I want to send my young crew (only four scores in) out to the deathlands but I’m not sure how to populate it out…
I want to send my young crew (only four scores in) out to the deathlands but I’m not sure how to populate it out there. Build up some demons for them to interact with? I don’t want to kill them but I want it to be a new challenge. Any help is…well…helpful!
EDIT: So I found time to search more and found TONS of great ideas already offered to those that have asked before me! Thanks for the help that past you gave now me!
While chatting with a friend and fellow Blades player tonight, we realized the game is maybe unsuitable for one of…
While chatting with a friend and fellow Blades player tonight, we realized the game is maybe unsuitable for one of the classic tropes of the heist and crime genres: the action-packed cold open. We’re talking specifically about starting a campaign with a cold open, not just a mid-campaign session.
My friend says the only way to model a cold open is by jumping immediately into the Engagement roll. I think Free Play could simulate a cold open (you can still suffer Stress and Harm in Free Play) but I admit it seems to violate the spirit of that phase of the game.
Thoughts? Has anyone started one of their campaigns with a cold open before? How did it go?
I’m about to run a game, but I’m having trouble understanding a couple of related issues with the game.
I’m about to run a game, but I’m having trouble understanding a couple of related issues with the game. It may be that it’s written somewhere in the book that I’ve missed, or it might be that the answer is ‘whatever your group decides’, in which case, that’s fine, but I would appreciate some advice!
Essentially, is there an ‘initiative’ system? How do I know who goes first and in what order? How does this relate to clocks?
Example 1: The crew runs into a challenging opponent. One player wants to shoot him, another wants to tackle him, another wants to sneak past. Is there a system to work out who would be able to make which call and when?
Example 2: One of the players initiates a fight with the NPC. I start an eight-segment clock for a challenging opponent. How do I decide which PC goes next?
Example 3: The first player has filled two segments of the clock marked ‘Kill the NPC’. When the second player takes his turn, does his result add directly to the clock? Or does he spend stress to assist the first player? Or is either possible, depending upon the story and description of the action? (E.g. : “I try to stab him” vs. ‘I try to keep him off balance so the other guy can stab him’)
Thanks in advance, and sorry if this has been answered elsewhere!
I think I want to have a list of more options for Devil’s Bargains sitting in front of me when I’m GMing.
I think I want to have a list of more options for Devil’s Bargains sitting in front of me when I’m GMing. The suggestions in the book are good, but I’d like more. What are your favourites?
Another newbie question: the book says you’re taken out of “this conflict” when you fill your Stress track and…
Another newbie question: the book says you’re taken out of “this conflict” when you fill your Stress track and suffer Trauma. Assuming this happens during a Score, I assume that means you’re out of commission until the Score ends and Downtime begins.
What do you do with the player whose character is no longer playable? I don’t like asking the player to sit out, and asking them to make another character on the fly is a little weak.
Michael Esperum mentioned in another thread that he and his players use Downtime to explore the lives of their…
Michael Esperum mentioned in another thread that he and his players use Downtime to explore the lives of their scoundrels outside of the meat of the story. It made me realize that my players do a little bit of that when they indulge their vice but the roleplay is usually no more complex than “I go gambling in Brightstone and work off… 3 Stress.”
I have two questions:
1. Compared to other phases of play, how much roleplay/narration do you folks encounter in your Downtime phases?
2. On average, how long is a Free Play-Score-Downtime cycle at your table?
I ask the second question because at my table it tends to be 2-2.5 hours. While I would like to get more roleplay into the Downtime phase, I’d also like to trim down the overall time it takes to play a session to a reliably 2-hour timeframe.
Any tips or wisdom from the community?
Noob question: when tracking position in a score, how often does shifting then independently of rolls come up?
Noob question: when tracking position in a score, how often does shifting then independently of rolls come up? In other words, once a base position is set, is shifting it in the hands of the GM (based on consequences of rolls) or players (based on Devil’s Bargains or trading for effect), or is GM fiat still something to consider?
This probably seems like a really silly question, but I want to understand a proper way to run things. It seems to me that the spirit of the rules indicate that the position should flow from rolls and choices, because these are things that can be resisted, and provide some player control over the tension.
Follow up: when the party splits during a score, should position be tracked for each sub-group, or for the score as a whole?
Only now noticing this but it seems that abilities that expend special armor or pushing yourself within the same…
Only now noticing this but it seems that abilities that expend special armor or pushing yourself within the same ability doesn’t cost the 2 stress to push yourself like it normally would.
Does that mean if I’m using, say, FOCUSED, that I can use the ability to push myself after a consequence of surprise or mental harm, without spending stress and that I can keep tapping that ability so long as the Fiction lines up?
Or are both options a one time deal until the end of a score? I’m really surprised I didn’t catch that, and it has me more puzzled than it ought to.
Have people run much in the way of text-based games live in Roll20 or similar chat-based program?
Have people run much in the way of text-based games live in Roll20 or similar chat-based program? I’d like to run the game for some friends who are hard of hearing, so voice-comms are out of the question and webcams are a bit temperamental for lip-reading.
I’m just looking for tips on how to organise the DMing for that style of gameplay and keeping the pace up given the conversational nature of BitD.
Any help would be much appreciated!
Newbie question: In the playbooks, each character has a list of “friends” from which s/he chooses one Close Friend…
Newbie question: In the playbooks, each character has a list of “friends” from which s/he chooses one Close Friend and one Enemy or Rival. What happens to the NPCs who aren’t chosen? Are they still friends of the PC, or are they unknown to the PC because s/he didn’t choose them?
(Or, if I’m missing something obvious, just throw me the page number and I’ll be suitably abashed.)
Thanks!