My Hangouts game got through character and crew creation last night with (mostly) success. I’ve got 5 players in a crew of Thieves – Whisper, Spider, Cutter, Hound, and Leech. As you might expect, here are my inevitable ramblings on how the session went.
1. We had about a 2-hour session, with maybe 90 minutes of that being actual Blades stuff. Trying to get people set up with Dicestream in the “classic” Hangouts mode, audio checks, toggling in and out of different browsers, all that was expected but it was still cumbersome. If not Hangouts + Dicestream, is there a better option? Roll20? Skype?
2. Trying to name a gang is waaaay harder than naming a starship, you guys. They eventually settled on the Dead Setters over email today. They may have to be based out of Catan Street.
3. Many players jumped for the “ghost” or “weird” options on the character and crew sheets (and if they didn’t, it was a hard choice not to). Kudos to John Harper for such an evocative setting. They took Ghost Echoes for their Thieves ability, with Ghost Mind (Whisper) and Ghost Contract (Spider). They’re planning on specializing in hijacking spirits and making off with the weird shit that other gangs won’t touch.
4. I think we had the most fun choosing the faction relationships. That’s a great way to brainstorm out a starting situation and give players authorship over the setting. Nobody doubled up on any one faction but with 5 players, it’s a fairly nuanced map with a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. We ended up with +1 with the Crows and -1 with both the Lampblacks and the Red Sashes.
5. The 1 contact, 1 rival thing is pretty great too. On paper, I thought having this limited set of choices would feel weird but it cuts out so much creative fatigue. I found myself coming up with plot hooks immediately, instead of worrying about names or skills for these people on their sheets.
I’m excited for next week’s game. I gotta learn the actual rules by then. 🙂