There’s been talk about how some players are having problems with accomplishing goals in Blades sessions, and PCs getting stressed out too quickly.
I’ve found both in games I’ve ran and games I’ve played in, that how you avoid this problem, and adjust the feeling of power to the level desired by the people at your table, is by reducing the number of effect segments required to do things, and not being a slave to the number of clocks on the table. You don’t always need to fill them all! Try making a lot of the obstacles not actually have clocks, effectively clock size 1, (skip effect roll)
Another big aspect is that there’s actually and invisible 4th position to the right of Controlled. You could call it “You Win.” The positions in BitD are literally a way to adding mechanics to narrative positioning, how well you’re set up in the fiction to accomplish something. A lot of the time your players have made a great plan, or are trying to do something that is effectively trivial, (or you don’t want to slow the game down spending too much time on it…) in those cases, when you can’t think of a danger use the “You Win” position, skip straight to effect. (and a lot of those situations would be 1 segment clocks anyway)
Oh also, create dangers that your players might be willing to accept instead of spending stress, and encourage them to bring armour…
I’m intrigued by the fourth category, “You Win” – There may be some cases where the PCs can definitely get the effect they want, but they may or may not be exposed to danger in doing so.
Would you see this as a controlled test, to allow for a chance of danger, but a one segment clock to ensure success regardless of danger manifesting?
Imagine a cutter facing down a kid with a knife. Sure, you’re gonna take that knife from the kid, but you just might get cut if your luck goes bad.
Or perhaps a situation where the Slide is trying to bribe a willing informant for information. Success is a sure thing, but maybe it costs more or less, or maybe they’re seen talking. Maybe a “You Win” situation, so no action roll is needed at first, but roll for effect on a two/three segment clock, and if you don’t fill out the clock on the first roll, we need to run a test to see if they raise their price, if you’re seen talking, etc.
I can see room for options like this to add tension and provoke reaction without putting forward an obstacle that can really slow down the progress.
I discovered that I asked a lot more Effect than Action rolls. The conditional “When your PC pursues a goal that’s blocked by an obstacle” its a great guideline that a lot of us might be ignoring.
“What I know about Lord Scurlock mansion?”
“Dunno, wanna find out? Maybe with Insight?”
The “acceptable” dangers idea i really like. I do think it takes a mindset of wanting to see your character hit both the highs and the lows, though, something i never really wanted to see until i got into PbtA games.
I was in a game over the weekend where my Cutter was put into an arm-bar, i was out of armor, and stress was running high. I chose to let my arm get broken, and subsequently pulled a knife out and violated an implied “fair fight”.
That danger being realized helped me get a feeling for my character, established a cool scene, and my poor Cutter limped away alive, but knowing he was defeated and shamed.
Any combination of clock sizes and reaction to partial successes can work, depending on what you find feels best at your table, both for your players and for your GM style. Something very interesting is that the Controlled rolls can’t actually have danger manifest, they can only reveal a danger and ask the player if they want to escalate to Risky now that the danger has presented itself. So you don’t actually need to think of a danger at all until a player rolls a 1-3!
I think the difference between Controlled and You Win, is to ask yourself the questions, could a danger possibly manifest here? and how important is this event to the fiction? / how long do I want to spend on this? (players taking time to ask about backgrounds and asking for devils bargains)
Andrew Fish That specific example of a Cutter vs. a little kid with a knife is actually really interesting! There are lots of ways you could run it. Depending on how your group likes to play, it feels like either you just say yep, you totally outclass this kid, You Win, tell me how you teach him a lesson. Or if you want to keep the possibility of the kid getting a stab in, you could go down to controlled, and (this is interesting, since theres actually no danger on a controlled roll) offer getting stabbed by the kid as a devil’s bargain. (normally I wouldn’t offer something like that as a devil’s bargain since it would already be on the table as the danger, but since it’s controlled, you could do that) Then if he rolls a 1-3 you “reveal a flaw in the approach” by saying oh shit, you think you hear his dad/big brother coming, you can try again at risky, but the danger is that his friend arrives. Something like that?
hmmm I am unable to see the problem. If the players roll 5-4 on a risky move, some danger manifests, so what? I just include some partial danger manifestion, or do a GM move behind the curtains of play, setting up the gears of doom on clock-mark further.
They get a 4 on a risky roll agains a magic barrier? They dont feel anything beside the Whisper who recognised that they got marked by magic.
They got a fight-roll risky 5 ? Cloths get ripped, a fleshound or a weapon breaks, why use up stress at all here? The characters are not made of thin paper (ingame), but they still kill the guard on a good effect roll.
What I think, mostly would be crazy to create clocks more than 2/3/4 segments from a 4-5 on risky. I either just add flavor or build up threads manifesting, or speed up a danger clock. But to have a dangerclock cascade is a bit out of what I concider good play in BitD.
Josephe Vandel Not entirely sure if what you’re saying here applies to this topic, but this is generally good advice, some of your suggestions get harder to do since you are encouraged to define the danger before a roll is made.
I was refering to:
“There’s been talk about how some players are having problems with accomplishing goals in Blades sessions, and PCs getting stressed out too quickly.”
Oh well, I do define some dangers rather broad, others more defined.
Miss a prowl on a rooftop hunt? You will slip your footing and risky roll to see if you fall down or just sprain your ancle.
Handling magic traps? Danger could be simply: You know something will stick to you, or will influence your score, if you fail. It streams an aura of many strings, like a spiders web. (Tracking Magic to find the players)
I like to inform a broad area of danger and their intensity, yes. But details will only be revail by successfull attune roll or another good insight effect.
Actually, my players dont even want to always know the full danger. They feel it as boring.
But well, they are not chicken out to loose a character by trauma max out.
Here’s one way the example could go down.
If I had a cutter trying to take a knife from a brat, I’d call it a controlled situation with +1d for having an order of magnitude greater advantage. The danger that could manifest would be slashed fingers on one hand, affecting things requiring a grip.
So, if the cutter made the attempt and got a critical, then there is an additional opportunity; totally cowing the brat, or also getting a backup weapon from the kid. On a 6, the cutter gets the knife, easy as pie. ON a 4-5, the cutter can either take the hand injury (a 1 segment injury clock to deal with during recovery that affects tasks requiring grip) or rolls Resistance to see how much stress to avoid the effect. On 1-3, either the cutter abandons the attempt and lets the brat keep the knife, or the situation escalates to risky; the brat gets the knife up by the cutter’s throat, and stammers out that he’s going to kill him.
Andrew Shields
Hmm! it sounds like if on a 4/5 the Cutter is taking a lasting effect it is a risky roll since a 4/5 on controlled is “You do it with reduced effect (-1
level), or try for full effect by taking a
bigger risk and rolling a risky move.” No mention of a danger manifesting, not to say that making it a risky move with a minor danger isn’t a totally legit way of running it.
On a slightly tangential note, am I the only GM who feels amazing every time I get to say “Make a Controlled Mayhem roll”? The delightful absurdity of it makes me smile.
Too much words on my side but “not to say that making it a risky move with a minor danger isn’t a totally legit way of running it.” is the thing I wanted to say.
Chris Boyd Of course you’re right. No danger on the controlled. The slashed hand could be a danger manifesting for the risky move. Good call.
Dangers that players might accept is hugely important. If a danger is really unacceptable, then the player doesn’t get to make an interesting decision.
However, I think it also takes players a few sessions to realize that even nasty-sounding lasting conditions are pretty easily recoverable, mechanically at least. Four of my players last night each ended up with a 4-segment lasting conditions of various types (and one was 6), and all but one mechanically cleared their clock completely during the downtime immediately after the score.
So even nasty things aren’t really that bad, and now that my players are accepting that (even more permanent things like lost limbs or contacts, etc) I am seeing their creativity open up to much more fascinating stories. Actually the very worst effects are purely fictional with no lasting effect clock, because those require special effort to recover, or they’re just irreversible.
It should work out kind of opposite to D&D. In D&D hit points go down all the time but it doesn’t actually mean anything. In Blades PCs should end up with bruises, cuts, scrapes, concussion, and other assorted lumps and bumps, but each one of those is a time when stress WASN’T taken.
Like D&D, though, overuse of save/stress or die is a bad thing.
Also, I think it’s worth recognizing “You Win” as a standard game positioning. You don’t roll to walk. You don’t roll to turn the doorknob and walk through the door. Sure, you could trip and fall, stub your toe, bang your shin, or suffer life’s other indignities, but most of the time most of the things you do aren’t interesting enough to roll.
Deciding when not to roll—say yes or roll the dice, in Vincent Baker and/or Burning Wheel parlance—is important!
I’m working on the triggers for rolls right now, in fact. There’s a lot of “good practice” that’s been developed for the game that I want to encode into the procedures to make it easier for first timers.