Blades in the Dark: Discussion – Page 122 – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

When establishing hunting grounds, GMs need to pick a faction who claims the district that the PCs choose as their…

When establishing hunting grounds, GMs need to pick a faction who claims the district that the PCs choose as their hunting grounds. How have people have divided up the district control between the various factions? The division in Crow’s Foot seems pretty clear, but I was curious if people have examples of which factions control which districts in their play.

Hey all.

Hey all. Was playing around in R and made this network graph of the BitD actions. Actions color-coded by attribute. An arrow pointing from action A toward Action B means that, under the description of A (p 58-59), the phrase “but B might be better” appears. Obvious caveat that these aren’t all the possible “but B might be better”‘s that we might come up with. These are just the “official” ones.

Things that jump out at me:

1) The centrality of Skirmish, suggesting that being decent in melee is an important and versatile skill.

2) The “social skills” component is separate from the rest of the network, meaning that situations in which they are relevant are generally expected to be distinct from where other kinds of skills are relevant.

3) The importance of Survey as a general purpose perception skill.

4) Study, Attune, Prowl and Wreck as skills that are kind of specializations (i.e. they apply to particular circumstances but aren’t expected to be used outside of those).

Anyone notice anything interesting? Does any of this mean anything? Sorry that “Command” got clipped, there.

On Radiant Energy and food.

So. People grow crops for food with Radiant Energy, ‘outside’ the city and “life in the city depends upon

these farms.”

Nobles have private Radiant Energy gardens of their own, explicitly to supplement their diets – “the living light allows growing gardens of fresh fruit and vegetables inside the mansion’s security. “

At the same time, “Enjoy the radiant plants and animals, but do not eat them. Radiant poisoning is serious.”

So, uh, what gives? I get the very vague impression that directly infusing biomatter with radiance to make it glow in a fancy manner and putting a lamp near some plants to mimic a sun are two different techniques, but the book confuses the issue, discusses both at the same time and doesn’t make any distinctions. It needs to be clarified.

I just got the BitD PDF when backerkit orders opened, and I’m well into reading it, but I’m starting to plan a…

I just got the BitD PDF when backerkit orders opened, and I’m well into reading it, but I’m starting to plan a oneshot (for friends I’m seeing in 2 weeks), and since other people have been playing this game for months I’d love any advice.

See, I’m visiting some friends in two weeks and I offered to run a game (I’ve been playing for a while but only run a couple games, for other friends). I threw out possibilities and one latched onto Blades when I said it was “basically Dishonoured the ttrpg”. However, one of my favorite things about Blades is the downtime activities and long-term play. I’d love to incorporate those into the oneshot somehow (and these friends are in another state, so it’s not going to turn into a long-term campaign).

My current thought is to premade character sheets, talk about the general feel and setting of Duskvol, then start a score in medias res (basically, skip ahead to where a Risky engagement roll would drop them). Once they’ve learned the basics of the game, go to payoff. Then let them change the stats on their character sheets (and maybe give them a bump up with a few more dots and let them pick a second ability), do downtime actions, and then start planning a larger, “main” heist.

This accomplishes a few things:

1. In the few other games I ran, players had a problem building characters without knowing how the mechanics worked. This was partly because I didn’t explain everything they needed to know, but also because it’s hard to explain everything and have it stick before even playing and slows down getting to the action. This way, they will get a chance to customize their characters after they know how actions and teamwork etc work.

2. Getting them used to the low-planning engagement, flashbacks, and load so they know they don’t have to cover every contingency when they plan the main heist. I can encourage flashbacks (maybe ask them directly how they prepared for specific threats) in the intro score and suggest specific items from their sheets to make sure they use their load.

3. They may have stress or harm before they get to Downtime, and the initial score will give them some coin and rep to spend. Since they won’t be playing long-term they can burn through those for downtime activities in preparation for the main score.

4. The intro score can be a setup for the main score. A blueprint of a compound with a vault full of valuables, or an invitation to a party with lots of high-value marks, or a schedule book that details the movements and security of a high-value assassination target, or maybe even a treasure map that leads to a noble’s mansion with treasure unknowningly sealed in the basement. This just seems inherently more fun than, “one of your contacts gives you a lead on a big score”.

I do have some concerns:

1. With 4 players, should I bring 4 characters or pregen all 7 playbooks? With 4 I can tailor the score more closely to their abilities but 7 will give them more options (ie if I give them a big Vault Door and they don’t have a tinker or lurk to wreck or crack it).

2. How much detail to ask for once we get to the actual character gen, background and vice are obvious (actually, background may be good to ask for at the very beginning while they’re picking playbooks and names), but what about heritage, friends, and rivals? Also, should I let them customize the crew sheet? Maybe I could provide a premade cohort and let them pick an extra ability and two upgrades, or would that be too much complexity for a short game?

3. The score itself. I’m still brainstorming, and I’m halfway through the book, but if anyone has examples of premade scores that would be great. I would like prepare a map of the location of the main score, not for miniature play but just so they can see where they’ve been and where to explore, and possibly to track patrols or security. However, the “running the game” section says clocks should be used instead of room-to-room maps. How much detail is too much detail? My past games have been open-ended mysteries so they got a vague map and had free reign to investigate wherever they wanted, but I’d like this to be a more objective-oriented heist with danger for wasting time or exploring recklessly. And, of course, I would love to include a variety of obstacles for them to overcome rather than just everything being “solvable” by a Lurk that can pick locks and sneak past guards. I’d also love for it to start benign and ramp up the supernatural horror toward the end, having them unexpectedly face-to-face with an angry ghost or even vampire or hull guardians.

I have some other vague thoughts but this post is getting long and I still need to finish the book so I’ll cut them here – does this seem like a good idea? Any other general advice for oneshots or for my concerns above? FWIW my experience in APs has been all of Friends at the Table: Marielda (where I first heard about Blades and got excited to play or run it) and the first week of Rollplay: Blades (I’m planning to watch more as I plan, though it’s harder to find time for youtube recordings than for podcasts I can play on my phone). If anyone knows of a good recording of a oneshot like this, let me know.

I have a question for the people with more experience.

I have a question for the people with more experience. I may have a group soon, however the number of attending players will shift between 2-4. That will result in characters being “out of sync” when it comes to downtime and scores taken as well as XP: In DnD and the like I just let them “catch up”, But I am not sure if this is really necessary with Blades. Could this become an issue?

Under the “Acquire Asset” downtime action it reads, “Since you can spend coin to get an extra downtime activity, you…

Under the “Acquire Asset” downtime action it reads, “Since you can spend coin to get an extra downtime activity, you can essentially “rent” an asset indefinitely. Spend a coin during downtime for the activity, then roll Tier to see what quality it is right now”.

This is tripping me up. I was under the impression you rolled Tier regardless, so if you wanted to “rent” an asset by spending a Coin each DT, once you rolled initially, why would you roll again? To see if the asset somehow degraded?

Or do I take another DT action to “rent” it after the initial roll?

For example, our crew is Tier 2 so I roll 2d for Spirit Warden gear. I get lucky and crit. When do I spend the Coin?

This is probably obvious, but it’s eluding me. If it’s tripping up others, I’ll post it to the “Oopsie link”, but before I did that I figured others might have insight.

Just picked up Blades in the Dark – and it looks FANTASTIC!

only problem is I recently moved countries and have no one local to play with… Anyone got some experience with playing on the net?

Skype or other such tools?

My crew picked smugglers, then their preferred cargo type as Arcane/Weird, with a specific interest in the illicit…

My crew picked smugglers, then their preferred cargo type as Arcane/Weird, with a specific interest in the illicit corpse trade (the Leech saw Eckerd on their sheet and thought “that seems like a profitable enterprise”). I’ve got some vague ideas for opportunities already, but tell me for fun, who wants a corpse or two in Duskwall, right the hell now?

Firstly, I just want to say I absolutely LOVE Blades in the Dark.

Firstly, I just want to say I absolutely LOVE Blades in the Dark. v8 was well worth the wait, and if everything goes well I’ll be cobbling together a group for it tonight.

Now on to the primary reason for this post: a quick rules clarification. For the two levels of Harm that have multiple boxes (1-Harm and 2-Harm), are multiple instances of Harm cumulative if they both apply to a situation? Say I’m running from a bunch of Bluecoats and I’m both “Drained” and have a “Sprained Ankle”, both of them level 1 Harms. Does that mean that my effect is reduced twice? Or does each level’s penalty only apply once per appropriate situation?

Does anyone have an online version of the character sheets?

Does anyone have an online version of the character sheets? Playing a Play-by-slack game with some buddies, and trying to find a good way to share character sheets. Thanks!