I read most of the BitD book and I’m a bit overwhelmed on the adventure planning front. Do you guys have any advice for a new DM? This is not the first time I run a game. I’ve run Dungeon World a few times in the past. But, Blades in the Dark is completely different beast.
Or, is there a particular order that makes the corebook make more sense? I wanna grok it almost completely before I play it with other people.
Best,
C
Yes: run a session zero, talk about what crew and characters your players want to play, go through the character creation questions and add and subtract values from the factions. Note that these are the factions you’ll be interested in.
Then and only then: come up with some interesting characters, traits, and and situations to start with. Represent them with clocks.
You’re done! Just have the maps and source material handy. Blades is a player driven game and you are just one of many players!
So I am going to be a DM soon but I’ve been a BitD player for a while. Starting by deciding what kind of crew you all want, and then doing character creation together so the gang fits together well. Then moving on to crew abilities and such after that layout. From here, you as the DM can decide what factions they work with based on the crew they have made. I know it’s not much but I hope this helps!
Katie Stowers it helps a lot.
I wouldn’t bother with planning a complete adventure.
With flashbacks and resistance rolls it’s too easy for players to derail any carefully designed plot 🙂
Just present a starting situation, maybe think about what kind of complications might occur, and then play to find out what happens next.