Blades in the Dark: Discussion – Page 21 – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

How do the GMs out there prep for blades?

I’ve started experimenting with quick ‘n dirty prep for Blades to help make the city feel more alive. Aside from jotting down a few names and descriptions of people & buildings, the main thing I’ve started doing is giving the factions I find interesting secret clocks to roll between sessions.

Right now, for instance, The Spirit Wardens are tracking down the spirit well under one of my PCs ancestral home. Also their crew of leg-breakers, The Black Derbies, are starting to take over new turf and establish themselves as a gang in their own right. And finally the Iruvian Consulate is sorting out who in their ranks is a mole for the Skovlans.

I’ve found this gives me plenty of stuff to set the table, but nothing I’m overly worried about the players ignoring. As clocks start to count down I make sure they know something’s up with the faction in question – rumors and newspaper articles, etc. It also really helps when something like complication rolls give me something I’m not ready for.

I’d be interested in knowing how other GMs have started to prep for Blades games though! It feels like a totally different beast from other games I’ve been running.

Hey guys!

Hey guys! So, I might be starting an Actual Play on Twitch, but regardless we are starting a new campaign and my players have chosen a Cult of the Lady of the Depths (lot’s of Game of Thrones Drowned God vibes they are unintentionally gonna steal from lol), and I think they are going to choose Sacrifice as their preferred mission type. I’m having trouble thinking of ways to do that style of mission or how that would play out; any tips?

I‘m currently listening to the RollPlay Blades series and just reached week 9 part 3, where Mrs Catterby considers…

I‘m currently listening to the RollPlay Blades series and just reached week 9 part 3, where Mrs Catterby considers to use a faked ringing of the death bells in order to create a distraction.

This made me wonder: how often do the death bells ring anyways?

Depending on the scale of the city, I suppose they should ring quite regularly. In a Paris-sized town, death might be a common occurrence.

What do you think about this? Might there be individual bells in each district in order to „share“ the ringing? Or do you just ignore any deaths not caused by the crew? How does massed death sound (as a result of an explosion for example)?

PS.: Maybe they talk about this later in the video, so please be patient with me if they do…

Railway Hack?

Railway Hack?

Anyone make a hack for playing as Rail Jack, protecting trains as they streak across the ghostlands? Dealing with smugglers, crooked customs officials, ghosts and all that.

Or anyone have a crew pull an old fashioned train robbery?

I just find the tesla trains more interesting than the Levithan Hunters honestly but not a lot of info on them out there.

So ive absolutly terrified my players of going near water.

So ive absolutly terrified my players of going near water. In and around the city. Theyd rather go into the deathlands than hang off a pier for 5 minutes…to be fair the most grevous injuries theyve taken have been in the water lol

Last night I ran a session of Blades for 9 players, and it went surprisingly well.

Four of the people at the table had played before; the other five were novices. The score was the artifact one from War in Crow’s Foot (the PCs had to place the weird artifact in the Red Sashes’ sword academy).

The party wound up splitting up, so I had to bounce around a bit between the different groups, but we kept the forward momentum going really well and everyone had fun. A group that big is obviously not ideal, but it’s workable.

One thing we noted was that, if you have a large group and multiple players use their downtime actions on the same project, they can create and resolve long-term projects in downtime really fast. Just something to be aware of.

Does anyone here know where the best place is to report formatting errors in the PDFs?

Does anyone here know where the best place is to report formatting errors in the PDFs? I noticed the margin background on pg. 144 appears to have been dropped between 8.1 and 8.2, and the margin text there also seems to be the lighter shade of 8.1, as opposed to the darker shade it was replaced with in the rest of 8.2. It’s pretty minor, but I figured it’d be worth at least mentioning it to someone.

Hey folks. Band of Blades is out on Drivethru! This is the Dark Military Fantasy hack of blades.

Hey folks. Band of Blades is out on Drivethru! This is the Dark Military Fantasy hack of blades.

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/243347/Band-of-Blades-Digital-Edition-Early-Access

This is a bit beefy to be called a “quick start”. You’re looking at over a 100 pages of content and a bunch of art. I know a bunch of you were waiting expectantly and I hope it lives up to your hype.

I’ll be updating DriveThru and Blades backers concurrently (any delays should be minimal as files get shuffled and folks post stuff). Backers should be getting their stuff soon as updates are written and files uploaded.

Good luck. Let us know what you think. ^_^

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/243347/Band-of-Blades-Digital-Edition-Early-Access

Is it possible for a player to call a flashback between the roll and its resolution, in order to retroactively avoid…

Is it possible for a player to call a flashback between the roll and its resolution, in order to retroactively avoid the effects of a failed roll?

I’ll tell you what happened because it’s so fucking cool (my players are awsome).

They were in Lord Skurlock hous, celebrating a typical Tycherosi demon hunt.

Since they failed the engagement roll, they found themselves in the middle of the ghost trap labyrinth scurlock uses to keep the ghosts he’ll feed on.

Since they were neaby to the keystone of the labyrinth, the Slide and the Whisper drugged themselves, and the slide used his sex expertize (and demonic connection – they’re a cult) to stimulate the whisper and augment her psychic energies. She failed the attune roll to properly use the energies, and told us that she was feeling too good to properly concentrate.

So i asked the Slide: well, you’re the master of sexual energies. How do you direct them? In you two, binding your perceptions? In the spark-craft creation protecting you from ghosts? Or in the key-stone, making skurlock an enemy of yours?

Afterwards, the Whisper asked for having a demon energy trap with a flashback action. That’s cool and nice, (really, i enjoy that scenem it was one of the best of our game, sharing the character fears and vulnerabilies among bling demonic sex), but i fear that this could set a precedent.

Hi.

Hi. New player to BitD. I’m very excited about this game and can’t wait to run it, but there are some things I’m just not getting. I’ve read the book and watched the Roll Play Blades series in it’s entirety, but I’m still stuck.

Another thread here asked about combat examples and most of the answers pointed to the youtube series’, and again, I’ve watched (and enjoyed) all 80 hours of the show, and yet combat still eludes me. I would so love to see a half dozen or so clearly written examples of combat.

Watching Roll Play Blades, it appears as if John Harper sometimes uses clocks to track enemy health, and sometimes just seems to have enemies die after taking a couple of hits. Which is it, and how does it work?

During one combat with a group of dockworker thugs he was clearly using a clock to track them, but I couldn’t figure out how the clock mapped onto the actual health of the thugs. During a later encounter with the crew going up against a bunch of sailors on a boat, he was clearly just having them die individually after taking damage.

The book just isn’t clear about how combat is run and damage is tracked, and the problem with watching the youtube series is that you don’t get to watch what Harper is doing off screen as far as figuring out damage, or how his clocks relate to multiple foes, etc.

I’m chomping at the bit to run this game, but until I wrap my head around how combat is run I don’t even want to attempt it. Any help would be very much appreciated. I’m sure these questions have been asked before, so forgive me for asking again.