I have been thinking about actions.

20 thoughts on “I have been thinking about actions.”

1. I don’t think there would be value to moving lockpicking or other current Finesse territory to Tinker. I see those as distinct actions: a person using a quick action to slip a lock open, vs a person Tinkering with the mechanism itself. To me Tinkering a device means taking more time and has many more uses than just popping it open or turning it off (and would require Tinkering Tools vs Burglary Tools).

   Combining them also changes the nature of characters who would have Finesse. Does knowing how to slip a lock mean you know how to disassemble and modify it? Is every thief an expert mechanist? That doesn’t fit for me.

2. Jason Eley What do you think about safecracking?

3. I could see taking what is now “Tinker” and making it a special ability instead of an action. Take the “Tinker” ability and then roll finesse, discern, or whatnot to actually do the work.

   It’s so specialized I find it odd taking up space on the limited action list. If we don’t broaden it (and I think Jason Eley makes a decent case for not doing so) maybe we reclassify it.

4. Upon brief reflection, I’d be happy to swap Tinker for Stalk, it would do just fine as an Insight action. Then make Tinker a special ability.

5. I think the current situation for Tinker is fine. It’s the only ‘crafting’ Action in the game and I wouldn’t want to consign it to a special ability; it seems to me like a useful Action in the field (for rigging a trap, dealing with anything mechanical or chemical, flashback actions, etc; in one of my games the Cutter used it to build a makeshift bomb) and is very useful for downtime projects.

   Safecracking is the same as locks for me: there are various ways to do it. Feeling out the rotary lock in that classic hand-on-the-dial-ear-to-the-safe way is a clear Finesse to me. Someone with Tinkering Tools could use Tinker to cleanly take the mechanism apart. You could use Mayhem or Handle with your Demolition Tools to smash it open or to drill through it. You could use Discern to guess the combination.

   I think Stalk could work as its own Action again but it seems more like Guile to me. I think it can also work as part of Prowl; what I wonder about Prowl is whether it should combine movement and stealth. I kind of like how it does but it also seems a little ‘overpowered’, in that it seems like every PC should have Prowl because it covers such a range of common activity.

   I wonder if it would be valuable to split Prowl into a more common Athleticism/Stealth approach; Movement could stay under Vigor and Sneak could perhaps move into Guile.

   (Of course the problem with splitting and moving anything is that then another Action gets displaced; were anything to move into Guile, I wonder if Sway might be the best elimination. There is some overlap with Deceive in the field of manipulating people, and I might move the ‘charm’ element to Consort, which currently feels a little wimpy.)

6. One of my players made a character with both Supply and Stalk. He found it inspirational, and in the very first session, used supply and stalk to try and figure out where leviathan blood came into the city illegally. Supply to figure out how it moved between middlemen and buyers, trying to trace back to sellers. Then Stalk to follow people around and try and get closer to the source.

   I am fine with letting Supply go, but Stalk is so useful for trailing people and watching your back trail. I don’t like conflating that with how fast you run, whether or not you can swim, your skill in climbing, and your overall body condition (which is what Prowl seems to represent to me.)

   I could see it as Guile, but really it’s about not losing sight of the target as much as not getting spotted, so I can see Insight too.

   Consort has been a powerhouse action in my various groups. It is how you network, how you gather gossip, and how you make people comfortable around you so you can gain their trust.

   Sway has also been very useful, but it is more focused on persuasion and manipulation than Consort. I like having both.

   As for Tinker… nobody has built a character around it or used it for anything in my games so far that I can recall. I guess I can see that it has a place, but I’d rather see it as a special ability than an action. It takes some significant training to do that kind of work, and as a special ability you could use various actions in service to tinker instead of segregating it.

   Part of that preference is what I want the game to focus on, of course. As a special ability it’s the sort of thing you could choose to build a character around, but it’s not something that’s broadly done by people who may have spent a weekend working on machines. It occurs to me that the prevalence of technology and how many people work with it is greatly suggested by whether this is a common action or not.

7. Have you considered just writing them on your sheet?

   OOOH! I know. If your player reeeally need stalk/supply then let them cross out another ability and write it in!

   There is the possibility that it might fix the issue for your game and add the tactical choice of having to sacrifice one action for another. 

8. Dylan Green I have considered adjusting actions in the list, but I had NOT considered allowing substitute actions.

   That is an intriguing idea. There could be a page or so of “alternate actions” where each of the 4 categories had a number of other actions that were corner cases or not widely used, but could be customized by characters willing to swap things out. That’s actually a really neat idea (even though I get the feeling you’re being sarcastic here.)

   One advantage to Blades in the Dark is that it is fairly modular instead of being tightly integrated, so one change need not affect everything.

   I do feel empowered to adjust things for my table. I’ve already done that for the trauma/vice scale and for the crew sheet. The two main reasons I bring these things up here are so I can get ideas that I had not thought of and perspectives I didn’t get on my own, and also in case my reflections spark ideas for others.

9. I’m not being sarcastic! I think it would be awesome and I would totally offer it to players at my table.

   It’s an approach I considered for Blades Against Darkness at one point.

10. I think where that approach would work best is  in being intentional about how the list of actions represent what most characters do.

    Then each exception represents special training, the touch of the cosmic, the sacrifices of magic, or what have you. To gain the ability to see things differently or do things differently, you must give up something normal people do.

    Explain that if you can’t use something else as a substitute for the action you no longer have, you roll 2d and keep the lowest.

    It’s slick.

11. To build on that example, let’s say I make a Hound. I’m looking at the Insight abilities and feeling totally “meh” about Tinker. But on the alternate action page, I see Stalk, which is totally my jam. I swap it out; my character is well trained to hunt and to follow people, but terrible with machines.

    So you strip Attune and Invoke out altogether, and make those alternate actions that a whisper would need to take, or that a normal character could take if desired. (Normal characters roll 2d6 and keep the lower.)

    I really like this; it helps get at that difficulty of a finite pool of actions for a wide diversity of focus points. There is a core list of actions at the center, but room for some fraying at the fringes that can sharpen up character focus.

    Then you make a special ability that allows a character to swap out an action.

12. At generation, for the quickstart alternate actions are not available. For normal campaigns, recommend no more than 1 per 4 categories, with special abilities to gain more. And of course, the GM option to throw the doors wide if that’s what’s desired by the group.

13. If I were to strip out Attune and Invoke so they were special substitutable actions, what would I substitute? Intimidate and Perform.

    Intimidation is hugely useful and not overtly covered by anything else.

    Perform, because I see a more culturally rich setting where everybody knows songs, maybe also dances, instruments, storytelling; some method of expression that can be used as part of a cover or as a distraction or as an “in” to another artist etc.

14. I think Attune and Invoke are fine as-is with Duskwall- Invoke has some broad uses, and Attune can be useful for non-Whispers since it also covers spirit detection and communication (especially good for a Slide with Ghost Voice).

    I’ve also thought about replacing Attune with an Intimidation-esque action (maybe something like Bravado) because I’m working on a setting without magic. Swaying someone with bravado is part of Sway at the moment but I think it could stand on its own.

15. Bravado is not the only way to intimidate. There are lots of ways to do it. That is one reason I’d put it on its own. I mean, you could argue that Command, Murder, Mayhem, etc. could be used to intimidate, but I like it as a center that draws attention and offers a person making a character a chance to choose it as an action.

    I’d include Invoke in a setting with powerful religion, but the religion in Duskwall doesn’t feel like it garners a lot of faith; it’s almost secular and more philosophical. In a setting with fanatics or in a religiously based culture, it makes more sense to me. I like the idea that it is optional but doesn’t come standard.

    Of course, this is all reflection and toying with ideas. These ultimately are not my decisions to make, though I do see how a shadowy Duskwall hack might emerge from the end result of all the play at my table. =)

16. I don’t think you want to give any access to moves that are not on your sheet (not 2D6 pick lowest. Nothing) because if you do you are simply making a secondary list of actions that everyone has at rank 0 and which are not part of the set groups. Giving up tinker for stalk means machines are utterly alien to you and you will only mess them up. Sacrificing one action for another is fictionally positioning your character.

17. My only hesitation there is for group actions; I guess you could say they automatically fail any action they don’t have. That would be fine too.

18. I’ve just skimmed this thread as I head out the door but, briefly: You can totally Tinker a lock open. They’re actions not outcomes. Are you finessing it? How do you do that? Okay. Are you tinkering with it? How do you do that? Okay. Are you mayhem-ing the lock open? How do you do that? Okay.

    Actions are about what your character is doing, not what they might achieve by doing that. Mix and match action and goal as the situation demands, and set the position for the action roll accordingly.

19. As I think about actions there are a few things going on.

    One: is it clear? Can a player look at the action and immediately figure out (or easily remember) what it means to do that? Is there a clearer word that communicates what’s going on there?

    Two: does it point towards the desired style? This is a game about heists and empire building in a haunted city of shadows. Everything should point towards how to get to that sort of game as cleanly and simply as possible.

    Three: is this a good center? Fringe cases can be worked out, but from the center of clear meaning of the action word, can you see how it would be used in various situations? If it is focused in just one direction, or if it is unclear, that’s less effective. A variety of uses should come to mind.

    I know I overthink things, and I’ve made peace with that over the years. =)

20. Yep, that matches my criteria, Andrew. The current list of actions isn’t qualifying 100%.

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