Andrew Shields – Page 24 – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

Here is a reference sheet I made for my Unrecommendable crew.

Here is a reference sheet I made for my Unrecommendable crew. They’ve had four sessions, and in that time they’ve done all sorts of unrecommendable things.

This has a roster of names of people and places, their crew sheet, and their faction allegiances.

https://fictivefantasies.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/the-unrecommendables-6-30-15.pdf

The Unrecommendables ride again, this time in Hidden Depths. This is their fourth session.

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/blades-in-the-dark-unrecommendables/

We had an interesting evening, with a number of interrupted heist preps, or mini-heists, linking smaller work towards bigger goals. It was interesting to figure when to add in down time. We did so when they needed to clear stress or work on background projects.

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/blades-in-the-dark-unrecommendables

A new special ability anyone can take:

Eye Shine

The operation takes 3 coin and 6 hours, with a 4 segment recovery clock. A skilled and trained whisper, alchemist, and physick must be involved. Eye Shine allows the character to see in the dark, and also see electroplasm. Unless there is warding magic concealing electroplasm, the character can now visually identify hollows, vampires, possessed bodies, ghosts, and other electroplasmic phenomenon. Demon energy is not visible. The character’s eyes reflect light and have a soft blue glow from the pupils.

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/riddick/images/3/34/Its_a_animal_thing.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width/250?cb=20120113194049

A new special ability anyone can take:

Meat Lock.

Pay 2 coin to get a tattoo with special inks done by an expert trained whisper, roughly the size of a palm. As long as the tattoo is on the character, the character cannot be possessed by a ghost. The meat lock also counts as a fine item in repelling other supernatural possession effects.

A new special ability anyone can take:

Replant.

The operation costs 4 coin and requires knowledgeable participation of a whisper, an alchemist, and a physick in an operation that takes about 12 hours and requires a 6 segment downtime recovery clock.

A cyst of electroplasm is lodged somewhere in the character’s torso. When the character dies, the spirit is released instead of being tied to the body. The spirit has 24 hours to inhabit a hollow. Once a hollow is inhabited, and once the body is where it can go into a coma for a week, the cyst finishes opening. The hollow will be transformed to exactly resemble the dead character, complete with physical and mental and spiritual qualities.

New special ability anyone can take:

Will to Go On. Reduce Trauma by 1.

This special ability can be taken up to three times; once for relationships, once for “the mission,” and once for vengeance.

Just some ongoing reflections about actions.

So now we have three actions for combat, and one for movement. Stealth, swimming, climbing, running–all of it is Prowl. If you are good at stealth, you are good at sports. If you are good at climbing, you are good at swimming. Movement is movement.

An individual can no longer cultivate skill in managing contacts and buying things. Jean Reno’s character Vincent from Ronin is no longer something you can mechanically represent in the game. You don’t have a fixer, and if you want to buy things or fence them or whatever you must fall back on your gang’s tier as the only method to do so.

To clarify, that means the only way you can get better at fencing things and purchasing esoteric materials is by getting in a bigger criminal enterprise. You can’t do it freelance. Even if you were once really good at it, you change affiliations and you suck again.

I believe Secure has been broken down into Discern and Finesse. Lock picking and sleight of hand are conflated into a single action, as is safe cracking, escaping bonds, and disarming traps. I’m not delighted by this, but I can live with it I guess.

What if tinker, a VERY specific concept, was broadened to mechanics? What if it was then used for locks, traps, and devices?

I do not think this needs a mechanical change, but I hope in the full version of the game there is a treatment of how to do art. If doing a painting, you may mix discern and finesse to fill a clock, and to get a masterpiece there must be at least one critical success. Playing music could be finesse, or sway. Sight reading music may be cipher.

I do think there is room to make a whole set of special abilities for applying actions to art to gain certain effects; forgery, shifting the mood of the audience, distraction, applications for dance for seduction or movement, composing or virtuoso playing for fame and fortune, and that sort of thing.

I would not make a playbook of it, but I would make it available so any playbook could take the special abilities to make art and performance part of their characters in a way that could be useful to downtime or heists.

I have some reflections on the game after my session last night.

One is, this idea is super-fun and I’m glad I got it to the table at last.

https://plus.google.com/115462175177465088519/posts/GaBxckA8M3S

Let’s talk rules for a minute.

Any doubts I had are gone, on how great it is merging the action and effect roll. It’s smooth, intuitive, and good stuff altogether.

I’m not sure if this is right, but I ruled that when one person takes a point of stress to grant another person +1d, then the helping character doesn’t need to make a roll to be a part of a group action.

For example, if a whisper is using Attune to get through a spooky environment while damping the signature of life force that attracts ghosts, someone could spend 1 stress and contribute +1d to the ghost and not have to roll to see if the whisper takes stress for leading the action or not.

Is that right? I welcome other thoughts. It was a really nice way for non-skilled people to help out and not make the leader more vulnerable to failure; automatic stress, yes, but helping the whole group.

Previously I had been sort of willfully ignorant in using fine quality items, letting them grant +1 on the action roll rather than +1 effect. The main reason for this was because there is only an effect if there is a clock to fill, otherwise the action roll does it all. So your fine equipment does not help at all for a simple roll, and that’s awful.

I think it might be cool to let the player choose whether they grant +1d on the roll or +1 effect. With multiple items that could apply, perhaps one of each. (Like a whisper with a spirit mask, and a signet ring of the ghost in question.)

I miss rolling for heat. I miss rolling for the development.

I was skeptical of entanglement at the beginning of the mission, but it was fun for the mission where they snuck in; the nobleman got home two days early, and they had to scramble. =)

I like getting two actions for downtime instead of free actions and an optional action.

For my games, I am inverting the vice/trauma. You clear stress with 4 dice with 0 trauma, -1d per point of trauma. It really helped us get stress cleared so we could do two heists in one session, and it creates a penalty for gaining trauma instead of a bonus.

I hope this feedback is helpful.

Ran a session of Blades in the Dark last night at my game table in real space.

Ran a session of Blades in the Dark last night at my game table in real space. We had a great time! Here is a play report.

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/06/27/blades-in-the-dark-the-professors/

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/06/27/blades-in-the-dark-the-professors

I am still troubled by the way trauma and vice fit together.

I am still troubled by the way trauma and vice fit together. I’m seriously considering swapping it for my games, and here is a discussion exploring that idea.

https://plus.google.com/113881370051836623777/posts/AvDyjgPgvaH

For my games online with gangs, it doesn’t matter. We won’t do down time for those anyway.