Hi all, been playing Blades for a year now, running it for about half that time. My group is coming up on Season 2 of my run as GM, and one of my players is introducing a new character at the start of the season.
My question is: should I scale his new character up to the same relative level as the rest of the scoundrels? Has anyone else out there done something similar?
I’m concerned that his new character, who, in the fiction, should technically be better than the entire party at all social interactions, will seem completely inadequate. The other characters have 8-9 sessions of XP under their belts, and he’ll have nothing so far. Any advice is appreciated!
When I played with Judd Karlman and missed some sessions, he said that it didn’t matter because people get “wider, not deeper” as they advance in the game.
Agreed. The sort of competency disparities you see in games like D&D or Pathfinder don’t really exist in Blades.
If it really matters to you give him an extra pip when he chooses his action dots
Take to them and the rest of the group. Do what you/they want. It’s your game, and it’s not gonna break anything either way.
Why not? I think the idea that there’s no competency gap is a little overstated; the width of a PC’s actions, and the special abilities they have access to, can matter a lot in the course of play. If the new character coming in is supposed to be on par with the current crew, let them have some abilities and dots, if that’s what they want. It’s not going to hurt anyone, and it might be more fun for the player than feeling like they’re less cool than the others.
Fiction first. If the new character should be on par, make them on par.
My group rotates GMs every few sessions. When a GM starts playing again, their character gets the same number of downtime actions as the in-play characters did, and generally spend them all on training or long-term projects. They also get the stash increase whenever the crew advances.
Missing one or two sessions of XP is no big deal, but compared to characters with 8 or 9 sessions of XP, a new character will have noticably fewer options and increased chance of failure. If you don’t feel like counting downtime actions, you can count the pips and abilities of the existing characters and grant something in that ballpark.
The thing with blades is action pips and abilities do not matter.
A scoundrel with 2 pips in sway is just as good as a scoundrel with 0 pips in sway (i.e. position and effect do not change).
All that having a new character means is more complications, which (at the core of the game) makes scores more fun for everyone.
When a player rolls a 1-3 dont describe them failing badly, describe them doing what they do but something else goes wrong that throws a wrench in the works.
I.e. never make them look fictionally incompetent if they botch a roll.
> A scoundrel with 2 pips in sway is just as good as a scoundrel with 0 pips in sway (i.e. position and effect do not change).
That’s not quite true. The scoundrel with 2 pips is more likely to get a full success before doing anything to increase how many dice they roll. If they have fewer pips overall, they’re more likely to take a lot of Stress when resisting consequences. If they have fewer abilities, there are fewer situations where a special perk applies.
There’s not a steep level difference like in Pathfinder, but there is a difference.
With starting pips the GM can narrate the character as competent but fantastically unlucky. Not all players will be into that, and having more unqualified successes helps make the character feel more competent.