Actual Play Report
Synopsis: Three scoundrels (comprising a gang of thieves calling themselves The Redeemers) were invited by the new boss of the Crow’s Foot to… handle a delicate matter.
The Lampblacks had managed to steal a rather valuable sword from the Red Sashes, and were planning to use it to ignite a gang war on their own terms. Lyssa wants the sword stolen back, and returned, in such a way as to allow all parties to save face and maintain the teneous peace.
The Redeemers consist of:
* Brick, a Cutter and former Bluecoat who was stabbed in the back by his own brothers when trying to report on some of their own illegal activities.
* Maggie (or The Magpie, according to some of the fishwrappers), a noble Slide that started thieving as a means of rebellion, and whom prefers to target old blood nobility for their slights against her nouveux riche family. Also in an on-again-off-again relationship with Basco.
* Deacon, a Whisper who devoutly believes that confession is good for the soul; an information broker and blackmail artist trying to save people from this broken world.
The play in brief:
The trio of Redeembers charmed their way (with the aid of a barrel of ale) into the Lampblacks front, where a celebration was underway, cheering the victory of the capture of the sword and the plan to use it to force the Red Sashes’ hands when and where they want. Maggie stole Basco (who was holding on to the sword) away with dancing and some alone time; therein she used some trance powder to knock out the boss and slipped out a window, sword in hand.
Meanwhile, Brick and Deacon did some snooping; they found a Bluecoat was responcible for the actual acquisition of the sword in question; the ‘coat in question (Volette) is soon painted as someone playing both sides against the middle- trying to bait the Lampblacks and the Red Sashes into an ambush by her true blue family.
Once outside with the sword, the trio donned disguises as a Bluecoat (Brick) with two ‘associates of dubious quality’ headed over to the Red Sashes headquarters, with the sword disguised in an unusually long and large scroll-case.
Nominally, they are there to collect their regular bribe from the Red Sashes- using this as cover to sneak the sword back into the Sashes vault, while also lifting some extra coin (and pinning it on the Bluecoats).
End result: The Lampblacks blame Volette for double dealing them when the sword goes missing. The Sashes blame the Bluecoats when the money goes missing. And the Redeemers walk away with their commision from Lyssa, a bit of increased goodwill from the Crow’s Foot, and neither of the other parties any the wiser.
——
Thoughts on play:
* Play was generally pretty smooth. The clocks worked pretty intuitively- the only time they reall stumped the players was early on, trying to get the sword away from Basco; due to some really poor rolls, they only managed to fill three sections out of four on the clock, and had to brainstorm for a bit on yet another approach to close the job.
* The other point of friction was probably in part learning how to pace in Blades; the players often wanted more fine grained task resolution, and were frustrated at stuff like Fine Items not applying. About halfway through, I suggested a tweak where if a resolution roll wasn’t applicible, then having a Fine Item gives you +1d on your Action roll.
* Acquire Asset being a Downtime action fights against the ‘minimal planning’ approach- Acquire Asset seems like the right thing to use when they wanted the extra large scroll case, so I fiated that it was used.
(Alternatively, it could have been brought in via flashback, in retrospect)
* The player of Deacon wanted to use Faith as his Vice; I was frankly unclear as to how that should work within the fiction. In particular, how to tempt him (such as via Devil’s Bargin) with that Vice, as opposed to something like Drink or Luxuries.
* I would recommend skipping the attitude-setting section of gang creation for the Quickstart; we got kind of bogged down about who the various factions are (or are supposed to be), given that we only have a thin slice of them, and even a smaller slice are meaningful in the QS.
* Brick’s player initially wanted to be an ex-soldier turned criminal mercenary, which suggests a Military background as being appropriate. (Granted, it could work as Labor, but that brings a very different idea to mind)
* Amongst the questions to ask players during character creation, an important one to focus on is ‘How does your character break the law to personally profit, and why are they in a gang rather than working alone?’ The player of Deacon initially envisaged a much more altruistic character that didn’t really fit as a scoundrel in a gang of thieves.
