Category: Blades in the Dark: Hacks and Add Ons

In my last post I talked about language used in the actions available in your blades hack.

I then talked about a bunch of alternative social words that could be used instead of command, consort, sway.

I came up with the trio Clarify, Obfuscate and Imply. I was so horrified with what that implied, that that I started to write a Hack.

It is about awful people in a bureaucracy (maybe in Akoros).

Attributes and Actions:

Power: Impose, Crush, Dismiss

Guile: Slink, Obscure, Imply

Insight: Predict, Reveal, Refine

Very rough at this point these probably wouldn’t be the final actions that I would settle on; and I have no idea what setting I would put it in. I don’t know if I even want to do anything more with it than this, but it was a fun exercise.

I have some thoughts about actions and attributes in blades hacks.

The names chosen in BitD are so perfect for that game and a real mix from fairly generic to incredibly specific. I can see the temptation for leaving a system that works well intact until you have other stuff figured out.

But, In my opinion it is one of the first things you should think about hacking.

The action words are some of the things that stand out most on the playbook sheets and they are the biggest part of the player interface. The players are contently going to be using these words to describe their characters’ actions in the context of your setting.

It seems that about half of blades hacks make no changes, and most of the rest change the names of a couple of moves that the author could think of a particularly on theme word for, but leave the rest. The most interesting hacks (again in my opinion) completely change how actions are organised in the philosophy of the setting.

Some words that I would highly suggest changing.

Attune – This is highly specific. Even if there is magic is your default action to attune to it?

Consort – This word says a lot about the setting. Do your characters consort? to they chat? do the mingle? is this the default friendly interaction in your setting?

Sway – I love how evocative this word is. I also think it should probably change in a lot of settings.

Finding the exact right word is hard and I understand the urge to put it off when there is already a great list of actions that works, but if you can change even a few of these words to actions that you want to see characters taking all the time I think you will be in a much better place.