Some musings based on my most recent play experience.

Some musings based on my most recent play experience.

Some musings based on my most recent play experience. 

I think the resist roll would be better served as 3, 2, or 1 stress to resist based on 1-3, 4-5, 6+. Five seems like too much, and 0 seems like too little.

For time clocks, I had one with 4 segments that terminated in too much attention, and another 2 segments that would add +1 heat to the heist each. So, once the clock was full, there were two more segments with an additional cost. I can think of other applications of this that could be interesting. Like a fight where consequences are nonlethal for the first four segments, and lethal for the last two, so you want to jump over those two and get them all at once to get a KO before the fight gets nasty. 

For fights and dangerous activities, I’ve got a practice that’s increasingly comfortable for me where I say “every round this clock is not filled you will need to resist a consequence.” That is in addition to any rolled complications. So, while you’re in the fight you’re getting hit (or at least put in harm’s way) until the fight is over, even if you roll a 6 or a critical success. I really like how that feels. Complications are in addition to that.

That could apply to walking along a slippery ledge, brazenly infiltrating a bluecoat station, and other situations where danger is RIGHT THERE every round until a clock is finished.

There is an imbalance between teamwork and individuals acting independently to fill a clock. With teamwork you can’t add much, just extra dice; you’re limited to what one roll can do. With individual rolls, you can add up segments much faster. Each individual action fills a minimum of 1 segment, after all, and is less likely to add stress than a team action.

So, team actions in my game tend to focus on when the group has to move together. For everything else, different approaches with individual actions because that fills out the clock much faster.

I really like my gang rules for one-offs, or even campaigns where you don’t care to build an empire but instead want to play heists.

I am unmoving in my conviction that stress clears differently at my table. You clear 4 stress per downtime action, -1 per Trauma taken. Clean, neat, easy, and gets them right back into the game. If they only got 2 back per downtime action, some of the characters would have had to overindulge to play the second heist in my latest session. It just feels wrong to me. But that’s cool, everybody else, carry on. I’ve argued this out in two threads, and this isn’t intended to start that up again. =)

More world building, about the nature of hollows and whispers and so forth. I’ll probably get into that later. Things like a whisper hydra, the kite theory, uses for electroplasm, and rituals on the fly.

My thanks to Nigel Clarke, Charlie Vick, Adam Goldberg, and Brad Elliott for a great game!

Play report for an outing with gangs!

Play report for an outing with gangs!

Play report for an outing with gangs! (Sorry, didn’t manage a recording.) Things are shaking up in the Crow’s Foot neighborhood; with the Red Sashes thoroughly trashed, another group is making a move.

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/07/18/blades-in-the-dark-hollow-invasion/

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/07/18/blades-in-the-dark-hollow-invasion

UPDATED SHEET:

UPDATED SHEET:

UPDATED SHEET:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7tg4ip3jdzwnc4k/REDSKIES%20Charasheet%202.jpg?dl=0

Here ist the charactersheet for my hack Red Skies. Which is a SciFi Hack, not just a reskin of the Setting. Abilities will come later and hopefully this will work out. Small elements were added like the Energy/System concepts for the advance Armory. But overall seen, a general reduction took place.

Here’s the updated Warden from Blades Against Darkness.

Here’s the updated Warden from Blades Against Darkness.

Here’s the updated Warden from Blades Against Darkness.

The goal here has been to try and re-interpret the traditional Sword and Sorcery concepts and give them something special. The Warden is someone who patrols the border between the civilized world and the darkness outside. They are a wanderer, a hunter, an outsider. 

They’re sorta a mix of the Ranger and the Bard with a bit of the Barbarian and Batman thrown in for good measure. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4bjxjnr2p_IeVNGU1h5Y2xoTTQ/view?usp=sharing

Played Sean Nittner’s Gaddoc Rail Score this evening at Ettin Con with resounding success!

Played Sean Nittner’s Gaddoc Rail Score this evening at Ettin Con with resounding success!

Played Sean Nittner’s Gaddoc Rail Score this evening at Ettin Con with resounding success! The bunch of wily scoundrels were after a ghost-hunting weapon being transported in an elaborately arcane chest, promising to deliver to Lyssa of the Crows.

The players had fun with a few set-up flashbacks involving procurement of uniforms, tapping old alliance contacts and murdering a few bluecoats by offering their bodies to hungry ghosts. The crew went primarily with a deceptive plan, smartly avoiding direct conflict, pulling off a ‘pick up and deliver’ score incognito, via the canals and sewers under the city.

A brief downtime phase allowed us to dabble in the new crew mechanics to good effect.

Love Love Love the new effect system and the ‘push your luck’ nature of the escalation mechanics. Players LOVED that. It was so tense. Everyone stressed out to the max too. Such a great game.

I have been thinking about factions in Blades in the Dark.

I have been thinking about factions in Blades in the Dark.

I have been thinking about factions in Blades in the Dark.

When I do pantheons in fantasy games, I make some gods, sure. BUT, I put a lot more focus on churches that worship those gods. There is not a single monolithic religion honoring one god; instead, there are multiple churches, and they often fight more intensely with other churches of the same god than with churches of other gods. They each have their own regional and cultural take on interpreting that god in their setting.

I feel the same way about factions. I think it is fine that there are now  big umbrellas like “Criminal Underworld” and “City Institutions” and so on. I feel like the listed factions are also umbrellas, though; “Bluecoats” is too general a faction to engage, I think.

Especially in a city divided up in neighborhoods, you’ll have turf wars between bluecoats for jurisdiction. Bluecoats that serve on the night shift, or work certain areas, or units assigned to guard houses, or followers of a charismatic leader in the force.

I wouldn’t want to change the faction selection at crew generation. No, what I’m suggesting is that the faction allegiances that are chosen then should inspire a “crew” of appropriate stature to the relationship to get lined out more clearly in subsequent play or between sessions. You are not assigning faction relationship to ALL of a group, but indicating there is a group OF THIS TYPE that you have a relationship with.

Just as angering the Unrecommendables crew is not angering all smugglers, and angering the Dimmer Sisters is not angering all whispers, having a bad faction relationship with the bluecoats is not angering all the bluecoats of Duskwall. There’s a group of bluecoats you’ve crossed, and they are out for you. The higher you put that animosity, the more you want that to be part of the story.

Now collaborate on how big a group of bluecoats; the bigger they are, the more mild but far reaching their anger. The smaller the group, the more likely to directly act against you.

Just some musing.

I ran my first session yesterday! I have some thoughts!

I ran my first session yesterday! I have some thoughts!

I ran my first session yesterday! I have some thoughts!

I played with Chelsey Eaton​​ Kevin Farnworth​​ Andrea Gardner​​ and Mark George​​. Also adding Jason Pitre​​, because he might find this interesting.

Other than Kevin and myself, the group is fairly new to role-playing games. Mark has some DnD background, Chelsey has been playing light-weight story games with us for about a year and Andrea’s almost brand new to the hobby.

Also important to note, I introduce new games to a lot of people. Spreading new indie games is my thing. My comments mostly concern teaching and learning how to play, and how new players interact with the rules.

I had read the rules cover to cover twice, Kevin and Andrea skimmed them.

Here are some observations:

Character and crew creation

This took longer than expected. I was expecting something along the lines of Apocalypse World, but there are a lot more options to consider. I found myself wishing the character creation rules were integrated to each character sheet. The heritage and background bit gave some pause to the less improvisational players. I feel like more examples under each category would help out a lot.

I think using heritage and background as a starting point for actions is great.

Another little note, the name list is way too big. It’s fine for a list of npc names, but my players agonized over the list. It might be more effective to have a series of shorter lists split by island of origin.

Crew creation is great, but again, there are so many options for upgrades that it took forever for them to pick two. Opting for a less democratic approach might speed things up a lot(First player chooses social ability, next one reputation, next one first upgrade and so on). It’s how it’s done for the faction relation sheet and it works really well.

The faction relationship sheet is great and building it is fast and effective. I’m a fan. It got all the players curious about the different groups, got them asking questions about NPCs and their place in Duskwall.

In short, character creation is cool and evocative, but kind of sluggish and heavy. The sheets are on the overwhelming side.

They created The Pilfering Players, a troupe of street performers and actors/thieves made of Usher (a crow defector and adopted son of late Rorric), Stev (a lusty Iruvian circus performer), Sil (a mysterious and magnetic Thycherosi expat) and Whisper(who’s name is subject to change, an Iruvian apprentice sorcerer, who’s master has disappeared)

The mechanics

Blades is a little deceptive. It seems like a fairly light game on the surface, but there is a lot of mechanics. Actions, effects, resistance, stress, harm, many experience tracks to keep an eye on, faction relations, and so on. It’s a lot to keep track of for newer players. I feel like a less tightly packed character sheet which integrates more rules explanations might help a lot with that. Or maybe a more robust player reference sheet.

The players got confused about how resistance worked every time it was brought up. I feel like there’s a way to get around it through layout.

The actions are ask great, evocative and clear. We didn’t really feel like one was used more than others. We did, however, notice that specialization early on can discourage the more shy players to take point and use their actions creatively. I would love to see something more structured for deciding who’s on point than “choose as a group”. This slows down the game and discourages characters who are out of their element to get involved.

A solution might be to discourage specialization at character creation so that every character has a wider array of skills, or a enforce specific order for deciding who’s on point.

I really love the devil’s bargain mechanic, but it seemed easy to forget on the players’ side. The newer players weren’t really coming up with them either. Stronger guidelines for creating them might help. Examples of bargains on the player reference sheet would be great too.

The effect system felt a little sluggish. Whenever a roll was made, we has to stop and analyze the circumstances. It seemed really cool on paper but ended up breaking up the action. This may change with better familiar with the rules, but on our first game, it felt like it slowed things down significantly.

I also wished consequences were on the GM reference sheet.

Flashback mechanics weren’t really engaged, I’m assuming because the players weren’t clear about what they could and couldn’t do with it. I don’t think that the writings fault. Just new players, playing a new game without knowing exactly where the boundaries are.

Conclusion

I really like this game, but it feels like a gamer’s game. There’s a lot of information that needs to be absorbed upfront, it plays significantly better if the people at the table have some level of rule mastery before the game starts. It made me think of Burning Wheel a lot, that way. A lot of mechanics, a lot of upfront information, a focus on advancement. It felt hard to teach, for me.

I’m totally on board for more mechanically heavy games, but I didn’t feel like I had the tools I would’ve liked to make the other players “get” Blades quickly.

The game relies on momentum a lot (you do a thing, sweet, this happens, who’s on point next) but has a couple of breaks in the action that distract from that.

I’m really looking forward to getting another session or three in to see if these issues float away and I’m just a crazy person.

I encourage the players to share their side of the story. Especially the newer ones. I figure your perspective is an important one.

Questions

Does everybody get effect from a group action? Does that mean that if they sneak as a group of four, they get four times the effect? Do they just get bonus effect for scale?

One of the most fun things about rules is when to break them.

One of the most fun things about rules is when to break them.

One of the most fun things about rules is when to break them.

Shakespeare wrote plays in iambic pentameter, and had some fun with line breaks and characters talking over each other but still staying in form. The rhythm made the lines easier to remember, and gave the performance a certain flow.

The form would tighten up for monologues and such, ending in couplets, showing it was a stand-apart piece. But then you’d have the low-born comic relief come in, and they would not be in iambic pentameter. They’d bungle around in prose making fart jokes, and you knew it was funny because the rhythm shifted.

I’ve used this pattern-as-communication in a neat way in my Unrecommendables game. Experimentation and fun with the verse on a heist, with the down time running more like a monologue with tighter structure. Then came Carrow.

When the limmers of Carrow get involved, the heist structure falls apart. The downtime structure falls apart. They don’t start in media res, but they have to venture into territory they were not prepared to enter.  Strange things happen. We play through travel and exploration. We play through a baptism in leviathan blood and subsequent hallucinations. It’s weird territory.

The shifting out of the verse of the game’s tools has been a great way to underscore the unbalancing shift in rhythm. Then back into the heist structure and downtime structure, where normalcy feels somewhat restored.

Just a thought on how you can use rhythm and pacing and tools to communicate the world to players, sometimes in unexpected ways.

Bryan Mullins Jack Shear 

How do people manage other factions running a job on the PCs?

How do people manage other factions running a job on the PCs?

How do people manage other factions running a job on the PCs? 

Does it happen off-camera, with the PCs just hearing about the aftermath or… is it some kind of reverse score? Mechanically speaking, how do they defend against this kind of thing? How should it be interpreted in the macro-rules of either running a score/spending downtime?