So there's this new game Blades in the Dark that bills itself...

"Blades in the Dark is a tabletop RPG about a crew of daring scoundrels building a criminal empire in a haunted city full of thieves."

If anyone wants to deal with the Core Mechanic, feel free, but what I'm interested in is the Empire Building.  The game is going to be ported to a dozen different settings, like the world of Jhereg novels, French-Colonial New Orleans, Gold Rush California, etc...

So, it seems like why THIS game as opposed to Xworld flavor of choice is the Empire Building, the taking over of an area and rising among the factions.

So, question for AlderaanCrumbs or anyone else, how does the Empire Building work?

Generally speaking you take over various areas or businesses from the existing holders/crime syndicates and rise in power by doing so, taking on ever more powerful enemies. It's fairly well fleshed out in its core setting and some of the alternative settings are coming along well. Expect a final release (it's been in Kickstarter for ages with regular releases of fresh material and updated mechanics) from Evil Hat shortly.

You have relationships with other parties in the city, ranging from other low-level gangs to the movers and shakers and large organizations.  Some of those relationships are as simple as, "No relationship," but that can change.  When you do a job against a faction and hurt them, you hurt your relationship with them and possibly improve your relationship with their enemies.  Those factions are rated in Tiers, from 0 (for scrubs, like the Orphans in The Warriors) to Tier IV (which is like, the cops or the army or something.)

When your Crew attack another faction during a job, or just do a job period, you gain Rep.  When your rep increases to certain thresholds, you can eventually increase either your gang's Tier or your Hold.  Tier is a measure of how powerful your organization is, Hold is a measure of how tenuous your grip on that power is.  In addition, each type of Crew has a "claims" map, which are services and criminal operations in the city. You can take a claim, but doing so pits you against the owner of the claim.  OTOH, if you get the claim successfully, the other party is hurt and you get some advantage, like money laundering or body disposal or something.  

So, each time you do a job, you gain Rep, which gradually increases your Tier and Hold.  Each time you do a job, you affect another Faction in the city, which hurts them and helps their enemies, so your status with different groups is always in flux.  (It's possible to do a job without gaining Rep, completely quietly, but that doesn't help you build your empire.  It's the difference between being the Corleones or DeNiro's crew in Heat.)  In addition, you can take claims, but that obviously also hurts others and helps their enemies and puts you in conflict.

That's basically the whole thing stripped down.  It's very cool in play.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;942179You have relationships with other parties in the city, ranging from other low-level gangs to the movers and shakers and large organizations.  Some of those relationships are as simple as, "No relationship," but that can change.  When you do a job against a faction and hurt them, you hurt your relationship with them and possibly improve your relationship with their enemies.  Those factions are rated in Tiers, from 0 (for scrubs, like the Orphans in The Warriors) to Tier IV (which is like, the cops or the army or something.)

When your Crew attack another faction during a job, or just do a job period, you gain Rep.  When your rep increases to certain thresholds, you can eventually increase either your gang's Tier or your Hold.  Tier is a measure of how powerful your organization is, Hold is a measure of how tenuous your grip on that power is.  In addition, each type of Crew has a "claims" map, which are services and criminal operations in the city. You can take a claim, but doing so pits you against the owner of the claim.  OTOH, if you get the claim successfully, the other party is hurt and you get some advantage, like money laundering or body disposal or something.  

So, each time you do a job, you gain Rep, which gradually increases your Tier and Hold.  Each time you do a job, you affect another Faction in the city, which hurts them and helps their enemies, so your status with different groups is always in flux.  (It's possible to do a job without gaining Rep, completely quietly, but that doesn't help you build your empire.  It's the difference between being the Corleones or DeNiro's crew in Heat.)  In addition, you can take claims, but that obviously also hurts others and helps their enemies and puts you in conflict.

That's basically the whole thing stripped down.  It's very cool in play.

How do they keep track of power levels once you get to Tier 2 or higher?  At that point, presumably, it's not just the PCs but muscle, etc.

How do you determine blowback, ie. Factions coming back after you?  Is there some kind of mechanism for PCs planning defense, paying off enemies of enemies, etc?

It seems like the minigame of Empire Building takes place during downtime, between missions. How tied in to the core mechanics are the faction mechanics?  Easy to do a job say with Shadowrun then handle the fallout with this system?

Quote from: CRKrueger;942185How do they keep track of power levels once you get to Tier 2 or higher?  At that point, presumably, it's not just the PCs but muscle, etc.

Your Crew has a set of stats just like an individual member, and also gets upgrades as it gains experience.  From the beginning, you get what are called Cohorts, whose size and scale depends on your Tier.  (A single gang of thugs might only be 6 guys at Tier 1, but 80 at Tier 5.  I'm just making those specific number up, though)  You can send the Cohort (or Cohorts) to do jobs for you, which they will accomplish depending on their stats.  

So, you track your Claims, your Tier, your Hold, whatever upgrades your Crew has, and its Cohorts.  In addition, your relationships are always in flux with other powers in the city.

QuoteHow do you determine blowback, ie. Factions coming back after you?  Is there some kind of mechanism for PCs planning defense, paying off enemies of enemies, etc?

When your Status with your foes gets to -3, you're at war, which has various effects.  In addition, during downtime, a faction you're not doing well with can declare war, and you can back down, be passive, pay them off, or fight back.

QuoteIt seems like the minigame of Empire Building takes place during downtime, between missions. How tied in to the core mechanics are the faction mechanics?  Easy to do a job say with Shadowrun then handle the fallout with this system?

[/QUOTE]
The empire building is tied in with the Crew mechanics -- if you excised all of the personal character stuff and kept the Crew and Empire system, it might go well with Shadowrun.  Bear in mind the system has already drifted far from Apocalypse-World as it is -- it's a dice pool system, for example -- so it may be easier to convert to SR because of that.  Honestly, after playing BitD, I'd almost rather run Shadowrun under the BitD ruleset.

As an aside, the BitD G+ community is one of the best ones out there, up there with the Pendragon community and other hallmarks of classiness and helpfulness.  The game has undergone a lot of playtesting over the last year, and so there are a lot of playtest reports there that will describe the macro-level system.  In addition, the game has quite a few groups doing Twitch and Youtube (including the designer's) runs of it, and those might be illustrative.

Sorry I couldn't respond until now. Crazy day.

So, FVB did a fantastic job if explaining it, but I'd like to add some things based on my experience (apologies for any repeat information).

One bit I wanted to focus on is Heat. I love this mechanic. It's a very convenient way to track all the countless ways your crew brings negative attention to themselves, without having to account for each and every little thing that could garner such attention. It firmly removes the potential headache a GM might get from having to figure out repercussions from the crew's criminal endeavors.

In most games a GM might struggle with the consequences of things like getting leaving a body, being seen by guards or noticeable property damage. How much trouble does this cause? The group could argue it back and forth and just winging it might not be a thing that the GM or players are comfortable with.

In Blades, you pick from a small list for base Heat (1 for low exposure all the way to 6 for wild and devastating exposure). On enemy turf? +1 Heat. A high-profile or well-connected target? +1 Heat. At war with anyone? +1 Heat? Was killing* involved? +2 Heat.

*you don't track each death. One is enough for the +2 Heat.

For example, your crew is at war with Lord Scurlock (+1 Heat for being at war) and infiltrate his manor (+1 Heat for a high-profile target and +1 Heat for being on enemy turf) and are mostly quiet. They tripped two alarm runes and a guard got a good look at them (+2 Heat for standard exposure), plus they killed a guard on the way out (+2 Heat for killing).

So, for our example score the crew generated +7 Heat. That's a pretty hefty amount and once Heat gets to 9, you gain a level of Wanted (rated 1-4). This is a (mostly*) permanent representation of how badly your crew has raised the ire of the authorities.

*you can lower your Wanted level, but it requires incarceration (a crew member, ally, somebody you framed, etc.). But, you can actually gain prison Claims (such as controlling a cell block).

Now, after each score each crew member gets two downtime actions (1 if at war, although the Breakers crew has access to the War Dogs ability which removes that penalty). One of these can be to reduce Heat on the crew. Even if the crew is at 8 Heat, with enough attention, they can wipe it away before the next score. A player merely states how they're doing it (bribing the authorities, calling in noble favors, greasing the palms of officials, destroying evidence, etc.) and rolls what's appropriate. You can just do a quick roll and it's done or focus in on the scene and roleplay it out (you can do this with any downtime actions, if wanted. It is an RPG, after all )

One other example I articulated a while ago for my liking Heat was a question a friend asked. "So, if you kill a homeless guy and dump his body in a canal and nobody finds it, why would that generate Heat?" For one, when a person dies a deathseeker crow (magical birds nested in the tower of the city's crematorium) takes flight and searches for the body, flying in ever-shrinking circles until its general location is found. You know this, so you take the Assassin crew ability Emberdeath (killing a target renders their body and soul ash) leaving nothing but motes of dust blowing away in the wind instead of dumping the body. No evidence, right? Or the Crow's Veil ability which masks murder from the well, murder of deathseeker crows.

The thing is Heat's not about the body or who does or doesn't look for and/or find it. It's about somebody wondering where that doddering vagrant went, or a gondolier seeing the tell-tale froth of eels feeding, or the actual witness of the murder telling the Bluecoats what they saw, the deathseekers flight, and so on. The point is you don't have to account for witnesses, rumors, bodies and countless other things. It does it for you, without GM fiat.

You may be wondering, "What about obvious things, like a guard recognizing you?". Well, that would probably factor into the base level of Heat for the score. Heat can be a consequence for a mediocre or bad roll, too and you can simply say "You left some evidence. Take +1 Heat" or get deeper into the weeds. Heat can also be the price of a Devil's Bargain (a bonus die awarded by a consequence that will happen).

Anyway, I'm exhausted and hope I made a shred of sense. I'd love to shoot the poo more about Blades later, if you have any other questions.

Damn this looks awesome. The system is a bit too distant from what I like in an RPG - but it could be *awesome* sub-system fodder to hack onto another game. The concepts in here are specifically the shit I love.

hmm... Hmmm.... HMMMMM

Quote from: tenbones;942363Damn this looks awesome. The system is a bit too distant from what I like in an RPG - but it could be *awesome* sub-system fodder to hack onto another game. The concepts in here are specifically the shit I love.

hmm... Hmmm.... HMMMMM

I know, right?  Some variant of Xworld isn't really my thing for PC-level action, but the minigame framework of the crime syndicate, sounds meaty enough to serve as an abstracted framework for other systems.

Right now this thing is screaming to me Savage Necromunda.  
Or maybe go back to my Shadowrun Snohomish campaign where the PCs were trying to rise in the Vor.  
Hell, even Streetgangs of Kordava if the Mythras Conan PCs go that way.  Some of them have criminal contacts already.

Like you said, Hmmmm.

For what it's worth, FFGSW was about as narrative a system as I used before BitD. In fact, I disliked Apocalypse World immensely because it was too narrative and I just didn't get it. CRK, I'm not sure if having any dissociative mechanics at all is a no-sell, but I'd still recommend diving into BitD, even if only to read and pick out what bits you like. (*BTW, what exactly makes narrative/dissociative mechanics not work for you. Purely a curiosity)

When I have time I'll explain some other aspects I absolutely love: planning, engagement and load out, if interested.

Quote from: CRKrueger;942368I know, right?  Some variant of Xworld isn't really my thing for PC-level action, but the minigame framework of the crime syndicate, sounds meaty enough to serve as an abstracted framework for other systems.

Right now this thing is screaming to me Savage Necromunda.  
Or maybe go back to my Shadowrun Snohomish campaign where the PCs were trying to rise in the Vor.  
Hell, even Streetgangs of Kordava if the Mythras Conan PCs go that way.  Some of them have criminal contacts already.

Like you said, Hmmmm.

I'm currently running a Savage Worlds Forgotten Realms game using Guild of Shadows as one of my core books. Blades in the Dark is *dying* to be converted to Savage Worlds for its systems. Definitely a real score!

I started using the planning and engagement ideas in our FFGSW game and it's been pretty awesome. The way it works, in case you don't know, is this:

The players come up with a type of plan, be it stealth, attack, social, occult, transport or deception. Then they provide the detail, which is the "how to" of the picked plan. That's it. No endless debate over what-ifs or the frustration a GM feels when he listens to a plan he knows won't work, but doesn't want to railroad the players. The players aren't bad-ass criminals, the characters are, and this mechanic supports the assumption the characters have already spent time leaning over maps, arguing over avenues of approach and all the other things that go into a heist.

At first, I was really excited by it. Then I tried it and it was so different, it felt off. After only one more session, we had it down and it was great to just cut to the action. The worry I had over removing the fun of clever planning became instantly unnecessary the first time we used the engagement roll...

So, they have the plan, but how good was it? To find out the GM makes an engagement roll, which is 0, 1, 2, 4 or 6 d6s. There are three modifiers, being -1-2d when engaging a higher Tier, +1-2d for lower and +1-2d when on your home turf. The higher the the roll, the better and the result reflects how well the initial push went. It's admittedly narrative, but if you like that it works very well.

A final add-on is the flashback mechanic, which players can use to handle any snags that occurred during the engagement roll. Unexpected guards? Do a flashback and explain how you bribed them or made them sick when you poisoned their dinner. Didn't know there were arcane defenses? A flashback lets you explain how you hired a whisper to take care of them.

You spend Stress for a flashback with the cost going from 0 on up to 2 (or more, if it's especially complex). The player then rolls whatever action they took to facilitate the flashback and it's done. Crisis averted. It's the definition of disassociated mechanics, but again, if you like them it works extremely well at supporting the feel of professionals being just that. It's not a get-out-of-jail-free card, it just let's the players be creative and complements the lightning-quick planning phase.

From then on, it's standard play and the players do what they do until they're successful or not. It all goes back around to the downtime actions and so on. In-depth roleplaying can be flawlessly inserted at any time, so you can focus in and out with ease. Loving the downtime and want to focus on that, but handle the score with a roll? You can! Running scores that way will probably be the exception (you are playing to do heists, after all!), but when you need/want it, it's there.

I'm planning to start a Blades campaign in the coming weeks.

It's worth noting, there's almost nothing in the game that prevents it from being run pretty much like a traditional RPG. It talks a lot about the importance of the fiction, and encourages making decisions by group consensus, and wants the players making statements about the nature of the world. But none of that is mechanically enforced or necessary for the game to work. It's entirely possible to play the game with the players limited to expressing what their characters are doing and trying to achieve, and leaving the GM completely in control of every other element of the world. There are no widgets or currency that give the players authority to take narrative control of anything other than their PCs.

Flashbacks are the closest to narrative currency; however, they don't change the current reality, they just give the PCs an opportunity to have already attempted something that might make dealing with the current situation easier.

Encumbrance is sort of similar. You pick a load at the start of a Score (light, medium or heavy). Then, as you need an item, you tick it off a list to show you're carrying it, until you reach the limit for your chosen load.

Both of those things (flashbacks and reverse-encumbrance) exist specifically to facilitate jumping into the action rather than requiring meticulous mission planning.

As to the OP's specific interests in Empire/Cult/Crew building ... the mechanical system really isn't all the complex, and none of it's individual components are particularly brilliant. It's really a number of very simple concepts that happen to be tied together very well and which create a foundation onto which the GM can layer more interesting details. It's essentially a system designed to help the GM constantly flesh out a minimal-prep, sandbox game in with the PCs are in charge of a faction operating in amongst a large number of other factions. Not coincidentally, the book includes a good number of lists of "things" the help with impromptu description.

Quote from: CRKrueger;942074So there's this new game Blades in the Dark that bills itself...

"Blades in the Dark is a tabletop RPG about a crew of daring scoundrels building a criminal empire in a haunted city full of thieves."

If anyone wants to deal with the Core Mechanic, feel free, but what I'm interested in is the Empire Building.  The game is going to be ported to a dozen different settings, like the world of Jhereg novels, French-Colonial New Orleans, Gold Rush California, etc...

So, it seems like why THIS game as opposed to Xworld flavor of choice is the Empire Building, the taking over of an area and rising among the factions.

So, question for AlderaanCrumbs or anyone else, how does the Empire Building work?

I played in 6+ sessions of this and the empire building was pretty cool for what I saw of it. The frustrating part for me was the mix of in-character role-playing and abstract board-game rules. There were things I would have liked to explore in-character that were reduced to allocating resource points and down-time activity. It took a lot of the immersion fun out of the game for me, but overall, this was one of those Powered by (inspired by) the Apocalypse games that was actually fun.

I was a fan of the setting when I first read it, more so than when I played in it, so the idea of a different setting with the Empire Building mechanics is appealing. I'd like to see it ported into a mundane setting without the supernatural, or much less of it.

Quote from: Nihilistic Mind;942511I played in 6+ sessions of this and the empire building was pretty cool for what I saw of it. The frustrating part for me was the mix of in-character role-playing and abstract board-game rules. There were things I would have liked to explore in-character that were reduced to allocating resource points and down-time activity. It took a lot of the immersion fun out of the game for me, but overall, this was one of those Powered by (inspired by) the Apocalypse games that was actually fun.

I was a fan of the setting when I first read it, more so than when I played in it, so the idea of a different setting with the Empire Building mechanics is appealing. I'd like to see it ported into a mundane setting without the supernatural, or much less of it.

I felt like that, too. That it was an RPG with an episodic board game-feel. After watching John and his friends play, reading play reports and most importantly, playing it myself, I realized you can focus in on downtime and roleplay it out. Oh, another great change is that gathering information is no longer a downtime action and can be done as needed.