Blades in the Dark: Discussion – Page 196 – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

On the advice of someone I forget I watched the movie John Wick last night.

On the advice of someone I forget I watched the movie John Wick last night. Totally solid action flick and obviously directed by stunt people and seemingly influenced by stealth action video games.

I mention it here even though it’s modern day, as it has some good very BitD like elements with the stealth action and the various underworld people and factions bumping up against each other. Watching the flick, I could easily see in my head the progress clocks and devil’s bargains at play.

Also the scene with the cleaners taking the bodies away is great and made me think whomever has the job of being cleaner in Duskwall has to make a pretty penny.

Yay! I finally organized some friends for a multi-session game of Blades in the Dark — scheduling as adults is hard.

So for those of you who have run it, do you have a recommended way of getting everyone going? Obviously I could just do it as written: explain the situation, make characters, make crew. However, part of me is feeling that it would be better to just jump into the action and do crew creation later, like after the first score or during a slow point in the first score.

Anyone run it this way before with crew creation later? Or did you run it as written and have advice to make it smoother so we can jump into the action faster.

Thoughts on Gangs, Claims, and “Turf”:

I’ve been bouncing loose ideas for a cyberpunk themed hack around in my head for a while. I know a cyberpunk hack is supposed to come out as a stretch goal, but whats the fun in waiting for that?

One problem I’ve stumbled upon recently is how you would handle the “Claims” part of the crew sheet for a typical group of “Runners”. Most cyberpunk blackops mercenaries/Runners don’t exactly keep “turf”. They’ve got a safehouse or three, but that is about it. That said, a few of the claims are more like useful assets/contacts (the fences) so maybe one could just eliminate the generic “Turf” ones and throw in more of the specialized ones.

I’ve actually somewhat had this problem with Claims in general. It is a nice thematic thing, but what if my crew doesn’t want to be a large gang with turf and minions and stuff? What if we just want to be a group of elite crooks who rob mansions and banks before retiring to our secret hideouts without having to worry about turf and stuff?

A lot of the thief types I think of as examples don’t have large gangs and turf. People like Danny Ocean, Garret (Thief series), the Payday Crew, typical Shadowrunners, etc. Turf and gangs works well for other crew types (Breakers, Hawkers, Cultists, etc) but it doesn’t feel quite right for Thieves to me.

I guess one could always just reflavor turf in some other way. Or you could ignore it, but ignoring the hold turf can give leaves a gang awfully weak, especially in tier transitions.

Possibly of interest to Blades players.

Possibly of interest to Blades players.

Originally shared by Tom McGrenery

PUNCH – A liquor called by foreigners Contradiction, from its being composed of spirits to make it strong, water to make it weak, lemon juice to make it sour, and sugar to make it sweet.

Punch is also the name of the prince of puppets, the chief wit and support of a puppet-show.

To punch it, is a cant term for running away.

Punchable; old passable money, anno 1695. A girl that is ripe for man is called a punchable wench.

Coblers Punch. Urine with a cinder in it.

http://www.pascalbonenfant.com/18c/cant/search.php

Any tips for lazily managing other faction downtime actions?

Any tips for lazily managing other faction downtime actions?

I’m a lazy GM. I’ve run about 12-15 sessions for my players running the cult crew The Society of Horus, but I’ve been realizing they’ve had it somewhat easy since I have failed to adequately do downtime actions for other factions.

Of course there’s been a bold moves by main enemies and even their closest ally who’s leader they drove mad, but I can’t help but feel there needs to be more repercussions to all the craziness they’re whipping out each session.

How do you manage faction downtime actions for a dynamic-feeling setting without spending too much time on it outside of the game?

I have updated these GDrive playbook sheets to the current version.

I have updated these GDrive playbook sheets to the current version. I also did a redesign of every sheet to mirror the real sheet design and fix miscellaneous issues.

If you, like me, are running a game online, I hope you, like me, will find these useful. If so, please let me know any errors or omissions you find.

I gotta write up an AP at some point soon, but in the meantime, I re-wrote Andrew Shields ‘s pre-gen characters to…

I gotta write up an AP at some point soon, but in the meantime, I re-wrote Andrew Shields ‘s pre-gen characters to be compatible with the v3e / Gencon rules. Just in time for Gencon to be completely over!

To my credit I had to work a lot this week. Docx and PDF files are in the dropbox folder.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qkxlzrxj4zaystj/AAC0_rOEdh1DSIIft7lGYYdVa?dl=0

For the second week in a row I left wanting something. Disposable gang names I could use, populate the world with,…

For the second week in a row I left wanting something. Disposable gang names I could use, populate the world with, and cross off when they wronged the Cutter.

Made the third score yesterday.

Made the third score yesterday. My players like to blow things up with lightning bolts of various kind, so, not much secrecy. Also, they are now lost in vice or in jail (or both). So, summer break!! (Jail break, I think).

Two questions about the new rules:

first, there is no more EXPERTISE training. Does it mean there’s no need to wait to take third dots?

Second: when you remove harm, do you remove ALL of your harm (lev 2 or 3) with a LT project, or just ONE BOX of lev 2, then another, ecc?

One difference I anticipate between the quickstart and the official book is the application of booster rockets.

The quick start is full of specific names and objects. This quickly meshes players in the world and gives them subjects to improvise on (“tell me about your friend Casta”) and the item list gracefully hops over the ugly shopping bit of character generation. Full approval!

Then there comes that point in the game where the scales start to tip. You’ve generated more unique NPCs than started on the sheets, and those have all been interpreted and are in a larger framework. Your game has figured out how the starting gear works, and shows off a bunch of other campaign-specific gear.

I think there comes a point you need a character sheet that doesn’t have default equipment (because there are guidelines for what you can put in your war-chest for quality and quantity, or you just let the players figure out their own toolboxes without mechanizing it.) You move the list of friends to another resource or a second sheet on the character sheet. There’s more blank space and room to breathe and focus in on the mechanics of the character, and the social and networking parts migrate to other resources in the campaign.

Then new people make characters in this more custom and venerable campaign, and they need those blank spaces to adhere more closely to the world and the other players instead of being tugged back towards where the campaign started (like the quick start.) Their starting friends are other established people, maybe some of the ones they’d otherwise have are dead by now.

Much of that quickstart information is to get the campaign off the ground, and achieve exit velocity. Once you’re in orbit, your needs change.

Just a little rumination.