Author: Matt Horam

Another Blades session at lunchtime today. The Gentleman Bastards decided to tinker/attune so that the Whisper’s mask could track the strange phials of essence they’d liberated from the Red Sash vault.

The Slide then handed the goods over to Baz and managed to sway him into believing that they weren’t malicious, just inept. He avoided suspicion but the relationship remained tarnished.

The Lurk helped the Whisper prowl around, following the phials through the sewers and onto a merchant’s barge beneath a bridge, and the Lampblacks didn’t spot them, but the merchant did as the Lurk got too close, trying to identify the bloke.

Questions which arose today: If you’re using supernatural means to stalk someone, does that replace stalk with attune? If the Whisper is then stalking, does it mean the Lurk is only prowling? Does this mean a stalk can happen without anyone actually rolling stalk?

Tricky stuff.

Session 2 went a lot smoother, mostly due to me minimising rolls. We only ever rolled for effect if an obstacle was complex, as the QS advises.

Our scoundrels managed a controlled position by staking out the place beforehand, and spending a million stress on flashbacks. They prowled past the external patrols so well that I skipped securing passage via the external lock, then they murdered some guards inside, attuned to some wards and secured entry to the Red Sash vault, which contained cash, drugs and some mysterious phials Baz specifically requested.

They took what they wanted, THEN BURNED EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE VAULT AND RAN OUT THE FRONT DOOR WHILE THE HOUND USED HIS RIFLE TO TAKE OUT ANY APPROACHING GUARDS DURING THEIR EXIT.

Then they kept everything for themselves and reduced all 4 heat by framing Baz and the Lampblacks for the heist.

Okay, so first proper session of Blades at lunchtime today. Like most people, we all spent some time trying to find our feet, deciding which action to roll, choosing bonuses, offering bargains, deciding when to roll for effect/resistance and determining segments.

I could waste time recounting the whole thing, but a few tiny things stood out and I was not sure how to react to them.

1. Players spent a lot of time trying to circumvent each other’s decisions by acting on their own impulses. Baz’ patience wore thin with some starting to speak and the others constantly cutting them short to advance their own idea. The running theme of the whole session was people trying to do their own thing, which seems like Taking Point, but isn’t, quite. I know this is a teething thing, but I need to develop more skills to steer them to some degree of unified action.

2. Flashbacks are cool, but give my players access to it and they try to fold a quintuple flash-ception tetrahedron of actions within actions, filling stress and overcomplicating situations.

3. How does a gang of Adepts actually help with the tinkering to create a dragonfly whisper-drone bug? I got the Whisper to roll Tinker to create it in a controlled position, but without being able to charge the gang stress I assumed I shouldn’t give him a bonus die?

Apart from that, we got better at it the longer we played, and accidentally spent 30mins more than we should. They now have all the details they need to get to the Red Sash vault, but they need to get their Slide out of there safely beforehand…and he’s being escorted by armed guards to meet Mylera to audition for a job as Drug Chemist…

OMG I finally convinced my co-workers to create a crew for Blades. We just spent an hour devising the skills, lair and history of the Gentleman Bastards, who have a hidden lair beneath a clock repair shop in the north of Crow’s Foot.

I was concerned that the dense clustering of vague details, especially the factions, would bore or intimidate them, but the stories just started pouring out from the evocative words.

In one hour, we had everything ready for the first score, and instead of waiting until next week, we’ll probably play on Friday. 

THIS IS MY EXCITED FACE.