Just ran a cold open of Blades for three players last night, using the stripped down rules from World of Blades and Sean Nittner’s Gaddoc Station score.
Fuck, what a great game! Running it just clicked for me. I let go of trying to figure out what happened next and just stuck to posing questions, throwing out prompts, roleplaying NPCs, and facilitating the fictional space. It felt like kind of a Zen mindset. By the end of the session, plenty of shot clocks were ticking on the table, but nothing went pear-shaped. The crew was careful and pretty sensible, so they worked their positioning hard and used the Aid rules liberally, which meant they burned a lot of stress for extra dice. If something had gone pear-shaped, they’d have been in real trouble, but their approach turned out to be a winning strategy last night. What really stuck for them was not having to plan everything out beforehand. That insight was like a klieg light going on, me included. I’ve run a few Blades games before, but hadn’t quite shed my old GM habits.
We’re now looking at upgrading to a game with the full rules set. Kudos to the author of World of Blades, +Duamn Figueroa, whose name doesn’t appear on the manuscript. They did a great job paring things down for a quick-start.
I hadn’t seen the World of Blades doc, so I hunted it down. You’ll want to thank Duamn Figueroa.
plus.google.com – I did a thing! https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8NRdE-ENo3hQVJLM2hTYkw3ZFE/…
Sounds great! The free mindset with this game is outstanding fun as a GM.
Benjamin Kramer Thanks!
Untill you get the full version, take a look at the SRD.
bladesinthedark.com – Greetings, Scoundrel | Blades in the Dark RPG
Sorry for my stupid question, but where can I find the ‘Gaddoc station score’?
You can get it – and Sean Nittner’s other brilliant Blades supplements – at: seannittner.com – Blades in the Dark
Toimu Thanks, I have the full version already, just didn’t run it. World of Blades makes a great quick start.
Niall O’Donnell thanks a lot!
Niall O’Donnell thanks so much! It all looks awesome!
That is great to hear Blake Hutchins!
I will say something about the WoB rules–maybe the sheer brevity–made it much easier to conceptualize and explain positioning and effect. Everything just clicked very easily.
The characters also made liberal use of team actions and assisting each other with actions as well as burning stress. The combination meant they actually did pretty well avoiding getting into desperate circumstances.
Blake Hutchins Interesting. I’m curious about the increase of team actions. I’ve seen that fall to background in the full game, and wonder how players would use it more after starting with WoB which may better allow it to take highlight.