Conrad William – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

Me players pointed out an uncanny resemblance.

Me players pointed out an uncanny resemblance.

Here’s my starting situation for a new gang tonight, based in Six Towers (probably Hawkers of Smugglers).

Here’s my starting situation for a new gang tonight, based in Six Towers (probably Hawkers of Smugglers). I’d love any feedback or suggestions.

The Deathlands Scavengers recently discovered a massive ghost well in the basement of an abandoned compound in the Deathlands and have begun capturing spirits and smuggling them into the city. The Gray Cloaks, hoping to use the opportunity to cement their power in Six Towers, have worked closely with the Scavengers, using their contacts among the Inspectors and their knowledge of Duskwall’s law enforcement to facilitate smuggling and selling operations. This influx has dropped the value of spirit essence substantially, destabilizing the Dimmer Sisters’ power and disrupting their control over the spirit essence trade. In the meantime, Lord Scurlock is taking advantage of the situation, using the conflict over the spirit essence trade to surreptitiously move against both the Dimmer Sisters and the Deathlands Scavengers, taking the opportunity to steal artifacts and treasures from both of them, in the hope of solving a particularly dangerous riddle. Of course, all of this has attracted the watchful eye of the Spirit Wardens, who are eager to know what the source of the new glut of spirit essence is, a secret that Lady Thorn would kill to protect.

Roslyn, the Dimmer Sisters’ servant, has arranged a meeting with the players. She is patient, loyal, and straightforward. The Gray Cloaks’ operations in Six Towers are threatening everything the Dimmer Sisters have worked for, so it is time for the Dimmer Sisters to call in their favors and marshal whatever resources they can against the Cloaks.

Are the players willing to help? Are they already working for the Gray Cloaks? Are they already working for Lord Scurlock? Or are they secretly on the payroll of the Spirit Wardens?

Last night I ran a session of Blades for 9 players, and it went surprisingly well.

Four of the people at the table had played before; the other five were novices. The score was the artifact one from War in Crow’s Foot (the PCs had to place the weird artifact in the Red Sashes’ sword academy).

The party wound up splitting up, so I had to bounce around a bit between the different groups, but we kept the forward momentum going really well and everyone had fun. A group that big is obviously not ideal, but it’s workable.

One thing we noted was that, if you have a large group and multiple players use their downtime actions on the same project, they can create and resolve long-term projects in downtime really fast. Just something to be aware of.

Giant, vicious rat men!

So we’re playing Blades for the first time as a group (third play session, first campaign), and we took things for an unusual turn. I rolled on the useful charts for rumors/events as a backdrop, and the results were widespread paranoia and that some of the canals had been inexplicably drained. I had some ideas.

The crew was bullied by Baszo Baz into sending a strong message to a Crow’s Foot drug runner who has been moving product for the Red Sashes (the crew was not thrilled–they are shadows, so this isn’t really their thing). The crew decided that sabotaging the dealer’s warehouse was shadowy enough for them, so they tracked it down and navigated their way to it through the tunnels they usually use to get around.

The canals around the warehouse were drained, which revealed a hidden entrance. Engagement roll result was controlled, so the crew was able to sneak in and observe what was going on–it was complete chaos. Something, or some things–were running amok in the warehouse, eviscerating the drug dealer’s people. As it turned out, these were some kind of huge, vicious rat-men.

Where did they come from? What is the deal with them? WTF?

Anyway, the crew was able to set the warehouse on fire in the midst of the carnage and also make off with some extra product and a satchel of useful papers. But the whole thing left them very unsettled.

I ran my first session of Blades in the Dark last night, starting with the War in Crow’s Nest setup and a score…

I ran my first session of Blades in the Dark last night, starting with the War in Crow’s Nest setup and a score against a Red Sash drug den.

One thing that came up was that players with careful D&D backgrounds kept wanting to do things like listen at doors, which seemed sensible, but I was never really sure how to handle in the game’s mechanics. At first I had them make action rolls with Study or Survey, but that almost immediately didn’t feel right. Upon further reflection, those should have been Gather Information rolls (which I just wasn’t thinking about as something to do mid-score) if I wanted the amount of information they got to be variable, or else just no roll at all, and tell them what they hear.

We also definitely had some growing pains in figuring out the sweet spot for players being able to take narrative control. At one point, the players came into a room with a Red Sash guard, and a player wanted to have known this guard and had a prior relationship with him, and I wasn’t wild about that. We sort of negotiated it into a flashback with a consort+1 coin bribe for the guard to be in place and ready to take a fake punch in the nose and let the players past. Upon further discussion, we talked about how interesting coincidences (as opposed to deliberate recent planning) is more the realm of devils bargains or complication consequences. But even then it seems like those would be coincidences that cut against the players rather than happy coincidences that help the players out.

Thoughts?

Next set of questions are about items.

1. How do consumable items on the character sheet work? Does the Cutter always have one rage essence vial per score? Ditto for the Slide’s trance powder and the Lurk’s silence potion.

2. Spiritbane charm costs 0 load and is on almost all the playbooks. Does that mean everyone other than the Leech just always has a spiritbane charm? Why does it have a box to check off then, since it doesn’t even have a concrete mechanical effect?

3. How do crafted items interact with the Items/Load system? What about crafted alchemical items with limited uses? How do those interact with, say, the Leech’s bandolier? What about items that are acquired assets?

Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone.

Hi everyone. I’m new around here and planning on running Blades in the Dark soon, but I have a couple of brief rules questions, mostly related to the faction game.

1. How does a crew get Turf, other than as a Claim? The Turf boxes on the Rep/Turf track vs the Turf spaces on the Claims map and the explanation of Turf Claims as “some claims count as turf” make it seem like they are distinct somehow.

2. How does a crew come up with the coin to rise in Tier? Given how little coin a crew can hold and a character can hold outside of their stash, once you get past Tier II or so, I’m not sure where you would even hold the huge amounts of coin you need to go up another tier. It’s 24 coin for Tier III, for example. A crew of 4 characters without a vault can only hold 20. If they have to get it from their stash, then the tier advance really costs at least 28, not 24 (because at least 4 of the coin has to come from stash at 2 for 1).

3. Conceptually, I am a little unclear on how other factions might take action against the players’ crew, since the mechanics of the game are driven by player action, not NPC action. Say the players’ crew is at War with the Billhooks. What does it look like in game terms for the Billhooks to go on the offensive against the players’ lair, hold, cohorts or other assets outside of a players’ score?

I think that’s it for now. Thanks in advance!