Category: Blades in the Dark: Hacks and Add Ons

Just finished a major update to Fangs, Plague, and Gunpowder thanks in no small part to the great feedback from all…

Just finished a major update to Fangs, Plague, and Gunpowder thanks in no small part to the great feedback from all…

Just finished a major update to Fangs, Plague, and Gunpowder thanks in no small part to the great feedback from all y’all. Major changes include:

-> Added the Nine Mischiefs who rule the novarchy of ratkind in The Rat King’s absence, their spheres of influence, and rules for your character’s reputation with them

-> Clarified the rules for Impending Doom, Rumors of the Frontier, and Scavenging

-> Reference materials better support first-time GMs with story hooks and locations on the frontier.

-> Replaced the character sheets with something more in line with the Blades in the Dark character sheets

-> A typeface that can be read by actual humans on this earth, and changes to a truly embarrassing number of syntax errors, repetitive language choices, and typos

The updated rules and character sheets can be found here: https://itsdanphipps.itch.io/fangs-plague-and-gunpowder

From here: playtests playtests playtests, hopefully minor updates, layout, and art!

https://itsdanphipps.itch.io/fangs-plague-and-gunpowder

If you were curious about Beam Saber and wanted to hear what it’s like I’m starting a second podcast which is edited…

If you were curious about Beam Saber and wanted to hear what it’s like I’m starting a second podcast which is edited…

If you were curious about Beam Saber and wanted to hear what it’s like I’m starting a second podcast which is edited audio of the livestreams I GM. You can find the session zero here:

https://beamsaber.libsyn.com/the-cenotaph-00-a-graveyard-surrounded-by-digital-ghosts

https://beamsaber.libsyn.com/the-cenotaph-00-a-graveyard-surrounded-by-digital-ghosts

I don’t see a list of touchstones in Band of Blades, so I’m just going to suggest some things I notice: I’m late to…

I don’t see a list of touchstones in Band of Blades, so I’m just going to suggest some things I notice: I’m late to…

I don’t see a list of touchstones in Band of Blades, so I’m just going to suggest some things I notice: I’m late to the game watching the Peter Jackson Hobbit trilogy, but after first seeing it just last weekend, Band of Blades looks splendid for playing a Tolkien-style “epic, dire road-trip harried by evil” campaign.

Granted the company/fellowship in Tolkien-stories aren’t military legions, but so much of Tolkien’s “epic road-trip” focus appears in BoB’s DNA: the omnipresent, ever-growing threat of the Shadow and its servants, richly location-based campaign arc and special missions, division of duties among the generals/heroes, the Shadow’s subtle Corruption from treasure/power/loss/blighted lands, and the reliance of most characters on the capricious presence of Wizards, regents, and named evil lieutenants.

The BoB setting is evocative and awesome. Relentless tinkerer that I am, though, I’m inclined to reverse engineer the cultures to things like Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, Men, treat religious aspects as lore/magic, Chosen as Wizards or scions like Aragorn, Broken as themed evils like the Witch-king of Angmar, Azog the Defiler, etc.

Band of Blades also has a clear and lovely Banner Saga vibe, especially with the resource management and time-pressure element. I like that a lot.

Typhoon Atolls: a guide to the islands, pt.4

Typhoon Atolls: a guide to the islands, pt.4

Typhoon Atolls: a guide to the islands, pt.4

In these guides, the focus tends to be more on the feel of the islands, their creatures and the politics of the Spirits for a couple of reasons.

First, and most importantly, I’m trying, and perhaps not always succeeding, to avoid being drawn into one specific real-world mythology, and all of the attendant controversy that could surround cultural appropriation. That is not what this should be about! Island life would necessitate certain types of building or transport, but it’s important for this to also be about the weirdness of the world, and how alien it would all feel to its first explorers.

Secondly, and connected, the culture of your humans should be flexible and entirely built by your players! In our play test games we’ve had Pellikoi change gender identities over the ages both through magic and through later generations picking up a different gender’s mask and making ti their own. We’ve had peoples go from warlike to peaceable and back again.

So I focus on describing appearances and hope that your people and heroes find a good playground within.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1t3ZO3gDa4AIXV5o0gR4OibpwFL4Nx_nY

Here’s an early look at a hack I’m working on; Blood Red Clouds in the Western Sky.

Here’s an early look at a hack I’m working on; Blood Red Clouds in the Western Sky.

Here’s an early look at a hack I’m working on; Blood Red Clouds in the Western Sky.

It’s another western hack (!); inspired by Stefan Struck’s weird west Fistful of Darkness, I wanted to try my hand at something less weird west and more postmodern/revisionist. Touchstones would be Cormac McCarthy, Dead Man, There Will Be Blood, Deadwood, Tarantino’s westerns to some extent, the party dynamic of Bone Tomahawk (not the “bad guys” or the racism though thanks) and some of the aesthetic of Red Dead Redemption.

Greed, gangs, and a coming storm…

Any feedback welcome!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tAWQiuD7QY-0Uz8BG6MFE-napDSIH8Pm/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tAWQiuD7QY-0Uz8BG6MFE-napDSIH8Pm/view

Hi all-

Hi all-

Hi all-

I have a “hack” question for you. I’m working on a few major changes to Blades in the Brokenlands based on initial feedback. The biggest is to create formal character playbooks instead of 20+ “archetypes.” Part of this is limiting choices for magic type playbooks. Right now, I’m thinking about organizing around the three “areas” of hermetic magic + sympathetic magic (4 total). So:

Alchemy

Divination

Evocation / Theurgy / Shamanism (using good & bad spirits)

Sympathetic magic

My question — Sympathetic magic is a horrible name! Any thoughts on what I should call it? Witchcraft is too loaded of a term. Primitive magic? Nexus?

What do you think of a Blades Hack about Vikings in a low magic midgard?

What do you think of a Blades Hack about Vikings in a low magic midgard?

What do you think of a Blades Hack about Vikings in a low magic midgard?

I was working on a project in the last weeks. I already have some playbooks and some “Clan Sheets”.

More than anything I took skills from several playbooks of several hacks and normal blades and I was giving shape to mine, because I was busy and I could not dedicate the time I wanted. The idea is to personalize it with time and playtesting.

Also i meaby change “Stress” for “Courage” or somethng like that.

I wanted to know what they thought of the idea? Do you see the blades system viable for a game like this?

Sory for the english, it is not my native language.

I finished alpha testing on the playbooks and some rule changes for this modern action hack.

I finished alpha testing on the playbooks and some rule changes for this modern action hack.

I finished alpha testing on the playbooks and some rule changes for this modern action hack. It doesn’t have crew types yet, but is playable!

ONE LAST JOB

Danny Ocean? Ethan Hunt? Dominic Toretto? They have nothing on you. Style, stealth and speed – you and your crew have it in spades.

One Last Job is a game about a group of thrill-seeking characters in a close-knit crew who swindle, steal, and shoot their way to infamy and fortune – or die trying. The game takes place in a fictional setting that looks just like our modern world.

Character playbooks include: Chessmaster, Driver, Egghead, Grifter, Infiltrator, Hitter, (Street) Magician, Spook.

Each player also defines a “Maltese Falcon” (MacGuffin) for their character so that the GM can engage the crew in character story arcs as well as the crew arc.

The Crew types will provide the opportunity play drastically different games. The crews are still in “alpha.” Cleaners (inspired by Mission Impossible and Expendables), Disposable Heroes (inspired by The A-Team and Leverage), Scoundrels in Suits (inspired by the Italian Job and Ocean’s series), The Syndicate (inspired by organized crime movies), Throttle Hoppers (inspired by the Fast & Furious series), Vagabonds (inspired by ???).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DDRvSSxyt_7Bx1vHp-XirikHkaLIib6e/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DDRvSSxyt_7Bx1vHp-XirikHkaLIib6e/view?usp=sharing

Typhoon Atolls: A guide to the islands, pt. 3

Typhoon Atolls: A guide to the islands, pt. 3

Typhoon Atolls: A guide to the islands, pt. 3

Living with an ecologist, you absorb certain things, and find them inescapable, even in fiction.

If we were to all disappear tomorrow, our cities wold hardly become the green paradise that so many apocalyptic stories imagine. (When they don’t all become the Australian desert and everybody robs the sporting goods stores, of course.)

The concrete would crumble and be replaced with invasive species, nasty competitors such as honeysuckle, buckthorn and phragmites.

We’ve made a permanent mark folks, no matter what we do next.

I hope it is for the better in the long run. Many days I feel like we’ll end up like whoever built the ruins below.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1A3abnDqqr9gcO7qZOxqKWI1ZEZEYYG0B