I’m gearing up to run my second-ever game of Blades this Saturday, and would love any advice folks have.
I’ve run it once before (a one shot with three people, two of whom will play in this next iteration). This will also likely be a one-shot; we don’t have a rotation slot in our usual bi-weekly game right now, and work is keeping me busy.
At this point I’ve done a good bit to prepare – I’ve got a fun prop or two, index cards, and a bunch of the PDF reference sheets printed out. I was planning to go with the Riots starter, but realized that I found the idea of generating the first heist off their faction relationships too compelling. I also did a dry-run on the mechanics with a friend to refresh myself. Big takeaway there was to make sure I knew which factions I’d like to throw into the mix character and crew creation.
I’ve gotten some color and info out to folks ahead of time, and everyone has strong favorites for their character playbooks – it looks like we’ll have a diverse crew: Hound, Slide, Leech, Spider, and Whisper. Although it’s pretty open, current opinions are trending towards a Shadow or Cult crew.
So, yeah – thoughts and opinions are welcome!
It runs pretty smooth Scott if you just ask lots of leading questions during chargen.
Sounds like you have it all sorted. Definitely follow through on the factions you are interested in and as provocative questions (similar to the style of Sean Nittner in his heist one-page setups) to tangle the players into those factions.
I’d print off a few of the district map / Profile illustrations to have on hand for colour and quick Reference (to save flicking through the book).
If you can, I thoroughly recommend Andrew Shields’s Heist deck for quick inspiration for threats / scores / dinguses and NPC generation.
Guillaume Tavernier’s Illustrative maps make great lairs for your crew.
I have some little skull beads I use for stress.
The Disonoured Video Game Tarot Deck makes for a great alternative to dice for Fortune Rolls (you only have 4 suits and thus max pool of 4 ‘dice’). I love having that deck sitting next to me like a fortune teller as we play and making a big show of drawing a card 🙂
Have fun! And let us know how it goes.
Awesome advice, Nathan Roberts. Thanks!
I printed out Stefan Struck’s awesome map and got it laminated, and I printed out a couple of the almost-blank maps as well. I’ll make sure to post a writeup on how things go!
I have that deck, Nathan. That’s a great idea!