In free play, what would you say when a player is trying to angle for a Sway roll to impersonate an NPC to get 1 coin from another NPC? Then, after finding out it is desperate, they note their fine disguise kit (removing tier as a factor, since it was one), and ability for Master of Disguise ability for +1 effect level, arguing that should be 3 coin on the line, not 1?
It’s not an operation. Can they even do this? Seems “weasel-y” at best to sidestep a score to gain coin – especially when the game gives several methods built for getting stuff permanently (LTPs, upgrades), getting stuff temporarily (acquire asset) or conning your way to a few silver pieces – all of which tend to require action rolls as well as other expenses. At worst, it seems “bad GMing” of me to allow a single action roll for 3 coin when the last score netted 4 coin and required a series of actions.
3 coin is significant. Seems like a score to me, not a side gig. The PCs are scoundrels and we assume they snitch and con here and there on the side, but most of that falls under the abstracted income that’s a wash with abstracted expenses. Unless it’s a score.
That said, I think how much coin is on the line should depend on the fiction right, not just the abilities and gear the PC brings to bear? Are you conning the NPC out of just their purse or a suitcase of cash? If the latter, why are they carrying it around or giving it to a friend? It’d make sense if they’re paying off a debt to a gang or loan shark with that suitcase of cash (3 coin), but then it sounds like a score because you’re dealing with not just the transaction but setting up the contact and getting the real person you’re impersonating out of the way, then dealing with the real people’s reaction to not getting paid.
On the other hand, if it’s Desperate, even with all the gear and abilities impacting effect, if it’s still a tricky roll, maybe allow them to take the big risk. Maybe they’re in exactly the right opportunity to take advantage of this, but it’s not like something they can do all the time. Maybe if they fail, their reputation gets out and face more scrutiny on all future disguise cons?
Assume they are sort of in position to do it. The roll was to be for disguise and hustling the NPC in one Sway action, netting the nuyen as payment while pretending to be another NPC. it was going to be Desperate for 1, and rather than take the extra effect/better position for it to be Controlled for 1, they wanted Desperate for 3.
The risks you mention seem good too, but I was discussing the consequence as 2 heat and severe complication. In hindsight, I wish I had added that it could bring an immediate entanglement too, or what you described Adam Minnie
Mark Cleveland Massengale Not knowing the situation, I don’t really see how the arguments for more coin rather than better position makes sense fictionally.
You could also allow it but plan on consequences either way it goes. Failing brings it’s own consequences, but succeeding will too, even if delayed or indirect.
The argument for more coin arose from the elimination of teir as a negative factor (from using fine disguise kit) and the application of effect bonus (from Master of Disguise)
Yes I agree consequences happen sometimes regardless of success or failure. Still i ask because it still feels like allowing it dilutes the concept of scores as the delivery method for coin. It’s a dissonance I didn’t expect, but I can’t imagine I’m the only one..
Yeah, setting aside if gaining a coin in free play is okay, netting 3 coin ain’t. Because I wouldn’t say more effect means more coin. I prefer to think of effect as how many rolls you need to achieve your goal, not how big your goal is. So limited just means you usually need more than one roll to get there. On a four clock, limited can mean you need four rolls. Great effect just means you get some nice on top, but that could be no more than a friendly parting from the target or a tidbit of info that might help them with another score or clock.
You as the GM determine effect. PC’s abilities, and items are part of your determination, not added on after. You honestly have to factor them in, but likewise a special ability doesn’t give the player a right to bump up the effect you’ve landed on. Plus the GM can just say one factor dominants. If maybe potency dominants, then no matter how good your disguise, the NPC is just not keen on handing out that much coin without significantly more assurances. So you could say zero effect. They could decide to try some setup actions to increase their effect, or work on the target as a long term project.
But overall, honestly it sounds like a score. It might be in the small side, in terms of complexity, but still a score. It’s a con and I’ve had great success giving cons as much attention as burglaries by using a few connected clocks. So maybe they’ve already got the target’s attention, so have a four clock for hooking their interest, another for convincing them you’re offering a real opportunity, and a last to make them decide to right now do what the PCs want. On the flip side, a suspicions clock where each tick is one heat, an alarmed clock when filled means the target leaves unhappy, and maybe a time clock when filled means the target must leave and you’ll have to find another time to start working on them again.
Actually, I said something wrong: a special ability gives +1 effect after the GM sets the effect level. But they still can’t trump an effect factor if it totally dominates the situation.
I agree with Oliver above. Personally, I think conning someone during downtime should be a longterm project. Thus it would require both a downtime action (which is a finite resource) and it gives you a better framework for increased effect (more clock segments, not more coin). If they’re only looking to con 1 coin, it might only be a 4-clock.
My opinion, for what it is worth, is that the players are helping calibrate the game. Coin moving around can happen in free play, and if informed by fiction, can be significant. Okay, sure. If I was running that game, I’d also ramp up my own ability to intrude into their coin and have more high-stakes negative consequences in free-play too–whatever the fiction seems to call for.
You were sort of in a position to get 3 Coin, cool, that checks out. Now we’re at 4 Heat and you’ve pissed off your landlord, so you just got evicted and your rivals have been invited to watch. If the fiction calls for it, of course.
Players tend to have reckless streaks, so when fortune smiles let them get paid. Just keep that flexibility for when the fiction suggests they’re vulnerable, too.
3 coin is a significant amount. It’s just shy of a treasure chest considering 1 coin is a weeks wages. I would never let effect level change the amount of coin they were getting, just how well they get it and if they get any added benefits.
Even then, I’d never allow them to get coin in free play unless it was the outcome of a long term project. You can’t just walk up to a random NPC and con them out of a weeks wages let alone their life savings in a single roll of the dice. There’s an ability for that called “a little on the side” for the Slide playbook. I don’t let players do what special abilities would let them do.
These are great explanations why you personally wouldn’t. And why a project is better. And how to still give the player an added effect without extra coin. And from my post, I guess you can tell I would tend to agree with all those sentiments.
I’d like to point out as well that the text’s only mentions of earning coin is in the context of scores. 2 coin and up anyways.. which seems to imply that you have to undertake a score to earn more than 1 coin.
At one point I remember I called this out as a forming deception plan, only to hear “well why can’t it be done with an action since I’m in position now? Can’t I Sway someone to give me money is a single action?” And I was thinking “yea you could try! But not multiple coin though. And im not really sure why, but.. because scores become less fun for the collective if you can do this, and the game is about scores in a big way!” I think have a lot more ground to stand on now though (and certainly more alternatives).
Not that if it’s outright forbidden by the book, but yeah – I think the effect of a free play action being 1 coin is ok. More than that? Not so much.
Mark Cleveland Massengale Good summation.
One more ‘by the book’ consideration, 1 coin fills 1 load, so 3 coin essentially fills up entire light load, so you’re on the brink of blending in with normal citizenry hauling it back to your lair. If you have any other item at all, including a fine disguise kit or a cane-sword, you then reach normal load, appearing to observers as a scoundrel, looking for trouble, probably not simply because of the conspicuous trunk of cash. Technically load doesn’t ‘matter’ in freeplay, but it’s worth considering if getting technical.
Even if you can sway someone to part with a trunk of cash in freeplay , you may not be able to survive the trip home with it intact when the game sort of assumes everywhere is someone’s hunting grounds for prime targets exactly like a mostly normal citizen with a trunk of coin and no apparent weapons. Maybe one of the three coin goes to bribing the Bluecoats at the bridge, or to the Gondoliers or Cabbies to be discreet and look the other way. Or maybe you just get robbed and only make it home with the 1 coin you stashed in your socks.
Yes that’s true also about the load being potentially problematic. Worth noting that some of those examples sound a lot like entanglements, which i was hesitant to mention as a potential “major complication” of a desperate 4/5. Like.. you conned them, but you are so elated you don’t notice until it’s too late that as discussed the bridge crossing ahead has Bluecoats searching the citizens! Do you let them search you, knowing they’ll demand a cut or question you? Or what?
Mark Cleveland Massengale I think of Adam’s examples as more about accomplishing the GM goal Convey the fictional world honestly and the GM action Think off-screen and the GM best practice Earn the trust of the group. You obviously must remain flexible to what fiction and game the players are most interested in, but not to the point where you contrive situations for particular outcomes.
This feels akin to becoming full-time pickpockets in D&D. While the rules might not technically forbid it, it doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of the game.
Oliver Granger Oh right. I should probably have said to telegraph those things and then follow through. (edited slightly)
Does an entanglement-like complication like that seem too harsh for a coin? What about straight up delivering +heat?
It may be reasonable. Like if you do it in Brightstone where there’s heavy Bluecoat patrols. Losing status with a relevant faction might also be appropriate, depending on who you conned and who works it out. Like if you con a well-connected noble, a gang boss or a high-profile public figure.
Just gonna ask the obvious here RE: “but I’m in position now!”
Who in their right mind would carry around a weeks worth of wages on them in a city filled with criminals?
The reason it’s a score to get coin usually, is because you have to get the target into a position where they have the coin and want to give it to you.
If you walked up to random guy on the street irl and said “hand over your weeks wages” no one would have that in cash. But if you long conned that guy into bringing the money in cash, thats when you can take it, and that’s why it has to be a score.
If your scoundrels could easily earn coin in freeplay, then what’s the point in being criminals at all? They make a weeks worth of wages each week just by doing that every free play.
Yep, and I agree. I think it’s clear that conflation of effect into coin is the primary issue with the conversation that happened. Added effect should have been info for a plan detail which might get the rest
Fiction first
My rule of thumb is if I’m being hard on the players and taking away their mechanical stuff, I’m trying to be as clear and true to their expectation of the phases and mechanics as possible. I better have a clear chat first to make sure the players are on board with my fictional reasoning if I feel skipping downtime makes sense after a big formal score, for example.
But if they’re getting mechanical stuff, I’m just trying to keep the fiction clean and I’m not worried about justifying it beyond that. If they have a clear path to Coin, heat reduction, cohorts, or anything else and we’re in free play? They can have it. The rules about acquiring assets, running scores, and all that are just mechanical triggers for when I’ve already implicitly agreed to give them stuff unless there’s clear conversation to the contrary.
But as discussed, the Coin comes from somewhere. +Effect can mean pretty much anything and increasing Coin values is just one possibility. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with earning 3, 5, 10 Coin outside of a Score. You can play the whole game and never formally engage the Score mechanic. I’ve certainly gone whole sessions without doing Scores and we still sling heat, coin and everything else around.
Yea Firndeloth Dinsule I agree with the first half of what you said, and the PC had fiction for hustling a faction contact out of 1 coin, but not all 3 (those came from the aforementioned distortion of effect into coin).
Not that it matters much, but I disagree with your point about never engaging the score mechanic. Without scores, the game devolves to Downtime in the Dark, which seems like a long walk off a short (boring) pier.
EDIT: That is, I think actions to part someone from multiple coin at once seem fictionally implausible (and mechanically unsound)
Mark Cleveland Massengale We didn’t spend those sessions in Downtime, we just never hit a This Is A Score About To Go Down trigger to pop into Engagement and so forth. Action rolls and all that still work the same way in free play.
As for mechanically unsound, I don’t think Blades is that fragile a system. It’s only mechanically unsound if you can’t back it up. Let’s go nuts: I drop 40 Coin on the players. They can’t store it on their person, they can’t store it all in their crew sheet. They can’t fit it all in their pockets. They better do something clever with it, shove it in their stash, or leave it where it lies. Let’s say they justify moving it all somewhere and making a purchase. What does that even buy them? Following the Coin guidelines in the book to the letter: 4 carriages and goat? 4 small properties? So I guess that’s also one medium sized property? Not exactly game-breaking fictional permissions here, and that’s 40 Coin! Similarly, if you want to argue it gives them too many Downtime Action options … if they liquidate 10 coins worth of their stuff, it’s the same thing. Sell off their vehicle or their hideout and that’s 10+ Coin right there. Don’t sweat the numbers. The game can take a beating.
Scores are a neat tool and a convenient format, but you don’t need to be that formal for Blades in the Dark to work especially if your crew is running a somewhat chaotic enterprise. That particular crew got themselves into a very complicated situation that didn’t have a lot of cleanly paced scores. We spent a few sessions entirely in free play, but we still zoomed in and out of the action, had fights, etc. We just didn’t Engage and treated Downtime as holistic suggestion.
P.S. I think the main mechanical thing that’s more aimed at during scores is Flashbacks since like Engagement they stand in for planning and what-not. But in sessions with and without an Engagement roll and proper Scores, we used flashbacks a couple of times during free play when it felt right. The rest of the Score is determined by the loose fictional concept of the mission and the whole aftermath mechanic suite dovetailing with Downtime. Personally, I don’t think that stuff is what makes Blades really tick for me and the group seemed to like the results even when we skipped it because it didn’t jibe with what was happening at the table. 🙂
The main caution I’d provide in terms of mechanical soundness is that you may have to periodically check in for Rep, Heat and Coin. Baldes is fairly generous in throwing Heat, Coin and Rep at the players in default Score –> Downtime pacing, so sprinkling more of those opportunities into action rolls and pc-npc interactions may or may not be needed to keep the pressure on and the rewards flowing if you run too long without a formal Downtime transition. I’d note that only a handful of pages into the book, this default cycle is called out as a useful model not a rigid structure so I don’t know what else to tell you except: Harper wasn’t kidding, it definitely works when you play it that way.
I am not saying it can’t be done, I am just saying what you lose is a lot: the two free downtime activities provide a good way of pacing the beats between the sequences of action, rather than non-stop actions. And I never found the phenomena you described with engagement rolls being a replacement for planning (I find it is more just the method by which scenes to complete plans are set). But I digress..
The game plays either way (with or without scores), but again it feels like a short pier to me to always be taking actions to do everything, and a bit weird to say those actions could replace what *downtime activities* do. This leaves little room for anything but “power bottom”ing imho. But eh, to each their own I suppose!
Mark Cleveland Massengale When you need downtime activities, you use downtime activities. If they need to be free to keep pacing right, you sprinkle in free ones. I’m not sure, again, why you’re assuming things that work well are being replaced. You don’t need a Score to have a need for something Downtime Activities do well. You don’t need to have a breathing space in the action to have a need for what Entanglements or a new Engagement Rolls do well. And so on and so forth. The right tool for the fiction at hand, not the right tool for the checklist at hand.
Free play as I see it isn’t about taking actions to do everything, it’s just about not being on script. When downtime activities were the right tool for the job, we used that tool. When a fortune roll would do, we did that. And as in any mode, a lot of things didn’t come down to a roll at all. You seem to be working from the assumption that we were having a lesser experience, and rationalizing that as some people having weird preferences but this is not even a departure from RAW. 😛
Put differently, if you went back and edited a recording of the sessions I considered scoreless, you could probably still sketch out something resembling the Take Stock –> Be Protagonistic –> Calm Down cycle within or across those sessions. It just skipped Score/Downtime steps that didn’t apply to the fiction at hand and it wasn’t a conscious large scale Mode switch the way it was in especially the first few sessions. Even Scored sessions had moments where we cut free Downtime actions in half or stapled two Scores together with no Downtime between, or gave some crew members downtime while others were still mid-action or agreed to limit Downtime actions to a scale of minutes or hours while still giving out the allotted number of freebies.
The core logic gluing my sessions together was “Do we need to zoom in here? If so, what tool gets us the best view of the action?” This is all I’m saying. It’s nothing radical (or whatever the heck “‘power bottom”ing’ means in this context), it’s just a more nuanced approach to the tools in the book.
On engagement, you can certainly play out planning as much or as little as the group feels like planning. We usually ran with planning pretty thoroughly and used Engagement as a smash cut rather than a short-cut when we did scores which sounds like what you’re suggesting. We liked in-character planning and didn’t usually need a way out of it especially with the odd situations the player crew was in.
My comment was so worded because I believe the intent of Engagement is to help players skip all that boring planning stuff–both in and out of character–and cut straight to the implementation and flashback as desired. As with everything else Blades, it’s designed to be a tough toolbox to tumble, and works just fine with other motivating logics. Without the general framing of skipping over something, though, we found flashbacks a little harder to justify and used them less often the more planning we did ahead of time or the more continuous our scenes felt. Exactly where you choose to place discontinuity during the planning process wasn’t my point.