Blades in the Dark: Game Questions – Page 15 – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

I am having some trouble in my table with the idea that a character who reaches maximum stress disappears from the…

I am having some trouble in my table with the idea that a character who reaches maximum stress disappears from the current heist.

My players actually want to get some traumas for their characters, but nobody just wants to leave play in the middle of a heist because… Well, we meet to play and if they max their stress they can’t play anymore for that score.

Since the GM doesn’t give stress to the players, they’re the only ones that can willingly take the stress to improve their rolls or resist consequences, but when they have enough stress boxes marked they just stop helping each other, stop pushing themselves and, if the consequence is not inmediately lethal, stop resisting consequences. In other words, the game becomes more boring for them (but even this is better to have their character put of the action!). The only case one of the players got a trauma was because everybody knew that this was the last action of the score.

Does anybody else have the same problem? I’ve been thinking in changing the rule to let a max stress character remain in the score and duplicate every following stress spend, or something like that. How would you do it?

Hello there all you Scummy Villains.

Hello there all you Scummy Villains.

I was setting up the most important part to any Forged in the dark game (The play table) and ran into a bit of an issue.

In my edition of S&V (Pretty sure its the most current) Aleph and Amerath share the same moons. While I could re-name them or start an inter-system war between who really owns Warren, Batter, and Hock, I would prefer to keep consistent names between test versions and the final version of the game.

So does anyone know what the official names of Amerath’s moons are?

And yes, I know the clocks are terrible, still working on that and the Mission Dossier popup that ought to take care of the big blank space.

Quick Scum and Villainy question: when a ship takes damage to its systems, does that disable any installed modules?

Quick Scum and Villainy question: when a ship takes damage to its systems, does that disable any installed modules? Can modules be damaged directly?

Next set of questions are about items.

1. How do consumable items on the character sheet work? Does the Cutter always have one rage essence vial per score? Ditto for the Slide’s trance powder and the Lurk’s silence potion.

2. Spiritbane charm costs 0 load and is on almost all the playbooks. Does that mean everyone other than the Leech just always has a spiritbane charm? Why does it have a box to check off then, since it doesn’t even have a concrete mechanical effect?

3. How do crafted items interact with the Items/Load system? What about crafted alchemical items with limited uses? How do those interact with, say, the Leech’s bandolier? What about items that are acquired assets?

Thanks in advance!

I had a question about Heat in Scum and Villainy.

I had a question about Heat in Scum and Villainy. Looking at version 1.7 of the rules, it seems to say you burn a flat 2 Heat with a downtime action and your roll only changes your Wanted level. Do I have that right or does it work like in Blades in the Dark?

Hi everyone.

Hi everyone. I’m new around here and planning on running Blades in the Dark soon, but I have a couple of brief rules questions, mostly related to the faction game.

1. How does a crew get Turf, other than as a Claim? The Turf boxes on the Rep/Turf track vs the Turf spaces on the Claims map and the explanation of Turf Claims as “some claims count as turf” make it seem like they are distinct somehow.

2. How does a crew come up with the coin to rise in Tier? Given how little coin a crew can hold and a character can hold outside of their stash, once you get past Tier II or so, I’m not sure where you would even hold the huge amounts of coin you need to go up another tier. It’s 24 coin for Tier III, for example. A crew of 4 characters without a vault can only hold 20. If they have to get it from their stash, then the tier advance really costs at least 28, not 24 (because at least 4 of the coin has to come from stash at 2 for 1).

3. Conceptually, I am a little unclear on how other factions might take action against the players’ crew, since the mechanics of the game are driven by player action, not NPC action. Say the players’ crew is at War with the Billhooks. What does it look like in game terms for the Billhooks to go on the offensive against the players’ lair, hold, cohorts or other assets outside of a players’ score?

I think that’s it for now. Thanks in advance!

I’m a little confused about cohorts.

I’m a little confused about cohorts. Does the hound start the game with an animal companion as an expert cohort or does the crew need to spend two crew upgrades to get one for the hound?

I might have spotted an error on the Playbook Sheets.

I might have spotted an error on the Playbook Sheets. The latest version of the rules says that the Whisper’s Fine Lightning Hook is a 1-load item due to its’ unique, collapsible nature, but I’m pretty sure the latest charsheets list them as 2-load items. Page 87 in the book.

Hello, everyone!

I’ve been running the game for a little bit, but I still feel somewhat fuzzy on my ability to introduce situations. I know this is a very player-driven game, but in terms of actually representing some of the consequences of the player’s actions, how can I actually introduce some that make sense but don’t necessarily fit in an entanglement roll?

For example, my players recently got into a drinking contest with a gang leader, and basically embarrassed him completely. The second-in-command is potentially thinking it might be time to take charge because the current leader is weak. Or perhaps a rival faction tries to seduce them away from someone they’re working with right now.

Essentially, I’m just trying to understand how these sort of things might fit into the structure of Free Play > Score > Downtime > Free Play. I would greatly appreciate help on this!

I’m new to BitD and struggling a bit with the 4/5 outcome on a Controlled position.

I’m new to BitD and struggling a bit with the 4/5 outcome on a Controlled position. One of the results is: “you end up in a risky position” (with a similar move to desperate from a risky position). I don’t really understand how this works. Is the intention that the PC re-rolls the same action but from the new position? Or should it be a new action but automatically in the new position? The former seems to contradict the whole ‘roll once’ philosophy.

Thanks!