TheRPGSite

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 :p)

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.

I am torn. It literally looks like the RPG I've wanted to receive ever since I've finished Thief: The Dark Project and wanted to run a medieval gangland campaign. On the other hand, I am unsure if the core of the mechanic'll fit...but the (criminal)empire building, while storygame'y, looks nice, and I myself usually prefer those a bit meta mechanics that simplify things in terms of domain play, to the beasts of Harn Manor and the like.

So, if I accept or even embrace the meta board game elements (I have actually flirted with such systems when it came to domain management for games in RuneQuest either way), what are the other mechanical pitfalls? Are any particular mechanics or skills overpowered? What's the size of the PDF? Bite sized, 200 - 300 pages, or a 600 pages modern titan like Shadowrun 5e (I swear, I love that game as a player, but I'd sooner poke an eye out than run it).

The Blades pdf (out tomorrow) should be around 320 pages but they are digest sized IIRC. The quickstart is much, much, less.

Having now run two sessions, my initial impressions are that the rules, combined with the default setting, definitely work very well to create a complex web of intrigues, alliances and enemies with minimal effort required by the GM. It's probably not doing anything that a GM skilled and experienced in this area couldn't do themselves, but it does make it easy for a competent GM who hasn't already mastered that specific skillset.

Pretty much everything the Crew does is going to piss someone off, and if they don't want enemies, enemies everywhere, they also need to work to make friends, play one faction off against the other etc ...

The Entanglements are a useful way of reminding the GM to play up the consequences of previous decisions and relationships. They can be treated as short mechanical diversions, but are far more useful as starting points for actual roleplaying scenes (and potentially longer threads), requiring the group to deal with (or ignore, at their peril) the fallout from job X while they are in process of trying to set up job Y.

Quote from: Rincewind1;943114So, if I accept or even embrace the meta board game elements (I have actually flirted with such systems when it came to domain management for games in RuneQuest either way), what are the other mechanical pitfalls? Are any particular mechanics or skills overpowered?

The way the system is set up, it's pretty much impossible for any skill to be objectively more powerful than any other. Some skills ("Actions") may be a little be easier to leverage by dint of being slightly broader in scope, but not so much that it causes any real problems. If there is a imbalance somewhere, the place it could be is in the Special Abilities, but I think you'd have to be fairly incompetent to make one that's wildly imbalanced. There are some clear imbalances between Crew types (although not particularly egregious ones), but since the group is only playing one Crew type in any given game, there is no particular need for them to be tightly balanced one against the other. If you want to play Hawkers, the fact that Bravos start with three upgrades while you only have two is irrelevant, because Bravos aren't as good at being Hawkers as Hawkers are.

The one genuine mechanical issue I've seen raised is that getting Action ratings to four dice is somewhat overpowered. The Scum and Villainy hack limits Action ratings to 3 dice for this reason. The release version of Blades dealt with this by significantly increasing the cost to unlock the option of 4-dot Actions but this, of course, only pushes the issue back rather than resolving it.

Another minor issue is that the game is built and balanced to be ideal for 3 - 4 players. With less than this, the group Stress pool becomes quite small, and the lack of scope in Actions across the group means that more stress may have to be spent covering for situations where the PCs lack the requisite talents to perform at their best. Larger groups have the issue of the large stress pool potentially making things easy, and also issues with spotlight time. In my experience so far, Blades is definitely a game best played slowly, and any given player can easily take 5 - 10 minutes, and sometimes more, doing their thing, while others are less directly involved. This time is generally interesting, and can involve multiple cliff-hangers and "how the fuck will they get out of this, now," but with larger groups, waiting for other players to do their thing may end up getting a bit tedious for some.

As a GM, the biggest challenge is the need to constantly improvise complications. These are what drive the game and a central part of what makes it actually fun, but it's often not immediately obvious what a suitable complication will be (assuming that you want something that is both interesting and believable). So far, the feedback is that I'm doing a good job (one of my players has advised that waiting to find out, "what's he going to throw at us now" is one of his favourite parts of the game), but it's definitely a challenge.

One big plus for the game by the general preferred standards of the RPG Site is that it is genuinely built and pushed to be a zero-prep game. I haven't run a really open, sandboxy game in a long time, but Blades has been pure sandbox, I-as-GM-have-no-fucking-clue-what-is-going-to-happen-before-the-session-or-even-what-will-be-happening-five-minutes-from-now.

This looks very promising. I've been tinkering with amalgamating something from TSR AD&D Complete Handbook Thieves, Birthright, and Stars Without Number (factions chapter). If I can keep most of this as off-scene (behind the GM screen) processing this would be golden. If I can process its value in under 5 minutes (under 1 minute, best!) it'd be platinum. There is something to be said for an abstracted system unknown to players to manage faction relations.

Keep talking, I'd like more examples and see how the subsystem can be pulled in different directions.

Quote from: Opaopajr;950940This looks very promising. I've been tinkering with amalgamating something from TSR AD&D Complete Handbook Thieves, Birthright, and Stars Without Number (factions chapter). If I can keep most of this as off-scene (behind the GM screen) processing this would be golden. If I can process its value in under 5 minutes (under 1 minute, best!) it'd be platinum. There is something to be said for an abstracted system unknown to players to manage faction relations.

Keep talking, I'd like more examples and see how the subsystem can be pulled in different directions.

There's really not much to it.

You have a rating with each Faction that is from +3 to -3. When you do shit that is likely to make a faction like you or dislike you more, your status with them changes. The game is set up so that almost everything you do is going to piss someone off by treading on their turf.

For example, each Crew has a claims map, that shows particular claims that they can potentially take. This is an abstract map, and doesn't represent the physical relationship of one claim to the other, but following the paths to linked claims from ones already taken is the standard process. Jumping to a non-linked location on the map means the GM ups the difficulty. Taking a claim that isn't even on your Crew's Claims map means jumping up the difficulty ye another notch. Taking Claims is one way to improve your resources. But every Claim is already held by someone else, and taking a claim means taking it off that someone else.

For other Scores, you're always going to be manipulating, killing, tricking, upsetting or stealing from one faction or another, or from somebody a faction considers one of their own. So again, everything you do is likely to damage your status with someone.

To a significant extent, the fact that the system works is really down to the lengthy list of interesting Factions that are detailed, more than the Faction system itself. Actually managing the progress of the individual factions, their relationships with each other, or the effect PC actions have on their strength and objectives, is pretty much left up to GM fiat/common sense. I assume that SWN has a system at least vaguely similar to Godbound, and the Faction system in Godbound is significantly more detailed and mechanically involved than Blades.

I think the Faction system in Blades works, but I don't think it has anything particularly valuable to say about system design, other than "Interesting factions are good, and a good Faction system requires that the PCs be forced to engage with it rather than mostly doing their own isolated thing that doesn't affect the wider world."

Similarly, the Entanglements are not really anything other than very simple, random adventure seeds linked to mission blowback. They serve as a reminder to the GM that actions have consequences, and the PCs don't just get to move from one score to the next without dealing with any repercussions.

Regarding the Crew itself, there are a lot of different avenues for advancement.

As mentioned, you can take Claims.

You can also increase your Tier by gaining Rep. Tier determines your base-line resources, equipment quality and the degree to which other factions will tend to take you seriously.

Crew XP is used to "level up" the crew, which allows you to either take a crew special ability, or two physical upgrades (a better lair, a gang of thugs, higher quality weapons, training facilities, etc ...).

Beyond that, there are, of course, any particular objectives the crew decides to work towards themselves (control the drug market, overthrow the government, take over another Faction, eliminate a Faction, control a city district etc ...).

Edit: Summary: I really like this game, so far, but I would not recommend buying it just because you need ideas for a Faction system. If you want a reasonably rules-light game (that still has a bit of mechanical heft) for minimal- or no-prep gaming focusing on criminal enterprises in a Victorian-era fantasy setting, it's well worth a look. And apparently Scum and Villainy is a pretty good hack for playing space scoundrels along the lines of Firefly.

If you (as in general "you", not talking to anyone in particular) don't know the game and have a bit of time at your hands, i highly recommend watching some of the actual plays on youtube. There is one here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNzpg-qdZ0g&list=PL-oTJHKXHicTtCC4rgmFSfZSSQsZmENAz (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNzpg-qdZ0g&list=PL-oTJHKXHicTtCC4rgmFSfZSSQsZmENAz) .
John himself is the GM and i think the crew has good chemistry. John has another AP on his own youtube channel but i like the one on RollPlay better (which is not to say that the other is bad, btw!).
It really helped me to get an easy way in, so to speak, without having to read all the 300+ pages first.

Quote from: Sable Wyvern;950896The one genuine mechanical issue I've seen raised is that getting Action ratings to four dice is somewhat overpowered. The Scum and Villainy hack limits Action ratings to 3 dice for this reason. The release version of Blades dealt with this by significantly increasing the cost to unlock the option of 4-dot Actions but this, of course, only pushes the issue back rather than resolving it.

Care to elaborate on that? I don't see the big problem, to be honest. Success chances (aka having at least on 4 or higher in your pool) are pretty good as soon as you hit 2 dice in your pool anyway. The difference between 3 and 4 dice is minimal, imo. And as said, it's pretty hard to get to 4 dice. You're pretty badass if you have a rating of 4, so it's ok if that shows a bit.

Quote from: Anglachel;950963Care to elaborate on that? I don't see the big problem, to be honest. Success chances (aka having at least on 4 or higher in your pool) are pretty good as soon as you hit 2 dice in your pool anyway. The difference between 3 and 4 dice is minimal, imo. And as said, it's pretty hard to get to 4 dice. You're pretty badass if you have a rating of 4, so it's ok if that shows a bit.

Well, it's the opinion of Stras, who's probably played as much Blades as anyone, including John. I tend to assume they've got a reasonably good idea what they're talking about.

Getting to four isn't going to be hard at all, as long as you're willing to spend two sets of crew upgrades on it. One to two sessions is all it takes to upgrade an Action rating, it's just a matter of whether or not the group wants to put their Crew upgrades towards unlocking Mastery.

I just whipped up some quick numbers (with some rounding errors left in).

Three Dice
Fail: 12.5%
Success + Complication: 46%
Success: 35%
Crit: 7.5%

Four Dice
Fail: 6%
Success + Complication: 42%
Success: 39%
Crit: 13%

Five Dice
Fail: 3%
Success + Complication: 37%
Success: 40%
Crit: 20%

Six Dice
Fail: 1.5%
Success + Complication: 31%
Success: 40%
Crit: 27%

Each die step halves your chance of outright failure, which makes a massive difference, and gives you a very hefty increase in crit chance as well (close to doubling).

Four, five and six dice are all pretty safe bets. I can certainly see how making it easy to get to those upper levels may end up making the game too easy overall. The game relies on partial success to be reasonably common, and crits really should be rare. Still, I am comforted to see that even with six dice, the chance of a partial success is still 31%, although I'm not happy to see that a crit is nearly as likely.

I've run two sessions, so I'm not claiming that it's something I've seen actually cause problems in the game. It's something I plan to keep an eye out for and, if I do decide to do something about it, I'm leaning towards limiting the number of fours a character can have, rather than saying they can't have them. It is definitely something that I think bears mentioning if someone asks "What are the possible mechanical and/or game balance pitfalls".

As to Rollplay Blades, I watched the first session and a bit of the second, even though watching other people RPing holds absolutely no interest for me, simply because I knew that Blades was quite different to anything I've run before. I have no doubt that what I saw played a significant part in helping me get my game off to such a good start.

Thanks for the reply.

I only did a rough estimate of the probabilities but i see i was pretty close in that estimation. I see where you and i differ - i was talking solely about character capabilities which range from 0 to 4 dice. I know you can get bonus-dice but i was not counting those for my analysis of OP or not. I do think the probabilities you have calculated for 4 dice are pretty reasonable for a maxed out character in any given action. So as said, i see no problem with rating 4.
I do get that Blades itself as a game might suffer if too many characters have a 4 rating in more than one action rating. As it kind of cuts out the whole bonus-die thing if your character is so good at things he almost never needs it.
I still think one or two ratings at 4 would not be a problem overall...because, as a player, it is also nice to know that for some of your actions, you are not dependent on help and/or taking stress. But as always YMMV etc. .

And again, from my point of view, i do not think that getting a 4 is easy. But i guess that is very much a matter of how you define "easy to get". Two crew upgrades and several XPs to boost the stat up to 4 is nothing to sneeze at, imo. You can buy a lot of other helpful stuff with those kind of XPs/Crew upgrades.

Anyway, this is, as almost always, YMMV and matter of taste, i guess.
And what i said is just based on cold numbers (and as said, on my preferences concerning character skill without any help/gimmicks), i do not have extensive play-experience with Blades.

As for watching other people roleplay...i guess you and i differ a lot there ;)
Especially if the presentation and the players are good (aka good production values in the videos and interesting stories and characters), i almost prefer watching to playing...i know sounds weird. But i guess i am a bit burned out on face-to-face roleplay lately. I should probably take a break.
But yes, watching a bit of Blades certainly helps understand it better...so i recommend it to everyone (especially if you are a "so far traditional-gamer only" kind of person ^^ ).

So, I'm running three games of Blades and have gotten a pretty solid grasp of everything. Some seriously awesome shit has gone down and there's something about the setting and system that hits that sweetest of spots for me. Coming up with complications can be a stumbling block, but more often than not they're obvious. I like the "meta-storyness" to it a lot, so the occasional narrative snag is a thing I can deal with. I'll only get better at it as time goes on, as I did with pretty much every other game I've played.

I haven't noticed anything broken in the dice pools, but nobody's gotten to three, let alone four. I doubt it'll be an issue as the PCs will probably only have a couple fours in their strongest things, which is fine.

If anyone wants to swap ideas, plays throughs, etc. I'm all for it!

What would scores for a Hawkers crew look like? All other crew types scores seem obvious but I'm having a hard time figuring out this one.

Perhaps deliveries in dangerous circumstances? But should a full crew be really necessary for an operation like that? Hmmm...

Quote from: Itachi;955565What would scores for a Hawkers crew look like? All other crew types scores seem obvious but I'm having a hard time figuring out this one.

Perhaps deliveries in dangerous circumstances? But should a full crew be really necessary for an operation like that? Hmmm...

So far my crew has done the following:

Session 1: A senior member of the tenement block that makes up their initial sales territory asked them to deal with a member of Ulf's crew that had mistreated a prostitute working out of the tenement. The crew agreed, in order to help establish themselves as good guys to the locals, and also to ensure it was known that they run the place.

Session 2: They had a social engagement with the proprietor of a gambling den who is also a mid-level drug dealer. They talked him into taking their package (Turf/Sales Territory acquisition). However, as he was previously being supplied by the Hive, he wanted them to prove they're up to competing with such a powerful organisation. To show their moxy, they broke into a Hive warehouse and stole some shit.

Session 3: The crew knows that they are going to need contacts to assist them in getting stuff into the city, especially when their plans to develop a new, mystical drug start coming to fruition. They decided to speak to the Rail Jacks and start building up some goodwill. The Railjacks got them to sneak into the house of a minor noble and inscribe a rune in one of the upstairs rooms. They stole some shit while there.

Session 4: Hasn't happened yet. They will most likely be running a social event for the community in their primary sales territory, to continue to establish themselves. A quieter, easier score will sit well, as two of three characters are busy recuperating from injuries.

In future, there will, of course, be more scores to acquire Claims. The group has a decent initial supply of product, but their expectation is that they will need an interim supply between the initial one running out and their own drug labs getting up and running. Doing the latter will require a lot of work, acquiring the exotic ingredients they require, the actual premises where the work will be done, etc ... And as they are forced to work with other Factions, they will get drawn into the disputes those factions are involved in, just like any crew will.

Quote from: Itachi;955565What would scores for a Hawkers crew look like? All other crew types scores seem obvious but I'm having a hard time figuring out this one.

Perhaps deliveries in dangerous circumstances? But should a full crew be really necessary for an operation like that? Hmmm...

It depends on the product/service I'd say. In a game I'm running they're gun-runners who are expanding into prostitution as a cover of sorts to trade in secrets. There are great tables under each crew type which provide example scores. Did that help? :)

I like the idea, but it sounds way too focused for my table.

Thanks for the replies, guys. I find the more basic crews (Bravos, Shadows and Assassins) fit better the game core premise.

About Scores, do you use actual floor plans to help players visualize the area, or just verbally describe them as suggested by the book? I feel my group would like it better if they could visualize it.

Showing an actual floor plan is probably going to cause problems with players going all tactical rather than the one roll and it's done approach to scenes that runs through most PbtA style games. Having run Blades for most of last year I would say that it really needs to have players who are on board with the game style. You can make it all about the tactics and play it like a regular RPG but that wastes a lot of the good things about playing to find out what happens which is the usual theme of a PbtA game.

Quote from: Itachi;956343Thanks for the replies, guys. I find the more basic crews (Bravos, Shadows and Assassins) fit better the game core premise.

About Scores, do you use actual floor plans to help players visualize the area, or just verbally describe them as suggested by the book? I feel my group would like it better if they could visualize it.

If using floor plans helps with imaging the scene, go for it. They aren't needed in a D&D 3.5 sort of way, though. Pictures and plans can be very helpful to create a collective visual consensus, which will help support the fiction.

The descriptions of this game remind me of the campaign games we use to generate wargame battles... like a more abstract board-game sitting at a higher level than the actual miniatures/terrain/slugfests.
Without reading it I imagine it generating roleplaying sessions that are less contiguous than I'd usually expect... playing out the board-game till a particularly tasty situation arises and then 'zooming in' to play that out real-time with actual PCs.
It would be weird at first, but it's something I wouldn't mind trying.

Quote from: Simlasa;956510The descriptions of this game remind me of the campaign games we use to generate wargame battles... like a more abstract board-game sitting at a higher level than the actual miniatures/terrain/slugfests.
Without reading it I imagine it generating roleplaying sessions that are less contiguous than I'd usually expect... playing out the board-game till a particularly tasty situation arises and then 'zooming in' to play that out real-time with actual PCs.
It would be weird at first, but it's something I wouldn't mind trying.

We haven't gotten a board game vibe from our sessions, but that might just be us. We do zoom in and out, focusing on what's interesting, as wanted. Some of the most innocuous aspects of downtime have become deep roleplay scenes and it's been great. At other times we've glossed over the "big stuff", such as what amounted to a minor score. It's an extremely modular system and has been a joy to play.

Yep, I got the same impression as Alderaan. This game doesn't ask players to play precisely the way its described (as is the case with most PbtA games). Instead, it offers a toolbox for playing crews of scoundrels on a urban sandbox environment. You can zoom in and out of scenes as the group sees fit, or even ignore some fiddly bits of you wish.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;956511We haven't gotten a board game vibe from our sessions, but that might just be us. We do zoom in and out, focusing on what's interesting, as wanted. Some of the most innocuous aspects of downtime have become deep roleplay scenes and it's been great. At other times we've glossed over the "big stuff", such as what amounted to a minor score. It's an extremely modular system and has been a joy to play.

Quote from: Itachi;956803Yep, I got the same impression as Alderaan. This game doesn't ask players to play precisely the way its described (as is the case with most PbtA games). Instead, it offers a toolbox for playing crews of scoundrels on a urban sandbox environment. You can zoom in and out of scenes as the group sees fit, or even ignore some fiddly bits of you wish.

OK, now you got me interested again.  Something else to save up for.

Quote from: Itachi;956803Yep, I got the same impression as Alderaan. This game doesn't ask players to play precisely the way its described (as is the case with most PbtA games). Instead, it offers a toolbox for playing crews of scoundrels on a urban sandbox environment. You can zoom in and out of scenes as the group sees fit, or even ignore some fiddly bits of you wish.

TBH, if it wasn't for the influences of the game I probably wouldn't have gotten into it. Apocalypse World left me cold and turned me away from PbtA, but Blades sucked me right in. I stuck with it and learned the ropes and now I absolutely love it. Is there friction in learning it? Absolutely, but I've found it more problems with my thinking than the game.

One piece that tripped me up was the structure of "gather information, score, downtime, repeat". It looked too rigid but I have happily learned that it's a firm but flexible framework to balance where fiction meets mechanics. In the spaces where my first instinct was to think "WTF?!" I've instead gotten a "Ooh! How do I handle this?". The answers have been fun.

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;956840TBH, if it wasn't for the influences of the game I probably wouldn't have gotten into it. Apocalypse World left me cold and turned me away from PbtA, but Blades sucked me right in. I stuck with it and learned the ropes and now I absolutely love it. Is there friction in learning it? Absolutely, but I've found it more problems with my thinking than the game.

Do you think Blades may have opened up PbtA games for you now that you grokked some its concepts? I can see The Sprawl allowing a similar urban sandbox experience as Blades only in a cyberpunk environment, and even AW allows for a kind of "community survival management" experience if the Hardholder or similar playbooks are involved.

QuoteOne piece that tripped me up was the structure of "gather information, score, downtime, repeat". It looked too rigid but I have happily learned that it's a firm but flexible framework to balance where fiction meets mechanics. In the spaces where my first instinct was to think "WTF?!" I've instead gotten a "Ooh! How do I handle this?". The answers have been fun.

One question that's puzzling me: are Downtime actions supposed to work in regard to the last mission (treating harm, relieving stress, etc) or could I use them to advance the next score somehow (doing research on the next target, legworking, etc)?

Forgive not quoting and such. I'm on my iPad and it a pain. :)

To the first question, absolutely! In fact, I have The Sprawl and love what I've read. Blades really helped get it, you know? We haven't played it yet, as other games have come first, but The Sprawl is definitely on the "Must Play!" list.

As far as DTAs (Downtime Actions) go, yes, they mechanically fall after a score in the downtime phase. You get two by default, but things can change that, such as a special ability or being at war. In this it seems very rigid and possibly annoying, however you can spend coin and/or rep to take as many as you want. This price is purely balance and to me makes fictional and mechanical sense. It gives just enough pinch to "doing your thing" without beating you into the ground, so-to-speak.

If you need or want to interact with those mechanics after your two free DTAs, just pay the coin/rep and do what you need, when it's fun and makes sense. The mechanical reason it costs is to put a limit so you're not running amok with projects, healing, etc. The fictional reason is that if you're in bed, training or working on your new gadget, you're not out making money and/or being known, which hurts revenue and reputation. It's a nifty "mini-game", if it can be called that. I see it much like long and short rests, you know?

The way we handle scenes in Blades is interacting mechanically, then assembling the narrative in the most logical and fun-for-the-group sense. For example, during the downtime steps you roll for entanglements before each player takes their DTAs. Let's say your entanglement says a gang member causes your crew trouble. We shelve it for now and later on your character indulges their vice by drinking. Maybe the gang was with them and that's when they caused a stink. Did you beat their ass in front of the aggrieved party or pay coin to smooth things out? Up to you and we easily and logically linked two distant rolls in one nifty, fictional bundle. Let's say another player overindulges and adds Heat to the crew but there are no DTAs left. So, they spend rep to reduce Heat and explain how they went around browbeating the locals to shut their mouths about everything. The loss of rep could be from having to cover their asses, making the crew look weaker or that they bullied people. Your choice. We've done this kind of thing a lot and it's worked great.

As far as legwork goes, that's not a DTA, it's just gathering information. That used to be an official, listed DTA, but it's been (thankfully) changed. So, before a score you can pick and action or actions and dig around for what information you need on the target. This is most often used to provide the detail for the plan, but it can also help with the engagement roll (maybe you learned a drastic weakness you can exploit).

You can mix and match gathering information, roleplaying scenes, DTAs and even the score in whatever fictional way you like.

I hope that was remotely coherent and helped. If not, let me know. lol