Blades Quick Start v3 ROUGH DRAFT

Blades Quick Start v3 ROUGH DRAFT

Blades Quick Start v3 ROUGH DRAFT

Here’s the rough draft PDF showing the new rules changes. I’ll have a complete PDF ready next, with revised examples, a changelog, and other handy stuff. But this should give you an overview of how I’ve been tweaking the systems of the game.

I’m still re-writing Effects (page 14), so it’s missing, along with some other stuff. This is a pretty rough document, still. I’ll probably post another in-progress draft tomorrow, but I didn’t want to miss my Monday deadline to show you something. 🙂

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zgdup9zctokowhy/blades_quickstart_v3_draft_02.pdf?dl=0

98 thoughts on “Blades Quick Start v3 ROUGH DRAFT”

  3. Ooooh, this is great John! Thanks so much. I know the players will ask…. So have you thought about ways that they can create new paths to their Claim map – effectively shortcuts to desired claims? 

    Conversely would be part of my MC tools to target Claim pathways via countdown clocks?

  8. Nathan Roberts No shortcuts!! 🙂 Actually, like anything else in the game, if they can figure out a method and accomplish it, it can be done. And yes, targeting their claims will be something their enemies do (it’s included as an entanglement now, too, to keep in on everyone’s minds).

    Glad the new layout is working for you.

    It is an Iron Die, yes. I have a couple pairs for AW. Very cool dice.

  10. Very cool. I love claims. The clarifications on harm and the way attributes factor from actions are awesome. I know its a draft, but I thought I’d mention that the section on character advancement still refers to effects. Thanks for the early look, John 🙂

  14. I found it interesting that you took out overcome. I have noticed that it doesn’t get used often. I’m on the fence on how consequences works now. I thought the old way of treating all wounds as a negative effect allowed for a lot more narrative interest. It’s funny that you took out the effect roll of an action. I did the same thing when working on my hack to really streamline how actions worked.

  15. I’m really confused by the new character sheets: how many dots do I have in an attribute? It depends on how many different actions I have in that attribute?

  19. This should be interesting.

    Something that I’m not finding… are there no effect rolls? How do I know how many ticks to a player advance in a clock?

  24. Maybe the hybrid solution for Harm is to have this current system, but with blanks for the descriptions. So you can write in whatever happens at the appropriate level and know exactly how it effects you until it’s healed.

  25. Duamn Figueroa The Effects page is missing (page 14). I’ll finish that up and post it tomorrow. (And no, there are no effect rolls)

  26. Yeah, actually I assumed it was that way with harm. That and using_actions_ other than Stitch as a recovery roll, like use Attune for recovering after a spirit passed through you.

    John Harper thank the forgotten gods that there’s a page missing, I was having a GM-existentialist problem about advancing clocks. 

  27. John Harper​ I hope questions are okay? I noticed that on the action table controlled and risky describe “full” effects and “great” effects. But the entry for desperate describes great effect twice, with no entry for a full effect. Is this correct?

  28. I’m really liking about 99% of this, with the 1% being the new Harm rules, since I loved the first quickstart’s version so, so much more. How Attributes are calculated is really clever, Lairs are amazing, Engagement is just great, but man did I like the original harm rules.

  29. I have to GM in 18 hours. There should be a GM special ability like 

    Wing It: you get special armor against players detecting that you have no idea what you’re doing. When you roll a critical during sessions, clear 1 stress.

  31. Dan Hall Yes, Desperate rolls now have a great effect or a partial effect. Nothing in between. There’s a reason to push for a desperate move if you want to boost your effect and are willing to take the consequences.

  32. I think I like the new harm system. I can see it taking a bit of pressure off of the gm to come up with good consequences. Also, there’s a nice escalation built in there with eventual death as a result, that will make players think more strategically about when and when not to spend stress.

  34. Yeah, but that’s exactly what I don’t like about the new Harm rules. I liked that there was no ‘Hurt’, ‘Impaired’, or whatever. I like that each thing is something defined in the fiction, a knife through the guts or the like. I also hate ‘eventual death’ as the end result. I like that each lasting effect is discrete, that you can just keep building them up as long as it makes sense, rather than culminating in some inevitable end result. It feels both more real and more cinematic/story-like, at the same time.

    I’ll admit, though, that the old rules for harm were basically 100% designed as if they were for me and only me, given how much they mirror what I want in such a system. It doesn’t necessarily bear any relation to what’s best to do for the game.

  36. Duamn Figueroa that kind of matches the Harm rules, and the new default clock for simple actions seems to be four, so yeah, that looks like it might be it. I’m guessing of course 🙂

    Bryan Chavez Cool. Yeh, I liked the old harm system a lot too. It never got used very much in my games though, which is probably my fault. I’m sure you could keep using them though.

  38. These changes look really great: Claims, and how they factor into Hold, is a very nice add — I know my players are going to jump all over that.  Also, how Action and Effect are folding into one roll looks like it will work really well. Attributes seem like they’ll be more intuitive to teach and use as well.

    The only thing I’m leery of are the new Harm rules. I think the free-form nature of Lasting Effects from Quickstart 2 was really elegant compared to the more rigid and defined Harm boxes. I also liked how you could easily tie a Lasting Effect back to the the character’s fictional positioning (“Climbing that wall is definitely going to be a Desperate Action due to your ‘Dislocated Shoulder’.”), without having to apply rolls modifiers (minuses to dice or effect).

    I think the other thing about Harm that rubbing me the wrong way is how the whole Stress / fictional consequence dynamic has been inverted. Before, your character would leave play because you chose to spend a lot of Stress to avoid the in-fiction consequences of bad rolls — in other words, you burned through your of ‘plot armor’. Under the new Harm rules, your character leaves play when you don’t spend Stress, and accept the in fiction consequences of bad rolls. The way Stress and Long Term Effects worked in Quickstart 2 was probably the my favorite aspect of the system, so this one point is pretty disappointing.

  39. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Harm, everybody! I’m not fully committed to the new harm rules. I’ll seriously consider going back to the old way.

  40. Even more polished! Really digging this.

    Harm’s scarier for cutters without them being able to shake it off easier. How many group members can a single Stitch doctor per downtime? All of them?

    Playing without Overcome is going to be interesting. We’ll have to give it a spin and see how it works.

    Advancement still mentions Effect ratings 😛

  41. I think we used standard actions to do a lot of what Overcome was meant to do in our games. I was kind of “oh, that should’ve been an overcome roll” after the fact. It kind of feels like a normal roll anyway when someone steps up and says “let me handle this”.

    A little more feedback on my experience with the previous harm rules. I mentioned before that my players rarely took lasting effects. Often it was because we weren’t sure what a good lasting effect would be. Other times the lasting effects we came up in the moment with just felt too harsh. Players preferred to take trauma than take a broken arm or to be shot through the guts in the middle of their fun. The new system seems to give a little more structure to hang the fiction off of, which I like.

    I’m keen to try this all out, hopefully at our Wednesday night game. I think this iteration looks really slick and I can’t wait to see it in play.

  43. I do like the new effect>attribute change, its less pool managing and motivated Players to fill in wider basic skills to profit from the synergy effects of the attribute rolls. It now reflects more the corelation of skills and effect. As others stated, i am not sure about the new harm rules.

  44. I think the problem with the harm system as it existed up until just now is that losing 1 die to all of your roles for the foreseeable future is a big handicap.  Instead I can take more trauma so that I can clear stress faster in the future but come closer to eventually having to retire?  Yes please!

  45. I personally like the new harm tags. It’ll be interesting to see how it shakes up in play. Has a very Fate feel to it. x3 Severe or x9 lesser harms to kill a rogue. Neat.

    I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Armour rule! Simple and full of narrative potential! Armour that protects your stress against ‘extra time’ consequences?! How cool would that be? Some sort of limited electroplasmic time-bending device?

  46. The playbook descriptors are nice. Short and evocative – Maybe in a handwritten font for that character sheet as in-game prop feel?

     

    The Heritage and Backgrounds action dots are a nice touch. I’ll probably get the players to use a different colour. I did like the +1D for having the same background though. I guess we can colour that up 🙂

    Shrike is a cool theme. I can see that being a popular replacement for hound, which I did quite like. The whole coursing dog ideology.

    Awww, no mayhem? Battle is cool, but I liked mayhem 🙂

  48. Thanks Nathan. I aquired a hacking licence on the 75$ Tier of the Kickstarter, be sure, as soon as John greenlight it, I will publish a BitD companion book, including compendium classes, deity sheets, keys and much more.

  49. Digging what little bit I’ve been able to read so far. One thing I noticed was the placeholder ability   on the Shrike sheet above veteran (It’s going to drive me mad all day trying to figure out what it might be)

  53. Paolo Greco

    No; The game is still in development, which is why you’re seeing all this discussion of changes. 🙂  I believe you can expect to see it in the usual distribution channels around the end of the year.

  56. I’m on the fence with the new Harm rules… trying to wrap my head around them…

    Any mark on first tier is -1 effect, but that is not cumulative, right?

    Same for 2nd and third tiers…  

    Thing is: Penalties apply to ALL actions.

    Old wounds were at -1d for actions, for first hit, and -2d for cumulative hits… but they applied to rolls only when situationally appropriate, right? So a broken leg and arm would limit your physical skills, but your social-type skills would be undiminished…

    I need to playtest it, I guess…

  57. Honestly with the difficulty rules being how they are, I don’t see the point of penalizing harm any further by taking away precious dice. Just crank things up to Risky or Desperate way more often, and make things require rolls to do that didn’t used to require rolls. I didn’t even notice the -1d thing. I don’t think it’s needed.

  58. Remembef that with these new rules position is not the spiral to trauma it used to be, so it became “easier” in that way. I think that if you tie the harm to specific actions it should be interesting to use, and a good combination of the old and new rules.

  61. Love the claims and the streamlined action system and the simplified descriptive harm rules. I do wonder if the “-1d if you face extremely challenging circumstances” modifier is needed. Isn’t that redundant since that is basically already what Desperate position is?ï»ż

  64. Can someone explain to me how the new harm system works? I cannot for the life of me figure out how the boxes are different. Impaired vs Disabled? Out vs Finished?

  65. Chris Mooney seems to me that they are mostly just descriptive. He could have just made 3 generic boxes but wanted a more narrative approach to harm. “Impaired” might be not able to operate a pistol; whereas, “Disabled” might be not able to walk well or something. My guess is all this is still work in progress and the language — if not the entire approach — would likely be changed in a future iteration.

  67. Personally I like the new harm system, mostly since it gives players a much clearer indication of the state of their character in a game sense (how close they are to elimination). I just wish the narrative elements were either more specific (so I can actually describe them) or less specific (so I can assign any type of harm to each level).

  68. yeah I’m in the same boat. I like the new streamlined less fiddly Harm system, but also think the narrative elements could stand some refinement.

  69. I think a part of the new harm system that is undervalued is the act of player choice. If they are uninjured (at any given level), they have three narrative descriptors to choose from (and one mechanical effect).

    I’ve just punched all the adjectives from the harm chart into a thesaurus and there are numerous ways to parse each descriptor into almost any narrative consequence the player thinks is cool or exciting for the story. 

    For example, say your Shrike takes lesser Harm from the Dimmer Sisters curse, sending his mind into paroxysms of pain. He is stressed to the max and doesn’t want to risk trauma, so he takes the blow.  Unfortunately they have filled all their lesser harm boxes, so the mind melting attack cascades down into normal harm. The player chooses I’m impaired….

    Oh the possibilities! Look what the thesaurus came up with for impair:

     damage, harm, diminish, reduce, weaken, lessen, decrease, blunt, impede, hinder, mar, spoil, disable; undermine, compromise, threaten; informal – foul up, put the kibosh on; rare vitiate.

    Ooooh, the player latches onto ‘spoiled’ and offers the group a short scene of torment as the shrike falls to their knees, despondent at the canker festering in their mind.

  72. Nathan Roberts That’s fine if you want to dig into a thesaurus, but some players don’t want to interpret vague descriptions every time they take harm. You can still leave lots of room for creativity while providing a bit more clarity. For instance, if three levels of harm were “Scratched, Injured, Maimed” or “Shaken, Disturbed, Mortified”, there’d still be plenty of room to describe what those things meant while also painting a clear picture of how bad the harm was.

    One of the great things about this game is the amount of creative freedom it gives players, but it’s worth remembering that not every player wants to be a GM. We shouldn’t try to remove the ability for players to craft a story, but we also shouldn’t alienate players who would enjoy the game over the role play. After all, it’s much easier for creative players to go “off book” than for rules wise players to adhere to a vague system.

  73. I hear you Chris. I was simply using the thesaurus as an example of the adaptability of the tags as they are listed. But I’m not sure how one perceives the Harm system as ‘vague’? I would have thought it was more specific than the last iteration? Could you help me understand that point of view?

    So what would help this situation for a player that needs more prompting?  More descriptors at each level? No descriptors (like the old harm system)? Making consequences generic instead of the 4 specific categories in the current playtest?

  74. What Nathan Roberts​ just said is exactly how I think about it. I’d definitely be asking my players “like how are you impared?” I think the tiered structure gives players a useful prompt for how severe their answer should be. It looks like from there it will be a recovery clock and everything will be similar if not the same as previous.

    The big difference is that the tiers cascade, and can possibly lead to character death, but I’ll reserve judgement on that until some play testing.

  75. Also for what it’s worth I liked the class name “Hound” better than I like “Shrike”, but that’s just personal taste – I think “Hound” sounds more Victorian I guess?

  76. Nathan Roberts I guess what I mean (if I’m understanding the new system correctly) is that we traded fictional clarity for functional clarity.

    Under the old system, if you got shot in the leg, we start a “Leg Recovery” clock. It’s not clear exactly how that affects you in-game, but the fiction is specific. Under the new system, if you got shot in the leg, does that make you “Hurt”, “Impaired”, or “Disabled”? If you get shot in the other leg, are you one of the other two now? Or does it build up; first you’re Hurt, then Impaired, then Disabled? It’s very clear how this affects my rolls, but not my character.

    Before players could define harm however they saw fit, now they’re asked to put it into one of nine categories which are vague and indistinct. The easiest way around this is to just ignore the words when they don’t apply, but if the best thing to do with them is ignore them, why are they there at all? It simply seems like a choice with not a lot of meaning behind it, which usually ends up confusing players more than inspiring them.

    Perhaps I’m coming across as a tad too negative: I enjoy the new harm system a lot and the overall rules update as well. I’m just trying to explain why this particular decision doesn’t make sense to me. Perhaps there’s some hidden utility or depth I’m simply not seeing right now 😛

  77. At first I was “what no effect rolls?” But as I digest it I think the way it is set up now seems much smoother so that things flow better. And making the attributes into the effect rating is just slick and a great idea.

    I like the new harm, but miss the old lasting effects so maybe the idea of blank slots to be filled in may scratch that itch.

    Going to play on Thursday and am really looking forward to seeing how it all plays.

    Oh and Claims are fucking awesome.

    The only thing I really don’t like is loosing Mayhem, so for now I will be crossing out battle and writing in Mayhem till the Hacker kit comes out 😉

  79. Hey Chris Mooney, that makes perfect sense to me, but I’m lucky I guess and have a group that is inspired by such adjectival choices.

    As far as I’m parsing the rules, you can choose from any available ‘slots’ at each level of harm (lesser / standard / severe). So really, its only between 1-3 choices instead of 9. And yeah, they do cascade, so you may have no slots left in normal harm and you take a standard blow?  It bumps down to Severe.

    I think that the normal stress for countering a consequence and armour rules mitigate a lot of the potential harm effects too.

  80. I also REALLY like new new recovery rules for healing harm. That way, you don’t have a separate clock for each lasting effect (in the previous rules) but you can certainly embellish the healing narrative if you want based on the efficacy of your recovery roll and the descriptor chosen for the wound in the first place.

    I really think the new harm system caters to both the gamey type players who just want to mark a box and deal with the mechanical effect (and later spend recovery to heal) and the heavily story oriented players that want to highlight harm and injury, combining the mechanical effects with suitable fictional tags and narrative descriptions of wounds and recovery.

    Bravo Mr. Harper.

  81. I totally agree there, I think I just have a problems with the tags as they currently are.

    It is interesting to see that it’s just as easy to heal severe harm as it is lesser. It may not be worth the extra complexity, but it would definitely be interesting if more serious harm took more “healing” points to remove (or maybe you have to spend points to downgrade to moderate/light). Having major wounds stick around and shape a character is something I’ve liked about other systems (and is the only part of the old “clock-wound” system I’ll really miss).

  82. There is this neat feedback resource loop now in terms of Stress vs Consequence that I’m liking very much. It is a direct reference to how the player plays their character both in how they deal with obstacles (and consequences), and then structures their player turn in downtime to mitigate this.

    In simple terms, you can play a character that doesn’t stress out, but gets hampered / injured and thus spends their downtime healing and sorting out entanglements generated in the score. 

    Or you can play the rogue that escapes the score scott free, with no wounds, but stressed to the max, that has to spend their downtime indulging in their vice(s).

    Of course most players will lie somewhere between the two, but the narrative variability that the mechanics introduce into the resultant fiction based on player choice (rather than GM fiat) both during and after a score is genius.

  83. I also really like New Harm. I’m sure John will continue tinkering with it but it feels more interesting to me than before.

    I am madly in love with Claims. Such a cool idea and it really livens up crew/hold advancement.

  84. hari capra Yes, there’s a dedicated sheet for Faction statuses now.

    I’m leaning toward a hybrid harm system now, using the new structure, but with blanks for players to write in the specific harm. Also, you’d suffer the penalty when the harm applies in the fiction, as before.

  85. John Harper I would use a 6-Clock and a 4-Clock for Injuries & Wounds with blanks next to it to mark narrative wounds. I somewhat dislike the boxes in the new sheets. And could you provide Blank Faction sheets?

  86. A dedicated Faction status sheet sounds great.  I’m curious.  I look forward to seeing what else is on the new faction sheet, considering that the faction statuses alone don’t take up more than a third or so of it.  

  88. > Use the numbers next to the effect levels for the number of ticks.ï»ż

    Under that model, you’re looking at 2-3 actions to get through a six-segment clock on 3 dice, which means starting characters will probably take closer to 3-4 actions. is that by design? It seems to be a huge slowdown to the gameplay.

    The book describes a ‘standard obstacle’ as a six-segment clock. By those numbers, even a critical hit doesn’t overcome the obstacle. So it isn’t really ‘Great’; there’s still 1/3 of the clock/obstacle left. The effect is neither magnified or yielding an extra benefit, because you still have the obstacle in your way. If you intend to stick with this math, I think you should seriously reword what a critical is: it’s certainly not completely dealing with the problem in your way, to immense effect.

  89. I like that there are now explicit consequences instead of the more general “face the danger”, which has proven a stumbling block for us (mostly, it slows things down having to think up of a danger that can manifest even on success). My PCs keep going “wait, you didn’t define the danger” (and since my early mistake of making the consequence of a botched sneak attempt “the guard shoots you”, I can’t blame them).

  90. Cami S  Complex obstacles can’t be dealt with in one action. That’s why they’re complex.

    The immediate effect of your action is still great — it’s just that there’s other stuff left to do. You can have a great day working on a project, but that doesn’t mean you finish it in one go. If you could, it would be a simple obstacle.

    The moral is: use more simple obstacles. Save the clocks for things that are actually complex. I’ll make this clearer in the text.

  92. About the skill/action points. We had 6 and + 3 effect before. Now its 4+2 from Backgrounds. I see that as a massive slow down. But on the other Hand its rather easy to start with 4 effect on one attribute. Getting 2 times an action point for the backgrounds is kind of off for me. Instead i lets player choose one action connected to one of the backgrounds and add an Addition slot for it, allowing there only a 3 dot skill from the start. The other background gave access to additional contacts and details to the world.

  93. Hi! Great rules! I love the integration of Actions and Effects. However I have some questions!

    Effects:

    Great effect: 6

    Full Effect: 4

    Partial Effect: 2

    Limited Effect: 1

    Right? 

    In Controlled and Risky there is no effect when you fail, not even 1 tick effect? 

    Harm: 

    The rules says that you suffer harm o severe harm, but the harm boxes show a lesser harm row, a Standard Harm and a Svere Harm. When do you suffer Lesser Harm? 

  96. Do Backgrounds do anything mechanically. When I ran it last I still used the rule that gave you a die if your background matched your targets, not realizing it had been taken out.

Comments are closed.