Category: Blades in the Dark: Discussion

Who wants to play Blades in the Dark with me? If you are reading this, you probably already have a sense of some of my engagement with the system, since I’ve been talking about it a LOT in this community. Do you want to try a G+ Hangout game on Saturday?

http://doodle.com/v4c3a4yiw2q98a74

Saturday, April 25, from 2-5 CST. If you aren’t one of the first four to sign up, make a note here and I’ll keep you in mind for an alternate.

http://doodle.com/v4c3a4yiw2q98a74

Devil’s bargains! Here are some I offered in the last game, and whether or not the players took them.

* The Hound was pursued by angry duelist bodyguards on the snow-slicked street. He could drop his very fine rifle for 1d. (NO)

* The crew was trying to blend in, moving through a whaling ship. They could get 1d if they would for certain meet someone the Hound knew from his whaling days. (YES) And I would decide how this past acquaintance felt about him based on the success of the action roll.

* The crew was trying to find hidden treasure in the whaler captain’s quarters. They could get 1d if their magical finding talisman made with very dark magics somehow broke open whether they found the treasure or not. (NO, that thing creeped them out!)

I’ll put more in the comments if I can remember them. What bargains have you offered, and did players take them?

Some other on-the-fly worldbuilding I did in this session:

If you want to drink yourself into oblivion, there is a pricey alcohol that is tainted with leviathan blood. It takes your dreams deep in the crushing black.

The lead harpoonist on a whaler had her arm taken by a leviathan. She got another one carved out of bone, covered in glyphs, and she activated it by thrusting it into the eye of a still-living leviathan. Now it works like a normal arm. Also, she rarely shows her teeth, but when she does smile, you can see she’s got scrimshaw on her teeth. It is best not to ask why. Her aura and shadow is writhing and deep with the massive lives she’s taken.

When the leviathan hunting ships are in port, whispers wearing bone masks with only one eye hole roam the killing floor and the rest of the ship with their long wands, spooling up death energies and the raging spirits of slain demon whales. This cleansing has to happen each port of call. If you skip it, the death energy builds and horrible, horrible things happen aboard the ship.

The killing floor on the top deck of the ship has a gummy layer of leviathan blood on it. Bits of bone and higher bits of metal are not covered, so walking across the weirdly soundless gummy mat is like treading on a starfield.

Corpses lost in the canals have their energy woven through the waters. These traces of energy and awareness and despairing rage clutch at anything that falls under the surface. If enough death builds in a canal, something slimy carries it out.

Snow flares and dies as it blows through the electroplasm fences around the city. You can see a light show in the shape of the wind, and even the snow, which is the death of clouds, is swept into nothingness by their energy.

There is a forbidden magical practice called Second Death Hogs. Before electroplasm was harnessed, and spirit energies destroyed, whispers would banish spirits into hogs. Then they would kill the possessed hog, and the second death would take. These Second Death hogs are now illegal to make, but their almost-human and haunted flesh can provide powerful magical materials.

Isn’t that fun?

I have no idea what the “Path of Echoes” will be when the book is done. Still, my group took a -1 faction with them, and asked me who they were.

I said it was an old religion that used to be ancestor worship. They take exception to the electroplasmic destruction, since they believe the destruction of ancestor spirits makes the future a barren dreamscape. Therefore, they resort to sabotage and murder in an attempt to eventually put an end to the practice of ghost dissipation.

So I ran a second session, also doing character and crew creation and two heists. This time it was three hours total, online no less. What was different?

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/another-blades-in-the-dark-adventure-summary/

ESCALATION. Both characters took the “Daring” special ability, and they used it constantly. They also constantly overreached for better results. Even when the dice were poor, they would increase the danger and try again.

WAS IT EASIER FOR THE SECOND GROUP? It’s hard for me to tell from my position, subjectively. Did I go easier on them than I did on the previous group? Well, they had a lot less clocks, but in general they tried plans that were more compact. Maybe? There were less clocks, anyway. I had never played with them before, or they with me, so that changes the dynamic too. I dunno. Also, this was my second time, and I spent half the weekend on G+ analyzing the last session.

Upon reflection, it WAS easier. I focused more on effect clocks and used little or no resistance clocks. I think I was gunshy about the terrible response last time.

I NEED HELP WITH EXPERIENCE. Trying to figure out experience is still difficult for me. I forget how they raise the crew upgrades; I figure it’s in the quickstart somewhere, but there’s overlapping reporting on various elements of downtime and session wrap-up and I don’t know where. I need a reference for how each thing raises, to consult during play, after each heist, and at the end of a session.

NEW BACKGROUND. I added “Whaler” as a background; use that to avoid being nauseated by anything, to know the culture of the sea, to be stone-faced in the midst of slaughter, and so on.

I still don’t feel like I’ve got a really good grasp on everything, but this adventure went a lot smoother than the last one, and these players want to try again.

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/another-blades-in-the-dark-adventure-summary