Ben Wright – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

So I’ve never posted it here yet, but I’ve had loads of discussions with some in the community about a magical…

So I’ve never posted it here yet, but I’ve had loads of discussions with some in the community about a magical Blades hack I’ve been working on/off for a while.

Anyway, Harbingers of Twilight is a game about a group of intrepid mages who endeavor to build supernatural influence in a renaissane-era fantastical region. There are mysteries, traps, dangerous bargains, sinister feuds, deception, betrayal, and death.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6KrMB6ygIUUOW95YkRhTmlHTmM/view?usp=sharing

As far as Playtesting goes, the actions work very well, and the Wizard Crew has been decently tested — however the change to the downtime loop will need more feedback to see if it needs tweaks along w/ the change in Faction interaction w/ the crew.

Love to hear feedback from the community, it’s definitely still very much a Work-in-Progress (lots of blank areas, or things not fully described).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6KrMB6ygIUUOW95YkRhTmlHTmM/view?usp=sharing

I dont post APs usually, but my campaign sort of wrapped up its “first season” early this evening, and I greatly…

I dont post APs usually, but my campaign sort of wrapped up its “first season” early this evening, and I greatly enjoyed finally doing a full “combat”.

While most of the scores involved infiltration, persuasion, and/or deception, this time they decided to just do a full on assault plan and had the great luxury of rolling 0d for engagement (7.1 rules, not 8.0) of which they got a 2.

As they had planned to blow up a bridge a gondola was going to arrive on to cause a huge distraction for the Circle of Flame – they knew this was coming and the gondola was packed w/ even more explosives resulting in a vastly larger boom than expected. One of the crew heroically stepped in front of their counterpart to receive both blows of the blast, but then collapsed from the blows (trauma’d out). Afterwards, all the local `canal dock workers’ revealed themselves to be private security and attempted to capture the crew before they could run off (a 4 clock vs an 8 clock) through judicious (and lucky) rolls and the whisper’s Ritual `Shadow Clone’ most were able to escape on the crews boat – though it appeared their whisper may have been captured (though actually trauma’d out falling between buildings instead).

Some interesting things I got to do this session (and the reason I brought this AP up) was that this was the first “true” combat this crew did and I had some nice chances to use devil’s bargains such as “running out of ammo” and “your gun jams” along with the “You forgot something important in your haste, mark 1 extra load”.

This was also the first time I did the “competing clocks” which previously I had been quite confused by – but it really made sense now and not as contrived as sometimes I had tried in the past. Really enjoyed the use of the clocks for this and made it feel much more “alive”.

I’ve been curious about how to incorporate Lifestyle costs a bit more.

I’ve been curious about how to incorporate Lifestyle costs a bit more… as right now it “seems” fairly handwavy / non-essential (I guess it can impact Position on certain things, but I haven’t encountered it personally yet).

So I was wondering, if it’d be possible to have a hack of something like “While on a score, if you wish to acquire a temporary asset roll Lifestyle as a Fortune Roll” instead of the Crew’s Tier for quality.

Thoughts? Any other…. “homebrew” things for lifestyle?

(These tweaks are why I put this in Hacks… not Discussion)

So after talking a bit with Eric Vulgaris and Kelsa about Crew upgrades.

So after talking a bit with Eric Vulgaris and Kelsa about Crew upgrades. It seems that most – to many – of the Crew Upgrade advancements seem to forget that Coin is awarded everytime the XP loops over.

Would it be useful/helpful to put a small sentence/line on Crew Sheets saying you get 1 coin (+2 per Tier) everytime you fill the XP track?

Not sure how many others overlook this bit in play though.

Looking forward to the new Blades show for Rollplay on twitch.

Looking forward to the new Blades show for Rollplay on twitch. I’m excited to see how the Assasins Crew plays out (and maybe seeing this variant of REP if they do a job too quietly (though w/ the players you have, I’m not sure that’ll actually happen))!!!

Any goals for non-criminal factions?

Any goals for non-criminal factions? My group is starting to get involved w/ some of the other factions (notably The Reconciled, Inkrakes, and Cabbies) and I think I should start having those factions progress towards “goals”. However From their short description I’m not entirely sure what motivates them?

Anyone else done some faction stuff w/ these groups? Thoughts/Ideas?

(The crew owe Salia “a favor” in the future, which sounds cool (probably just a random roll on a score table?) but i’m not sure how to approach it as a benefit for that faction)

Thanks!

So, I’ve been running a group for a couple weeks now (I think they’ve attempted ~4 scores) and the table has had…

So, I’ve been running a group for a couple weeks now (I think they’ve attempted ~4 scores) and the table has had some issues in dealing with complexity towards plans or action descriptions.

Hopefully some of the players see this and give their 2 cents on it as well. There’s been a few times where the group has tried to come up with rather complicated plans and its been difficult for them to pin down specific details or plans (I’ve been trying to offer the idea of linked plans, or having a setup of some sort).

Have you guys had experiences like this with your own groups? How do you work through it? I try not to stifle player creativity (though I do interject when it becomes discussions about contingencies still)

A few players have mentioned feeling “limited” in what they are allowed to do, so I thought I’d bring the question over here because I didn’t have a great response for it.

Thanks all.

I was discussing this with another Blades GM, but I thought I would ask the G+ community.

How natural, especially with newer players, is the switch between player chat and character chat?

I’ve ran a few sessions where there has been some confusion between the two or mixed signals/communication about if this was an in character or a player/gm conversation.

Is this flow natural for your groups? Do you have tips or go-to ways to differentiate when needed?