Blades in the Dark: Discussion – Page 141 – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

Weather, Temperature and Seasons

I know the general setting for Blades has it being dark all the time, but what do people generally have as the weather in Doskvol? What about the temperature? Is there seasonal variation?

For me, I think of London so gloomy, sometimes rainy, mild to cold and four seasons, albeit less dramatic than you may get in other parts of the world (light snow in winter, slightly warmer in summer).

What do other people play? Or am I forgetting an obvious section in the book that outlines all this?

I want to open up the topic about resisting twice.

I GM Blades with a halfway approach on the gritty-freewheeling resistance spectrum. If you narrate how you completely avoid a consequence, you resist it completely. If you narrate how you reduce a consequence, then you do that. When it only reduces in steps, I’m going to allow my players to resist multiple times, but only so long as it falls in line with the “Don’t Roll Twice for the Same Thing” rule.

For example, the consequence is Level 2 Harm “Slashed”. You can’t “parry away his blade” and resist multiple times with Prowess. But you could, “Push Him Backward when he Lunges” and resist with prowess down to Level 1 “Pierced”, and “I catch on to his fighting tempo” and resist the rest of the way with insight.

Fair warning, I probably won’t respond to any comments, because presumably this will open a gateway to some sort of splintery, garbled, endless-rebuttal, people-talking-around-each-other rules debate.

It’s just something I’m writing for people to go “Hm!!” to.

If you tell the players something is illegal in the setting, they will probably want to do it.

If you tell the players something is illegal in the setting, they will probably want to do it. And probably will have more fun doing it than if it hadn’t been outlawed.

John Harper I have a “chicken or the egg?” sort of question. Watching players get exposed to the setting, it always amazed me how they seem most excited about the criminality of Blades fiction. While I could assume that it was cleverly contrived to provoke this feeling, or assume that it was more because the setting demanded it, I’d rather ask and know: From which direction did that come?

That is: when you wrote things like.. that spirit practices are illegal, or that death-seeker crows are dispatched to ensure murders are reported, or that there is sort of standing inquisition in place concerning religions that deal with spirits.. were these elements designed to make use of this reverse psychology (and hopefully make it more fun to engage), or were they more like.. unintentional features of the setting that just also happen to have this built-in?

Can’t find mah post about guns!

My search-fu straight-up sucks and I can’t find a pretty old post I asked about guns in Blades. Any help would be appreciated.

Just in the middle of watching the first episode of the new blades series and I have to say I love all of the…

Just in the middle of watching the first episode of the new blades series and I have to say I love all of the characters, especially Carriless, bravo on that roleplaying!

One question I have is I heard you were playing on Roll20, and when Aldo made his fortune roll a very nice picture appeared along with his roll and I was wondering how I could get this?

In my own Roll20 game, rolling from the character sheets just outputs to the chat window the highest result and it isn’t as aesthetic as what is seen in your Roleplay, could you direct me on how to get this effect?

Again, well done on episode 1, loving where this is going already!

Peter Gilstrap, from The California Report, did a piece on Adam Higgs, who calls himself a truth seeker.

Gilstrap: So, did you do an exorcism?

Higgs: Oh yeah, done that. It’s a very simple procedure, something like that. If you’ve got the balls to do it.

…

Higgs (on trance mediumship): It’s where the spirit comes into you and your voice changes, your body changes, your face changes, and everything. That is better than sex and weightlifting put together.

The guy sounds like he is a fucking Blade, right down to his confident rustic charm and utter faith in his own con. And that name. I want Higgs in my gang!

Direct link to the show (California Report Oct 29, 2016): http://www.kqed.org/.stream/mp3splice/radio/tcrmag/2016/10/2016-10-28-tcrmag.mp3?siteplayer=true&dl=1

Here’s Higgs’s own page: http://www.truth-speaker.com

And a pretty hilarious complaint that he is a complete fraud from another practitioner: http://m.ripoffreport.com/r/adam-higgs/los-angeles-california-/adam-higgs-truth-speaker-more-like-rude-speaker-los-angeles-california-768510

http://www.kqed.org/.stream/mp3splice/radio/tcrmag/2016/10/2016-10-28-tcrmag.mp3?siteplayer=true&dl=1

In the Rolleplay Blades game I saw a classic player ego issue dealt with in an amazing way by Zeke.

At 19:11 a very cool thing happens, and I think it’s totally worth shining a spotlight on as an example of great play.

We have this very common situation. The players all have characters who are consummate bad asses but for one reason or another (in this case it was social status) an NPC is looking down on them and treating them as lesser. John didn’t lay it on too thick, but Iramina clearly thought of herself as better than the scoundrels.

And so many times I’ve seen this particular interaction trigger a result where the players need their PC to prove the NPC is wrong, a jerk, less, etc. It’s a status game and the player is determined to walk away with high status, thus starting some kind of conflict.

But in this case, what Aldo did was brilliant, because he didn’t try to insult or awe Iramina, instead he tried to find a common ground to connect with her. Yes, he did want to show her that he had educated tastes, but it wasn’t to insult her. He praised her and gave her an opening to praise him. And yes, she was awkward about it too, because he caught her off guard, but she had no reason to walk away thinking Aldo was a jerk, or someone who was trying to jump up to her status, just someone who appreciated some of the same things she did.

I think this is a fantastic example of a player finding a way to connect with an NPC rather than a way to humiliate, manipulate, or otherwise control them. Three cheers to @Ezekiel_III

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB9Yv5g8BB4

Resisting incoming gunfire with Insight – “I spot the assassin and duck around the corner just in time”.

Resisting incoming gunfire with Insight – “I spot the assassin and duck around the corner just in time”. Being a weasel or playing to one’s strengths (assuming the character in question has a better Insight than Prowess)?

Hi, everyone!

My friend and I came up with an idea for the healing mechanics. I guess I would have to explain why we adjusted the system…

Well, nowadays when you heal , as I understand the system, it’s the same amount of ticks of a clock to heal just a minor injury than to heal a severe wound. You start your clock, and when it’s completed, done, you are OK to go to kick some more ass. Also, mechanically, you go from 0 to 100 when your clock its completed. One day you have penalties from your wounds and the other, when you tick that last segment, done, fresh, no matter how bad you were.

This doesn’t reflects much “process of healing” to me, it’s like black and white with no grays.

So, here is the idea:

Make the healing clock a 4 segment clock. When you fill a clock. All your damage goes down 1 level (severe to moderate, moderate to lesser, lesser heals completelly). If you fill the clock and have some ticks left, you mark those ticks in the next clock to continue your healing (if there is damage left). If you receive any damage, reset your clock.

Here is an example:

http://i.imgur.com/nEMfuHY.jpg

This way, the severe harm takes longer to heal (you need three 4-segment clocks) but the lesser heals faster, and the -1d from moderate goes away after one clock, when that damage goes down.

Also, I feel like the healing is more like a process and not something that goes from 0 to 100.

¿What do you guys think?

http://i.imgur.com/nEMfuHY.jpg

How do you handle failures that take place during flashbacks?

With a regular action roll that isn’t during a flashback, it’s fairly clear how a failure or a complication affects you immediately.

With a flashback, though, you’re in the funny position that you want a complication from the flashback to come back and bite you now.

I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it certainly seems more difficult.

If you flashback to getting some buddies to show up and lay in ambush for your enemies, but you fail the roll, then it’s not enough for them to have refused you then – you need something bad to happen now.

If you went planting pistols up on the roof last night, but failed, you can’t have fallen and broken your leg, because you haven’t been playing with a broken leg for the past hour.

…and so on.

I’m not saying there’s no good solutions – maybe your friends have betrayed you; maybe you thought you’d plated the pistols but somebody else has stolen them. But it seems that failures-in-flashback are rather harder to come up with, and they also seem like they might be prone to a somewhat repetitive failure mode of “you thought you had that thing ready but now it turns out you don’t.”

Any suggestions or advice for handling this well?