Started GMing my first campaign of BitD a few days ago, and came across a rules lawyering question with one of my players I’m unsure how to definitively rule on.
In the rules, it says “At the end of each session, for each item below, mark 1 xp (in your playbook or an attribute)”
I read this as meaning the applicable gain goes to the applicable point. Desperate action rolls = attribute xp gain, and end of session playbook xp gain applies only to playbook xp. My player insists that the wording means end of session xp can be applied to either.
Desperate rolls go to attributes. All other can go anywhere.
Chris McDonald Any specific reasoning or citation? Or just your interpretation of the rule?
Jeff Long the games run by John Harper​ the game designer explain this. youtube.com – RollPlay: Blades – Week 1, Part 4 @ minute 27:35
well that’s pretty much the exact kind of reference I was looking for. I even watched that episode and apparently missed that. I’ll let my player know I was wrong, thanks!
Desperate xp is marked at the time you make the action roll (page 9). So when it says “in a playbook or an attribute,” it’s referring specifically to end-of-session xp. Also, like Chris McDonald has said, it’s how John does it.
Jeff Long no problem, it might also help to look at the rule book as, it has a specific line for desperate xp and says it specifically goes to the attribute. Then there is a separate line discussing all of the other xp and says it can go to either or.
Chris McDonald I’ve definitely checked and read the rule book a couple times. My problem was that I interpreted the section on advancement as referring to all kinds of advancement, desperate rolls included. So I assumed the “or” was also separating the two types. Rather than ignoring the specific xp gain from desperate rolls, and talking simply about advancement in general.
I understand now though, so thanks again.
Jeff Long Yeah I feel you man, I’ve seen a lot of games fumble xp here and there. That’s why I wanted to offer a potential different way of looking at. The page is broken up into bullet points with the triggers being a different bullet point each desperate being the first and explaining it then there’s a visual division between desperate and the rest of the triggers that says the rest can go either.
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll try to make this more clear in the text if I can.