A question about the use of Rivals and Enemies in your game: How proactive should these NPCs be and to what extent are they involved in the events? The book doesn’t seem too clear on this. Do you have your enemies and rivals waiting in the wings to crop up when rolls go bad or entanglements are needed, or would you have them activily working against the PCs? I really want to start introducing some of these NPCs to the game but I’m worried I’d bog the players down in conflicts not of their choosing in freeplay – having to use valuable stress boxes/resources to deal with them etc. In other PbtA games there are Principles like – Make the Characters Lives Not Boring; there is a sense it is the GMs job to introduce trouble to the characters lives and watch what happens. With the sandbox style of Blades – would this be appropriate? My players are new to sandbox play so I’m trying to find ways to prod them into action!
A question about the use of Rivals and Enemies in your game: How proactive should these NPCs be and to what extent…
A question about the use of Rivals and Enemies in your game: How proactive should these NPCs be and to what extent…
To say they’re conflicts not of the players’ choosing is not entirely accurate. Yes, players are forced to choose one contact as their rival/enemy at character creation, but they are free to define the specific nature of that relationship (and the GM should encourage players to do so).
Example: Constance is a Cutter, and the leader of the Porcelain Dolls, an up-and-coming gang in Crow’s Foot. Constance grew up in the Docks, and her enemy Grace is one of the top figures in the unions there, using her position of power to extort money from anyone and everyone looking to move goods via ship. Any time the Dolls do business in the Docks, you can be sure that Grace is going to hear about it, and get involved. Mechanically, this is represented by the -1d to the Engagement roll, but it also means I’ve got free reign to put her in any scene happening in the Docks if there’s a reasonable likelihood of her network of informants picking up on Constance showing her hat in her old stomping grounds.
Bottom line, it’s not enough for a player to just pick a name and fill in a down arrow. Encourage them to give a little context to why this person is their enemy.
I’ve frequently seen folk assume the down arrow is an enemy, actively working against the PC. That’s a choice, but not the only one. The book lists other options. My PC’s life gets complicated when his ex-girlfriend shows up, cuz she wants to get back together, and he’s involved with someone new. Or, my PC’s brother shows up – the successful one, the one mom likes more. Someone who when they show up complicates things.
Someone who just hates your PC can be boring.
I like to use enemies as part of Devil’s Bargains, because they may interfere at an inconvient time and it’s up to player if he/she took the DG. So, the story is not forced on the player and the GM learns with player wants to have his/her enemy on screen.
Using them as a complication is cool, too: The player may resist if they want to but the NPCs is part of the story.
I’ve definitely had them show up as part of a complications and entanglements. They travel in similar circles to the PCs, so their paths are bound to overlap sometimes. I don’t usually have them actively planning against the PCs unless there’s been a reason established in game (particularly if the Rival’s faction is at war with the crew).
Inserting them into gangs that the PCs are tangling with is effective. The Spider in the game I run had a rivalry with Riven the chemist. So when the PC’s crew of Hawkers were trying to interfere with the Red Sashes’ drug dealings in Crow’s Foot by trying to uncover their supplier, it was a great moment when it was revealed that the Spider’s rival was their target.
Obviously, this only works if your players leave certain details ambiguous. Make sure to have a conversation about all the friends and rivals of the PCs to make sure you aren’t messing with your players’ agency.
Thanks for the replies – very useful! I think my problem is I haven’t fully fleshed out the NPC’s yet with the players so I don’t know where they would be and what trouble they could get up to. It seems arbitrary to just plonk them down somewhere. And the reason the npcs are a bit sketchy is that we’re playing kinda troupe play – with different players bringing along different scoundrels each night (we are a roleplaying club with a regular game but rotating players), all belonging to the same Crew (we have a cast of about 8 scoundrels in the Crew).
So I will start to dig into the npc’s a bit more and try to give them some life. And then it should make more sense when and where to use them.
In the last game I was running what I started doing was offering XP to the group if they proactively said that a Rival would interfere in a score. The question is asked during the Engagement Roll but it was never answered “yes” unless I as the GM arbitrarily decided to throw someone at them and that never felt appropriate to me. So I put it on the players to decide when their Rivals would pop up. Worked pretty well.