I am having some trouble in my table with the idea that a character who reaches maximum stress disappears from the…

I am having some trouble in my table with the idea that a character who reaches maximum stress disappears from the…

I am having some trouble in my table with the idea that a character who reaches maximum stress disappears from the current heist.

My players actually want to get some traumas for their characters, but nobody just wants to leave play in the middle of a heist because… Well, we meet to play and if they max their stress they can’t play anymore for that score.

Since the GM doesn’t give stress to the players, they’re the only ones that can willingly take the stress to improve their rolls or resist consequences, but when they have enough stress boxes marked they just stop helping each other, stop pushing themselves and, if the consequence is not inmediately lethal, stop resisting consequences. In other words, the game becomes more boring for them (but even this is better to have their character put of the action!). The only case one of the players got a trauma was because everybody knew that this was the last action of the score.

Does anybody else have the same problem? I’ve been thinking in changing the rule to let a max stress character remain in the score and duplicate every following stress spend, or something like that. How would you do it?

11 thoughts on “I am having some trouble in my table with the idea that a character who reaches maximum stress disappears from the…”

  1. I think you may have misread the rule. See page 13. Note the wording:

    “You’re dropped out of the current conflict.”

    Conflict, not score. Taking trauma doesn’t remove you from the entire score.

  2. I’m pretty sure I misinterpreted that rule on my first read through too.

    You can think of each scene during a score as having, at minimum, one conflict that needs to get resolved (sometime there are multiple).

    conflict = obstacle = challenge

  3. Somewhat related to this – in our game we talked about how there is “the crew” and “the PCs” and how the game is primarily the story of the overall crew.

    So whenever the players want a new character they can make one. They can then say “This guy is one of the thugs that have been working as henchmen for the crew. She’s made a name for herself.” and then jump straight into the action without having to establish how she knows the other PCs or why they’re trusting her to join in their crimes.

    It also means if a character is taken out of the score altogether (death? captured? jail?) it’s easy for the player to keep playing.

    Yeah, we’re in a desperate situation without our leech, and don’t have anyone who can pick the lock on that door. But we knew things might go wrong, which is why we had our thugs on lookout. comes running in – “The bluecoats are on their way! No time for subtlety!” and kicks in the door. “Quick! It’s now a smash and grab!”

    There’s a “natural” tradeoff for the player – they get to play something fresh if they’re getting bored, they can manage their real-life stress if the game is getting too emotional with their main character, and the fresh character has no trauma and a lot of in-character stress available to burn. But it means that session’s experience goes to the new character, and their “main” doesn’t gain new skills or coin as quickly, and any item acquisitions, new alchemicals and other RP progress belongs to the old character.

  7. There’s a lot of stuff to learn in Blades. Can’t expect to get it all perfect the first time. 🙂

    Getting trauma’d out for a “scene” is totally fine — a score isn’t one scene long anyway. You’re out for the “dealing with the perimeter guards” scene, then you can come back if you want.

  10. This kind of thing is only a problem if it’s a problem. If everyone just shrugged and were like, oh well I’ll play someone else for the rest of this score, then it’s all good right? That’s not the rule, but it’s no big deal.

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