Author: Parker Emerson

Alternative Ghost ability for Spider, if you don’t want to include Ghost Contract. IDEAS HALP!

HACK CHECK-IN!

Are you in the process of chopping up Blades in the Dark into your own Frankenstein’s Monster? PLEASE SHARE. What have you worked on recently? Whether it’s a completely new game or a custom sheet of advanced moves, please share!

I Am The White

When you would take fatal Harm, you may instead step into the ghost field and take 1 Trauma instead. You return from the ghost field a few days later.

This seems really cool to me, but then I realized you can always roll to resist and take stress to avoid Level 4 Harm, and then take a Trauma, right? This is an ability everybody essentially has.

One of my favorite motifs in classes and playbooks across all games is the mechanic “Roll at the beginning of the session, use when you want”. (In detail: at the beginning of a session, roll the core mechanic dice, set that value aside. At some point during the session, instead of rolling just use that value.)

That mechanic works great for games like D&D (d20) and Fate (4dF), because they all have the same roll. But Blades uses a variable number of dice depending on the Action rating.

How might I create something like that in Blades? I’ve taken a few passes at it, here’s what I’ve got so far:

Prophetic Visions: At the start of a job, you may roll an Action or have another player roll an Action. If you choose to do so, the player who rolled the Action may use that roll when they take that Action once during the job. If they do not, you take a Level 3 Harm Haunted by Destiny.

Thoughts?

After hearing about how the SRD is going to be presented, I’ve opted for a full rebuild of the playbooks for my “gonzo kitchen sink on an asteroid” reskin, Thieves on the Rock. Am I missing any highlights? What does a reskin of Blades set on an asteroid port in a world where angels and elves exist need? I’ve essentially split the Cutter and the Whisper in half. As long as I’m here to tear it apart and put it back together again, what other playbooks should I cover?

* Artificer – An Arcane Technician (the closest to a Blades playbook, the Leech, with maybe a wee bit more magic)

* Harbinger – A Relentless Hunter (the Hound, with a dash of Gothic Magic)

* Operative – A Charming Spy (the Slide, but with a dash of the Cutter’s “commander” / D&D Warlord abilities)

* Psycher – A Divine Sorcerer (a Gothic Whisper, a sorcerer)

* Savage – A Fast and Furious Fighter (the Strikery Cutter, with a dash of Fae Magic; akin to the “monk and barbarian” cutter)

* Slip – A Shadowy Infiltrator (the Lurk, with some Fae Magic)

* Vanguard – A Walking Tank (like the Engineer from Torchlight 2, a Defendery Cutter with a fair amount of Tinker, with great armor)

* Weaver – A Prescient Mastermind (Gothic Spider)

* Wisp – A Beguiling Witch (a Fae Whisper)

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere, but do we have a sense of what will be covered by the SRD? Normally “fluff” is out and “crunch” is in, but like similar PbtA games, Blades’ crunch is pretty tied in to its fluff. So for example,

(1) Are the playbooks part of the SRD?

(2) If they are, I assume that the Cutters’ ability text for Bodyguard is? (“When you protect a teammate, take +1d to your resistance roll. When you gather info to anticipate possible threats in the current situation, you get +1 effect.”)

(3) Is the explanatory text that is in the rulebook but not on the playbook? (“The protect teamwork maneuver lets you face a consequence for a teammate. If you choose to resist that consequence, this ability gives you +1d to your resistance roll. Also, when you read a situation to gather information about hidden dangers or potential attackers, you get +1 effect—which means more detailed information.”)

Obviously everything Duskvol wouldn’t be. I’m assuming task resolution is. But there’s obviously a grey middle ground. I’ve been basing my work on other class-based games’ SRDs, but would love a little clarification in advance of the Blades SRD release, if possible. THANKS KINDLY.