On a reread of the latest draft this morning I noted that gangs/crews can accrue a Wanted status but not individuals. This loophole could be exploited in fiction by starting a new gang with the same individuals and letting the hot gang name fall be the wayside. I guess this isn’t the intent but putting the Wanted label on individuals might be an interesting option.
Another item was that I was unable to determine how a crews Wanted status was generated. Heat was clear enough but not Wanted.
.
I asume like in Peaky Blinders, a wanted status include a wanted on each member and sometimes their close relationships too. So its basicly still in wanted if the disperse and join different groups. Maybe if a hightly wanted person joins a relatively unknown crew and it gets known, half his wanted could be add to the new crew.
You get Wanted when you fill out Heat +1 and it resets. Then it’s always there in addition to heat, a more antagonistic relationship with the authorities that can’t be cleared off easily. To get rid of that you have to work at it, figure out a fictional method and pull heists to manage it.
The Heat/Wanted abstraction is one I struggle with myself. I’m torn between having Heat tie directly to bluecoats and inspectors and the law, or having it tie to the Powers that Be including influential aristocrats or bigger factions being annoyed.
The thing I’m going to do with that is percolating below the surface, I’ll know what I think when my brain spits out a draft.
The good news is I think I’ll eventually have a version of Blades in the Dark I’ll be really happy with when the time comes for hacks to be shared. The bad news is, I doubt anyone will play it with me. Ah, the woes of customization.
Pretty sure the Heat/Wanted is general regarding how exposure you have to anyone who has it out for you. It doesn’t just apply to the Bluecoats since it’s possible to actually have good faction status with them.
Colin Fahrion It is a very abstract notion, yes. I find it difficult that its very broad application has no relationship to faction status except you might get less when operating in friendly territory.
I would rather heists affect faction status, and let THAT determine how hard people are gunning for you. “Wanted” is so abstract I don’t even know what to do with it in play.
You can have no Wanted and no Heat but still have four factions at -3 taking an interest in you. Or you can use your diplomancy to make as many friends as possible and still have a heist generate heat not reflected anywhere in your factions.
And while I guess you could disband your gang and start a new one to get rid of heat but as a GM I’d only allow that if they moved to a new city and they would have to start fresh as a tier 0 gang. I mean it has to make sense in the fiction and in the fiction no one is gonna be fooled by you just renaming your gang and keeping the same members.
Colin Fahrion That gets back to the issue that some things you leave to the group to adjudicate through common agreement of what’s sensible, and other things you mechanize. Blades in the Dark is the wrong game to mechanize all the things. If the GM says “Guys, that’s silly and it won’t work” then the players either need to come up with some compelling roguery so it might, or accept the ruling based on context.
Andrew Shields I see heat as general negative interest that you have no control over. No matter how you smooth shit offer with the various factions there will always be some random someone or something taking an interest. I mean look at the entanglement chart. It’s mostly just random gangs and ghosts and demons and others taking interest in you just because you are there doing stuff and word gets around.
Colin Fahrion I get that, and I understand that’s what the abstract means, but that’s one of the abstracts that doesn’t grab me. A general sense of attention and danger. I am not saying it is bad or doesn’t work, but I can say I don’t like that abstraction and I prefer the idea of angry and active factions to an overall cloud of danger.
The faction system is built in, it’s right there. I could see having a heat clock to fill to change faction status, but the Heat/Wanted structure sits uneasily in my mind.
Luckily I dont play by the line of each sentence, but by what feels right. I dont care to play by the book and solve such irregularities on the fly.
I have a lengthy and well documented case of the overthinking its. =)
Seem so 😛