The Deathlands. My (new, tier 0) smuggler crew is planning on getting contacts with some Deathlands scavengers in order to gain access to various weird stuff they could sell — and yesterday they asked “well, could we become those scavengers?”
I said that it’s risky but probably quite doable, providing that they do quite a bit of prepwork first (find out more, talk with scavengers, figure out a way of semi-safe travel between Doskvol and the surroundings, figure out protection, etc etc). I said that just going out with no prep would be extremely dangerous — I’m not going to flat-out say “no”, but just warning them. So it sounds like a long-term project & goal, and the players are fine with that.
The Hound has the Survivor special ability and the Whisper has Iron Will, so they already have some relevant skills.
So, I need to start prepping all sorts of stuff related to the Deathlands. Creatures, routes, scavenger crews, loot etc. Sounds like fun. :).
What have you done with the Deathlands? Do any of you have crews who are doing something like this? What could be out there? How do crews protect against the dangers? Ideas, anecdotes, whatever… all welcome.
Some question that came to my mind while running & prepping for our first Blades game.
Some question that came to my mind while running & prepping for our first Blades game. Most of these don’t really have single correct answers, but interested in your thoughts 🙂
1) Payment from Scores: is the design intent that scores always (or almost always) generate some coin as a result, even if the score fiction does not directly talk about money? Or is a coin reward intended to be there only when it’s explicitly talked about? For example, a score for smugglers to open up a new import channel might not specifically talk about a direct coin reward… should there generally still be one?
2) Claims: according to my understanding, the PCs can seize a claim by stating that they want to do so, and then either asking the GM for suitable “open” opportunities or doing some rolls to find information. After that, the whole thing is run as a Score, and if successful the Crew gets the Claim (with status implications vs the factions which had the claim previously). Is this correct, or am I missing something?
3) The book talks about district crime bosses usually demanding a cut from profits. I didn’t do that in our first game, but it’s something I have to think about. Is that something you usually have in your games? The Crew is currently operating around Nightmarket, off barge moored nearby. What do you think, would Nightmarket tend to have a crime boss who would start putting pressure on the Crew to pay him/her off? Who or what faction would it be in your game? Suggestions welcome :). I don’t want to go for a strict “now you have to pay this criminal some taxes” approach without getting good story and some player options out of it.
4) I don’t think the book specifies where the Dimmer Sisters HQ is, other than it’s some sort of house/mansion. Where have you situated it in your games? Any other fun ideas about the Dimmers? (I’ll probably be using them a lot, due to player choices at PC/Crew generation).
Ok, ran my first game of Blades yesterday and we all had a blast.
Ok, ran my first game of Blades yesterday and we all had a blast. The newly-formed “Royal Arcane Imports” smuggler gang ran a quick snatch & grab score for the Dimmer Sisters (against The Revelation, an up-and-coming cult of a forgotten god), and we named the whole thing “The Curious Case of the Burning Goat Cart in the Night” 😀
Most of the time went into PC & Crew generation, but we were all impressed by how much detail and game world color that phase already generated. Then I sat down by myself for 20 minutes or so and came up with a short intro score, which we then ran with.
The engagement roll came up a 2, so we started up at Desperate: as per plan, the Lurk had stowed aboard the cultist (covered) goat cart, and was getting ready to snatch the target (small, heavy stone box) and vanish when cart got to specific spot. However, his own wards interacted unfavorably with the thing in the box, resulting in something ghostlike but not human starting to manifest next to him in the cart, throwing off sparks and light. This alerts the four heavily-armed cultists, who stop the card and look inside. Cue action.
Well, the Lurk player came up with a great flashback: he had brought a bottle of lamp oil with him, and had been busy soaking the interior of the cart while waiting. Then he gathers dice and gets some teamwork help from Hound pacing the cart, and gets a critical success on his Prowl (!). So what happens is that he grabs the box, shoots at the cart (setting off a firestorm) and leaps out running (Hound provides extra confusion). The critical success means he gets a nice head start before cultists manage to react properly.
With burning cart, pulled by panicking goats, careening wildly down the street and causing general mayhem.
He manages to drop box off at nearby (target) bridge, under which our Whisper is waiting ready with a camouflaged gondola and a heavy net. She grabs the box and goes dark. Lurk continues running and gets out of sight of cultists for a sec.
Here I asked if the Lurk would give me one more Prowl check (at Controlled) to see if he makes a clean getaway. He surprised me by saying that the character will instead quick-use his disguise kit and swap identities while out of sight for a sec. No, he didn’t have any suitable skill for that, but he Pushed it for 1d. I ruled that it’s risky, with limited effect. And rolls a 6 (!). So he walks back out from behind the corner, looking sufficiently different that the cultists run right past him, shouting incoherently. Then he goes to a nearby Nightmarket stall to have a quiet cup of coffee. 😉
I loved it. They got away clean due to a few really lucky rolls, but the players also realized that they had gotten lucky and it gave a great start to the campaign. The downtime phase also gave me nice pointers on follow-up (including some complications, one due to overindulgence of drug habit :).
The campaign will probably feature a lot of occult stuff, since that’s what the players chose as their favored smuggler cargo type (and chose reputation: “weird”). They are also interested in deathlands stuff, we’ll see…
Very impressed with this game.
I have a few questions about the game (or setting, more exactly), but I’ll do a separate post on those.
