Category: Blades in the Dark: Discussion

So we have an Artificer Leech in our group, and I am not fully satisfied with the way I am currently running the game for him. The way we that ability has usually worked historically was flashing back to him making a gadget that was perfect to the situation at hand. On the one hand, that is sweet! We had an rage essence diffusing grenade that sparked a brawl in the ranks of a bluecoat ambush. On the other hand, aside from picking locks, that’s all I’ve seen his sweet sweet Tinker score be used for. Plus, flashbacks, though I like them in principle, also have a bit of detrimental effect on the forward momentum of a scene.

I think this comes down to the fact that I don’t really have a good grasp of the technological backbone of the city. I’d like to be able to close my eyes and automatically see wiring, piping, chugging machinery and know what their purposes are.

So, help me get there! What kind of tinkerable tech is prevalent in your games?

Our group is has a mildly fluctuating number of players, and because of that, an odd and interesting thing has come up.

The game difficulty varies highly with the number of players at the table. Specifically, going from three to two noticeably taxed my group’s downtime resources. They went from taking care of most of the resource problems (stress, heat, wounds) and having 1-2 coin left over, to spending every single coin and still having a significant heat problem.

Has this been the experience of anyone else?

I guess this shouldn’t be surprising – every player is basically worth 2 coin at downtime. Some of that is gone to deal with personal stress or wounds, but the amount of resource tax is generally determined by your setting’s action-to-grit scale, and doesn’t really rise with added players – if anything, it decreases, because they can specialize more and thus don’t need to take it on the chin as often.

My players are troopers and I rather enjoy making things be painful for them, so we are more than fine with things the way they are, but this might be a thing to keep in mind when setting up your own game!