Blades in the Dark: Discussion – Page 134 – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

John Harper I have been listening to the Friends at the Table actual play of Blades in the Dark in their Marielda…

John Harper I have been listening to the Friends at the Table actual play of Blades in the Dark in their Marielda setting and really enjoying it. I just had a couple of questions coming from it.

1) In the episode “Marielda 5: War and Azaleas”, starting at the 8 minute mark, Austin asks the players to outline more formally their 3 Beliefs (the motivations or major thought patterns) and 3 Instincts (things it can almost always be assumed that the characters have or do). These are helpful both for roleplay choices and also for things like determining effect level and also how reasonable flashbacks might be. I really loved how well it worked in their game and will probably be using it in my play of it. Is there any plan to have something similar in the final book?

2) Is there any chance of one of your playthroughs being put out in podcast form? I’m travelling and don’t always get good enough wifi for YouTube streaming, and I love having actual plays to listen to on long bus journeys. I enjoyed the first episode of your BitD AP and would love to listen to the rest on the move.

Thanks.

I may get the privilege over the holidays to run a version of Scum and Villainy for my daughter and a few of her…

I may get the privilege over the holidays to run a version of Scum and Villainy for my daughter and a few of her friends, all in the 8-9 year old range. One thing I am looking at is changing the theme of Vice to something a little more age appropriate so that my little gaggle of players aren’t running off on drunken binges, gambling their credits away, or seeking oblivion in the abuse of drugs in order to heal their stress. 🙂

Any ideas on what to reskin this as?

Westblades in the Dark-Marches: my game starts tonight.

Tonight I begin a game that I’ve been thinking about doing for a while. During the Christmas break I dedicate a bunch of time to running a west-marches style game for members of Adam Koebel’s Mathsquad. Last year was Monster of the Week, this year is Blades in the Dark.

I have 17 players in a pool, and each session runs 4-5 people for 4 hours, and I schedule games to cater for every time zone (some start at 5am for me!)

It’s been an interesting process. I used polls to create the crew, with each player choosing options, and then taking the most popular choices, although the faction ticks list is quite big now.

I’m not explicitly using the situation from the Quick Start, although those narrative positions are true, and instead I’m using this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XXgg2KTLOgmFsJHYugtjByE2ZDRMSWuc-u-o5r7C38k/edit?usp=drivesdk .

I’ll update regularly, and maybe even record them.

If anyone has any experience running a Blades game of this sort, what was your experience like?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XXgg2KTLOgmFsJHYugtjByE2ZDRMSWuc-u-o5r7C38k/edit?usp=drivesdk

Anyone have a short-ish video that shows how the game is played?

Anyone have a short-ish video that shows how the game is played? I’m trying to sell the game to my playgroup, but having a hard time finding reviews/short plays/”WTF is…” type stuff. 🙂

How often have you seen players use the “Protect” teamwork action?

How often have you seen players use the “Protect” teamwork action? My players never used it in about a 15 session campaign, but I’m keen on highlighting it more for a BitD hack where it would be very fitting.

Had the first session for our new Cult, the Silver Tendrils.

Had the first session for our new Cult, the Silver Tendrils. Apparently the GM wasn’t quite prepared for a Cult so hilarity ensued. (People were glued to the Iruvian Consulate in the name of our Alluring and Cruel god.)

Is tithing based on the crew’s Tier or the Tier of the patron?

Inspiration for Doskvol Entertainment

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/circuses-magic-and-hypnotism-welcome-to-the-world-of-victorian-entertainment

So a weird little question came up in my game last night.

All the playbooks have a spot for Alias, and there’s a list of suggested aliases on character creation page. So we, at least, ended up with a team who all have aliases and use them. Seems to make sense so far.

Then you read the game, and NO ONE mentioned in the rules anywhere has an alias. So you end up with PCs who think of themselves as Crickets, Quince and Frogman talking to NPCs with “normal” names.

This struck us as weird. Is this “working as intended?”

Also, on a related note – the character creation page no longer tells you to choose a name or an alias. While this may seem obvious, it still seems like it should be a step in the process.

Vice.

Vice.

So as a GM I tend to keep the mechanics of a game running in my head and they help (and sometimes hinder) me when making decisions. Vice has the overindulge option “Lose your purveyor” which seems to imply you need one ‘fixed’ purveyor to use the indulge vice action (and from the Bloodletters AP, this can lead to some interesting stories).

But one of my players essentially whores around and has a regular brothel she visits. At some point she was invited elsewhere for some partying and I was asked if this can count as the de-stress action and I said “well no, because if you overindulge etc etc” So I’ve limited the players to have that one contact or at least, that one contact until they LTP for a backup.

Am I over fixating on the spirit of the rules or do they exist for a reason?