Author: Malcolm Wilson

Hi all!  So I ran my first session of Blades last night, and it was a pretty rousing success.  My players really rose to the setting, and we had a lot of good collaborative world building.

The PCs were:

Gord Burko, the Hound.  He’s a disgraced former bluecoat from Skovland who fell after developing a deep addiction for ‘g-dust’, a street drug taken via the eye.

Covel, the Slide.  He’s an oily, smarmy merchant with an endless stream of get-rich-quick schemes (the Gambling vice, mechanically).  He also funs the crew’s front.

Ashbane, the Lurk.  She and her sister ran away from a life of rural grind.  Ashbane’s got more lovers than days on the calendar, and if she can keep them straight she’ll get something out of them.

Their crew is called the Collectors, for the trove if stuff they always have in their vault (their lair is a converted old bank, hidden behind Covel’s pawn shop.

And some NPCs were ended up with:

Veleris, Ashbane’s younger sister and Gord’s partner in junkie-dom, runs the crew’s gang of Elite Shadows.  There’s a good chance she’d make a play for power if it wasn’t for the drugs and Ashbane keeping her in place.

Nyryx the prostitute.  He works for the Dimmer Sisters, and is a friend of Covel’s.  If you need a body ‘plasmed, go see Nyryx.

Roslyn the noble, Ashbane’s main squeeze and a player in the world of underground fighting events.

Petra, one of Ashbane’s side pieces (but it’s not really a thing).  Works for Duskwall’s civic planning office.

Bell, a retired duellist who fell down the same ladder of drugs and dissolution as Gord.  Sometimes they hang out.  Bell also spends time at the Red Sashes dojo reminiscing and trying to mentor.

The crew ended generation with a positive with the Dimmer Sisters, the Lampblacks (Baszo being a friend of Covel’s and all) and The Inspectors (a gang of ex-bluecoats who run blackmail schemes and protection rackets).  Meanwhile, they have a mild feud running with the Fog Hounds (Severosian immigrants who turned to crime and violence to feed themselves) and a serious hate-dom for the Circle of Flame.  We bounced some ideas around and decide that the Circle of Flame are a cultish band of redemption preachers (they call themselves Shepards) who love burning people alive for their sins.

The session opened with Baszo tipping the crew to some piece of shiny the Red Sashes just hauled in, and they decided to stick it to those insufferable ponces and make some scratch in the process.

The first step was to figure out where the Red Sashes kept their loot, and Gord decided to Stalk the cash transfers from the RS drug dens.  I set it as a four-clock and the players began a night-long trend of terrible Effect rolls.  Gord made some progress, eliminated some possible locations but got rumbled by a Red Sash lookout.  It turned into a fight and even after Covel and Ashbane came in as backup it was Gord’s fine hunting dog that did the bulk of the Murder.  By then, Gord was stressed out and disinclined to keep Stalking.  Ashbane took to Prowling and making use of the crew’s Elite Shadows while Covel went to see his friend at the Dimmer Sisters to get help disposing of the dead Red Sash.

Finally, after many shitty Effect rolls, it was Ashbane’s lover Roslyn that confirmed the Sashes had their vault in the basement of their dojo.

The crew picked the Infiltrate plan, and used a flashback to figure out their entry pointed. Gord found out from Bell that city workers had accidentally broken through a sewer wall into the dojo basement, and the place still stank of sewage.  The crew figured that meant the breach hadn’t been sealed and in they went.

They got in cleanly, murdered the Red Sash on duty (it was a group effort) and got away with the lucre, and all undetected.  However, because of a Devil’s Bargain, the Red Sashes now have a project clock to interpret some evidence and pin the break in on Ashbane personally.

Ashbane, despite that, came through the score pretty relaxed.  Gord and Covel, though, both had to sink their cut and overindulge just to get out of the danger zone (more bad Effect rolls). Covel is persona not grata at the Dusk Manor Club for a while (it’s bad form to try and con the nobles too obviously), while Gord disgraced himself at a Circle of Flame event and now the Circle’s out for blood (he pushed them down to -3).

The players loved it, I loved it, it was good times.  The collaborative world building is so great.  It’s so freeing as the GM to just say, “Hey, tell me about your friend,” or, “What do you think the Dimmer Sisters really do?” because it shares out the fun and the onus of creation equally.

We did stumble over the rules a bit, as to be expected, but we were able to keep moving by rolling more or making house calls to revisit afterwards.  All in all, very successful.

The points that did come up I noted down to discuss here:

-We treated favourite friends as a Fine Item for Effect rolls when getting info or whatever.  Not sure if that’s as intended.

-When rolling Overcome, I ruled that only the non-point characters take Stress on a low roll.  The rule’s wording struck us as ambiguous, but it made more sense to us that the point character wouldn’t take extra stress on top of danger manifesting.

-A new vice idea: “Violence”

-We were really unclear what the “Affiliation” vice meant.  We figured it was something like, “you have really shitty friends you won’t stop associating with”.

Beyond that, it was really a matter of talking things out and deciding what felt best to the group.  Very refreshing after more formalistic games like PF.