There’s a gap in my play experience of Blades in the Dark. Most of the games I’ve played or run have been with strangers banded together for the short term, or people who don’t hang out in real life.
I think this game would just SING, it would give a crew a tremendous advantage, if the players knew each other well enough to drop fictional hooks through flashbacks and improvisation that were customized to their fellow players and characters. I imagine a level of trust and experience with each other would give a group of players the PLAYER tools they need to give the CHARACTERS great advantage.
I’ve seen a lot of infatuation with the more drama-oriented “fun” of making life more difficult by working out individual character whims at the expense of the other characters. What I think would be intriguing would be to see the “fun” of players who learned to work together in OSR or other more cooperatively focused games leverage that experience to heighten the effectiveness of their heists.
It’s time to distract a guard, and the two players drop into a silly debate about coconuts from popular culture that they both have memorized. One player had a character who was all about gems once, and came up with a hundred uses for them and ways to stash them and built up some player knowledge about stones; so we go heisting gems and do stuff with them. One character is a sucker for doomed love, so we gotta work that in. Yes, of COURSE I’m lying to him and we’re going to burn it all down.
Knowing what devil’s bargains will appeal to which players, and how to make the story more fun for everyone, and having a background to pull from for improv, would really add something I have not yet experienced with this game at the table.
I play extensively with my wife and closest friend and can tell you it’s an absolutely fantastic experience in exactly the ways you described. I mention this not to gloat, but to affirm that finding that group is well worth it!
Ben Liepis Excellent. I got to thinking about it because in the novel I’m writing the characters are separated and hunted by powerful forces, and they don’t have cell phones or email or anything, and they can’t trust anyone. So, how do they communicate, coordinate, and regroup? They know each other well enough, and made some rudimentary plans, so it’s possible. It’s fun showing how they act on their knowledge of each other to coordinate. That’s a great way for the reader to get to know them better too.
Andrew Shields, that’s a REALLY cool idea!
I think random players are just as capable of picking up hooks and seeing flags as people one have known eachother a long time. It’s more a matter of perception and “player skill”, in my opinioun.
I think it’s more fun to see when Devil’s Bargains are taken, than knowing beforehand. Seeing what DB they take is a cool step in knowing and learning about new players.
BitD is best for long campaigns, I am sure… if only I could that game 😉
Michael Esperum Devil’s bargains are a great way to calibrate what risks, and how big, each player is willing to tolerate. It’s a good way to get to know players.
It’s also fun to dangle things you know will tempt your friends, things that one person would agonize over that another would shrug and pick the obvious path (whether it’s yes or no.)
I’ve had a wide variety of outcomes with one-off games, and I must say that while sometimes players are good at playing with each other, more often they are either tone-deaf to what others are doing, or they showed up to play a different game in tone than the others, or they’re polite and being careful with each others’ toys. Best case scenario would be heartbreaking; a fantastic group of players, only one game. Just enough to know what you’re missing. =)
My group knows each other really well, and what you describe absolutely happens.
Players would regularly have their PCs take actions that they knew would lead to more fun – the annoyed thief knocking the hound unconscious with a brick from behind, then leaving him in the street where he got arrested. Reduced their heat while getting her revenge.
… because the player knew that the hound’s player would enjoy that. And the hound’s player knew that she could play up her character’s annoyance at the thief. And the thief wanted that, and egged it on. The hound arrives at their lair to find the grubby thief has moved into his room (with the four-poster bed!)
So they both escalated that in-character tensions in a way that both players enjoyed – but wouldn’t do that to the Leech’s player, as he wouldn’t have enjoyed it.
When they did a score, it was usually pretty devastating – they’d trample through everything, because they did improvise really well together, and could all play off whatever the situation is. Everyone was able to improvise things that would add to the chaos while also creating opportunities for the other players to shine.
When the dice went against them, they still improvised well together. I think the most fun session was a series of mishaps where they jumped from frying pan into fire and back into the pan for the entire session – but the action never stopped, and nobody got frustrated because the story always included every PC, because the players already included each other from habit.
Ben Liepis I miss our group! You were a great GM!
Kenny Crowe, thank you. Our game was amazing. Yours was a character I both loved and feared. I mean, come on…she lost her arm by sticking it in a plasmic mass of flailing arms, clawing hands and gnashing teeth so she could get arcane power!
I think it’s hard to contrive deep bonds without putting the time in. As much as we’d like to try to find ways to bypass or fake it, I think this is what’s most valuable in role-playing. That’s why I play with friends (or make friends with the people I play with) and prefer long games. It takes work, and that’s all there is to it.
My current group is two people who I’ve been friends with for a while (one my wife) and another couple who we all just met. We have hit the trust point fairly early and everyone’s playing off each other very well, so it can happen!
I wish I could quantify how we made it happen. The new couple is absolutely fearless about their roleplay; they both established very early on that they don’t care if their characters look bad. I think it was important that they explicitly said as much — “this is the worse idea in character, but it’s going to be way more fun to roleplay the consequences, so I’m going to do that.” That explicit statement is the kind of thing I like to do as a GM, especially early, because it makes my agenda crystal clear.
Andrew Shields off course, you’re right. I used to read your gaming write-ups and thought they were brilliant, but I see that there’s gold in playing with different people.
I can see that “random persons” is not the same as “random persons that have been vetted”, and my pool of random persons is mostly people whom I know and appriciate (to play with), but there’s been a few mismatches even there…
I think it’s easier to get a ‘random group’ to work together in the same frame of fiction, though, but I realize that may be because I am better at explaining premises and take a bit more time in play to explain consequences.
I also notice that I’m better at “bringing it” when not playing with close friends who don’t match my playstyle.
To sum up: I want to play in a long campaign with some friends who have a matching playstyle too.
(I would really like to play more in conventions though. “Fresh meat” — The Butcher, Diablo I)
There is also a dividing line between running the game and playing the game. I’ve run the game quite a bit over the years, but only played a handful of times.
Camaraderie is a rare thing for me to feel when running the world instead of a character. I mainly make it possible for others.
I’m not looking for shortcuts or sympathy, so much as thinking about how the nature of the game lends itself to shining a brighter brilliance when played by tight-knit and high-trust groups.
FWIW, I stepped into online play with complete strangers, was thrust into running it with no true experience doing so and it was one of the greatest gaming experiences I have ever had. The chemistry was near instantaneous, the emergent play incredibly nuanced and…most importantly to me…the players were wonderfully patient. I felt trust grow very quickly and things went really well, so it’s refreshing that having such nuances doesn’t require already strong bonds.
Andrew Shields, I have to believe that on either side of the table your incredible imagination (the Hiest deck is one of my most favorite gaming things) is a joy to behold and makes it easy to lose oneself in the story. That would certainly get me more involved and diving deeper, if that makes sense.
Well, thank you!
Andrew Shields, the Heist Deck prompted three of the coolest moments/characters in our Blades games. The cards gave me creepy, light-hating specters that really freaked the players out as well as a ghost that was protecting a book, which then became a PC’s murdered brother after said PC triggered a trap. That made for a very tense moment.
During a score, a beautiful, Iruvian socialite whisper was the target of a burglary that ended up with a Hound shooting her with spectral rounds, rendering her unconscious. One Devil’s Bargain later started a series of clocks as the Hound…desperately smitten by the woman…began courting her. It eventually worked and spurned a series of wonderful scores as the whisper became a link to higher society.
All these from random pulls from the cards. So, thanks, man! 🙂
Ben Liepis That is awesome to hear. I put the deck out into the world and it’s lovely to hear about people using it, and hearing specifics is even better.
As a GM focused as much on interpretation as creation, I think it’s a hoot when NPCs from other sources become part of the fabric of the game; Mendel the Slaver from the 25th anniversary of Keep on the Borderlands became a long-running NPC for years on my game, based on like a paragraph in the book.I love it when players pick NPCs to be objects of interest or ire and run with it!
Ideas are fun, but when they get to the table and we work them out in play, that’s when we GMs take the ideas and own our version of them, making them real in the game setting. So, great job translating ideas into interactive toys for your players. That’s some of the best alchemy in the whole hobby. =)
I love, love, LOVE improvising as a GM and it thrills me to no end when a tiny spark ignites a firestorm of creativity that helps me forge something unique and unplanned. All metaphors (right?) aside that’s why my “Holy Trinity” of games…Forged in the Dark, GeneSys, Cypher (and now, Invisible Sun which I consider semi-Cypher, just more intricate, so I can keep it a trinity 😁)…jazz me so damn much! When a game’s system doesn’t just “get out of the way” but actively facilitates improvisation and creativity on both sides of the table, it’s a true joy to me.
Couple that with the bonds you mentioned and that gets a strong energy flowing back and forth at the table, building momentum and helping to create truly memorable moments. When that perfect synergy is achieved, it’s one of the best highs I’ve ever had.
That was a wee tangential but fuck it, great feelings, eh? 😉