Hans S. Tømmerholt – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

Under “Recover”, it’s mentioned that you can tough it out, attempt to heal without treatment, take 1 stress, and…

Under “Recover”, it’s mentioned that you can tough it out, attempt to heal without treatment, take 1 stress, and roll 0d. Does this imply that you may push this undefined roll and pay an additional 2 stress to get an actual die? If this is a normal downtime roll, could you get help from a non-physicker friend or contact to get a die? And, in fact, would this be the only way to get a die?

I’ve been dreaming about running multiple groups, and setting their games in the same persistent universe in some…

I’ve been dreaming about running multiple groups, and setting their games in the same persistent universe in some fashion. I was wondering if the sandbox-y aspect of Blades might be suitable. At the very least, I’d develop the factions and their agendas the same way across all the groups. From there, it could be about shared contacts (and the faction “people”) having the same appearance, voice, and agenda.

The other end of the spectrum is PvP (or, crew vs crew), where the groups could interact with each other as enemies or allies or service providers, try to find each others’ lairs, flip contacts, etc. The obvious problem with this, is that groups would (usually) play asynchronously, so I don’t know how to handle direct conflict.

Each group should be able to forge its own story. I picture you could leave it up to each group how involved they would be, similar to Elite: Dangerous’ “Open”, “Friend” and “Solo” modes. I’ve also been thinking about whether to do “perfect information”, where all the groups and players know about all the other groups and characters, or “discovered information” where the groups will either have to get some rumors about the other groups, or work actively to get them via Gather Information and Downtime Projects. Both feel appealing. It’d be awesome if the groups interacted out-of-character to provide story and interaction ideas for the others.

I’ve been playing with the idea of providing a common story framework: A starting situation like the one in the book, with a known faction war starting, maybe a midpoint linchpin event or turning point, and possibly some later-date event. I’ve been thinking to keep them vague, so the groups could find their own place in relation to them, but still provide some common narrative. I have a specific idea called “The coming of the Red Comet” for the last one, but I don’t (want to) know what that actually means.

I guess this would require multiple GMs, depending on the number of groups. I’m picturing 3 or 4 groups as a starting point, maybe just 2 as a test.

Any thoughts on something like this? Do you have experience with something similar? Are there issues with using Blades for it I should think about?

One thing that confuses me: Action rolls cover the the PCs’ effect and the NPC reaction.

One thing that confuses me: Action rolls cover the the PCs’ effect and the NPC reaction. I.e., the PC accomplishes their goal or not. On choosing an action, the GM sets position and effect.

But what happens when the PCs don’t know about the opponent’s abilities before making a choice of taking action. If the GM then tells them the effect and position, they now know something outside of the game, and may change their mind about the action?

I note the rules say a PC might need to make a resistance roll against an extremely skilled opponent, but the same problem applies.

In most cases, you try to drop clues about an NPC, but often the lack of knowledge is a natural situation.

Would declaring an action constitute a no-take-backsies-situation? I guess it could work, but I could also picture tempers rising around the table.