Michael Raichelson – Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

Hey Blades hackers:

I’m experimenting in my hack with having a playbook that has cohorts at the individual level (sort of like the Hardholder/Chopper in Apocalypse World, or the Pusher/Fixer in The Sprawl) and I’m not sure what to tie their cohort’s dice pools to. Personal wealth feels like an obvious low-hanging mechanical fruit to try to latch onto, but it feels kind of arbitrary. Tying it to an Action rating (or Action-like rating a la Band of Blades) feels like you have to choose between “I improve” or “They improve” in a way that doesn’t sit super well with me. Curious if anyone else has tried barking up this tree or may have thoughts.

Three sessions in now (two with improvised scores that have been really fun) and I think the next thing I need to…

Three sessions in now (two with improvised scores that have been really fun) and I think the next thing I need to get a handle on is…

“How much clock information should be player-facing?”

Like, I’ve been kind of using them sort of like the mission directives in The Sprawl (to do this Score there’s items A and B to complete, item C to avoid completing) and keeping them openly-named and player-visible. So far it’s worked well, but one of my players mentioned that he could see the potential for someone to just be concerned with “playing the clocks” vs “playing their character.” So I’m working out if I should dial back some of that information that I’ve been leaving out in full view. (But also want them to be able to tell when they’re making progress.)

How do you handle the clocks in your games?

First-timer advice ping…

Okay, tonight I run my first (ever) session of Blades for the crew of “Smugglers of Arcane/Weird” that my players put together. I was going to point them towards heading outl to a near-ish shoal where a famous Leviathan Hunter captain met his demise fighting a Leviathan to try to capture his ghost, sneak it back into the city and hock it to Lady Ankhayat so she can try to coax out the directions to his secret hunting grounds. (These are all brand-new players to anything fiction-first/story-driven, pretty much all D&D players.)

My basic plan was…

* Engagement roll to set the state of things as they arrive at this ruined lighthouse/shoal in an ongoing storm, ranging from “the only thing worse than hurricanes are hurricanes in the dark” to “irritating but non-consequential rain” kind of deal.

* Finding the ghost of the captain and making their way to it (I’ve got two Leeches that will need stuff to blow up).

* Capturing the ghost (also two Whispers so this may help occupy them both).

* Heading back to the city and a shakedown from the Dockers/”equivalent to port authority”.

So, to those who have done this before: Does that sound like what all should be in a Score? Is that too much? Not enough?

(I also kind of feel like that’s a Smuggling mission attached to the end of a Hunt mission.)