Category: Blades in the Dark: Discussion

It occurs to me that Duskwall could be tweaked just a bit to have polar day/night cycles instead of just flat-out darkness. Then there would be short summers, where the sun doesn’t set much, and long dark winters where the sun hardly rises. Keep the weather temperate. Have a short frenetic growing season and time of sun, and start your campaign at the beginning of the long dark.

Here are some reflections on how I used mechanics in the most recent session of Blades in the Dark. Maybe some suggestions for clarification too.

I gave myself the freedom to pay less attention to how the mechanical pieces hook together, and to use the ones I wanted when I wanted to use them. Examples! (From this session: https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/05/18/more-blades-in-the-dark/)

I used an effect roll without an action roll. One character was struggling with a magical trap, it was in him and growing, and he used Will to resist it without bothering with an action. Meanwhile, his fellow scoundrel finished out the clock, stepping into the challenge and addressing the needed effect roll while the trap victim did a resist roll.

I used one action roll followed by both an effect roll, and a resistance roll, both informed by the action roll. A character was standing on a table fending off a bunch of knife fighters; we rolled his murder, because that’s how he likes to fight, then had an effect roll to reduce the segments in the clock for the will of the attackers to continue. And also a resistance roll because they were trying to pull him down and pin him.

I let fine items add 1d to both the action and the effect roll.

I let an unusual weapon count as a fine weapon because it was more interesting that way.

Because the flashback was to controlled planning, one flashback handled the crew coming up with and discarding five plans, and escalating a sixth out of frustration. So after coming up with lots of ideas for using their adepts (all rolled 3 or less on Command) they abandoned those plans, then ended up deciding to hit up Baz to borrow some really tough Lampblack thugs. They rolled poorly on those, too, and escalated to risky by having the thugs drinking with the guys they were going to distract/beat up. It worked out in the end. I let all that happen in a single 0 stress flashback; of course they knew they’d need to screen the reinforcements somehow.

I let heat 8 stand and not tip over to Wanted 1, because I wasn’t sure what “Wanted” does besides escalate the fiction. And I wasn’t sure if the 9th point was what tipped it over. I didn’t stop to look that stuff up.

Anyway, with this group the heists continue to revolve around 3-5 challenges supported by back story and prep. Straightforward single-location challenges on a very modest scale, more “crime” than “heist.” But, that lets me do two of ’em and two down times in a single three hour session, and that’s SATISFYING. There is also room to escalate to bigger, more dramatic actions in a single session, so that’s good; always have room to grow, right?

I also continued to interpret the “danger manifests” as it “becomes apparent” not “it costs them stress or effects.” So, several times when they overreached they got away with it; other times, they escalated and still didn’t succeed and got hit way harder. Your mileage may vary, but I think it works just fine that way, and they still didn’t succeed all the time. (In fact, escalation got them thrown off a roof.)

I still love running the improv, running the cool setting, and playing with all the shiny toys in the sandbox. I also still have an ambiguous relationship with the rules, and still struggle a bit for the mechanical balance to really make the game shine it’s best lights. This was a fun session, though, and we want to play again.

One final note–the entanglements are GREAT. They usually provide something to base the next heist around, but you can also evade them or buy them off. That is a necessary fuel to keep the group from looking at each other and wondering what heist to do next; it flows, from one to the next.

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/05/18/more-blades-in-the-dark