Andrew Shields – Page 30 – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

I have a thought about offering devil’s bargains.

I have a thought about offering devil’s bargains. I have been offering them BEFORE the roll, because the suspense is high there. It could be interesting also to offer the bargain AFTER the roll, so you either dig yourself in deeper or get yourself out.

That way it could be interesting to see whether it was the bargain that saved you specifically, instead of seeing an increase in your overall odds.

This could be especially interesting if the bargain came to represent an element of fate that might take an interest in a crew’s activities.

One side effect is that the players would be much more open to bargains once they face the consequence of a bad roll. They are more vulnerable at that point, but they could be saved if they agree to accept a consequence that becomes inevitable whether the following roll succeeds or not.

In fact, using BOTH approaches means you could have the softer easier bargains offered before rolling. But any bargain offered after the dice were rolled could be significantly harder-edged.

Just thinking out loud.

I would like to see some reflection in the full rules about how best to handle missions outside the normal scope of…

I would like to see some reflection in the full rules about how best to handle missions outside the normal scope of a single crew acting.

Now that I can play online, I could see setting up more than one crew that all play in my Duskwall. Then I could see having an evening where this crew is going to play, and those from other crews might be hired on as mercenary help, or come along for the fun, or have aligning purposes.

It would be useful to have a side note about what to do about allies who might go along with a crew, and also what to do if there are people from multiple crews who band together to do a heist outside any of their crew purviews.

Or, if you had a couple crews with a couple members each, those four rogues could go on a heist with both crews.

I think a game this flexible wants to avoid a situation where people make a crew member just to play once, or can’t mix characters because they aren’t in the same crews. Still, there are issues of coin, hold, and so on that may need to be addressed. If you go on a heist without your crew, do you still get your crew special abilities? That sort of thing.

A final thought in that direction: what if you’ve got a crew with a loner type who wants to run off and do things in solo play sometimes? How does that interact with the crew sheet?

Just some thoughts.

Devil’s bargains! Here are some I offered in the last game, and whether or not the players took them.

* The Hound was pursued by angry duelist bodyguards on the snow-slicked street. He could drop his very fine rifle for 1d. (NO)

* The crew was trying to blend in, moving through a whaling ship. They could get 1d if they would for certain meet someone the Hound knew from his whaling days. (YES) And I would decide how this past acquaintance felt about him based on the success of the action roll.

* The crew was trying to find hidden treasure in the whaler captain’s quarters. They could get 1d if their magical finding talisman made with very dark magics somehow broke open whether they found the treasure or not. (NO, that thing creeped them out!)

I’ll put more in the comments if I can remember them. What bargains have you offered, and did players take them?

I think there may be room for a third kind of activity.

I think there may be room for a third kind of activity. We have heists and downtime currently. I think it might be useful to codify “react” as an action that can be triggered by the GM or by an entanglement.

Heist is a proactive mission. Down time is what happens between those missions. I see “react” as coping with an attack on hold, coin, or crew members. Any decent crew is going to be making enemies. The inspectors especially, and other crews that have their ear to the ground and pick up on the crew’s activity may take an interest. They may attack, or shut down lucrative opportunities, or punish allies, or even raid the lair.

There is an example of this in the quick start, with someone maybe wanting to stab a character in her sleep, and what do you do? But that doesn’t fit in as a heist, and it’s a bit odd as down time; it would feel punitive, out of nowhere, I think.

I have represented “heat” to my players as being trouble not just with the law, but other factions. So a mechanic might tie into heat; the hotter things get, the more likely either a downtime reaction is triggered as an attack on the crew, its assets, and its allies; or as a full-blown reaction mission, where kidnapping or assassination or theft escalate to actually damage character and crew.

This plays into the grit of a game where you are pushing on people who are likely to push back. You don’t get to choose the point of engagement all the time; you devastate them by hitting their weak points, and surely they’ll respond in kind.

Just a thought.

Some other on-the-fly worldbuilding I did in this session:

If you want to drink yourself into oblivion, there is a pricey alcohol that is tainted with leviathan blood. It takes your dreams deep in the crushing black.

The lead harpoonist on a whaler had her arm taken by a leviathan. She got another one carved out of bone, covered in glyphs, and she activated it by thrusting it into the eye of a still-living leviathan. Now it works like a normal arm. Also, she rarely shows her teeth, but when she does smile, you can see she’s got scrimshaw on her teeth. It is best not to ask why. Her aura and shadow is writhing and deep with the massive lives she’s taken.

When the leviathan hunting ships are in port, whispers wearing bone masks with only one eye hole roam the killing floor and the rest of the ship with their long wands, spooling up death energies and the raging spirits of slain demon whales. This cleansing has to happen each port of call. If you skip it, the death energy builds and horrible, horrible things happen aboard the ship.

The killing floor on the top deck of the ship has a gummy layer of leviathan blood on it. Bits of bone and higher bits of metal are not covered, so walking across the weirdly soundless gummy mat is like treading on a starfield.

Corpses lost in the canals have their energy woven through the waters. These traces of energy and awareness and despairing rage clutch at anything that falls under the surface. If enough death builds in a canal, something slimy carries it out.

Snow flares and dies as it blows through the electroplasm fences around the city. You can see a light show in the shape of the wind, and even the snow, which is the death of clouds, is swept into nothingness by their energy.

There is a forbidden magical practice called Second Death Hogs. Before electroplasm was harnessed, and spirit energies destroyed, whispers would banish spirits into hogs. Then they would kill the possessed hog, and the second death would take. These Second Death hogs are now illegal to make, but their almost-human and haunted flesh can provide powerful magical materials.

Isn’t that fun?

I have no idea what the “Path of Echoes” will be when the book is done.

I have no idea what the “Path of Echoes” will be when the book is done. Still, my group took a -1 faction with them, and asked me who they were.

I said it was an old religion that used to be ancestor worship. They take exception to the electroplasmic destruction, since they believe the destruction of ancestor spirits makes the future a barren dreamscape. Therefore, they resort to sabotage and murder in an attempt to eventually put an end to the practice of ghost dissipation.

So I ran a second session, also doing character and crew creation and two heists.

So I ran a second session, also doing character and crew creation and two heists. This time it was three hours total, online no less. What was different?

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/another-blades-in-the-dark-adventure-summary/

ESCALATION. Both characters took the “Daring” special ability, and they used it constantly. They also constantly overreached for better results. Even when the dice were poor, they would increase the danger and try again.

WAS IT EASIER FOR THE SECOND GROUP? It’s hard for me to tell from my position, subjectively. Did I go easier on them than I did on the previous group? Well, they had a lot less clocks, but in general they tried plans that were more compact. Maybe? There were less clocks, anyway. I had never played with them before, or they with me, so that changes the dynamic too. I dunno. Also, this was my second time, and I spent half the weekend on G+ analyzing the last session.

Upon reflection, it WAS easier. I focused more on effect clocks and used little or no resistance clocks. I think I was gunshy about the terrible response last time.

I NEED HELP WITH EXPERIENCE. Trying to figure out experience is still difficult for me. I forget how they raise the crew upgrades; I figure it’s in the quickstart somewhere, but there’s overlapping reporting on various elements of downtime and session wrap-up and I don’t know where. I need a reference for how each thing raises, to consult during play, after each heist, and at the end of a session.

NEW BACKGROUND. I added “Whaler” as a background; use that to avoid being nauseated by anything, to know the culture of the sea, to be stone-faced in the midst of slaughter, and so on.

I still don’t feel like I’ve got a really good grasp on everything, but this adventure went a lot smoother than the last one, and these players want to try again.

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/another-blades-in-the-dark-adventure-summary

I ran a second session of Blades in the Dark.

I ran a second session of Blades in the Dark. This one was my very first online session of gaming ever. It went really well! The players want to play again, so that’s a good sign. Here’s the play report.

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/another-blades-in-the-dark-adventure-summary/

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/another-blades-in-the-dark-adventure-summary

I explained to my players that vices were “things that help scoundrels relax, and pull their attention away from…

I explained to my players that vices were “things that help scoundrels relax, and pull their attention away from scoundrelling.”

In that vein, I suggest a couple more that could be intriguing. Family Doting and Academics. Both are time intensive, require loyalty, and have endless expenses. =)

I am a big fan of the Dishonored video game.

I am a big fan of the Dishonored video game. I thought to myself, “How would I represent someone like Corvo in Blades in the Dark, customized to a Duskwall setting?”

Check it out.

https://fictivefantasies.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/being-chosen-in-blades-in-the-dark.pdf