Blades in the Dark: Actual Play Reports – Page 22

Session 3 got cut short, so not much to report.

Session 3 got cut short, so not much to report.. but I’ve given two session recaps that were marred with self-doubt and trepidation. I feel it’s time to correct that.

I’ve been easing my players into the mentality of the game, and the differences between this game and the traditional games they’ve played. Tonight I broke that door down and handed a lot of creative control over to them.. and it was GLORIOUS. I think they enjoyed it, and I know this was a much more positive game experience for me.

In order to gain a loyal fence (a claim), who collects weird artifacts, the crew has decided to burglar the sanctuary of a forgotten god cult. This was a god of craftsmanship who was forgotten due to, and who’s crafts were corrupted by, industry. This specific cult is made up of gunsmiths (so we’re going to be shooting on this score), and the crew intend to rob them of a saint’s trigger finger.

That sounds like so much fun, and I might not have come up with it myself. I’m crushing on the power of collaborative storytelling right now.

This is quite possibly the most distinctive heist that I’ve witnessed in my time running Blades in the Dark games.

They broke into a Baron’s fortress in southern Barrowcleft and stole Sparticus, the finest stud goat in the entire city.

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2017/09/30/blades-in-the-dark-clockworkers-the-emperor-of-goats/

Friday team, session 2.

Friday team, session 2. The cult blew up Grinders stable – second KA-BOOM score of the crew. Since their deity approves brewing conflict and war, this is appropriate action of them. On the site of explosion of Lampblacks’ lair(last session) and Grinders’ stables, certain objects belonging to the Grinders and Lampblack members, respectively, were deliberately planted by the crew.

Of 3 gang members who were guarding the place, one was possessed by Oskar, a possessor ghost, on the behalf of the crews’ Whisper. Another one was killed in action when the bomb went off – he was unlucky to have picked the wrong time to go satisfy the need for evacuation. The last one saw the explosion and promptly knocked out by “debris” – long, cylinderical metal debris that happened to be held by the one possessed by Oskar.

Grinders declared war with the Lampblacks, so the war on the Crows’ Foot had grown larger.

The operation went entirely silent(at least before the bomb went off), but the Red Sashes’ transport was caught with the explosive alchemical used by the crew(they made do with backup supply). Bluecoats, led by Investigators, are following these lead.

……And I’m more and more convinced that I have to “split the universe” between them and Tuesday team.

We’ve played Blades in the Dark – this is our GROGNARD guide

Originally shared by Chris Hart (Dirk the Dice)

We’ve been playing @john_harper ‘s Blades in the Dark … this is your GROGNARD ‘s guide

Mike Cule and Roger Bell West over at Improvised Radio Theatre with Dice podcast apply two criteria to any new game before it is introduced to a table of gamers. I like to call this the IMPROVRAD test, and it goes like this (I’m paraphrasing): The players…

http://armchairadventurerblog.com/2017/09/28/1-d-6-blades-in-the-dark-a-grognards-guide/

The Dead Setters leave their mark on Duskwall in The Retirement Caper.

The Dead Setters leave their mark on Duskwall in The Retirement Caper.

After the Brightstone Riots leave their ugly scars on the homes and safety taken for granted by the nobility, the Dead Setters use their rising influence to infiltrate the largest gangs of all: government.

Trains

Rook the Cutter can’t beat them, so he joins them. Unable to simply tear down Imperial authority, he uses his folk hero status and leads Ulf Ironborn, the Reconciled, and the Skovs (still galvanized after the riots) to reclaim the Lost District. With protections supplied from Teatime the Whisper and grudging help from the Silver Nails, the Skovs take back the District and claim it as their own. Rook becomes something of a robber baron, going straight for railroad construction and expansion into the Deathlands. The Dead Setters’ Ghost Market ability and their alliance with the Reconciled, plus ample supply of leviathan essence allow them to make more headway into the wastelands than any expedition in decades. Rook retires into rail tycoon-hood, sort of a combination of Daniel Day-Lewis’ roles from Gangs of New York plus There Will Be Blood.

Birds

Raven the Hound murders Magistrate Rolan Wott and then shoots herself on Bowmore bridge. Her spirit is torn between her Reconciled friend Nyryx, who was possessing her at the time, her spirit-linked ghost-form raven Zeramore, her Tycherosi blood, and her rituals from the Path of Echoes that should have returned her to the crew’s spirit well.

Weeks later, rumors abound of a spectral raven that plucks the life from those who would harm the Dead Setters. Months and years after that, a small cult following of assassins springs up, taking the storied name of the then-defunct gang the Crows. Raven becomes the spectral and enigmatic leader of the new Crows, styled after the Assassin’s Creed brotherhood.

Gears

Deemo the Leech, now a Hull, disappears after the Brightstone Riots. Left with only the desires to discover, acquire, and destroy, she continues her sparkcraft, refining her automatons, and seeding them into Duskwall’s various vital industries. Deemo becomes an information broker, as her clockwork spies are everywhere. Those who cross her are seldom seen again, but rumor has it her hull spies are often powered by the spirits of her former enemies.

Heirs

Teatime the Whisper, aka Habel Tinriver, aka Heir of Scurlock. He travels outside the lightning barriers to claim Lord Scurlock’s ancient castle for his own. Accompanied only by Mr. Clicks, Scurlock’s former hull manservant, Teatime explores forbidden knowledge.

He rejects vampiric immortality in favor of taking on apprentices, passing his accumulated lore to better and brighter (and saner) minds. He is of course murdered by one of these apprentices years later.

Badges

Richter the Spider weasels his way into the vacancy left by Bluecoats commander Bowmore, tragically killed in the riots in an “accident” involving a sack of hand grenades. He uses his cohort of loyal “yellowcoats”, a sort of internal affairs Stasi, to keep one step ahead of regular Bluecoats corruption and assassination attempts. Richter eventually manages to use his connections to the Imperial Navy to get a seat on the Council, and from there he institutes a sort of anonymous “criminal court”, where underworld disputes can be settled with minimal violence. Less violence means more business, which means more graft for the people in charge. Hardly anyone argues with the new way of doing things… for now.

Richter dies of old age, a miracle for someone as divisive and ambitious as he was. His children are not up the task of holding Duskwall’s criminal elements in sync with its corrupt government. Things start to fall apart, a perfect starting situation for a theoretical continuation of our campaign.

~~~

We really shook the pillars of heaven with this campaign. We played weekly since ~March 2016, going from v4 quickstart all the way to 8.1 release. Huuuge thanks to all of you who read these APs and everyone who streamed/APed Blades during that time – I probably watched some if not all your stuff in my attempts to be a better Blades GM.

I’m still running playtests for my #glowinthedarkrpg post-apocalypse hack and I’m playing in a #copperheadcounty crime hack. Blades in the Dark has insinuated itself into my gaming thoughts like nothing since, well, probably the idea of Fate aspects. I’m just so appreciative of this community and John, Sean, and everyone being transparent and available.

For the final time, and for reals this time, #heestcomplete

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

We’ve purchased a fine bottle to share while we play Blades, a little ritual tipple to bring us back, something the…

We’ve purchased a fine bottle to share while we play Blades, a little ritual tipple to bring us back, something the crew of the North Hook Benevolent Society themselves would enjoy in their finer moments.

So last Sunday marked the start of playtesting for my Highbinders Crewsheet – Conniving Political Crooks.

So last Sunday marked the start of playtesting for my Highbinders Crewsheet – Conniving Political Crooks. The crew is as followed:

Johnathan “Needle” Winters – A Akorosi Leech

Ryder “Viper” Irey – An Akorosi Hound with a pet snake

Mr. DeEnvy – A Tycherosi Cutter

Pejman Albrozad – An Iruvian Slide

Dr. Francinestein – An Dagger Islander Squint with a medium-sized Hull companion.

They chose Lady Slane of the Ministry of Preservation as their Sponsor, and gave her the Sly and Aloof qualities – they serve as an “unaffiliated” interest group for her and the Ministry; picked Mariana Sel, a magistrate as their contact; and chose Career Criminal (the stat booster for the Highbinders) as their starting ability, with Workshop and Highbinders Rigging as their starting upgrades.

To start them off I gave them a task from Lady Slane – there is a small interest group that started up with the intention of swaying the City Council into tightening restrictions on Ministry operations in Duskwall – particularly in the Barrowcleft and Dunslough. The Hound identified two members of the party and managed to track one to a secret meeting in Coalridge, where he observed money trading hands from The Lost, showing who’s payroll these people were on.

The Crew decided to crash the party, and Francine and Jonathan set up a trap in the factory where they were meeting that would electrocute to-death their enemies if need be. DeEnvy helped them avoid the consequence of being noticed by the factory boss. They settled on a Power-play Score and went in to crash the money exchange.

With Viper on a rooftop ready to snipe, and shooting between the legs of their targets at least once, and Francine’s Hull Valentine and DeEnvy providing physical intimidation, the rest of the Crew broke in on the meeting and had no real difficulty terrifying The Lost out of the equation permanently – they left without any real hassle, with Pejman Swaying them to leave behind one of the cases of money on their way out. Their contact in the interest group was also sent on his way, defeated, and unlikely to continue this activism. After collecting the briefcase the Crew was approached by factory security. They claimed to be inspectors, complained about the sorry state of the electrical safety – to prove their point, Francine electrocuted one of the guards to death with the trap they had set up. Convinced, the surviving guards left them be.

Lady Slane was pleased to hear that they put a damper on this group and paid them for their service.

Downtime went forth after that, with a moment of note being Albrozad working to establish his own little monopoly to give him additional Coin during downtime, and Francine putting on a scuba mask and crawling into a dark aquarium tank to sleep with a mysterious “Dave”.

The verdict at the end was that this hadn’t felt all that different from being hired as Bravos to do something. I’m inclined to agree, and while I don’t want to completely exclude a violent answer from the Highbinders (think brownshirt-style political terrorism) I intend to push the Crew in a direction closer to blackmail, embezzlement, or mudslinging next time.

Yeah, Those Are Good Cop Names, aka The Hunnicutts Participate in an After School Special, a #CopperheadCounty story

Yeah, Those Are Good Cop Names, aka The Hunnicutts Participate in an After School Special, a #CopperheadCounty story

Jason Eley the GM

Tyler Ellis as Earl Hunnicutt the Cleaner

Adam Maunz as Zeke Hunnicutt the Stringer

Adam Schwaninger as Eustace Hunicutt the Mover

Our bubbling rivalry with the College Street Crew, a bunch of molly pushers, was something the Hunnicutt clan couldn’t let fester, not after their muscle came after our cousin Wayne at his place of work. We decided to track down the CSC chemist. We didn’t have much of an endgame, but we figured if we found their chemist, we could maybe steal some of their gear, maybe kidnap their chemist, we didn’t know but we knew whatever we did would hurt the CSC.

Earl, using his authority as a Patterson PD detective, got a minor hit on them in the police database. He followed the trail to Patterson State University and spoke to Bobby Ballard, an unusually recalcitrant PSU rent-a-cop. Seriously, Bobby was really loath to divulge information to an actual legit cop, so much so that Earl’s pressure made Bobby suspicious (devil’s bargains: engagement roll penalty), but Bobby caved enough to meet Earl later that night. Earl would be bringing Zeke and Eustace, of course, in disguise as undercover officers Michael Steel and Dan Hardcastle, which are totally great cop names.

“Yeah, those are good cop names.” – Tyler

Our engagement roll was a 1.

So of course Bobby was in on it – it made sense that the college drug ring would have campus safety buttoned up, and although Zeke helped Eustace grab Bobby’s phone and get warning of the impending ambush, the Hunnicutts couldn’t do much to stop Mark Bryant (rising football star and something of a recurring nemesis for Eustace) and 2 other CSC kids with guns from coming out of the nearby maintenance building.

Everyone exchanged fire, but thanks to Earl’s police training the CSC got it worse. We had to decide whether to fight it out, go stealth, or cut and run. We decided to try to flank them, and Eustace played out a flashback idea to survey the maintenance building – back in the 90s when he was just a teenage dirtbag, trying to score college girls. Guns & Roses on the radio, making out with Bobbie June Holloway in the back stairwell of the maintenance building…

There was a back stairwell. The Hunnicutts darted around back but Mark confronted them as they reached the back door. Mechanically, Mark was a tough cookie. Eustace had to resist his charge before he could open fire, but he did. Eustace ripped off the rest of his Glock 18’s magazine, spraying Mark and putting the star down (not dead, but close). They got the door open and burst into what must have been the CSC’s drug kitchen. Earl tasered Roy Reyes (whom we suspected of being their cook but couldn’t tell for sure).

Bobby used his campus safety powers to call the real cops on us next. Eustace booked it out the front door while Zeke packed up the gear. Eustace made it to the van and just off-roaded it across campus back to the building. Bobby was at the back door and the surprisingly badass rent-a-cop plugged Eustace in the shoulder right before he bounced off the van’s hood, ragdolling across the grass.

We bundled Roy and the lab equipment into the van and made it out just before the cops arrived.

We’re at war with the CSC now and hit our first Wanted level. This was a costly success and although we’re into actual crime now with our first Drug Game claim, in the short term we’ll be in dire straits as we try to recover our stress and injuries.

Our first actual session (character creation vids are in the same playlist) happened the other night, with the crew…

Our first actual session (character creation vids are in the same playlist) happened the other night, with the crew of Shadows investigating an assassin’s next target.

Since this was the first time any of us had played, there was a lot of rules explanations. I went pretty easy on them when it came to consequences, but they also tended to roll amazingly so the mission itself went off pretty quietly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqGypml-iL8