I’m relatively new to Blades, only GMing about a 1/2 dozen scores. I do wonder if I’m being ‘too easy’ on my PCs though. No one has a trauma yet. There’s only been 1 or 2 scores that everyone was near maxed out on stress. They’ve been cunning and afforded bringing much attention to their activities so few story complimcations…
1/. How many challenges/clocks to overcome/rolls would you typically see in a given score? (if a typical score exists).
2/. When do you choose to bring in story consequence stuff into the PC’s lives (i.e. framed a minor noble for a crime. When would you have his revenge come knocking)? Free play? Start of a game session? During a score?
3/. I assume life complications begin snowballing as the campaign runs. Perhaps I’m too worried at this point?
1. John’s answer to this is one I stand by: There isn’t one. You look around in the fictional space, and see what challenges/obstacles the crew needs to face to arrive at their goal.
2. I consider this to be what Entanglements are all about. If it makes sense for comeuppance to arrive in the middle of a score, sure, but otherwise just don’t roll Entanglements and instead decide on which one best fits what you think is coming after their recent escapade. That one then manifests. Usually this happens during free play/downtime.
3. If they’ve been playing it safe/smart and avoided terrible problems, great for them! Be interested in that, and consider that to be what the story of the game so far is. Eventually, complications will likely arise. They’ll roll 4 or 5 on a desperate action and you’ll tell them they take level 4 (lethal) harm. They won’t want that, but their stress will be nearly full. That’s when things get tense.
One way in which I brought in a lot of danger for my players was by hitting harder with the pre/post score fiction. I made entanglements really weighty, which made it more difficult for players to choose what downtime actions they should pursue.
Otherwise, this really needs to be a player-gm discussion. Ask them what they want and tell them what you’d like to see.
My two cents on this is basically like Blaze Azelski and Justin Ford said– there isn’t an intrinsic “need” for players to be taking lots of harm/stress/trauma, as long as everyone is satisfied with how interesting the game has been so far. It’s also worth discussing with everyone what kind of tone they’re interested in. Do they want a particularly harsh game that hits hard with consequences, or do they want to feel more heroic and powerful? They might enjoy the “easier” feeling that you feel like you’ve been giving them so far.
Entanglements should hopefully start introducing lots of narrative complications into their lives, but players not regularly maxing out on stress doesn’t seem like an inherent problem in my opinion.
I wil also say: the dice in Blades can get very swingy. You will have scores where everyone succeeds and no one takes stress. You will also have scores, on occasion, where no one succeeds and they roll 5 stress for every resistance roll. Even in a low stakes game.
The only REAL say you have over this is how often you make them roll the dice.
A) Do you think the players are interested in their characters, their crew, their base, the theme, and how the scores play out?
B) Do the players want to rushed through a part? Is that a bad thing to rush through?
C) Ask the players (maybe privately one on one) if they want a part of the game to be more or less intense.
Sorry I can’t help with your questions.
Toimu Yes, the level of engagement is growing. It always takes time to get used to a new system and characters. I was thinking more along a ‘consumption of players resources/living on the edge/chance to fail (a score)’ type of gauge.