I’ve been dreaming about running multiple groups, and setting their games in the same persistent universe in some fashion. I was wondering if the sandbox-y aspect of Blades might be suitable. At the very least, I’d develop the factions and their agendas the same way across all the groups. From there, it could be about shared contacts (and the faction “people”) having the same appearance, voice, and agenda.
The other end of the spectrum is PvP (or, crew vs crew), where the groups could interact with each other as enemies or allies or service providers, try to find each others’ lairs, flip contacts, etc. The obvious problem with this, is that groups would (usually) play asynchronously, so I don’t know how to handle direct conflict.
Each group should be able to forge its own story. I picture you could leave it up to each group how involved they would be, similar to Elite: Dangerous’ “Open”, “Friend” and “Solo” modes. I’ve also been thinking about whether to do “perfect information”, where all the groups and players know about all the other groups and characters, or “discovered information” where the groups will either have to get some rumors about the other groups, or work actively to get them via Gather Information and Downtime Projects. Both feel appealing. It’d be awesome if the groups interacted out-of-character to provide story and interaction ideas for the others.
I’ve been playing with the idea of providing a common story framework: A starting situation like the one in the book, with a known faction war starting, maybe a midpoint linchpin event or turning point, and possibly some later-date event. I’ve been thinking to keep them vague, so the groups could find their own place in relation to them, but still provide some common narrative. I have a specific idea called “The coming of the Red Comet” for the last one, but I don’t (want to) know what that actually means.
I guess this would require multiple GMs, depending on the number of groups. I’m picturing 3 or 4 groups as a starting point, maybe just 2 as a test.
Any thoughts on something like this? Do you have experience with something similar? Are there issues with using Blades for it I should think about?
* Lurks in the shadows *
I’ve been in a couple- one with the players in the world simultaneously, and one where they were in the same world, but the timing was different, i.e. the campaigns were run after one another. The one that was the longest was a Rolemaster Campaign in Middle Earth- the one where they were in the world simultaneously. And it is the one that generates the most scenarios that lead to my major advice in this area: Be consistent in your PvP, and know that it will create real-life frictions at some point unless players are uncommonly understanding, and know each other.
The way that it was handled in this campaign was that there was a fog of war, where rumors and such were the reasons that characters interacted- player knowledge was very carefully segregated. And there were several sessions that were the result of actions by the others that were not synchronous, especially after things got nasty between parties.
Any time that the characters were in a situation where they were directly acting against the other characters, things were paused- sometimes for quite a while- until we could play the conflicts together. We played them double-blind except for actual combats, which happened in the same room. It was… interesting. The after effects at times… not so much. It didn’t help that Rolemaster leant itself towards death being unexpected, rather than by bits and pieces.
Though there were bad spots, it was one of the best experiences I’ve had in my years of gaming, however.
Yup, I worry about this, and particularly since Blades has an explicit “we don’t do PvP, figure it out across the table”. And, as in your case, death can be sudden.
Ugh, submitting comments before they were done.
This is why I find the “full information” scenario a bit intriguing. As in, the players/groups can suggest things to the other group, like “Wouldn’t it be cool if we did… Wouldn’t it be cool if we clashed over… Wouldn’t it be cool if this was a potential result…”, and then they control and agree on the action, in order to tell a common story. And then we’re supposed to play to find out what happens. It would be an intensely social thing as opposed to a mechanical thing.
Though, I’m drawn to the idea of needing to find out who the others are, then maybe trying to take their turf, or claims, or whatever, and have a mechanical in-game interface between them. Blades has cohorts and entanglements, so I was wondering to co-opt that somehow.