So I’ve been GMing my first game of Blades and my group are playing Shadows who do low level espionage for some of the nobles. On our last session, I’d given them a tail and report job to go find out information about an NPC and they suddenly came to a conclusion I hadn’t anticipated and just decided they didn’t need to know anymore and were going to go home and report back. I didn’t want to break the fiction and be like actually thats not it keep looking so I paid them out as though it were a regular successful score and let them go into downtime activities. I mean they weren’t quitting the score and they technically fulfilled the client’s wishes. Has anyone run into something like this before and if so how did you handle it?
I’m currently leaning towards the client acting on their incorrect information and having it blow up in the client’s face (either on or off screen). Then I can have that come back on the crew somehow. But I don’t want to have it negate what I’ve already ruled a successful score – i.e. the client demands repayment or they do a job for free or the get a reputation for sloppy work. I mean it was a totally valid interpretation of the information they had gained from the tail I’d just set it up assuming they would keep going and dig deeper and get to the twist. Anyone have suggestions?
Give the crew some more info during downtime (rumors maybe).
I think it’s valid in this case for the client to start working against them (maybe have them be at a -2 with the client) and have them work to harder to prove themselves. Though, if something similar happens again you could give them less rep, because as word gets out about their actions, so will the realization that they messed up.
Depends on the tone and culture of the game you are trying to encourage, right? If you want them to be paranoid about making sure they have the “right” information, or all of it, then give them clear in-game consequences for not digging deep enough. This will inform their behaviors in the future though, so make sure that’s the direction you want to go.
Otherwise just feed them the info or change the setting to fit with their assumptions. It would all depend on what you want them to take away from the experience, imo. The book talks about setting precedence… and while it is specifically talking about position and effect, I feel like the concept applies to tone at the table as well.