Johannes Dalsgaard – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

So my group of Tier 1 Bravos (with weak hold to boot) just crossed The Hive in a really major way which put them at…

So my group of Tier 1 Bravos (with weak hold to boot) just crossed The Hive in a really major way which put them at -2 status – based on their actions they might have already hit -3, but my thinking was that The Hive saw them more as a pest/nuisance than someone to go to war with. Now, though, they’ve hit a major Hive lotus destillery/import place, taken everything, killed like a dozen of their mercenaries, and taken all their slaves to come work for them. We then roll the entanglement Show of Force (A faction with whom you have a negative status makes a play against your holdings. Give them 1 claim or go to war (drop to -3 status).) which just seemed too perfect for all of us. All this is fine, and we’re all super excited for this war, even though all that the PC’s have worked for might come crashing down. I’m writing just to get some outisde input on how a secretive network like The Hive might go about destroying their enemies (which of course will vary between groups and their “versions” of the faction) and hear if anyone else has any experience using them. I have my own ideas, but other stuff would be great.

So I don’t know if I’m asking in the right place, or if this has been answered somewhere else, like on the…

So I don’t know if I’m asking in the right place, or if this has been answered somewhere else, like on the Kickstarter – haven’t been able to find anything on here at least – but is the hand drawn super detailed has-every-building-in-Doskvol-sort-of map going to be in the Special Edition hardcover only, or is it going to be released later in some other form, or is it somehow in the released pdf but someone did a ritual to make it invisible to mundane non-occult types like myself? Has the whole thing been scrapped because it was just too beautiful and ambitious a thing for this harsh, cold world? It just looked so gorgeous on stream the few times I’ve seen it, I have to admit I was more than a little sad to not find it in the book. Apart from that, I completely love the release, the changes, the more developed setting and background, and am totally giddy to change to the new rules with my group next week. Just wanted to know if I’d missed something.

So my group hit on a rules question last session concerning prison time and wanted levels that we couldn’t figure…

So my group hit on a rules question last session concerning prison time and wanted levels that we couldn’t figure out: what is the length of incarceration when your Wanted level is 0 to begin with? After our last score we’d acquired enough heat to roll entanglements from the 6+ table, we rolled up Arrest and it fit in the fiction, plus one of the players really wants a prison claim, and having that be a part of his character. But we’ve managed to clear our heat before getting our Wanted level raised to 1 so far, so we were wondering if there should be a length of incarceration shorter than “a month or two” for Wanted level 1. We could of course just agree on something together that makes sense, like a few weeks (we don’t track downtime very specifically anyway), but were wondering what John Harper thought and how other people may have handled this so far. Also, the PC who’s probably going to prison is playing a Spider and has just taken the Jailbird ability, which, among other things, makes his Wanted level count as 1 level lower when determining incarceration length. One of the prison claims does this as well. We’re not suggesting that there should be a hypothetical level -1 below the hypothetical level 0, just that this is something that could still come up even after we eventually reach Wanted level 1. I’m suspecting that having no incarceratrion length for level 0 is a conscious decision, making incarceration something serious and long-term, probably more than 1 session, thereby also giving the player more time to play a secondary character – it’s just kind of a bummer if we have to raise our Wanted level by 2 before the Spider can actually use (that part of) his newfound Jailbird ability. What do you guys think?

My group is having a bit of trouble understanding the “acquire an asset” downtime action.

My group is having a bit of trouble understanding the “acquire an asset” downtime action. Specifically, what constitutes an asset? From the different examples scattered across the book, I’m thinking it could be everything from a useful item to a witch doctor or whatever. This all seems fine. Our problem is that in the description on the rules reference for downtime, it specifically says “temporary access to an asset” – which makes sense from a mechanical perspective in terms of balance, since it just costs one downtime action, but in terms of the fiction it seems a bit more vague. It makes total sense if the asset is an NPC, but if it’s some sort of item it gets a bit weird. We can try to justify it by having the asset be something of limited quantity, or something that expires after it’s used. And if that doesn’t make sense in the fiction maybe we borrow it?

Say I roll to acquire an asset, and add 1d from my Thieves’ Pack Rats special ability, to try to acquire some heavy armor for some members of our cohort. We roll a 5. Boom! We have it! Should we just resolve how that’s temporary in the fiction? (because that maybe doesn’t sound super fiction-first – kind of like picking a mechanic first, and then making sense of the fiction afterwards, which gets a bit murki) – or should we handwaive it and say that no, it actually IS a permanent asset? – or should we use a different mechanic, like a project clock or something, to do those kinds of permanent gear acquisitions? Sorry for the super long nitpicky post, it really isn’t a big deal, we were just looking through the book for a long time for some clarification on this and didn’t find anything.

Any news on when to expect the next update (V7)?

Any news on when to expect the next update (V7)? I seem to remember John Harper mentioning it coming soon on the last episode of the Six Towers Gang. Normally I’d try harder to be patient, but my group is getting ready to run our first game, and if the next update is right around the corner I’m guessing it might be a good idea to wait. Also, any news on what V7 will contain will be greatly appreciated!