Rob Donoghue – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

It was asked, and so I answer: My Blades in the Dark kit:

Dice – Some cool D6s, yes, but I also keep one fate die on hand as my “I haven’t thought about that in a while, what’s happened there?” die. Quick roll can tell me if things have gotten better or worse, possible advance or withdraw a clock.

Pens & Pencils – Most normal stuff – Sharpies are my go-to here, but I want to call out one thing. That yellow handled thing is a lead holder – it’s kind of like a mechanical pencil, except the lead is a quarter inch across. When I remember, it’s what I like ot use to fill in clocks because it works almost as well as a sharpie, but it can be erased.

Index Cards – These are the heart and soul of my game. Every element int he game (PC, NPC, Faction, Clock, Whatever else) has a card where i can capture notes and i can shuffle them up for inspiration Some of them are nicely curated (like Uncle Callum’s card) but honestly, most of them are just a line or two, hastily scrawled. If I can, I spread these out in front of me when I run.

Card Stands – These are the little plastic bits you get in boardgames that you insert a paper character into to make a pawn. I keep them on hand to stand up index cards that have information relevant to the table for high visibility. They’re also good for character names,

Photo Printer – Mine is an HP Sprocket, and it prints out 2″x3″ photo stickers from my phone. This is exactly the right size to put on an index card (as I did with Callum). The photos are about 50 cents a pop, so I’m a little conservative with it, but it can reallly be great for NPCs). Full credit o my friends Will (who first showed me these) and Eric Thornber (from whom I stole the idea of putting them on Index cards)

IPad – This is my map and my quick ref rulebook. While not strictly necessary, I gotta admit it comes in handy a lot, especially because it’s big enough that I can hold it up to show the table a relevant piece of data.

I sometimes add in dry erase material, but that’s less consistent, since I haven’t really found a way to use it that I like more than index cards. And things like Post Its (and, god forbid, the actual book) make it into the rotation too, but that’s the stuff I make sure is in my box for running Blades.

How have people handled the spider’s mastermind ability when used to protect?

The ability lets the spider check off special armor to protect someone, even if the mastermind is not in the scene, representing some preparation or planning, which is thematically awesome. However, the rules of protect are that the person taking the action to protect is now the target of the consequence (and can resist it, etc) and that can be really hard to make sense of if the consequences are immediate and the spider is elsewhere.

I’m curious if people have any good rules of thumb for it. The most obvious is some equivalent consequence, but even that feels kind of awkward, so I’d love a cleaner fix.

(Asking this one as a player – I conceptually love the move, but the mechanics of it make me leery to use it)

Looking for opinions: I’m running a one-shot tomorrow.

Looking for opinions: I’m running a one-shot tomorrow. It’ll be long enough for probably 2-4 Jobs, depending how things go. One complication: because it’s explicitly a one shot, I don’t want to mess around with advancement, so I’m considering redeeming stress in lieu of XP when it comes up. Anyone tried something like this?

And beyond that, any one-shot-specific tips?

Rules Q about the Hawker’s Load crew ability which googling offered me no assistance on:

Is “Item” inclusive of weapons, armor and gear, or is it “a thing which is none of the above?”

I just saw a question on the Dungeon World community that was such a BitD question that I initially thought is was…

I just saw a question on the Dungeon World community that was such a BitD question that I initially thought is was this community, and now I am super curious as to people’s answers:

How much load is a human body?

Thought experiment:

The Score differs from free play in Blades in the Dark Because:

– The Flashback mechanic is available

– It may trigger a payoff/consequences event

How else is it really different? I’ve excluded the starting roll because that’s a framing convenience, not a structural difference, but I’m open to counterarguments. How else does it mechanically differ?

(I’m not sure what problem I’m trying to solve here, but something is niggling at me as I write about confidence games)

Author: Rob Donoghue

We have been gifted with a great treasure.