Author: Eric Swanson

Ok. Part 2 of the Devil’s Gambit report.

The crew has decided not to aggressively pursue the Wraiths horning in on their business, though the Cutter has started a project to get the runner-boy in their pocket through some late-night Command visits on his drug runs.

They decide they want to go after the Local Graft claim. I didn’t research the claim in the book however, so we didn’t make the score about officials and bribes. So seeing that the benefit is extra coin for shows of force and socializing, they decide to put on a flashy boxing match to put their name out as expert entertainers. We decide it’s a Social plan, and the Connection detail is the participants of the headline fight.

Gathering Information:

– The Leech’s vice is betting on boxing, so he goes to his favorite venue to find a boxer that could take a fall in the match. He finds Beef Wilson and recruits him.

– The Cutter (an ex-miner) goes to Coalridge to see if he can find a fighter to “win” the match. He finds a Skovlander fight club of sorts and recruits Viktor Olmvik.

– We decide that it’s enough of a setup, and we’re eager to keep trying the plan-on-the-fly setting so we go right into the score.

The Engagement roll comes up Desperate. Beef and Viktor are in the ring, and Beef shows no signs of slowing down. They didn’t get the best venue- they’re in the middle of a demolished building lot, and the crowd is unruly and drunk.

There’s a lot of money riding on this for everyone involved… did Beef understand what he’s supposed to do tonight?

-Flashback to the Slide, in Beef’s “dressing room” (a collapsed stairwell). Beef’s a punchy guy, pretty dense and addled so it’s hard to know if knows he’s supposed to go down. He rolls well to Sway him, and he can tell he isn’t lying, but it’s still hard to tell.

– I used his success in the flashback to improve my fortune roll to see if Beef will actually take the fall. I roll, and it still doesn’t look good. They decide they need to go into action.

– The Slide gives the Hound some trance powder. She maneuvers through the teeming throng that follows the boxers around, using Hunt to navigate the animal spectacle happening around her and putting herself in the right spot to administer a puff of the powder to Beef’s face. She succeeds on the roll and the drug takes effect. Beef slows enough to let Viktor land a knockout punch.

– The obstacle for the score was to throw a successful event, and in our estimation they did it. They gained the Local Graft claim, and we ended the session.

Questions:

– The flashback with the Slide talking to Beef: I figured this was ok, since the flashback was addressing a situation that could go either way- they didn’t know what Beef was going to do, but it didn’t look good. He wanted to be sure the message got through so we went back to do it. Is that ok?

– Local Graft, in the book, says “A few city officials share bribe money with those who show that they’re players on the scene”. What could the score consisted of if we had the right idea, and how can I connect the crew to what the claim actually means, after we did the boxing match score?

We’ve done 2 sessions with a new group of Hawkers called the Devil’s Gambit. They’ve taken Ghost Market as their first crew ability, and their basic enterprise is proffering tactile gambling and gaming, and um… other things to touch… to ghosts without them draining all their energies away.

I’d like to post the two scores we’ve run, to see what kinds of things, rules or otherwise, I could do differently, and to ask questions about certain things. We’re really trying to focus on the “don’t plan before” thing, so I’m interested to hear peoples’ takes on that. So:

First session: The crew has been seeing their ghost clientele diminish beause the Wraiths have set up something like theirs, but better for some reason. They decide they can’t let that stand, so I put it to them, “what do you do?” They’re not sure yet, so they do some info gathering. They find that the Wraiths have found a way to administer drugs to the ghosts- something having to do with “the ghost breath”. They’ve tracked their drug runner-boy to his connection on a bridge to Crow’s Foot, where he meets another runner from the Red Sashes. They hear the name Templeton in connection with the operation, and Loop (Wraith top-brass) is on the premises of the operation.

So they decide that they’re going to stop the runner and swap his load out for fake shit, making the ghosts’ next highs be lackluster at best. We decide it’s a Deception plan, with the Method detail being it’s a stop-and-frisk done by the gang’s buddy, Laroze the Bluecoat.

Questions:

• Was any of this crossing over to what can be done with flashbacks? How do you guys draw the line?

• What makes Gather Info rolls different than other actions? Do consequences happen if the rolls are bad? Does the effect level chart on page 37 correspond to the 1-3, 4/5, 6 mentioned in the example on the previous page?

So the engagement roll turns up Risky, no big deal. They see the runner make his connection on the bridge and he turns back.

– Laroze sidles up to him, I make a fortune roll, and it’s critical. She’s got the boy face down on the ground, his heavy satchel is tossed to the side.

The Slide rolls up, swapping the fake drugs for the real payload while Laroze keeps the boy busy with some mild police brutality. Still risky. He rolls a 4/5 he makes the swap but the boy makes eye contact. The Slide quickly sidesteps suspicion by moving the satchel closer to the boy, telling Laroze that she should really lay off kids in the street that haven’t done anything wrong. I consider that a “good idea” and don’t ask for a roll.

– The Leech does a flashback to see how well they did producing a fake drug. It was a 4/5- it looks and feels right- the consequence being that they couldn’t tell for sure.

– Laroze lets the kid off on a warning, and we end the session.

I’d like to see what y’all think, and if there are any suggestions or alternate ways to do things. The above scenario was pretty short and smooth. I’ll post the second session in a minute.

Blades in the Dark: Shy Boys

Ok so I’m 3 sessions behind in my reporting so I’ll just hit the highlights.

Session 2

Shadow (the Hound) finds the Cabbies daggering a big paper banner on their door bearing their logo, a big wagon wheel. He follows their gold-trimmed black coach with his bloodhound Rolly. He hears “just shoot the f*cking dog”. Shadow is serious about his dog. He pushes himself, and takes a Devil’s Bargain: if the guy dies, his ghost WILL come back and haunt him. Shadow fires on the coach, but not before a cabbie gets off a shot at Rolly (complication). He resists with Vigor (it was before the GenCon update) and takes Stress, using his preternatural rapport with his dog to make him take evasive action. The cabbies drive off into the night, and the Sly Boys have a new target.

Seasnake (the Lurk) goes to his Bluecoat friend to find out about the Cabbies, finding out that their main depot is in Six Towers, and that their full name is the Municipal Carriage Union.

Tick Tock and Shadow head to Six Towers to find out more about the drivers and their patterns, drawing some attention in the process, and leaving their new calling card- an actual Ace of Spades with an ornate SB scrawled on them, around Cabbie bars and cafes.

NOTE: Some of these rolls were Fortune rolls. It seems a lot of the time when we make Fortune rolls, it’s with the same dice we’d roll for an actual action, just with different repercussions. Does anyone else find that?

They’ve gathered a lot of info and they’re ready to make a move. They’ve found the route of Tassen, the Cabbie that was driving the coach the other night. Shadow and Seasnake are in position, ready to bottleneck the coach in Nightmarket. The Engagement roll separates TickTock from the group: a meeting with a contact went overlong and he had to run across town.

Without TickTock, Seasnake tries to stop the carriage by acting crazy. The coach keeps going, Tassen smacks him with a horse whip, Seasnake resists, grabbing it out of his hand. He hops up onto the coach and jabs his big hook into Tassen’s hand. Shadow jumps up too and pistolwhips him into unconsciousness. Inside is a paying passenger and another Cabbie, which is weird because they learned that Cabbies ride solo.

With Tassen out, Seasnake and Shadow each take a door. On Seasnake’s side is the passenger, an older man. In his typical insane fashion, Seasnake tries to get the man to run while simultaneously trying to rob him. The man pulls a tiny pistol and fires! Seasnake resists: he is so slight, and his cloak so billowy, that the bullet misses him. But the stress puts him over the top and he is Traumatized, deafened and stunned.

NOTE: Trauma. In the rules it says “You may choose to be “left for dead” or otherwise dropped out of the current conflict, only to show back up later, shaken and drained.” What’s the option here- to be left for dead and dropped out of the conflict OR just… not? If so, why would you choose left for dead if not to just avoid more damage or complication? We were sort of reading that sentence as left for dead OR still up, but totally out of it. What’s up?

TickTock nearly catches up to the coach, but I make him roll to be able to get in the action quicker. He’s not a physical guy, and the Nightmarket street is bustling. He Pushes Himself and I offer him a Devil’s Bargain: knock over the sweet old baker lady crossing the street in front of him to get a clear run to the coach. He takes it, knocks over the lady, loaves of bread litter the street, he makes the roll but still gets a complication: a big burly laborer sees what he did and confronts him, “Oy! That’s someone’s grandmother you just knocked down!” TickTock resists the complication with Resolve, but still takes enough stress to become Traumatized as well. He flicks a gold coin to him, “She’s your Grandmother now!” and keeps running, catching up to the coach just as the passenger shoots at Seasnake. TickTock is functioning on instinct at this point, and joins his mates in the coach.

The passenger runs off, and the group run the other Cabbie off as well, giving him a message for the rest of the Union: your coaches aren’t safe, watch the f*ck out. But as he runs, he rings the coach’s bell to alert the Bluecoats.

They drive the coach as fast and evasively as possible, tipping it over, releasing the horse, and setting the thing ablaze (the coach, not the horse). They tie up Tassen nearby and leave a Sly Boys card in his hatband, just above the Cabbies wheel logo.

They melt off into the night and regroup back at the warehouse.

SESSION 3

Downtime consists of some recovery but mainly information gathering and downtime projects. They want to make connections with some stronger factions, so Seasnake goes to the Dockers to find out who their enemies are. (He uses his friend Telda the beggar down on the docks to help him blend in and overhear dealings). Turns out the Foxhounds are jacking shipments that the Dockers are supposed to be protecting. TickTock uses one of his contacts to make an appointment with Oorby Roy, an Inkrake, to start an info/intelligence exchange. Shadow successfully locates where the Deathlands Scavengers hole up, and who their leader is. He also starts a project to build a rifle scope that helps target ghosts.

The Cabbies have been taken care of for now, so the Sly Boys turn their eye to a piece of turf adjacent to their warehouse, a large, raised park controlled by the Red Sashes.

We gather info. Seasnake finds that there is an old municipal storeroom the Sashes use to sell drugs out of. Shadow sets up on an overlooking building and sees the patterns of citizens walking through and getting shaken down by the Sashes. TickTock talks to Nyryx about mobilizing her fellow prostitutes and lowlives to start making Brackett Park a more frequented area.

NOTE: We’re still wrapping our heads around the idea of just going into the plan without planning. I love the idea, but we can’t help coming up with an actual plan, however simple. We Gather Information but it’s all based on making the steps of the plan we’ve come up with work. Anyone else have trouble? Tips? It almost seems like, if we’re just supposed to go right in and do the job on the fly, and to accomplish support stuff with flashbacks, that there maybe shouldn’t be Gather Info pre-plan at all? If anyone could post an AP of how they make this work, that would be great.

The operation starts with a Social plan. TickTock enlists Bazso to relight the broken lamps around the park. He also has Nyryx encourage her street people to encroach. Seasnake finishes the job by calling in his Bluecoat buddy to bust the drug shack and sweep the park.

This is followed by an Infiltration plan, with TickTock and Seasnake traipsing through the park, luring out any remaining Sashes to try to rob them. Shadow is across the street in sniper position. The boys attract attention, but a complication arises- hiding behind a set of statues are two Sashes, poised to strike. Seasnake resists, and we go into a paroxysm of “how does this work”…

NOTE: Most of the complications we’ve faced, when resisted, were woven into the fiction and more or less handled by the PC. But if I’m not mistaken, aren’t resistance rolls/stress used to basically cancel complications too? Like, nope, that doesn’t exist? 

GM “Ok, you’re acting like drunk rich assholes, and’s it’s working pretty well, but you see just up ahead two Sashes hidden behind statues…”

SEASNAKE “I’ll roll to resist, ok, I pay Stress… Nope, those guys aren’t there.”

Is that how it works?

They get into a brawl with a couple more Sashes, with Shadow shooting two of them, despite an unexpected visitor…. remember that Cabbie he killed? Well he’s back, and he’s trying to pry his mouth open with his freezing fingers.

Down below, the boys have their gang come in and route the remaining Sashes (a flashbacked plan) and the Bluecoats come in (another flashback) as Seasnake suggests to make it appear as if the entire job was a police raid.

While the park buzzes with activity, Shadow pulls his spirit bane charm from inside his shirt and presses it to the ghost’s wrist, who’s clawing fingers leave frostbite wounds. The charm holds the ghost at bay, who stands, angrily shouting oaths, while Shadow raises a pistol loaded with electroplasm rounds. He fires, nailing the ghost while sharp white light arcs between barrel and slug. He fires again, the electroplasm webbing into the ghost’s blackish, semi-translucent body before reducing it to a cloud of black dust. Shadow takes Trauma to get through the attack, and lays, wiped out on the roof, for half the night.

The operation was a success and the Sly Boys gain the turf.

NOTE: As I write out the above operation, it all seems to make sense. But when we were playing it out, we felt like “well how is this supposed to work?” We always choose the plan type and fill in the detail, but in the end, does it matter what type, besides for tone/color? I’d like to see a couple mechanics in there to differentiate the plan types, or to help with steps of the plan. In the above situation, I feel like we could skip plan type and just get right to it. 

I also had trouble setting the clocks. It’s a great mechanic and I feel it should be easy and helpful. I like that they can be used to gauge the done-ness of a job, but i’m having a hard time. I don’t know whether I’m making the clocks too hard or too easy.

Does anyone else have trouble? Does anyone have great results?

I have more notes that I’ll include in the AP for tonight’s session which is forthcoming. Thanks for reading!

Started a 4-session series of Blades last night. It went well once we got moving. It was a challenge to connect some of the dots as far as actions, effect, and clocks go, but it began to flow really nicely once we got used to a couple of things.

My group really liked the teamwork mechanics, as it was a great way to show individual strengths while at the same time keeping everyone active.

The Crew

Hound: Salish Deruvi aka Shadow. Severosi sniper scout. Obligation to hunting ghosts is his vice. Rolly the bloodhound is his hunting pet.

Slide: Burke Welly aka Tick Tock. Native Akorosi street hustler. Vice: gambling. Specialty- making others do the heavy lifting.

Lurk: Paduka Katut aka Seasnake. Boatman from the Dagger Isles. Unpredictable, sneaky. Vice: Drugs. Special weapon: Huge fishhook.

It quickly becomes clear that the crew is subtle, professional, and methodical. They choose Swarm, as they want to work well as a unit (though we forgot to use this special ability during the run. Duh). They take quality gear and a principled gang of thugs. Headquarters is a small wharf/warehouse across the canal from the Bluecoat station.

No crew names stick yet, so we hold off on that till they do something name-worthy. They meet with Bazso and throw their lot in with him, accepting the task of raiding the Sashes’ treasury.

Gather Info

Seasnake goes to the Sashes’ compound, playing the wandering penitent, and enters the public part of it the temple. He determines that there is no passage from there to the proper gang part of the building. Tick Tock spends an evening at the Leaky Cauldron, playing cards and massaging associates about ways to get in to the Sashes’ sanctum without being a member. He learns that there is one way in, the gate next to the northeast tower, where deliveries are exchanged.

Shadow takes to the rooftops across the street with his spyglass, determining that the fence surrounding the compound, as well as the tower, are scalable, and that the Red Sashes seem to frequent this corner of the compound more than the others.

They decide on an infiltration plan with the point of entry detail being the fence nearest the tower but out of main view.

Engagement

For some reason I had the Engagement, Resistance & Action Rolls reference sheet from the last QS in my folder, and I liked determining Engagement dice based on the strength of the detail/info over assessing the target’s vulnerability as in QS3. They had “strong, useful details” so they got 3d, minus one for facing a higher-tier target. They got a 5 and I chose Unexpected Threat.

*QUESTION. Does anyone have cool ways to translate the gathering info rolls into Engagement dice besides just with the fiction?

Shadow leads the first group action, using Prowl and his climbing gear to get everyone over the fence. As they all land the Unexpected Threat appears. I decide to not make it too hard on them- it’s just some merchants coming up the alley to do business with the Sashes. Their cover is not blown, but they’re definitely seen. Once the merchants pass, Seasnake takes point, using Prowl again to climb the side of the tower. He gets everyone almost to the window, spraining his wrist. Tick Tock is the only one without Prowl but he’s rolling well. Everyone is using a healthy amount of Stress to help each other. With one tick left on the Jump Fence/Climb Tower clock, point goes to Shadow again to finish it off with another Prowl. He fails the roll, and one of his ropes snaps. He resists with Vigor, saving his pals from a long fall and takes 2 stress.

NOTE: It would seem that using the same action three times in a row would be annoying and tedious, but different complications and difficulties arose from each one. In this situation, it just seemed to make sense.

Finally in the tower, point goes to Tick Tock, who leads a group action to Discern. There is a ladder coming up through an opening in the middle of the floor. Light comes from below, and they hear soft voices. He consults his notes, and has Seasnake poke his head into the opening. There are three Sashes, lounging and smoking Black Lotus. They decide to have Shadow lead a Skirmish action to quickly subdue, and hopefully not kill, the three below. They take out two of the three but don’t cover enough ticks, so one starts running toward steps leading down, spawning an Alert clock.

The group immediately flips the No Bullshit switch. Shadow takes a solo Murder action to stop the running Sash, throwing his knife, but only hits his arm. Seasnake pursues him down the steps, rolling a 5 on Murder, burying his big fishhook into his throat, tumbling down the stairs and landing trapped on the ground floor. He destroys a Vigor roll and slips Stresslessly out from under the dead Sash, greeted by four more Sashes and the merchants that they saw before. 

Tick Tock now leads a group Prowl to move quickly and efficiently toward another set of steps on the ground floor. It’s effective, and he and Seasnake dart own the basement steps while Shadow brings up the rear.

NOTE: Here, it seemed like all we ever use is Prowl. We concur with others on G+ that it seems to encompass pretty much all physical movement, not just stealthy/climby stuff. At this point of the run the crew was doing more tactical movement than athletics/prowling. It seems that maybe Skirmish covers some of this type of action.

Shadow now takes a solo Mayhem roll to take as many Sashes out as possible to let the boys get to the vault. There’s a couple ticks left, and it dawns on us that we can use flashbacks. It probably didn’t make sense, mechanically or fictionally, but I suggest that the merchants are actually a couple of the crew’s thugs. Even though the merchants’ appearance was part of an engagement complication, I thought it was cool, so we all said fuck it. The extra thugs on Shadow’s side tipped the Scale in his favor so the Sashes were taken out and the wide doors to the tower were bolted from the inside, halting the Alert clock started earlier.

Tick Tock takes a Devil’s Bargain and throws a switch that turns on some electric lights in the basement corridors, but also turns them on everywhere else in the compound (starting a new Alert clock). Shadow joins them and they find the vault. It is very ornate, locked with a very elaborately tied knot of some kind of metal rope. Seasnake goes to work on it and gets it open, but not without badly cutting his fingers on the rope’s finely-hidden razor filaments. They raid the vault, taking many pieces of fine art, coin, several crates of Black Lotus, scrolls, and an old heirloom sword. They load up the wagon the thugs brought, Tick Tock leads them out to the street while Shadow and Seasnake climb the fence and melt away. They return to Bazso, who is extremely pleased with their performance. 

After-session stuff went pretty normally, with the following highlights: As an entanglement, the Cabbies decide to move in on the crew, so it’s war next session. In response, Tick Tock takes a downtime action to reduce heat, spreading rumors that it was the Cabbies that raided the Red Sashes.

Finally, they decide to call themselves the Sly Boys.