Blades in the Dark: Discussion – Page 171 – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

Does anyone have any guidance on expanding the entanglements list? My players have rolled either a 4 or a 5 on…

Does anyone have any guidance on expanding the entanglements list? My players have rolled either a 4 or a 5 on every entanglement roll since we started playing (9 sessions). Every session they are harassed by the Bluecoats. I’ve just started bringing loose devils bargains to fruition instead, but I’d like to know if anyone else is having this issue. It’s now a running joke in the game that no matter how low profile they are, the cops are up their ass.

In need for great descriptions? Check out pictures on pinterest.

Let me explain a bit: I read an Actual Play on Sean Nittner’s website (great stufff here, Sean! Thanks for the time and effort) and found this cool house rule

“One cool rule we made up: The first time you draw your blade, you have to describe it. We had some wicked sounding knives!”

This is a rule a definitely want to establish in my game and I was afraid that I run out of inspiration for all these NPC’s weapons a will draw in my sessions 🙂

Enter pinterest to the rescue: Search “dagger” and you’re done. Cool pictures here, not only for weapons but for clothing, people, faces, dark alleys, buildings etc. Pin them and they’re just a click away in your next gaming session. Plus: I got 5-10 plot/NPC ideas just from browsing this stuff. Awesome.

Some of the other Bladers are collecting pins there too, so your inspiration will never dry up.

Question about Actions und using firearms in close combat: Is “Skirmisch” the correct Action for that?

In the first Episode Canter used the “Murder” Action to fire his pistols with splendid results (well done!). I assume that “Murder” was an Action in the early days of the game but is no longer because I cannot find it in the current list of Actions. We have “Skirmish” now for close combat and I assume that the same scene would use that action now, correct?

I ask, because there is a differnt Action (BTW it’s hard not to write “Skill”, but I’m doing fine, thank you), which is “Hunt” which has a reference to shooting weapons. BUT from the description of Hunt I assume it’s more a information/tracking/hitting from distance thing and not close combat.

What is a sentinel?

What is a sentinel? It’s mentioned in the Hound character sheet under deadly friends (Celene, a sentinel), but that term does not appear anywhere else in the document/ What does Celene do for a living?

John Harper Your evocative description of Brightstone in Six Towers Gang Ep VI makes me hungry for more details…

John Harper Your evocative description of Brightstone in Six Towers Gang Ep VI makes me hungry for more details about the rest of the city. Any chance you can share short descriptions similar to the Faction and Shattered Isles write ups?

GM-Less?

Having recently read Goblin Quest (no GM) and Crush the Rebellion (taking turns being GM) amongst other rules I’ve read with these two concepts – Blades certainly would not require much tweaking to become a fully collaborative (as in equal agency) game. There’s certainly enough mechanics for balance, and if you include the heist deck and possibly with additional events, complications and whatnot to make life a bit random in a scheduled manner, it would not be hard to accomplish. It lacks an overall story arc – but so far from actual plays I’ve read, there hasn’t been much call for one in a campaign.

Quick question about the Leech: What exactly can be done with Gadgets, mechanically speaking?

Quick question about the Leech: What exactly can be done with Gadgets, mechanically speaking? Is it just a matter of creating some kind of device that will give an advantage, like adding Potency to an appropriate roll during a job?

Two years ago at PAX East there was a weird little table in the board game area, and there were sign ups to play a…

Two years ago at PAX East there was a weird little table in the board game area, and there were sign ups to play a game called Dungeon World there later in the day. At this point my only TTRPG experience was about a years worth of Pathfinder. I signed up to play Dungeon World, and another guy at the table also tried to get me to sign up to play an even weirder sounding game called Lady Blackbird. I’m ashamed to say I said no, but I submit he criminally undersold the game, saying “It’s a game where you play to find out if the Noble Lady Blackbird succeeds in running away from an arranged marriage and reaches her pirate captain lover.” What he should have said is that it’s a game of Firefly + Motherfucking Sorcerers, and I would have signed up immediately. I’m still waiting for the right time to break out this game, but it’s made harder by the fact that I’d like to get a group of exactly 6 people to play it, and for some reason my friends always break into groups of 5 or 7.

The point of this story is I was wondering if Blades (or Lady Blackbird I guess) was going to be showing up at PAX East in any form this year?

A note on imagery:

It strikes me that the Lampblacks and the Red Sashes have very distinctive styles of dress (and action for that matter), but the Crows are a bit more of a mystery. What do the Crows look and feel like in your game?

Un-Ticking Clock Segments?

Hey Blades community, I’ve run 2 campaign sessions of Blades and the subject of characters taking actions to remove clock segments has come up several times. The players are Thieves who are trying to be as low Heat as possible and I appear to be fond of an “alert the guards clock” for their Scores. As that clock fills they keep wanting to do things to un-tick the Alert clock.

I’m torn about this because if they can justify it in the fiction it should be allowed but it seems against the spirit. Am I being influenced too much by pre-conceptions from 30 years of more traditional games and fiction-first means it’s totally cool to untick clocks?

If unticking clocks is a thing, does that mean opponents can work against the characters Long Term Projects and undo their progress?