Author: Daumantas Lipskis

So we have an Artificer Leech in our group, and I am not fully satisfied with the way I am currently running the game for him. The way we that ability has usually worked historically was flashing back to him making a gadget that was perfect to the situation at hand. On the one hand, that is sweet! We had an rage essence diffusing grenade that sparked a brawl in the ranks of a bluecoat ambush. On the other hand, aside from picking locks, that’s all I’ve seen his sweet sweet Tinker score be used for. Plus, flashbacks, though I like them in principle, also have a bit of detrimental effect on the forward momentum of a scene.

I think this comes down to the fact that I don’t really have a good grasp of the technological backbone of the city. I’d like to be able to close my eyes and automatically see wiring, piping, chugging machinery and know what their purposes are.

So, help me get there! What kind of tinkerable tech is prevalent in your games?

Our group is has a mildly fluctuating number of players, and because of that, an odd and interesting thing has come up.

The game difficulty varies highly with the number of players at the table. Specifically, going from three to two noticeably taxed my group’s downtime resources. They went from taking care of most of the resource problems (stress, heat, wounds) and having 1-2 coin left over, to spending every single coin and still having a significant heat problem.

Has this been the experience of anyone else?

I guess this shouldn’t be surprising – every player is basically worth 2 coin at downtime. Some of that is gone to deal with personal stress or wounds, but the amount of resource tax is generally determined by your setting’s action-to-grit scale, and doesn’t really rise with added players – if anything, it decreases, because they can specialize more and thus don’t need to take it on the chin as often.

My players are troopers and I rather enjoy making things be painful for them, so we are more than fine with things the way they are, but this might be a thing to keep in mind when setting up your own game!

A big fight is coming up for my campaign – the Red Sashes have been weakened to the point where Ulf Ironborn is seeing them as prey. While the PCs don’t have a gang of their own (except for the Cutter on his lonesome) yet, they will be participating in the fight – to secure loot from the Sashes, to get on good terms with Ulf, and to secure a certain number of bodies for this death-essence addicted androgynous demon butcher. The Red Sashes will also be pulling as many of their allies into this fight as possible, as their own numbers are low. Many variables in play, meaning a lot of ease in determining complications. Exciting!

However, I have not done extended battle scenes much before, Blades or otherwise. So, a couple questions for the people who have – how’s it different from regular play? What should I watch out for? What tricks have you employed to make the experience be memorable, as the first major fight in a campaign should be?

(P.S. – also really looking forward to more gang details in the book. The fact that the gangs have allies and enemies of their own contributes a lot to making these groups feel like relevant and dangerous even when the PCs are just cutting their members up into ribbons.)

So we’re now our third session into the game, and amusingly, we’re still essentially just feeling out the game and trying out mechanics. The base of the game (which is to say the fact that you usually get successes and you usually get complications with your successes) is very solid. I actually forgot some fairly key mechanics, like resistance or engagement rolls in two of the early sessions, but we had a great time regardless. We’ve now got low grade intra-crew conflict, some running jokes (Look! It’s the Tricorn Hat Bandit!), and several successful if “how the hell did we make it out alive?” scores under out belts.

Anyway, today I’d like to share a minor problem I had with the conflicting ways some of the game’s systems describe the scoundrels. The lifestyle quality basically starts them out as bums on the streets, sleeping in flophouses, alleyways and gutters. However, every single playbook has easy access to loads of specialist gear that honestly should be outside the reach of people who’re that poor.

The way we decided to square this particular circle was to ask players where they got that particular piece of kit when they introduce an item for the first time. This allows some minor character moments (the Cutter has armour from military past, but his smokebombs are made by the PC leech. The urchin Lurk steals most of his gear, but some of the key items were actually given to him by his Unseen mentor, etc.), and it also allows introducing particular rather than generalized ways in which Tier 0 gear is worse than the stuff gangs higher up get (one of the impact plates on that armour is really clanky from all the hits it’s already taken).

This has been working pretty well for us, so I thought I’d share.