When we started Blades back in October, we just had an ambition to try out the game and see if we got the rules and if they were functional. Now almost 5 months later we can say that the xperiment worked and all my traditional players love the game.
One thing I’ve learned is: dont be kind on the engagement roll.
The players were after Ulf Ironborn and after weakening him by attacking his protection racket they were going after the man himself. It all started when Ulf had stolen the groups gambling den in an Entanglement roll (that gambling den has been stolen from them at least twice). That couldn’t be tolerated so Ulf had to die. So after attacking the racket they decided to take out Ulf’s home base by gluing shut the windows and doors of the second story of the building and setting fire to it.
The leech had mixed together a fast acting glue and they attacked from the roof (after a successful Gather Info) with a stealth plan. This was 7.1 where the engagment rules weren’t as clear as now. So I gave them 3 dice (which was at least one too many as they were a tier below Ulf) and rolled three sixes.
Then I said to may players “Ok the doors and windows are glued and you have the torch ready, what do you do?”
After setting the building on fire, I rolled a fortune roll for Ulf and the poor bugger were sleeping dead drunk and his henchmen were afraid to tell him.
After a flashback the Billhooks appeared and mopped up the rest of Ulf’s crew (which made them easy to frame a while later, bringing the Eel’s wanted level down from 3 to 2).
So again, don’t be kind on the engagement rolls.
Wow, that is cold. Or hot, as the case may be. I haven’t had a table get involved with Ulf yet myself.
I will say, I think the kindness was the fortune roll. Personally, I wouldn’t have made one, especially after a crit. A crit should put them in a good position, but it shouldn’t effectively end the score (and I think the position the crew ends up in after their crit is reasonable). Also, I feel like “sir, the world is on fire” is a reasonable excuse to wake someone up.
So unless the PCs set up a flashback to influence/drug/poison/get Ulf drunk, I don’t really see the reason for a fortune roll. Gotta’ make the PCs work for it.
Can I just point out that a triple-crit on Engagement really is pretty darn awesome? 🙂
Blades makes characters very powerful, and gives them a lot of leeway.
I haven’t played a ton yet, but I definitely get the sense that challenging the players is, well, a challenge. It’s also largely up to you – the GM and the group – to decide how much the game is about taking on difficult targets, vs. acting ruthlessly but not necessarily with much opposition. In theory, a score that goes smoothly and well is not a problem — unless what your group really wants is to play scores that don’t go that smoothly.
If you want scores to be difficult and challenging, a lot of that work needs to be done in the fiction. *Make your enemies clever*; if somebody knows he’s got enemies, he’s going to put some decent countermeasures into place. And once a crew sees some action, they should have stirred up plenty of enemies that are gunning for them specifically.
Your crew will still be powerful, because they’ll get to react and plan and flashback around all your info. But that’s the way to go here 🙂
The idea isn’t to go “Oh no, the crew’s idea was too good, they’re going to manage it and it won’t be hard.” Pulling stuff off is great. If they had a good idea, then awesome for them. If what they managed to pull off was “too big” or “too strong,” then a lot of what that means is that the crew will have really caught people’s attention. You know who’s going to be a little annoyed a bunch of PCs are going around literally setting fire to buildings in order to settle scores? Everybody. And that is often the point where the game gets really fun 🙂
Well we all had fun. I gave the players a lot of leeway since I rolled a double crit and the henchmen not waking Ulf was because his description that more or less everyone hates/fears him. It was more like “you made it, let’s go onto the next heist.” 🙂
Haakon Olav Thunestvedt As long as everybody’s enjoying, then all is well 😀
You led with “don’t be kind on the engagement roll,” so I thought you were disappointed at making the score “too easy.”
Maybe I should have read that as “Your players will be cunning bastards”!
Which, yes, they absolutely will 🙂