Ugh controlled engagement rolls are the worst

19 thoughts on “Ugh controlled engagement rolls are the worst”

1. I think you’ve got the chart upside-down. 😉

2. Did you mean to say Desperate engagement rolls with increased effect?

3. No I read it right side up. First game out we came up with a great plan to steal the red sashes war stash which they hid in tangletown. Due to our plan and point of entry We started with 3 dice and got a six right away. We drugged the crew guarding the Stash and the hookers we brought along and knocked em all out. Then we took it all. Basically it all went off without a hitch. Kind of boring and kind of lame. I’m I hadn’t straight up killed the spy from the crows who showed up at the end and left his body in the vault it would have been really really boring.

   Basically a good engagement meant a controlled roll, some risky rolls but nothing desperate and therefore no stress and no xp.

4. Jeffry Crews

   Why didn’t you trade those risky position rolls for greater effect (creating a desperate position) if you are trying to farm XP?

5. We weren’t really trying to farm anything … mostly trying to learn the rules right now. But there weren’t a lot of chances to make them more desperate too.

6. Sometimes that happens, the job goes off without much a hitch. Let the entanglements and effects afterwards be what starts making consequences and trouble.

7. I have had Controlled Position at the start go down hill really fast. Like, a crew ended missing a limb or three

8. I’ve been seeing this sentiment that “success is boring” pop up recently. I should have addressed this directly in the book because it’s a sign that there’s a misunderstanding about how Blades works. A lot of the text points at this issue, but nothing explicitly explains it, I think.

   Maybe I’ll write a piece that can be added to game assets on the website. Seems like it might be needed.

9. John Harper it’s a bit like you said in rollplay blades a 4-5 on engagement is the sweet spot 1-3 is a fiasco and 6 is meh

10. I said that 6 on engagement is meh? That’s weird. I definitely didn’t mean that. Also, 1-3 isn’t a fiasco — it’s just a tough opening move. Maybe the context on the show was different, or maybe I spoke without thinking about it. Regardless, that’s not how I feel about it.

    (You can see a few 6s on engagement on RollPlay and those scores are not boring at all.)

    6s should never be meh on any roll. If they are, something is off.

11. Meh is maybe too strong but it was pretty clear that 4-5 was better… in our defense its game session #1 with some crunchy rules…

12. The point I’m making here is that insisting that “4/5 is better” is not a good mindset to carry forward with you as you play more. It won’t serve you well.

    All the outcomes lead to fun play when you’re playing well. Focus on fun play. Don’t buy in to the myth that a 6 is a boring outcome because that can easily become self-fulfilling.

13. Remember that the saying “may you live in interesting times” is a curse, not a blessing

14. I’m just sort of razzing you john we had fun … it just didn’t 100 pop and that was probably just getting used to the conversation

15. I’m maybe a little more reactive to it because I know the rules the best in our group but this is supposed to be our off week game so I can play. I run dnd other weeks… and I had to step in to help more than I was happy about so it probably colored my experience. I had fun but I wanted it to be just a little more exciting

16. Yeah, it takes practice.

    I’m not here to defend my game or something. I know it’s awesome. 🙂 I’m trying to help you avoid future problems.

17. And I think you engaging on my little nitpick is super great! The truth is I know its awesome too. Honestly tonight I’m going to sit and read the GM session better watch a few more actual plays and get this down because damn Im starting to see it… the platonic blades in the dark.

18. I GM’d a crew of Shadows who regularly rolled crits and I can assure you that 6s are far from boring. They not only urged great scenes, the players became comfortable and cocky, often pushing to Desperate. But luck only holds for so long in the Dusk and that’s when things got really tense. They eventually went back to “god mode”, then were brought low again, and so on. It’s a dynamic I haven’t seen in any other game and it’s fucking beautiful.

19. Remember that the engagement roll is just the very start of the score. Page 307 has a list of complications that can happen with a score. A perfect plan can be executed perfectly and the gang can grab the mcguffin only to find that it opens a channel to a demon, or another gang got there first and needs to be tracked down or there’s suddenly a turf war between two gangs that needs to be navigated through before they can get out safely with the item. Or sometimes they just succeed, get their reward and entanglements, and get cocky going into the next engagement. The bad rolls will happen somewhere down the line, and in the meantime you can describe how cool they were with their successes.

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