Here’s a newer bit from Player Best Practices that feels appropriate to share today.
Here’s a newer bit from Player Best Practices that feels appropriate to share today.
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The scoundrel’s lot is tough. The world in which they are trapped is deeply, cruelly unfair — created by the powerful to maintain their power and punish anyone who dares to resist. Some of the systems of the game are built to bring these injustices into play. No matter how cool or how how capable the PCs, the Heat will pile on, Entanglements will blindside them, the powers-that-be will try to kick them down with no regard.
Depending on who you are in real life, this predicament may come as a shock to you, requiring some new understanding on your part. Or it may be all too familiar. Either way, we’re the advocates and fans of our characters, but they are not us. Their fate is their own. We don’t safeguard them as we might safeguard ourselves or our loved ones. They must go off into their dark and brutal world and strive and suffer for what they achieve. They’re brave to try. We’re brave to follow their story and not flinch away. When they get knocked down, we look them in the eye and say, “You’re not done yet. You can do this. Get back in there.” And, unlike in our own world, our characters in Blades in the Dark cannot be defeated by mere power. They can suffer — and they surely will — but their Resistance is always effective. The tools of oppression ultimately break against their defiance.
If we’re willing to step back a bit, to not suffer their trials as personal failures, to imagine them as perseverant when we ourselves might quail, we might get to see them win past pain and despair into something else. It’s a long shot, but they’re up for it.
