Dylan Durrant – Page 2 – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

After over a dozen sessions of play, half of those not using the Engagement Roll (simply because we started by using…

After over a dozen sessions of play, half of those not using the Engagement Roll (simply because we started by using the basic rules and then forgot about the rest of them for a while) I’ve come to a sort of impasse with the notion of the Engagement Roll.

The Engagement Roll is supposed to be an integral part of the game’s inclination toward leaping into the middle of the action and working out what happened later, eliminating the prep that took up so many sessions of Shadowrun with the Street Samurai getting increasingly more angsty.

But, what the Engagement Roll actually makes my players do, is plan in advance. You see, if, on the turn of the dice, you can have the tables turned completely on you and essentially be put in a Desperate position from the get-go (that’s how I read Bad Outcome, anyway) then you will want to weight the roll heavily in your favour. How do you do that? Well, it’s based on the “preparation” of your target. So, the players are encouraged to ensure that the group is as little prepared as possible through various planning and wily means.

Note: I’m fine with this. I don’t have a problem with prep. The other game I run is Shadowrun (albeit with a different system) where the vast majority of the game has been going around and talking to people. I do not mind a game with prep. In fact, when I first played Blades back in v1, I felt like I was in a “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” scenario because my instinct is to prepare.

But! I run Blades in a pub where everyone’s drinking and sometimes we play for less than three hours. Trying to get everyone at the table to understand each others’ elaborate plan is hard at the best of times. I have grown attached to Blades’ approach to the Shadowrun archetype. I’m feeling like, since we’ve gotten to grips with the Engagement Roll, things have been drawing out rather than becoming more succinct.

Am I playing the Engagement Roll wrong?

P.S. Reading through v5 and loving it.

This week, the Dark Roots took a break from fighting Leviathan Hunters and causing chaos at an old Leviathan Blood…

This week, the Dark Roots took a break from fighting Leviathan Hunters and causing chaos at an old Leviathan Blood refinery to pull a con on a low-level gang. Or try. One character’s overindulgence of their obsessive collection of masks lead to an encounter with Lord Atlas Scurlock and some exposition of the identity of the party’s so far obtusely mysterious Whisper. There was pimping involved, for some reason. Oh, and a list of commands…

https://asecretsang.wordpress.com/2015/12/20/blades-in-the-dark-what-trouble-a-mask-can-cause/

I created a bad WordPress and have my latest play report of Blades in the Dark up on there (complete with hover-over…

I created a bad Wordpress and have my latest play report of Blades in the Dark up on there (complete with hover-over…

I created a bad WordPress and have my latest play report of Blades in the Dark up on there (complete with hover-over notes to clarify terms for those unfamiliar with the setting or mechanics). I plan to post regular play reports for both this campaign and my Shadowrun campaign.

This week: a new player and finally a Slide joined us, the crew stumbled their way into acquiring a Luxury Fence and we finally fit a second Score in, the players pulling off a burglary stealing from the Eels’ stash.

https://asecretsang.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/blades-in-the-dark-introducing-the-illustrious-snake-eyes/

So, I took the updated Empty Church scenario (based on the format by Sean Nittner) to Dragonmeet today!

So, I took the updated Empty Church scenario (based on the format by Sean Nittner) to Dragonmeet today! I was also using Andrew Shields one-shot “Gang” rules. I had a group of six (six!) that had never played Blades in the Dark before.

Well, to begin with, they all seemed to gather the rules of the game and character creation fairly easily. Next, the Gang rules were also easy for them to understand even though they had never played the actual game. Finally, the questions asked by the sheet seemed to lead to some quick and productive answers to form the shell of a scenario. So, all’s well!

I won’t go into the session because suffice to say, I got a pounding headache about thirty minutes in. I managed to survive for the whole 2+ hours and ran a session of some description, but it was not my best. But I don’t think that was the fault of the rules, whether it be Mr. Harper’s, Mr. Shield’s or my own; it was definitely my fault though. The players seemed to come out pleased but I came out with a list of things they had established prior to the mission and some of them only glazed over and with the players without actually having an answer to the question of why exactly this Spirit Warden’s body is wanted.

Anyway, here’s the updated Empty Church. I still think Mr. Nittner’s Patron/Score/Complication is much more suited to BitD, but in the event that you have a Score already in mind, Patron/Gloom/Foe (latter two very bad words which I couldn’t find alternatives for at short notice, but essentially abstract threat/physical threat) worked well.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/owp2rhzh0a8ajlc/Empty%20Church.png?dl=0

So, after some difficulty with the Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh coming to collect their Hollowing sacrifice…

So, after some difficulty with the Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh coming to collect their Hollowing sacrifice following a Bad Outcome on the Engagement Roll, the ritual the players had planned to kill a crew of Leviathan Hunters went rather smoothly. Only one character was traumatised by half a dozen spirits pouring all of their pain and sorrow into his soul. They set about discussing their next move, and after arguing whether their crew of Thieves was actually going to start doing some thievery and thus whether the Luxury Fence was worth it. In the end, they decided it was.

What I’m trying to work out is, what’s a Luxury Fence? So, the base-line return you get from a fence is 5% (or at least, that’s my understanding of real world fences). But even if, let’s say that, this fence is luxury because they have an ‘in’ with the Fog Hounds giving them more potential buyers, I can’t think of a good reason they wouldn’t just keep that quiet and pocket the extra cash. Maybe fencing is competitive in the Crow’s Foot?

In that case, what is the means by which the players can take this Claim? Because the Fog Hounds are the ones who make this fence ‘luxury’ and getting rid of them would be counterproductive. Do the players just need to cut themselves in?

Or am I massively overthinking this and a luxury fence is just a fence that can actually buy luxury items off you, whereas a normal fence wouldn’t?

But there’s still the whole question of: how do you Claim a fence? Surely if you own a fence, then that fence cuts you into all of the sales they make, consequently, it has nothing to do with personally robbing anyone. Is Claiming a fence merely convincing that fence to buy from you?

Apologies for all these questions, I’m certain I’m overthinking this. But one final thing: with v4, the value of a Coin has dropped, but the amount of Coin a fence gives you is the same. Is that intentional? Also the Coin space a Crew and Vault gives you is the same.

We had to postpone our little Deathlands ritual last night because the Whisper wasn’t able to make it, instead, I…

We had to postpone our little Deathlands ritual last night because the Whisper wasn’t able to make it, instead, I decided to grab the Gaddoc Rail scenario by Sean Nittner to tell a story about the first job what would become the “Dark Roots” went on together.

In case we got through that, I also put together my own little imitation of the above. Word gets to your patron that a Spirit Warden has died in the Abandoned Ward, and for some reason they want the body…

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z9h4sgfnsjp1hd8/The%20Score%20-%20Empty%20Church.png?dl=0

It differs slightly in that the “Score” is already defined, in this case, the body of a dead Spirit Warden. In its place I put the “Cause” of said death as the third variable. Forgive its amateurism, but feel free to criticise. I’m thinking of taking it to GOD at Dragonmeet and would like to improve it.

As far as how Gaddoc Rail went? Well, one of our players got food poisoning so we had to cut it short. But, as a group of three players who were generally not that familiar with RPGs (one had never played before, one had never played anything but this game and one had a few months experience with D&D before BitD, none had GMed) they struggled at first to formulate their own ideas and most importantly, get out of the mindset of “play to win” but I think it ended up well in general.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pm98i4rkbk65fnh/The%20Score%20-%20Empty%20Church.pdf?dl=0

Would it unbalance the game if I adjusted the Flashback rules so, if the roll produced a 1-3 result, they would not…

Would it unbalance the game if I adjusted the Flashback rules so, if the roll produced a 1-3 result, they would not have to pay the Stress (excluding stress paid over the course of the Flashback itself e.g. Push Yourself)?

I have potentially 5 players at my next session, including one new person and so far we have a Whisper, a Lurk, a…

I have potentially 5 players at my next session, including one new person and so far we have a Whisper, a Lurk, a Leech and a Hound. The Cutter won’t be there this week, the only unoccupied space is The Slide and I don’t really want to just give them the Slide sheet nor offer them a choice between the two.

What are my options? Is having multiple players with the same playbook alright? Can you point me in the direction of any fan-created ones that I could borrow?

Back again with the continuation of the prior debacle, this time with a question on the end.

So, let’s give them names to begin with. This week, we had three of our up to six man crew in Wulf, the Cutter; Vizard, the Leech and the Whisper only known as Shadow (I know). Now, from running into the Lampblack’s hideout, killing Baszo Baz and rescuing their friend who is currently absent, likely recovering, Wulf has a gunshot wound to the shoulder (moderate harm), Vizard is recovering from trauma after being severely burned by her own alchemical bombs (moderate harm). Shadow’s just dandy because it was translating this book of necronomical (should be a word) nefariousness during the whole “attack the Lampblacks” thing.

So, we decided that this whole: perform a ritual to kill a crew of Leviathan Hunters would in fact be two separate Scores, one after the other. Considering the magnitude of what they were doing. The first Score would be, steal items of sympathetic value to each member of the crew. The second part, would, of course, be the ritual.

So, the first part. They graduated from Tier 0 gang attacking a Tier III gang to Tier 0 gang attacking a Tier IV crew of super-badasses. That may not be official canon, but after I described who the Leviathan Hunters were our Whisper said, “so they’re basically all the main character of Skyrim” which I decided would now be part of our canon. Unfortunately that obviously wouldn’t go well for them.

They secured the poor gal away, discovered that she was being prepared for the Hollowing by the C of E of F, something she was very enthusiastic about and upset she would not be able to take part in, but somehow, these guys who lack a Slide and are generally useless at using their words, managed to Sway her into believing that that was what they were going to do to her, that they worked for the C of E of F.

Getting back to the point, so, they scouted out the ship, determined that there was only 1 Leviathan Hunter on the ship at all times, and came up with a plan to sneak onto the ship, nab the stuff and get out without alerting them. Unfortunately, this crew of Thieves, in addition to not being good at talking, are also historically bad at sneaking (they had a Lurk for one session and he suffered Trauma from how bad his friends were at sneaking; well, not really, but it sounds better that way). They’re muggers, not pickpockets, essentially.

So, we make our Engagement Roll. I decide the Leviathan Hunters are ill-prepared because, well, they are. They roll a nice 6. No trouble. Great, everything’s going well. Let’s start with the Prowl roll to get down into the ship. Group Action Prowl; everyone botches, because they’re really bad at sneaking.

I jump into the first-person perspective of someone sitting in a cabin…looking straight at his friend. They rolled a 4/5 on their earlier Survey so I decided they would be noticed and the crew would go to the trouble of maybe having one more guy on the ship for a while.

So, I now draw up five clocks. First clock: 6 segments, find stuff. The first four segments and they’ve found all the Hunters’ junk, two more for loot.

Second clock: six segments, Leviathan Hunter #1 Defence. Four segments, Leviathan Hunter #1 Resilience. Six segments, Leviathan Hunter #2 Defence. Four segments, Leviathan Hunter #2 Resilience. They’re the main characters of Skyrim.

We then have a series of botches on the part of the Whisper trying to Attune to Assist the Leech’s Survey, who then botches that, meanwhile, the Cutter is somehow rolling 4s and 5s vs. this first Leviathan Hunter. We do a little Devil’s Bargaining with their two fellow gang members, Wester and Cristof, getting double-headshotted by the first Leviathan Hunter as a kind of nice “hello, I’m a badass” scene. Well, we did a lot of Devil’s Bargaining, these guys knew they were, if you’ll pardon my French, fucked so they took basically all of my offers.

The fight between the first Leviathan Hunter and Wulf was quite the thing. Wulf waits round the corner to ambush him, the Leviathan Hunter spots him and smacks the iron walls of the ship with his lightning sword (oh, they have lightning swords btw) and blasts Wulf, but Wulf shakes it off and turns to fight him. Bang, bang, two more gang members dead. Wulf runs in, swings his axe, the Hunter ducks it easily and stabs forward. I describe the Leviathan Hunter stabbing Wulf so far through the gut it sticks into the wall behind him and then electrifies him until smoke comes out. Then we see the Leviathan Hunter’s eyes widen as Wulf isn’t actually there, having used his Battleborn to dodge with preternatural instincts. Then he pops his rage essence and I suggest this grabs Wulf, yanks him out of this ship, back through time to the Skovlan War, standing on snow stained with the blood of his comrades, an Imperial Soldier staring him down with a monstrous visage. Not knowing what it does, I gave him Potency, +1 Effect and the ability to ignore his shoulder wound.

Anyway, now they need to gtfo so they decide to flashback to having prepared a “gtfo plan” (although somehow I don’t think that’s actually in the Duskwall parlance) where they put the word out that the antidote to the Cold Slumber is on this ship. So, one last Attune by the Whisper to put the Leech’s Thought Essence to try and wrench Wulf out of Skovlan and back to reality. 1 Leviathan Hunter is on 1/6 Defence (4/4 Resilience), the other is fresh as a daisy.

They make a crucial Prowl roll…and they get a 5. The Leech loses one of their bandoliers to the mob of Cold Slumber victims, the Whisper resists the effects of it as it is tackled to the ground (per a former Devil’s Bargain) but nevertheless suffers Trauma. I describe how the victims all whisper the same phrase in it’s head, over and over and it is sent into a trance state where it just sees this horrific mass of writhing tentacles, arms, limbs, chaos that it cannot look away from. And that persists for the next hour until they get back to their lair. Turns out, some things can traumatise the Whisper only known as Shadow.

So. My question is: was I too hard on them? They ended up getting 3/4 of the Leviathan Hunters’ junk for the ritual, which means about a quarter of them will survive it. Do you think this is a reasonable obstacle for a Tier 0 gang to face against a Tier IV gang?

One last thing, as a result of this they got 3 Heat and lost 1 Rep. Would you say that’s appropriate?

Could someone point me in the direction of a program that will easily generate, record and modify BitD-esque pie…

Could someone point me in the direction of a program that will easily generate, record and modify BitD-esque pie charts?