Ran Session 0 for a new Blades group last night. We’re all new to Blades, and most of the folks in my group are new to tabletop roleplaying, so I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of a vibe to expect from this group. Overall, the tone was less daring-scoundrels-in-a-grimdark-reality drama/thriller and more misfits-in-over-their-heads screwball comedy. Basically, the group decided that each member of their crew was drawn to their abandoned watchtower lair for their own personal reasons, and, before they knew it, they were all sort of living together. And the fact that they’ve formed a crew of assassins happened essentially by happenstance according to the group — they were unwittingly involved in a murder, and when others in the underworld took notice and assumed that my crew of misfits was responsible for the murder, the misfits just kind of played along.
I’m wondering if anyone else has experience GMing for a group that leans more toward this kind of over-the-top comedic feel, and what that was like. It seems to run against the grain of the setting, so I’m wondering if it makes sense to have a more explicit conversation with the players about the genre before we jump in or if I ought to just lean into it for the time being and perhaps see if the harsh reality of the setting ultimately sets in. At the end of the day, I’m happy as long as everyone’s having a good time, but I’d rather not see the game devolve into Paranoia/zap levels of slapstick, as my experience is that that is rarely sustainable in any setting.
In the campaign Rebecca W is running for us now, our first job was to sabotage a fancy party being held by Lord Strangford at an old theatre. We dosed the soup with an emetic and a laxative, started a garbage fire in the old furnace in the basement, and convinced some of the resident ghosts to block the exits when the guests started stampeding for the door as their dinner began escaping violently from all orifices at once.
However, our very next job was to deliver some vigilante justice to a student from Doskvol Academy who had forced himself on a female student, so the tone very quickly went dark, especially after it turned out that our target had been possessed by a demon.
I think portraying the consequences of murdering people for hire in an honest and realistic way is likely to get you past “over the top comedy” pretty naturally. 😊
One of my favorite movies of all time is Heathers. There’s an extremely powerful moment that beautifully illustrates how to control tone.
It happens during Kurt & Ram’s funeral, right after the “I love my dead gay son” line. Veronica stifles a laugh, and this gets the attention of a little girl in the front, someone’s younger sister, and there are tears streaming down her face. Veronica’s not ready for it, and neither are we. It’s a solemn reminder that even through Kurt and Ram “may not have had anything to offer the world except date rape and AIDS jokes”, there was someone that thought the world of her older brother, and that no one is ever just one thing.