Category: Blades in the Dark: Actual Play Reports

Just ran my first session of the Quickstart last night.

Just ran my first session of the Quickstart last night.

Just ran my first session of the Quickstart last night.

TL;DR – Success! New players; system easy to learn. Devil’s Bargains = great fun. Teamwork mechanic = awesome but clunky with < 3 characters to split the spotlight.

So, in a bit longer form, some highlights from last night’s session:

The Good:

– The setting. Duskwall and the world at large are a fascinating place to play and explore. When I explained to one of my players who the Rail Jack’s were and why they were necessary, he said, “Oh, wow. This setting just got a whole lot cooler.” I haven’t even told him about Leviathan Hunters yet. 😉

– Character Creation. Simple and straightforward, it was pretty easy to explain what everything did in a very short time, and the process doesn’t take long at all.

Teamwork. I like that it gives everyone a chance to share the spotlight, keeping one character from blazing ahead of everyone else and hogging all the glory.

– Devil’s Bargains. They’re a lot of fun, though I need to get better at making them more tempting to this group.

The Problematic:

– Establishing Danger. This is probably my fault, being new to storygames. I felt like I sometimes didn’t do a good enough job of clearly establishing the dangers the characters were facing with their Action rolls. Some of them were obvious, but others of them seemed less like an immediate threat, but I think they were still valid. I’d be interested to know how you veterans do it.

– Teamwork. The mechanic works great, but it can get a little awkward if you have fewer than three players. Since there’s no fluidity in where Point goes after a given character acts, it sometimes falls to one character to be doing nothing but Setup actions for a while, so the other player can solve a specific problem. If you have at least two options for where the spotlight goes after a character acts, this smooths out considerably.

– When to use Effect rolls. Again, this seems like it’s my problem, and not the system’s. I had trouble deciding when they were appropriate, and often waffled for a few seconds. I’ll have to work on this.

If you guys are interested in the play-by-play, here it is:

We had originally planned for three players, but one of them was late getting out of work, and said to start without him. Because of the fluid nature of the game narrative, we figured we would handle creating his character when he got home, and then just drop or Flashback him into the ongoing job.

We started with character creation, which went smoothly. One of the players, Josh McGraw, is a veteran storygamer. I’m a novice, as are the other players. Even so, the character creation process had very few hang-ups (the FAQ and questions answered here helped us with that). We ended up with Frost the Cutter, a former Dockworker turned criminal muscle with a penchant for drink; and Birch the Lurk, an immigrant scout from the Dagger Isles who, for reasons of his own (implied to be related to his worship of the Forgotten Gods), decided he’d be better off in Duskwall.

During the Crew Creation process (also smooth), the players decided that their -1 Status for the Tier 2 Faction was the Lampblacks, which seemed to tie in nicely to the Quickstart setup. We were discussing things like character history, why they formed the crew, etc.–mostly running through the bullet-pointed questions as a way to get the fiction flowing–and I asked them, “So…what did you do to piss off the Lampblacks?”

It turned out that they had very, very recently (within the past 24 hours) managed to snag a score that, unbeknownst to the crew, Baszo Baz and the Lampblacks were eyeing for themselves. So the game started with the crew in their lair, and a forceful, insistent banging on the door.

Merrick, the leader of the crew’s group of Elite Shadows, answered the door to find a gang of Lampblack muscle (denoted by their black armbands) outside–a group of gentlemen who hadn’t heard from their necks in several years. The biggest and meatiest of them addressed them with cold courtesy, and explained that Baszo Baz “requested” the crew’s presence at the Lampblacks’ Headquarters in Crow’s Foot. Not ones to be impolite, Frost and Birch graciously accepted.

They led the group from their lair’s position on the smaller island in Crow’s Foot across the canals of the river (dubbed “The Murk” in the colloquial vernacular) and to the Lampblack HQ, a former-tavern-turned-fortress guarded by more meatheads. The players noticed this preponderance of really strong thugs, and realized that with the recent death of Roric, the Lampblacks and the Red Sashes were gearing up for war.

They were led into Baszo’s study. Baszo was sipping a tumbler of whiskey–with cubes of actual ice–and dismissed the guards before sitting and putting his feet up on the desk. He intimated that he was upset with them for something the characters did, to which the characters expressed surprise.

At this point, I decided to press the players for more information about the job they’d pulled that pissed off the Lampblacks. Birch deferred to Frost, who explained that there was a book of mysterious arcane knowledge in the house of Kurt Skyhold, a Skovlander delegate to Duskwall. They were put up to the job by Amancio, the group’s close contact and friend, who assured them that Skyhold was out of town and that he had a buyer all lined up for the book.

This caught my attention, and I decided that this was just too good to gloss over. I asked, “How did you steal it, generally speaking–out of the five, which plan did you use?” They said they would have used Infiltration. “Great. What was your entry point?” A third floor window, a respectable but manageable jumping distance from an adjacent building (they knew about this due to their Fine Building Plans crew upgrade). “Sounds good.” I described the scene on the street: the three-story house, the moon filtering through the ever-present clouds that were just a little thinner that night, the electroplasmic streetlamps buzzing in the upscale Whitecrown district.

Then I said, “So…who’s on point?”

It was Birch. He decided to use Prowl to get to the target window. He took a Devil’s Bargain that the noise of running down the rooftop would wake up the individual sleeping inside. He got a 1-3 result, and ended up getting a critical success on a Finesse roll to resist the danger (falling and becoming injured). Zero stress, but he caught himself at the second story, so they had to improvise from there.

The scene passed to Frost, who used Command to tell the Shadows to help Birch get down safely, setting Birch up for another roll to get down, which he did successfully. They went with Plan B, which was entering the house through the back door, on the kitchen.

Frost again set up Birch to Secure their entry into the house, and Birch had a little trouble due to a custom, aftermarket lock (six segments) that had been installed after the building plans were filed with the city. It was a Controlled situation, because they were quiet and at the back of the house, and he rolled a couple of 4-5 results, so he never had to face a Danger, but it took him a couple of tries to make his way through the Clock.

Once inside, Frost (who kept getting the spotlight when the group needed to be subtle, which is far from his strong suit) again set up Birch to lead the group in Prowling up the stairs–easy day. Frost opened the unlocked (and thereby immediately suspicious to the players) study where the book was kept, and found the delegate’s security measure: two Skovlan Hunting Cats, domesticated big cats with coarse black fur and weird spiny protrusions out of their shoulders and tails. The cats were awake and aware of everyone, so Frost decided that it was time for Murder. He led the group into violence, and they got a Critical Success. They burned through the clock in one roll and murtilated the book’s guardians.

That done, they picked up the book…and an alarm klaxon started blaring. The bluecoats would undoubtedly be mobilized, so they needed to get going–and quick. Fortunately, Birch had left his Fine Climbing Gear attached to the side of the building (he had legitimately done this in the course of play, no Flashback needed), so they used that as an escape route and made it safely down. Birch accepted a Devil’s Bargain to do it, though, and now the Bluecoats were right at the end of the street. The pressure was on.

Frost decided to lead them through another gate and into the alley behind the house, rather than onto the street to face the Bluecoats. He kicked open the gate with a single blow, but due to a Devil’s bargain sustained a small, two-segment twisted ankle.

At this point, our third player arrived, and we helped him quickly create Helles, the Skovlander Hound, who had been on overwatch the whole time from a nearby building with his Fine Long Rifle. Seeing the commotion and realizing that it was time to leave, he had made his way down and caught up with the group in the alley just as Frost kicked out the gate. Helles consorted with the Elite Shadows (I believe we misused Consort here, but we were running short on time so I opted to just roll with it) and, assisted by Birch, pried up the sewer grate. Helles rejected the Devil’s Bargain to have the sewer pipe be close to full (which I offered mostly because it would have been funny), so it was relatively empty and they made their escape with the book.

We called it there. Next time, we’ll recap and go through the Advancement and Downtime as the crew rests up from the score, then Flash Forward again to the conversation with Baszo, and proceed with the Quickstart scenario. We’ll also retcon Helles into the action at the Lampblack HQ.

Inspired by everyone else I figured I would write up an AP from my group’s time with the quick start rules.

Inspired by everyone else I figured I would write up an AP from my group’s time with the quick start rules.

Inspired by everyone else I figured I would write up an AP from my group’s time with the quick start rules. 

The Jackboot Jesters were summoned from their usual haunts by Baszo Bas. The Jesters are a very blue color group of thieves, so they already had some standing with the Lampblack due to previous services rendered. It was an easy choice when the idea of an alliance was brought up. Keel, Vond, and Hix could tell an opportunity if they saw one, and had no particular love for the Red Sashes.

The three returned to the Broken Blade tavern, nodding at Rigney behind the bar as they descended into the safety of their hidden lair lurking underneath to plan the raid on the Red Sashes vault. Hix had long been lurking through the sewers and knew of just the spot to infiltrate the Sashes’ stronghold, an old sewer access that has long been locked and forgotten.

The trio quickly gear up, and head through the secret routes. Once there Keel  and Vond stood on alert as Hix set about teasing the lock open. It fell away with barely a noise, but before the crew could enter enemy territory a noise coming toward them through the dark sewer tunnels (devil’s bargain) drew their attention. An ghost long turned feral forgotten under the city had found them.

Vond stepped forward and drew his pistols, loaded with electroplasmic ammunition for just such an occasion. A sure shot later and the Skovlan noble motioned for Hix and Keel to make their way inside. 

Making their way through the tunnels with Keel on point, the group came upon two sashes practicing their sword work. With practiced ease Keel motioned to Vond and the nobleman once again set about making with the murder. 

Keel took point and lead the group right to what they had been searching for the Sashes’ vault, wide open and being loaded with the day’s haul. The old leviathan hunter stepped up and tried to command the Red Sash to drop his sword, assisted with a little help by the concealed blade Hix silently pressed against the man’s ribs. Sadly the guard was made of sterner stuff, and mayhem soon broke out.

Just as Keel knocked the first guard out, a confused guard wandered out from the vault (devil’s bargain strikes again). Once again Vond stepped forward and dispatched the man with a blast from both pistols. 

Cursing at the sound of guards clanging through the halls, the young HIx stepped up and quickly led his senior Jester out of the lower levels and into the relative safety of their sewer paths.

Sadly the one guard Keel had knocked out had gotten a good enough look at them to get the crew a little more heat than they originally bargained for. Apparently even the Bluecoats were paying attention to the rumors that night generated, but the Jesters were able to put a couple coins in their pockets. They were willing to call it a win. 

First experience, in less than optimal conditions.

First experience, in less than optimal conditions.

First experience, in less than optimal conditions. Eight players, one cutter, one hound, two lurks, two slides and two whispers. 

We lost around two hours creating the characters and crew. Had I known I would have so many players, I’ve made pregens. I should have made pregens…

We start in Baszo Baz office. “Only half the crew is inside, who’s talking with Baz?” Laxer the whisper steps forward. Weaver, Maxwell, Fwishi and Skava are waiting in the next room, surrounded by suspicious Lampblacks.

Mr. Baz makes it clear that they are young, and his gang can crush them anytime he wants. Laxer accepts working against the sashes, but needs something more substantial to trust Baz. The gang leader offers him two things: first his crew can walk away in two working legs each, second he can schedule a meeting with one of his informants to give them intel of the Red Sashes base. If the intel is worthy, they can trust him, if *the Wart break into the vault, they can start speaking business. Laxer asks for a minute to consult with his group.

Huddled at the table the five thieves discuss their possibilities, fully knowing that the lampblacks are watching them. Maxwell catches one of the lamps eye, a rough, scarred thug playing with a knife. She gives him the look, like saying “come pick me up if you dare”, the slide takes the call. Laxer goes back to the office, escorted by two of his crew and two of Baszo bodyguards. They accept the deal, and are escorted outside.

Meanwhile Maxwell and the thug go right into business, she takes him to a more private place, and Marco (Maxwell player) goes “I murder her”, confused I go along with it, having no idea where he’s going. He tests Murder, devils bargain: they will notice she’s missing, sticks a knife, four segment clock to get out unnoticed, he goes for a Finesse, not great only half clock. “You leave the room, but there are lampblacks all over the place”, we decide for a Deceive test, he will disguise himself as a lampblack, “the bearded one”, devils bargain: he’s followed. “Before I leave, I leave behind something red, so they think it were a red sash. Now I know where this is going. Tests Finesse, bad luck, 4 stress, but he gets away, discards the disguise and reunites with the full crew. The Wart now have -1 rep with the Lampblacks, and Maxwell is undoubtedly implicated. They hear shouting “We better run.”

The crew has mixed opinions, Maxwell wants to heat the war, with the sashes and lampblacks killing each other and leaving room for them. They had already chose bad rep with the Red Sashes, and now are down with both sides of the war. Not only that, but the meeting is only hours away.

They decide to infiltrate the sashes base, check out the building, and compare their notes with the info Baz’s informant gives them. Maxwell gives Fwishi the Lurk some coal to plant on the vault and incriminate the lampblacks of the theft. 

They go for Deception, the method is: Skeeves the Slide, Mr. Morristone and Maxwell will disguise themselves as some posh noblemen interested in this new cult fad of the Path of Echoes. We declare that the temple is divided in three levels, the first level is a shrine open to the public. Exmuk the Cutter is waiting outside on lookout. They are greeted by a red dressed monk who’s guiding the regular parishoners. The farse is a 6 segment clock. They ask the monk for a full tour, we go for a Sway I think and Influence effect, devils bargain: since Maxwell is iruvian, the monk starts prodding for deep religious stances and cultural details, he has a full success and ticks 6 segments, the farce is complete. Skeeves distracts the talkative monk while Morristone (dressed as an old lady) start taking notes of the plans, covering it as writing poetry. We go directly for an Insight effect, devil bargain: some old bachelor starts chewing his/her ear. Half four clock to find an entry point. Maxwell finds a door behind a curtain, leading to the upper level. I think we go for a Feint, he climbs the stairs that lead to some kind of dojo, weapon racks cover the walls, we go for a Finesse test, devil’s bargain, one of the sashes enters the room from the upper level. Maxwell succeeds and sees an entrance from the garden that leads directly to the upper level, an entry points He leaves before being noticed. 

Back with the crew, the thieves decide to infiltrate before going to the meeting. The idea behind it is stealing some of the treasure, escape, go to the meeting, steal less riches and present Baz the “second” loot. A little convoluted.

Laxer decides to Summon his former master for advice, he goes to the alley where he used to hang out (Master Travis had a life as a self imposed hobo). We decided he died five years ago, no he’s a bizzarre ghost that haunts the streets. Laxer spends 3 stress points and a cold mist start forming around him, we go for a Will resistance (since its the first time he summons Travis), a humanoid figure starts building itself from the thrash, body of boxes and food, hair of discarded mops and eyes of a dead cat. Master and apprentice reunite, and the spirit warns the Whisper about the temple: it is a lighthouse for ghosts in the area and holds the ghosts of powerful warriors inside some ancient armors. 

With all this intel, they chose Infiltration, using the garden door as entry point. This mission is for Exmuk (cutter), Weaver and Fwishi (Lurks). Fwishi is on point, he tries to overcome the door with Secure, Weaver assists making a distraction for the patrol, we roll Finesse and has a bad result, two guards shout “Who’s there?!” before he gets to pick the lock, but Exmuk takes the effect roll with his Force: before the guards reach the Lurk, he knocks them out. 

This is where we wrapped up. The first BitD game in Rosario, possibly the first one in Argentina. I have mixed feels. I like the system, but have a lot of trouble when asking for tests. Only one of the players had read the rules, so they don’t have idea when to roll either. BitD seems different in that there is a lot of fictional “set up” before the roll, and is a dynamic that I find difficult to get. 

As I finish writing this AP I had GM’d another session, this time for 3 players. Went much more smoothly, and overall more positive, but still have the issue with the roll dynamics. When to roll. What’s at stake. When its Action and when its Effect. Tuesday night I have another table, I guess I’ll a lot sharper by then.

*(yep, that’s the name of the crew)  

Here are some mp3s of the actual play posted by John Harper in the kickstarter.

Here are some mp3s of the actual play posted by John Harper in the kickstarter.

Here are some mp3s of the actual play posted by John Harper in the kickstarter. I made them because I wanted to listen while doing other things. Sharing them here for others who also don’t have the time to sit and watch the YouTube. Files are c. 40mb each.

http://jellysaw.com/webifacts/blades1.mp3

http://jellysaw.com/webifacts/blades2.mp3

Write up by Sean Nittner at http://www.seannittner.com/actual-play-six-towers-gang/

Just got finished running my crew through the quick start.

Just got finished running my crew through the quick start.

Just got finished running my crew through the quick start.

The Job:

Lyssa hired the crew to steal Rorik’s body from the City Watch station before it was sent to the crematorium.

The plan:

The Slide and the Whisper get into a fight in the lobby of the watch station to distract the Bluecoats.

The Lurk cracks open a window while the Cutter watches out for patrols. 

The Cutter distracts one of the Bluecoats with a doxy, slits his throat and walks in the fog wearing his coat.

The Slide convinces the desk sergeant he’s a man of means and hired a coach to come pick him up.

the Whisper uses his ghost key to get out of jail. Per the whisper, the ghost key unlocks ghost doors by scraping the finger bone of a dead man against a wall in the proper sigil.

The Cutter comes up against a fresh young Bluecoat that doesn’t recognize him. The Whisper summons a ghost to possess the young lad and head directly for the vice district.

The Lurk gets the body out of the morgue and up on the roof.

The Slide’s carriage arrives. He gets in makes sure his rover takes the street where the lurk awaits to dump the body onto the roof of the coach.

Devil’s Bargains:

The Whisper isn’t pretending to be drunk.

The Slide bribes the desk sergeant with a fake gold pocketwatch that he discovers the next time he winds it.

The Crew left obvious evidence there’d been a break-in.

Strengths:

The setting elements gave concrete hooks on which to hang player concepts and ideas.

Character creation was fun and engaged everyone coming up with bits of their crew.

A lot of intriguing possibilities for the next job, from what Lyssa wants to do with the body to the old debt I rolled as part of development.

Weaknesses:

Their dice were hot – they rolled less than a 6 only once.

Some confusion on when to apply effect and when to apply action rolls.

I kept forgetting to ask about leading or overcoming.

Overall impression:

Good game. the quick start offered some excellent bits to build follow-up stories on, along with a lived in world that still allowed room for cool player invention. I look forward to the examples in the full book, since I think they will go a long way to illustrate how to use the system to its most efficient.

Blades in the Dark game/demo at Gametorm last night.

Blades in the Dark game/demo at Gametorm last night.

Blades in the Dark game/demo at Gametorm last night.

It’s not on the Action/Effect sheet but I thought I recalled seeing Background used as a modifier for Effect rolls in the KS AP. Did I imagine that? (we didn’t use Background for Effect, only Action)

One hiccup for the game was the segments versus stress usage for the two different uses of Effect rolls applications. I thought I’d explained “Scope of Action vs Resist a Negative effect” adequately but a couple players found the reference sheet leading to some confusion, e.g. “4 SEGMENTS, 1 STRESS” and had come to different conclusions initially. It may have been my poor explanation but I wonder whether that section of the reference sheet can be improved to show that segments and segments only are an application of the scope version and stress and stress only are an application of the resist negative effects roll.

The group picked Score II from the Quick Start (plant the strange artifact in rival’s HQ) and a Deception plan with a detail of using the Dockers (allies of the Red Sashes) to arrange a sit-down with Mylera Klev to get them inside the HQ. The party Cutter had a good relationship with the Dockers which gave the crew a +1 (Helpful) status with them. They were going to put the artifact in the trophy case of the Red Sashes’ sword-fighting school right under their noses.

I made two progress clock obstacles for their scheme. A four-segment “The Trust of Holtz” and a six-segment generically-termed “Red Sash Security”. The crew Slide, Cross, was known as Baz’s man and Holtz (leader of the Dockers) was going to be reluctant to arrange the sit-down as a result. If that worked, they were still going to have eyes and probably hands on them too prior and during the entire sit-down so arranging a moment to get the artifact into the trophy case was going to take some planning and a diversion or two.

The Wards / Patrols / Locks clocks from the book/quick start are great, but you can get more generic if you want and you give the players even more latitude in how they approach the score overall.

I really liked the feeling of the score in this session. It felt like a Gentlemen Bastards or Out of Sight con rather than the more traditional sneak-and-stab I was expecting.

The “Unquiet Dead” entanglement that resulted following the Development roll was eerily appropriate. Very cool.

Thanks so much to the players for sticking with me on this one. This was the first time I’d run/explained the game to other players who’d not themselves read the rules. Even trying to keep it to the minimum required explanation, there’s a pretty substantial chunk of rules to go over in the context of a convention one-shot.

Ben Kaser

I managed to run my first attempt on Blades in the Dark at Friday and well, this is my attempt of writing an actual…

I managed to run my first attempt on Blades in the Dark at Friday and well, this is my attempt of writing an actual…

I managed to run my first attempt on Blades in the Dark at Friday and well, this is my attempt of writing an actual play about what happened.

The players & arrangements

I started cheering up some players, yet usually Friday is my D&D5 day. As the D&D5 group had to pause I decided to offer BitD as a fill in.

Two players from the D&D5 group joined, one friend of mine and another player whom I didn’t knew before.

Three of them had read the rules at least once, one didn’t finish reading them. One player extracted the character sheets and made them fillable. Certain pages of the QS got extracted as well.

It was a Oneshot.

Meals & Setup

I prepared some bread and soda mix. I had all the one page PDFs plus QS open in FoxIt and the PDF open on my tablet. Which I used a lot to page through the sides. One player prepared a shared (Google Docs) document to keep track of different infos.

For clocks, as I got no proficiency in drawing tools, I just used the notation “ x/x” in Hangout chat.

Creation

I asked the players to spent some thought on what they want to play, but left the actual creation up to the beginning of the session.

Estimate vs. Reality

I estimated roughly an hour for Crew and Char creation, we ended up needing almost two hours. It still was fun, I believe.

Crews Creation

As we figured that the crew might provide a good outline we started with the creation of the Crew. Its been clear that it would be Thieves and that they are placed in Crow’s Foot with Lyssa being the warden. Given that she murdered Roric she’d been described as ‘driven’.

Some of the first things crystal clear was that they would like to have their lair in an abandoned museum. A secret lair in its cellar. The crew should have a renown of being “strange”. Basically almost being suspected to be cultists, using ghost and, well, being strange.

The name got rather quickly decided to be “Die Chronisten” (the chroniclers). The special ability chosen was “Alpha”.

The contact would be Fitz the collector, as it seems fit to a group of occult thieves living in a museum.

The lair got outfitted with a workshop and a library.

Assigning the factions stand took quite some time and there was some discussion what the factions are actually about. For Tier 2 I noted that Red Sashes, Lampblacks and The Crows would be the most relevant.

Faction choice ended up as follows:

Tier 1 The Forgotten Gods +1 Inspectors: +1 The Lost: +1 Deathlands Scavengers +1

Fog Hounds: -1 Rail Jacks: -1 Ulf Ironborn: -1 The Eels -1

Tier 2 The Red Sashes +1 The Lampblacks -1

Tier 3 Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh +1 Spirit Wardens -1

Questions Remarks

Is it possible on Tier 1 to get a faction standing at +2 or higher and would it be possible for one player to basically negate the standing another player has been set?

With the Crew assets we noticed that some stuff, basically all that’s been in the grey, wasn’t explained. So we weren’t sure if it could be taken, if there would be prerequisite to e.g. taking the Elite Shadows and what exactly the stuff does mechanically.

There was as well some insecurity regarding the crew effects. Apart from that I could tell them that they really should consider Resources.

Char Creation

The crew were made of:

Edlun Strathmill – Whisperer (Academic, Skovlan, luxuries)

Ring “Preacher” Morrison – Cutter (Underworld, Akoros, ?)

Daphnia Dalmore – Slide (Noble, Dagger Isles, luxuries)

Pill – Hound ((Bluecoat, Akoros, ?)

We had some discussion regarding the different origins. Specially the aspect that Edlun should come from Tycheros got some discussion about demons and how Tycherosi were welcomed. We started from some players more on the side of “demon folk almost getting burned at sight” towards of “they get at least a bit discriminated.” as well some questions what demons actually are. I knew about ghosts, but had no real concept how demons are different. In the end it was decided that Skovlan might be more fitting and easy to go with.

The player of Daphnia noticed Baz among the contact options and after some discussion who he is decided to take him on friend level on an instant. Edlun went for Nyryx a possessor ghost.

Remarks

Char Creation for four characters went a bit faster then the Crew creation.

The Score

I decided to go for the opening and chose that they’ll have a meeting with Mylera who’ll assign them to steal a special picture from the Lampblacks. The thing special about the picture was that it was done using ectoplasma as part of the ink, in the process of creation, and was thereby not only a fine piece of art but as well unique.

We played the encounter and conversation with Mylera with Daphnia having the lead in the conversation. They ended up as agreeing to do the score.

Mylera revealed that she believed that the painting was stored in the vault of the Lampblacks HQ. The HQ was basically a defunct lighthouse and the vault was in a vault in a grotto underneath it.

Remarks

 –

There was a natural tendency to try to haggle for a better price. Something I found difficult to play as the actual price is determined by a roll in the end. Basically I played Mylera playing a hard ball of they’ll getting paid what they getting paid and that its a good chance for a pretty new crew.

In hindsight I may could have highlighted the option for the players to do flashbacks and change the whole reason why they were there.

 –

The characters went back and it was discussed how it should be approached. They gathered some information regarding the vault and decided in the end to abduct on of the two day shift vault guards.

Remarks

–

Oh my. It was less planning then in a SR nightmare but way to many for my taste. I didn’t manage to sell the “Just select a method, take the spot and go” aspect enough.

Another plunder of mine was that I first believed that there was a roll needed for Gather information which isn’t.

–

The plan was set in motion. First the Cutter went trailing the victim to the bar where it would be snatched by the Slide, who’ll take it to the Whisperer where he would get taken out and possessed by the ghost friend of the Whisper. The then possessed guard should go and actually steal the picture from the Lampblacks for them.

The plan to get the guard went as planned, actually even better then planned. He ended up stripped to the chair ready for the Whisperer to enact the sinister plan.

The Whisperer started to bide the ghost into the poor mans soul yet even though it was a controlled situation things didn’t went as planned. The body resisted and the Whisperer tried to push harder, risking to faint on a failed tempt.

Again it didn’t went as planned, the feet of the Whisperer went weak and he was on the verge of collapsing, loosing controlled.

The Slide acted first, drawing out her perfume to revitalize her friend. Yet the perfume didn’t as much returned the Whisperer to live but evoked memories of his former live in the ghost, who decided to chose another victim for his possession, crawling back out his half way in, heading for the Slide.

The Cutter picked the Whisperer up and attempted to smack him back to consciousness. Holding him up, hands reaching, he recognized it might do worse then good.

In the meanwhile the Slide decided to adapt the plan, spraying the original victim with the perfume which not only convinced the ghost to return to the body as he was supposed to but the stink brought the Whisperer back to his feet.

The questioning of the guard revealed that the painting wasn’t actually in the Grotto but in Baz sleeping room located at the second floor of the lighthouse. Which was close to the top.

Question Remarks

–

The first action was planned to set the guard up by the help of two players for the third. The rules only mention a two step setup. Is it possible to collect multiple dice doing multiple setups?

Apart from that it was my favorite scene of the evening.

The clocks I set weren’t as big (0/6 for the guard, 0/4 to possess him, 0/2 to save the Whisperer) but worked and the botches made it very interesting.

I decided for the “Its actually in the tower” twist on the fly, as it hadn’t had another twist planned. Though I have to admit that I was indeed very afraid that they went through with having the guard do the actual stealing as I wasn’t sure how that should have been handled.

The player of the Hound wasn’t sadly as included. Partly to me failing to explain the feature of the system more clearly. (He likely assumed his character had no fitting skills)

By the end of the scene it was about 11:30pm.

–

Given the new information they’ve obtained they made a infiltration plan. Entry point was the back of the lighthouse.

The most of the crew would climb it from the sea side while the Slide was set to distract Baz.

The Slide talked comfortably with Baz in a sauna using her fine jewelry as an fine asset to convince him to not go back to the tower for the evening. It went first rather abyssal for Baz is rather sharp, yet upon promising that even given the bad standing her crew would run a score for his, no questions asked, she managed that the crows may attempt to rob him of the picture and maybe even murder him,.. like Roric who had it coming. They decided to leash out against the crows and spent the night together.

The crew scaled the Tower. First went the Cutter with almost no problems. Second the Hound and the Whisperer followed. The Hound did manage to proceed going up but dropped some stones, alerting some of the watchers down there. They managed to arrive the top unnoticed.

Up at the tower the Whisperer managed to overcome the security like a virtuoso. Not only disabling all the runes, ectoplasmatic security and opening the door but finding the painting behind some curtains.

The painting got wrapped in those curtains.

A dead crow got placed in the room and the scoundrels escaped back to the museum.

Questions Remarks

–

If the danger is something can it be overcome by a effect roll? We noticed the possibility just there and it got used.

Apart from that I offered several devils bargains. The “do a job for the Lampblacks” was one. Offering devils bargains was really fun and I did it some more. Though it needed clarification that they are always optional. I am not sure if it was right to offer the bargain after the roll, yet the result was pretty cool.

The player of the Hound was really confused by the “you can chose the approach of how to scale the tower by your own.” even though I tried to explain it the best I could I think I could have done better. He ended up scaling up using a faint approach.

It was until the Hound climbed up that we noticed the difference in the group approaches. Up to then we only used either overcome or followup.

I got to “draw” several clocks (like in text using x/x terminology). Which was fun on the one hand, but confusing at the other. Specially as scaling the tower only landed a 4/6. I haven’t dared to to do a 0/8 clock or higher. Like for the whole adventure.

The Slides action was iirc the only “not group action”.

–

Back at their lair it was decided what to do with the painting. Should it really go to the Red Sashes with that kinda aggressive leader? NAH!

The group proceeded to use their workbench, the library they got and all assets they got to desperately try to attempt a fake that would pass.

The result was descent enough to trick Mylara at least at first.

Remarks

–

It was very late (half past midnight) and there was some discussion whether ot not to do it. I decided to go with it and offered a 0/6 clock on a desperate attempt to fake it. Low clock mainly to have a chance to do it in one go and not going into project stuff.

They managed to fake it, but only to get a 4/6 at the clock. So I thought it was fit that they would be able to hand it to the Red Sashes and that it would only late be discovered to be a fake.

The group had a blast at good rolls and that the attempt didn’t went down to a disaster.

–

Aftermath

We decided to go through all the wrap up steps.

The Heat roll was favorable after the player with the worst dice luck rolled they got no heat at all.

The Development roll was a critical success, 3 coins and 2 hold. It was felt that it was a rather meager outcome. Specially as the characters didn’t got any personal coins for them self. So in the end they took one starting coin and everyone got 1 coin.

The attempt to acquire a new asset failed.

No doctor was needed.

The stress got reduced to zero for all but the Whisperer (I think).

The crew progress was done and 3 progress bars filled. Side job was understood rather literally as a sidequest. ^^;

The char progress was done. The Cutter and Hound were left a bit progress left as fights and kills were avoided. Which I felt was a bit harsh. The fourth condition “Express your relationship to the crew” left us totally puzzled. I think only the Slide got to get an XP from that one as her devils bargain did kinda cross the crew.

Regarding the faction standings we noted,…

-1 with the crows for basically the Crew, well, was at least to the Lampblacks obviously and as well to the Red Sashes hurting them.

-1 with the Lampblacks cause even though they don’t faced opposition by Baz it was clear they did it.

+1 with the Red Sashes for doing the job -1 for they will discover its a fake

It all came down to ques, the half-blinded cutter grabbing the vampire to toss it off the top of the tower and the…

It all came down to ques, the half-blinded cutter grabbing the vampire to toss it off the top of the tower and the…

It all came down to ques, the half-blinded cutter grabbing the vampire to toss it off the top of the tower and the arrangements of the slide setting up a catch-net in the courtyard below. As the tower crumbled a hole tore in the net and ques broke her back. Even before they get home the other rogues are taking about who will replace the crippled cutter. The Hound nursed his broken hand and knew the pay wouldn’t be enough. 

So I’ve played a few solo adventures now.

So I’ve played a few solo adventures now.

So I’ve played a few solo adventures now. Using the random tables for inspiration and the gather information move, it works surprisingly well… Better than any other game I’ve tried to pay solo previously.

Basically I’m using gather information to ask questions about the mission. I go through those questions and try to come up with cool answers. And then I give each of those answers a clock. Then play it out to see what happens!

The action and effect system provides plenty of variation in play, and coming up with devils bargains also adds plenty of twists. Altogether an enjoyable experience.

I was mainly playing to get my head around the rules, but I was very impressed with how the system and its procedures provide so much I unexpected and interesting fiction.