Category: Blades in the Dark: Game Questions

Acquiring Assets and Timing

Acquiring Assets and Timing

Acquiring Assets and Timing

Hey folks. Wanted to get some thoughts about how to time out downtime, gathering information, and scores, particularly in regards to Acquiring Assets.

A major feature of BitD seems to be focused around “in-the-moment” action, and not doing too much planning. However, what to do if a crew decides they want to have an asset to complete a score, or even in the midst of a flashback? How do you handle this situation?

The obvious-ish solution is that players can spend Coin to get an extra downtime activity, and use it right then-and-there in the moment to acquire the necessary asset. However, for the frugal player, the incentive seems to be towards “planning ahead”, and using your “free” downtime activities to gather assets for a job they might not even know they’re doing yet.

Hopefully I’m explaining this correctly. Essentially, how do you square the circle of “in the moment” planning with downtime activities giving a bonus if you plan in advance?

question in regards to indulging your vice is there something special that happens if you crit?

question in regards to indulging your vice is there something special that happens if you crit?

question in regards to indulging your vice is there something special that happens if you crit? At least from the rules point fiction of course comes first but was wondering if there are specific rule mechanic. I read that its the reverse of resistance roll, which would be gaining 1 stress?

So, the first session with Blades in the Dark was played

So, the first session with Blades in the Dark was played

So, the first session with Blades in the Dark was played …. and my players (and they themselves) surprised me! We did not start with the choice of characters, we chose the crew first. After much discussion, they have opted for the Hawkers. Okay, we thought of gambling and brothels at the beginning, but then one of the players read the Special Ability “Ghost Market” and they decided to go with it. An absolute game changer in my opinion ^^

So now the “problem”. The Ability states that the crew has found a way to develop and sell a “product” for ghosts and demons. At the end of the session, the characters had developed and built a machine that absorbs the essence of life from fresh corpses and processes them into a liquid. That spirits and demons have an interest in something like that is out of the question for us.

Now my two questions:

1. The Ability leaves open how this new clientele pays. The first idea of ​​me and my players was that consumers pay with services, meaning information and services (perhaps similar to summoned spirits at Shadowrun). That this does not always bring positive effects is already provided by the game mechanics and philosophy. Do you see any other ways to pay for this liquid? What do I overlook?

Another option that I would find fitting would be to create a Progress Clock which fills up every time the product is sold. As soon as this clock is filled – the spirits / demons in Duskwall have neatly “fueled” – something happens for the setting eminent. I do not have a real idea of ​​it yet.

2. How would you handle the production and sale of the liquid from the game mechanic? We imagined that we would handle this process as a downtime activity. In general, we would like to handle this rather roughly, so we do not want to worry about things like the amount of liquid produced, etc.

The current prototype of the machine was designed quite crude, which is why a litter on this activity in principle assumes a risky / desperate position. If the machine is improved later, that could of course develop in favor of the characters. We have not talked about the effect level yet because there was no room for it and we are not very familiar with the system yet.

What ideas would you have to implement?

My Crew Failed for the First Time.

My Crew Failed for the First Time.

My Crew Failed for the First Time.

So I’ve had a group of people play blades for a while now and they have a very notorious tier 2 crew. However, some times not everyone can make a session so we started a new campaign as a bunch of Skovland Refugees which we could play when someone wasn’t available.

This happened during the second session for the crew, they are all tier 0 Vigillantes and have played before (obviously). We have a Leech, a Slide and a Lurk playing and I wanted to do something a little different for them.

I started a sort of “murder mystery”; some serial killer was going around murdering Skovs for some reason, and the Grinders asked the crew to find out who and try to put a stop to it. This part of the session went down super well! They started an investigation clock and went to town on the gathering of information to solve the case, eventually finding out that the Red Sashes were murdering Skovs with a strange drug which destroys their ghosts, and most had the body taken. A little more digging and some awesome RP with Lord Skurlock later and they found out that the Sashes needed the bodies for their dead members, killed by the original group, to get revenge on them. Skovs in our game are naturally muscular and are therefore the perfect hosts to make some strong vampires to have their revenge.

So alls good so far, they investigated well, found their lead, solved the case, and found out people were coming for their original crew because of complications. Now all that was left was exacting justice by shutting them down. They found an entry point of an open plan roof for the dojo and decided on a stealth plan where they would gather the evidence needed to get the Bluecoats/Inspectors on their trail. But thats where things went tits up.

4 engagement dice were rolled and we landed on a 3, desperate position to start off. So as the crew were getting ready to absail into the dojo at night, the light turns on and a medium gang of Red Sashes enter the room, starting to perform a ritual on a corpse. The Lurk, unbeknownst to anyone, didn’t like his character very much, and wanted to kill himself off to make something new. So he cut himself loose and dove in, alerting everyone to the crew’s presence and surrounding himself with 8 master swordsmen. The crew try to help him, not realising he wanted to die for some reason and roll very badly to say the least. After several roles, some explosive napalm, and the lurk suicide bombing 2 sashes, the other 2 escape with their lives and use the crew ability to pin it on someone else.

Everyone was pretty bummed about the situation and that they actually failed to do what they set out to. The Leech player saying “I knew we weren’t ready for that score yet! We should have waited and tried a different approach.” But in my eyes what lead to the failure was not a lack of preparation (they preped more than they ever have before), but a series of bad rolls and a suicidal Lurk.

Was their anything I could have done differently?

Can someone clarify what a Turf is? I’m quite confused about it.

Can someone clarify what a Turf is? I’m quite confused about it.

Can someone clarify what a Turf is? I’m quite confused about it.

What does it do? How should I imagine a Turf? Is that a building? A house? Apartment? A Field? etc

We are Italian and AFAIK there is no direct traduction for this word besides “A grass field”, and this tells me nothing to be honest.