Finally got a chance to run Blades!
It was a LOT of fun; the players loved it, and I had a blast. Bits and smatterings of reactions:
* I didn’t play v2, but v3 feels like it eases up a bit on stressing the PCs out, which I liked – I felt like I’d hoard ALL my stress under the previous version, and here I feel like I need to be cautious with it, but I can spend it when I feel like it’s worth it.
* There were a few bits and bobs that confused me in the Quick Start rules. I’ll make a list next time I read ’em, and see if it’s anything that wasn’t covered by the FAQ. One thing that particularly threw me was the Entanglement role; staying down to 0-3 Heat+Tier seems reeeeeeally hard to me. I might just be comparing to v2 here, though – I remember there the entanglement difficulty rose drastically with the heat category; when I saw my crew had a somewhat messy scene and some people also got killed (total 4 heat), I got to the Entanglements and went “no WAY they’re ready for the second tier at the end of their very first score!”. Reading over it now, you might’ve changed that around – they don’t look awful the way I recall.
* The Claim chart worked fantastically well. I was worried that a wide-open game would leave them hemming and hawing for an initial score, but they saw the flowchart and chose something they wanted, and BAM. I tied it in with the Crow’s Foot quickstart situation – easy. I took the advice to give ’em a couple of options – easy. That had me offering a pair of general directions that’s probably very unlike what I would’ve come up with on my own – pure awesome. (They decided they wanted to start by getting a Luxury Fence, I said, OK, the Crows’ fence feels like she’s about to be stabbed in the back amid all the turmoil and she wants to hide; the Lampblack fence will probably be won over if you just bring in a big enough haul. SO. EASY.)
* Character creation takes a LONG TIME for a quick start. There’s a ton of stuff to decide, and everything feels vague and unclear if the players don’t come in knowing the setting. I rolled with it and we had fun, but I think if I ran this at a convention or something I’d definitely come in with pregen characters, with maybe some extra flavor text, and just let each player do a minor customization or two. I am looking forward to seeing what awesome pregen characters this community’s going to produce 🙂
* Gameplay was great and flowed easily. I LOVED being able to tell them “OK, stop planning now.” And they go “No, but we need to figure out how–” And I say, “No, no you don’t.” Coming up with complications all the time was a heck of a lot of fun.
* I feel like I need to play a bit more to grok how to play the opposition properly. First I felt like the character’s action rolls move the scene forward, and I didn’t really know how to “make moves” for the opposition. Then I remembered to break out a bunch of clocks for Bad Things to Start Happening, and that worked like a charm. But I still felt like I lacked a way to say, “OK, bluecoat ghosts are swarming at you RIGHT NOW, what are you going to do about that?”. I don’t think this is a flaw, just something I need to play more to get a handle on.
* Probably the best moment of the game:
“OK, for the ‘planting false evidence’ clock, I’m going to flash back and say we found a particular type of oil that only the Lampblacks use, and got some of that.”
“Sure! Want a Devil’s Bargain? You were only able to get the oil in an enormous tank, which is now back in your lair.”
–any game that lets me lay out a Chekhov’s Gun so beautifully has surely won my heart.
(YES, they took it. OF COURSE THEY TOOK IT.)
So, this was fantastic. Thanks so much for this, and I’m really looking forward to playing more and reading more!