Thought experiment:
The Score differs from free play in Blades in the Dark Because:
– The Flashback mechanic is available
– It may trigger a payoff/consequences event
How else is it really different? I’ve excluded the starting roll because that’s a framing convenience, not a structural difference, but I’m open to counterarguments. How else does it mechanically differ?
(I’m not sure what problem I’m trying to solve here, but something is niggling at me as I write about confidence games)
– Strictly speaking, Load is only a factor on a Score.
– Besides Flashbacks, some other moves are only available on a Score.
– Some Crew abilities only work during a Score.
I believe it’s a tool, the book already addresses all of this if you check it out. A score is when you zoom into the action, you cut the crap, you get into what is important to complete the goal, you work on a score if it’s interesting, or sounds fun, or w/e your group is interested.
The Score mechanics are a framework for that specifically, the Planning and Engagement Roll let’s you deal with figuring out what the players want do and how, while also allowing you “Cut to the action” to avoid the dull bits.
If some interesting challenge will come up while chasing a goal, if there is some complexity or potential for something exciting, “The Score” is a very useful framing mechanic to use.
Besides all that, Scores also affect pacing and are tied to several other things in the game, all of this information is already in the book.
To clarify, I am not confused about the role of a score, I’m just looking to answer a very specific question.
You don’t get downtime actions after free play; making rolls in free play is suboptimal because it puts you in a worst position for your next score, as there’s no payoff or downtime after it for you to use to recover.
The only real exception is if you’re setting up your next score during free play and any rolls there are necessary for the score in the first place.
With that being said, the free play phase at my table is generally just vignettes, open discussion, and gather info checks.
To your point, it’s not really different than a score. Which for me begs the question: why isn’t it a score?
That is an excellent question, and a little bit on my mind.
My personal answer to “Why isn’t is a Score?” is “So we’re not playing The Sprawl.” Free Play is the padding that makes the loop feel less mechanistic to me, and the score-downtime-score flow more organic.
True – a ton of the roleplaying occurs during Free Play – which, depending on your group, might be the entire point.
I also allow setup actions during Free Play for engagement roll bonuses. It does become seamless after a bit – during one Free Play, the party suddenly realized they were about to do a deception Score and called for an engagement roll. The payoff was a minor one – but the Free Play morphed naturally into a Score.
There have also been situations where the Free Play activities have led to situational advantages two or three scores down the road.
Further, we’re far enough in that the players have begun planning their own scores – depending on their enemy clocks and whose plans they want to screw up. Sometimes the Scores are actually series of Scores to set up a big Score or sometimes they are tiny, nearly inconsequential ones – but they become fairly easy to identify with familiarity.
I think there’s a couple of approaches. The blades one is the town-dungeon distinction.
I always liked the OSR idea of “everything is a dungeon.” you’d need to change a few things under the hood, but it’s a interesting direction to move in.
I’ve used Flashbacks at abandon in Free Play as well as Scores (and I think we’ve even had them in Down-time Actions).
Is it REALLY available only throughout the score?!??
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