Blades in the Dark: Game Questions – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

Let’s see if Google+ can help me, even in its last days…

Hull “Plating” feature

One of my players chose to play a Hull, and he chose “Plating” as one of its features.

Here it is what the rulebook says about it:

– – –

Plating: Thick metal armor plates.

– – –

and nothing more. On the other hand, the Hull character sheet give some more information, in the “Frame & Items” section:

– – –

Plating (special armor)

– – –

Though, I’m still confused. How the Hull “Plating” feature should work, I mean, mechanically speaking?

Question re: Ghost possession & vampirism…

From pg.210:

“Vampire. A dead body animated and sustained by a spirit.”

This is the only reference to spirits possessing dead bodies I can find; everything else points to Vampires being created by possessing a living body (incl. a prepared hollow).

Has anyone played with vampires as being possessed corpses?

Has anyone used the idea of a possessed corpse as anything else?

Any and all help would be appreciated.

Question about proxies – (making somebody)^n do something

I want to know if my game experience is off (thus I should fix it) or my expectations are off (and I should learn the damn rules). The most obvious thing in my group is an increased level of proxies used on the part of the PCs. I would like to know whether it is a red flag or not. And if not, how to handle it in the spirit of Blades / FitD.

The Actual Play:

We are playing a FitD game (Copperhead Country) with two friends (I am GMing). The group of characters started out with a focus on scheming to begin with, and now we are on a track I am rather wary of. The first 3 jobs were nice, mildly challenging negotiations. First it was difficult for me to draw a line between Free Play and Score phase and call for an Engagement Roll as the fiction remained mostly the same before and after (schmoozing, negotiating), and I guess, I was already discontent on some level, if the following sessions are any evidence–the other players may have felt my itching for more dynamic action scenes.

The last two sessions were more dynamic, but the PCs less present in the fiction. In the first one of these, they paid someone to do some bad thing to another person. The PCs were involved in the deal but not the actual crime. Yesterday (last session) it got bigger: they sent a crew Cohort to pay someone to make someone do a bad thing to someone–that is, the PCs are 4 degrees of separation from the target. (Also, doing the whole act in the name of someone else again.) If not for some mistake (which was not guaranteed), they could have solved the Score with PCs present only in the preparations (Flashback scenes) this time again.

The Question(s):

– Should more than two degree of separation (make your Cohort do something) happen from any important player initiated action happen in this game? (Is it okay if PCs only show up in Flashbacks?)

– If that’s all right, how do we handle them? As many Fortune rolls as detailed we want to show the NPCs on-screen?

I should ask this before G+ fades and recedes into the grey mists of time.

I should ask this before G+ fades and recedes into the grey mists of time. Are there any essential resources for someone just starting out? Thanks!

I’m having some trouble figuring out how to make the character I’ve put together work with the stats.

So I put together sort of a street rat turned spy and chameleon. The way I’m picturing the character, they have little to no academic knowledge, but a high level of intuitive understanding of people. So their way of working would involve sort of reading the room, seeing who’s important, who’s not paying attention, and then watching certain people for clues or for seeing what he can overhear. In a group, this would also cover watching if certain people are getting suspicious or what they think of others, or similar skills. They’re also mostly good at dealing with people; because they rely on observation and deception they’re not so good at surveying territory.

But I feel like I’m running into problems trying to represent that on the sheet. The first half sounds like surveying, the second like studying. But I also feel like the character’s lack of academic knowledge in particular makes the study skill particularly inappropriate for them, and surveying also covers a lot of sort of spatial awareness that doesn’t really fit. I’m aware that I could choose to just not roll for those, but that restricts the character to just not trying. It also feels a bit punitive to me to have to spend essentially double the points to do what feels like part of my character’s main thing, when I then have to ignore most of what the skills represent because it doesn’t fit the character. I’d rather just spend one set of points to get the social “people reading” skills and then actually roll 0 dice on the academic and terrain survey skills. It’s been making gaining experience feel like I’m playing catch-up to the basic character rather than a reward.

So I guess I’m asking, how would you represent a character that’s good at reading the room, good at reading individual motivations, bad at academics, and only ok at spatial stuff? Preferably without investing in being good at academics and then just sort of pretending that’s not on the sheet?

BAND OF BLADES

BAND OF BLADES

Will be running my first session of Band of Blades this week and have some questions I hope this community can help with.

With 5 people playing (including GM), will all 4 players select a Specialist to play per mission? I read that a typical mission is 2 specialists and 1 squad. All players make 1 specialist to begin, but will 2 players need to select a Rookie for missions?

Thank you in advance for any responses/guidance.

Scum & Villainy question:

In crew creation, if you take the crew upgrade instead of systems, does that replace BOTH the systems upgrades or JUST ONE?

I’ve encountered some confusion on this subject recently, so i figured i’d just ask the community here if the…

I’ve encountered some confusion on this subject recently, so i figured i’d just ask the community here if the following is correct:

– Accepting help from a teammate gives you +1d

– Pushing yourself gives you +1d OR increased effect

– Accepting a devil’s bargain gives you +1d

– Taking advantage of a set up action gives you improved position OR improved effect

– The only other way to improve the effect of a roll is to accept a worse position

Are any of the above statements incorrect?

Hi. I’m late to the game, and I’ve searched, but can’t find an answer:

Stock Blades in the Dark seems to have a very unclear relationship between fictional time, and the score-downtime cycle. If a character goes on a vice bender for a “few weeks”, and the player is going to play an alternate character, roughly how many scores is that?

Please don’t answer just either “it depends” or “follow the fiction”. Obviously those, but I don’t have any benchmark to compare to.

Are there any thoughts on one-on-one gaming with BITD?

– Tough getting a group together, but my wife and I have gaming opportunities. Is it possible to play BITD this way? If so, what changes should I consider to the rules?

Any input is appreciated, thanks!