured this was probably a 0 Stress flashback).

    Garrett knows the way and so heads down to the basement where he finds the Alchemist is working away on something at a bench – facing away from him. Garrett quickly finds a place to hide and watch, hoping to see the safe’s location and operation (Prowl and a 6). He watches as Ray takes some paperwork to a painting on the wall and moves it to the side, and then opens the safe with a combination lock. Garrett watches (Survey 4), but cannot see the combination well enough to open it, but he did get one number.

    After Ray leaves, Garrett gets to work on the safe (Tinker 2D and rolls a 4), but finds its a complex lock (3/4 segments, but 1 already filled from the Survey and 2 from the Tinker) and that it is alarmed (6/6 on Alerted). As the alarms go off, Garrett has seconds to act, he works the safe once more (Tinker 2D, and a 4). Opening the safe he grabs the documents and dives for cover as the guards come rushing in (Prowl 3D, getting a 6 – thankfully). Once they have rushed past, he slips up the stairs to the trade entrance… and finds it locked. Quickly he gets to work (Tinker 2D, 4), but as he gets the door open the guards charge in!! He throws a blade at them to distract them and flees through the door into the night (Skirmish 0D, rolling a 2). The guards open fire as he escapes causing 3 Harm (bullet in the back), which he tries to resist (dropping it to 2 Harm at a cost of 3 Stress).

    Downtime was spent mostly recovering Stress and hiring a physician.

    My next session will be with the GME and some random generators.

  7. fergus Crawford great right up! I’m still working on putting my together. 4 characters and a custom setting is a lot to throw on top of learning BitD … and I want to do it solo…

Comments are closed.