June 2018 – Page 3 – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

Riders of Doom for my #AFistfulOfDarkness hack. Lofi preview of roll20 pictures for a rollable table.

I hope you like them and I hope to inspire a playtest of the hack at your table 🙂

Hi all-

Here is the next version (V0.5) of the character playbooks for my epic / heroic fantasy hack – Blades in the Brokenlands. The playbooks include:

Fighter Archetype (Berserker, Hunter, Weapon Master)

Magi Archetype (Alchemist, Enchanter, Weaver)

Rogue Archetype (Thief, Swashbuckler, Watcher)

The Innocent (a peasant hero, naive adventurer, or the classic young hero in epic fantasy stories).

Although this doesn’t have a crew (party) sheet or XP triggers (I forgot to add) they are playable.

The unedited rulebook with initial setting information can be found here.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IFwGwkdkTnruXCGDCy6c9evSAMFY0Jf6/view?usp=sharing

I’d love feedback!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eLQbRFmhoRepmaK0wC_cHkK1b5Dx9KeO/view?usp=sharing

Trauma-ing out while resisting

Got a question for the group think…

I was listening to Friends at the Table playing Scum and Villainy and one of their characters traumaed out on a resistance roll, and they played it that that was effectively a failed resistance—the consequences still came to bear, with the character out of the action.

My immediate response was that the resistance still should have worked before the character as taken out of action, but I’m not sure…

How do y’all play it? Consequences coming back defo makes the game grittier, but I really like the last-hurrah flavor of traumaing out while saying nope.

Just did session 0 of A Fist Full of Darkness with my friends!

Just did session 0 of A Fist Full of Darkness with my friends!

We decided to make a rag tag group of Hellstone Scavengers, including The Shot, The Thunderheart, and The Gamble.

Attached below is the map we made for our version of Mudwater (yes we have some punny names for places!). We had a lot of fun making up the world and cool things in it. All in all, the world building was superb and got a lot of conversation going!

The Shot was part of a traveling nomad tribe, but his people were murdered by the giant scorpion demons plaguing the land. He escaped and made it to Mudwater, seeking his fortunes as a scavenger and putting down the scorpions whenever he can.

The Gambler was adopted and raised by the Posse contact Ling Lee. She spent her childhood travelling with him, adding various oddities to his collection. Once she was older she moved to the Ring of Fire, a casino town in the middle of a desert, to become a show girl. She recently returned to her father who settled in Mudwater.

The Thunderheart is a banished tribesman (shunned for being mixed race). He has a strong connection to Nutbush, where a Petrified Tree and the spirits within it guide him. He is lonely and lives of the shrubbery and herbs in the area. (Not established how he became a scavenger yet).

Had a super fun time and I am looking forward to session 1!

#AFistfulOfDarkness

Hi there scoundrels !

General question – did anyone try to use new Positions in their hacks ? What did you change ? How did it go ?

Thanks !

So many Gambits we might as well have been a 90s X-Men comic

So many Gambits we might as well have been a 90s X-Men comic

In our fortnightly Star Wars Scum & Villainy game the crew of the Porg Chop Express explored sith ruins on Korriban/Moraband.

The Pilot may have been MVP for simply existing. He took “Never Tell Me The Odds” from the Scoundrel playbook and if roll20 keeps giving you sixes, you end up with, well, more Gambits than an X-Men comic.

S&V/Blades in general has a really neat way to mechanize a fall to dark powers too. Dark Side, or demonic possession in vanilla Blades, or what have you. Figure out with the player what they don’t want to happen and set a clock for it. Offer devil’s bargains on everything – here’s this power (+1d) in exchange for these ticks on this clock o’ badness. Then let them resist the ticks, which can cost stress, which leads to traumas, which are all mostly things you see in people consumed by the Dark Side. It works really naturally.

Anyhoo, the Muscle’s balancing act between addiction to wookiee hallucinogens and the pull of the dark side finally tipped in favor of the dark side last night. She went off by herself and became bound up with a sith force ghost. The Mystic will perhaps have to choose whether to stop her or try to save her. We’re headed to some potential intra-party stuff and we’ll need to talk about how inward we want the game to turn going forward.

Has there been any word on the Lockport city setting? Just remembered it the other day.

in the absence of The Doomed, my brain.

in the absence of The Doomed, my brain… is trying to do a thing, practically against my permission. so… supers in the style of Wildbow’s Worm – with which I know a couple of the community members here are familiar.

this is… basically all I have so far. I’m thinking the power creation will be very much like Worlds In Peril, with a very important exception! each player will have their powers designed by the rest of the group, after choosing their playbooks.

crew types will likely be partly based on the Blades defaults, but also include sponsored (through corps or gov) and unsponsored (like vigilantes) hero groups.

does… that… sound fun? like, is this a line of thought I should continue putting effort into?

Hey Blades hackers:

I’m experimenting in my hack with having a playbook that has cohorts at the individual level (sort of like the Hardholder/Chopper in Apocalypse World, or the Pusher/Fixer in The Sprawl) and I’m not sure what to tie their cohort’s dice pools to. Personal wealth feels like an obvious low-hanging mechanical fruit to try to latch onto, but it feels kind of arbitrary. Tying it to an Action rating (or Action-like rating a la Band of Blades) feels like you have to choose between “I improve” or “They improve” in a way that doesn’t sit super well with me. Curious if anyone else has tried barking up this tree or may have thoughts.

So Ive been playing Blades for 3 seasons with the same group, but I am having trouble introducing the main villain…

So Ive been playing Blades for 3 seasons with the same group, but I am having trouble introducing the main villain of the series. Here’s a background of her time in season 3 so far:

The Spider comes home to his Girlfriend, Salia, an information broker. Her house is torn to shreads, her clothes are ripped, and graffiti across the wall reads something along the lines of “DON’T STICK YOUR NOSE WHERE IT DOESN’T BELONG. G SENDS HER REGARDS”. Salia had been looking into an extortionist who seems to have dirt on almost everyone, and the men who attacked her didnt want to hurt her, it was just “business” and they were in deep shit if they didnt. The Spider vows to find “G” and get revenge, this just got personal.

“G” (later revealed to be called Grace) strikes a deal with Tarvul’s (leader of the Billhooks) wife, letting her take control of the Billhooks, userping Tarvul. She takes advantage of the PCs crew being down a leader (the Spider was on holiday at the time, and she thinks the docks rightfully belong to her not them, whilst Tarvul was trying to make peace). She encroaches on their turf as if it were her own, one thing leads to another and they end up at war. (They have yet to find out that this was because of Grace and they will find out once the war ends probably).

Grace has also pulled several strings to mobilise and have the Bluecoats/Spirit Wardens breathing down the murderous crew’s necks by giving them evidence against them. We have also established that she wants the pieces of Kotar for some reason, and has blackmailed the group’s Whisper into getting a piece for her (Scurlock has tasked the Spider to get one for him too; crew conflicts, yay!)

So who is Grace? Grace is a ghost who has managed to remain sane even without draining life energy. She is powerful and the ghost field gives her visions of events before they happen, allowing her to plan ahead and know details of events despite never being there (perfect for use in extorting favours from people). She was separated from her body decades ago by the powerful Lord Scurlock, and wants revenge on him for this. The only problem is that ghosts cant see Scurlock due to his supernatural powers. She knows he wants the Kotar pieces and so she wants them for herself, to wish for her body back (collecting all the pieces allegedly grants the user 1 wish), and take revenge.

So how do I get the crew into a position where they find out shes this ghost? The Spider wants to confront her and “kill her” for what shes dont to Salia, and theres going to be an interesting conflict due to the whispers misplaced loyalties. I just cant bring the pieces together!