Author: Wright Johnson

Happened to have Turner Classic Movies on in the background with the sound off last night, and Sunset Boulevard was on. Hadn’t seen it in a while, so I watched a bit. My God, that movie is superlative Blades fuel, just on an imagery and set design level. Check this bit out, frex:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivTbd38NtWg

The PCs in my game are looking to infiltrate Sparkwright HQ and swipe a prototype sparkcraft arm for the PC who lost an arm last time. They also blew up the Red Sash Sword Academy at the end of the last session, so the Iruvian Consulate is very cross indeed with them.

My question: what have you all done with the Sparkwrights and the Iruvian Consulate in your games? If you haven’t done anything with them, do you have any ideas about them I can pass off as mine? 🙂

Thanks!

Tonight’s session will mostly take place in the Red Sash Sword Academy. I’m running it on Roll20, so I’m looking for any good inspirational images and floor plans. Anyone have any they’ve used for their own games?

Thanks!

One of the players in my Tuesday night game is going to play a Hull as her second character (her first overindulged and got lost). We introduced the character as an NPC last session, where the crew assassinated her abusive master.

I just asked my group what they’re interested in doing tomorrow night, and she had an interesting answer: “develop an intense malevolence against mankind for the injustices of my creation.” I doubt that’s going to happen tomorrow night, since hulls are servants with limited agency by default, but it seems like an intriguing character arc I’d like to explore. I’m thinking it’s a multi-clock long-term project, and that once it’s done, I might replace the default xp trigger for the Hull playbook with one about committing acts of rebellion against human masters.

How does that sound to you fine folks? Any advice? Any pitfalls I should watch out for?

Ran my first game of Blades as a GM last night, and it went really well! The players all dug it, and after two years of running d20 games for them, getting to play a game which invites and rewards cinematic scene framing and narrative elasticity thrilled me to no end. The other players were new to the system and “fiction-first” gaming in general, but they were already playing like naturals – thanks in large part, I think, to John Harper’s clear and compulsively readable rulebook, which two of them read and grokked without much trouble despite firm trad backgrounds. Taken simply as an introductory text for “fiction-first”/“indie”/“story” gaming, I think Blades is just about peerless.

I did come away with a couple of questions for you fine folks:

1. If the fiction demands it, do you think it’s okay for a character to have two vices? One of the PCs gives to charity out of guilt for the murders she commits (the crew type is Assassins), but she’s also a zealous believer in her dark gods who sacrifices people to them in service to the goal of bringing back the sun (at least, that’s what she thinks will happen).

Both of these fit the bill as vices, I think, and both exert an equal amount of influence on her life. I was thinking she could choose one of the two as her “active” vice at the beginning of every downtime phase, with the other one not counting until she chooses it in the next phase. Struggling with either or both would count toward end-of-session xp where applicable, but only to the usual maximum of 2 xp. I realize this makes being cut off from one’s vice a little less onerous, but I’m okay with that in exchange for the ability to make her life more complicated.

Does that sound workable to y’all? Any other issues you can foresee?

2. What are some good generic consequences for 1-3 and 4-5 rolls during social scores?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

Couple questions:

1. Is there a page in the book where it explicitly says you can take abilities from other playbooks? I feel like I saw that the first time I read the book, but I can’t find it now.

2. How are veteran advances supposed to work? I can’t find anything in the book explaining them. Also, you’re mostly supposed to create your own veteran abilities, right? That’s how I read it, but I want to know the intent.

Thanks!