Category: Blades in the Dark: Discussion

== Alert, Suspicion and Time: Thoughts on complication clocks for stealth missions ==

As a very new GM I found myself making the mistake where a long and complicated stealth sabotage mission would completely fail if the PCs were caught in the act (narratively my blades were trying to tamper with one of the key products of a drug so that the manufacturers would discover the fault and seek a new buyer). This made the traditional 4-clock “Alert” a very dangerous beast because you only get a few partial Prowl rolls before the whole gig is up. A short ‘Alert’ clock is fun for a quick burglary, where if you get nabbed you can just cut your way out and make off with the goods, but my scoundrels had come up with a very clever and nuanced plan and I wanted to be able to ding them for partials without ruining the whole thing. I came up with some stuff on the fly, which I was quite proud of, but have been thinking more since about some standard complication clocks for stealthy espionage and sabotage style heists and would appreciate feedback and other thoughts.

Suspicion: For the corporate sabotage my crew were undertaking, they were going to be paid commision. Effectively their brief was a open up a temporary gap in a totally locked down market so their client could shift some goods, the client was going to pay comission based on how high a price they could get after the scoundrels sabotaged their opposition. In this case I was giving them 6 dice if they pulled the heist off flawlessly, so I made a 6-clock “Suspicion” and they lost 1 die on the final roll for each tick. It represented the nagging feeling in the target that something wasn’t right (did I put that there? I remember hearing a strange noise last night? etc.) and thus reduced their willingness to totally cut their original supplier out because of a faulty batch.

I think more generally a “Suspicion” (aka “Evidence”) clock on any stealth mission can be useful if there are ever consequences for the target realising they were robbed/spied-on/sabotaged after the fact. In the simplest case it can represent potential heat – even if the crew gets out without being spotted, did they completely cover their tracks? Do you put back everything perfectly on the after searching for and swapping out the doctored paperwork? – Roll Finesse and tick Suspicion for the conseqences. After the heist roll Nd6 for the ticks on the Suspicion clock and given them 0/1/2 extra heat for a Fail/Partial/Success, add a guaranteed heat if the clock fills up. Maybe an Inspector was put on the case and has noticed the parallels in your Crew’s MO with a previous heist.

Time: Frequently I find myself saying “this takes longer than you expect”, and often the consequence is another roll or a worse position. I’ve realised that all scores are at least somewhat time-dependent, and that explicitly defining what happens if the score takes too long and then threatening the players with a clock for it is good practice. Guards have a shift change/there’s a morning delivery of goods/bluecoats rock up/whatever complication that puts more bodies around suddenly.

In summary I feel that always having multiple clocks gives you much more room to play with and makes the situation feel more dynamic and less binary. It allows desperate consequences to hit hard early on without requiring you to immediately change the circumstances: picking this lock makes a bit of noise (tick 1 Alert), damages it in a way that would be noticeable to scrutiny (tick 1 Suspicion) and takes a lot longer than you expect (tick 1 Time). It also gives you room to describe consequences in a narratively satisfying way (servants become suspicious, guards become alerted, studying won’t get you caught but might eat up time). Further it allows players to bargain for their position/effect to only risk specific clocks and helps you to ding players resisting major consequences without being either a jerk or a pushover (resist 3-ticks on an alert clock, and still suffer 1 tick on the suspicion clock) and gives you easy ammunition for Devil’s bargains.

Further I feel that some clocks, like “Suspicion”, need to be continuous (where each tick hurts a little bit) as well as the break-point clocks like “Alert” (where only a full clock is really meaningful).

Now everyone please tell me about the score clocks you use and love! 😀