Blades in the Dark: Hacks and Add Ons – Page 98 – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

I may be running a one-shot this Saturday, and am wanting to run it in a cyberpunk fantasy/Shadowrun flavor with…

I may be running a one-shot this Saturday, and am wanting to run it in a cyberpunk fantasy/Shadowrun flavor with minimal changes. I know there’s a similar stretch goal in the works, but here’s my plan. I’d love any input on where I’m going overboard or off-base.

At this point, players will focus PC concepts around group choices on the gang framework by Andrew Shields, tweaked slightly for cyberpunk flavor.

Each player will have to choose whether all spirit/supernatural/ectoplasmic stuff on their sheet either stays spirit stuff (for mage/shaman-types) or swaps for equivalent digital/VR stuff (decking, rigging, etc). I think this may nicely handle the essence balance business of canon Shadowrun where cyberware/digital paraphernalia saps your essence which you need to power magic and shamanic spirit wrangling.

To further the cyberpunk skin (hopefully without too much complication), I’m thinking of adding two cards/index cards. Players choose one of each to supplement or replace parts of their sheet.

1. One for each race/metatype, offering 4 racial special abilities (choose 1 in addition to the starting playbook ability). Most racial abilities are just other playbook abilities tweaked, inspired by Sixth World.

2. One for each classic cyberpunk archetype, replacing the sheet’s friends section (and maybe offering more modern gear list options). These can also recommend playbooks that fit nicely.

The biggest change I may make is more due to being one-shot than the skin. Players choose a key-like drive card to guide investment in the world and mini-personal arcs (from a drawn hand depending on how many players there are). Option ideas are in a comment on this thread: https://plus.google.com/u/0/116748546962488989608/posts/KiJE48s8Qkr

Are you an occultist Whisper or a wealthy aristocrat beyond the reach of normal law?

Are you an occultist Whisper or a wealthy aristocrat beyond the reach of normal law? Are you troubled by muggers, kidnappers, assailants, and the poor? Now there is a product JUST FOR YOU, so that you can walk these streets you practically own without further bother from the riffraff!

Presenting the Spectromastiff Stone. These stones are each equipped with an electroplasmic projection with the shape and temperament of an intensely loyal and dangerous mastiff. You activate them by touching them to bare skin, yours or someone else’s. The mastiff leaps forth, protecting you.

One look at this ghostly defender, and assailants stop in their tracks, then sprint away! While the mastiff has no physical form or attack, its very presence shatters the composure and scatters the nerve of the most hardened criminal!

They are designed to air once per day, but with intense anxiety or effort on your part you can often provoke multiple showings.

Order today! Our jewelers are on hand to set the stones in cane heads, broaches, amulets, rings, cufflinks, pommels, or other fixtures at your instruction. Buy now, and enjoy peace of mind that can only come from a faithful defender that even death cannot stop.

(Whispered fine print: Cost is three coin. One airing per day is without further charge, each further airing provokes a Resist test or inflicts a “weakened” condition at Tier 1. All those present who threaten the owner of the stone, or in an ambiguous situation act threatening at all, must freeze and then flee or Resist each impulse to do so. The Spectromastiff will endure for up to ten minutes before withdrawing, and can be showed off as a trophy rather than used in a threatening manner when it is summoned. If the Spectromastiff flickers or stares overlong at its summoner, consult a Whisper for a diagnostic. Stone setting sold separately.)

I think we need a special ability that specifically protects against the paralysis and fleeing that is a natural…

I think we need a special ability that specifically protects against the paralysis and fleeing that is a natural consequence (that must actually be resisted or endured!) when facing ghosts.

Something like “Inured to Undeath” as a Whisper talent that other playbooks can take as appropriate.

Once the system hard-coded that first round you freeze (unless you resist and take stress) and second round you run (unless you resist and take stress) ghosts got a LOT more dangerous.

As I understand it, even Whispers face this potentially catastrophic consequence.

This Saturday is likely my last open table Blades in the Dark session until after the rules come out officially.

This Saturday is likely my last open table Blades in the Dark session until after the rules come out officially. To celebrate, I’m sharing the updated gang rules. These are suited for Blades in the Dark one-shot sessions.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QtJxtygvG33wWTfUt14Z10RxHUIkVbAICznRwwHwt3Y/edit?usp=sharing

The crew rules are designed to do four useful things:

* Save time by not generating a crew.

* Offer the whole group an advantage as a crew normally would.

* The players tell the GM what kind of play style they want.

* The players tell the GM what kind of mission they want to run.

I am thinking about making a list of 100 site defenses used in Duskwall, and giving each one elements to strengthen…

I am thinking about making a list of 100 site defenses used in Duskwall, and giving each one elements to strengthen it or weaken it.

Roll 2-4 times, then interpret how they fit together, and you’ve got a quick-generated site that can be tweaked to make it more interesting and inspire players to target its weaknesses.

I was wondering. Has anyone actually played any of these? If so, any thoughts?

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/07/23/blades-in-the-dark-three-playbooks/

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/07/23/blades-in-the-dark-three-playbooks

Ran a Laundry Files BitD hack, which worked surprisingly well with some minor updating to the Action and Equipment…

Ran a Laundry Files BitD hack, which worked surprisingly well with some minor updating to the Action and Equipment list; secret agents with a hazardous link to occult powers is a natural link, just had to reflavor the magic from spectrology to applied computational demonology, rename some Actions (Cipher became Code, etc), and give everybody modern equipment like smartphones and 9mm pistols.

The plot had a B-team of local defense agents going up against a plot to return the Faerie to England (to paraphrase Charlie Stross on Faeries in the Laundry-verse, ‘Our stories about them are about as accurate as the picture a Pashtun goatherder whisked away by black helicopters, interrogated, and dumped back home, would have of America). High points included breaking into a teacher’s house on a Sunday morning, a very Yorkshire St. Crispin’s Day Speech (“You fokken basterds git at ’em”), and taking out a gang of elvens and a PC in a blaze of hellfire missiles.

From a GMing perspective, I really enjoyed being able to state the danger, which significantly upped the menace of the game, while still letting players retain agency through spending Stress. I found I was more explicitly calling out which Actions were to be used than the rules recommended; players would state a fiction, I’d tell them what Action to use, and they’d roll, I’d narrate the consequences, and let the player get the last word.

I was using v2 of the Quickstart, so there was some clunkiness with rolling for Action and Effect and repeat ’till clock is done. I never really grokked Resistance rolls, or the proper amount of Stress to inflict, and wound up eyeballing it (players ended up out of Stress). Just checked out v3 of the Quickstart, and it looks like a major improvement that addresses a lot of my rules concerns. I’m especially excited to try to the campaign features for developing a crew, downtime between scores, and fighting for dominance in a living city.

Great game!

Made some quick Consequences Cards to make it easy for the GM to visually lay out what the repercussions are.

Made some quick Consequences Cards to make it easy for the GM to visually lay out what the repercussions are. I like to tell my players before they even roll what the possible repercussions are for a failed roll as then they know the stakes and can judge if they want to take a devil’s bargain or assistance. I made these cards to make it easy just show them what is at stake.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_x5XNahtqzvbkdCSXRSV0trSHc/view?usp=sharing