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This game has come a long way. I tried to play the original playtest version when the Kickstarter launched and the session almost literally fell apart because the rules were so janky and were so poorly explained. Last autumn I ran a 10 week campaign using the v7 ruleset and it loving ruled. The crew rules are really good, the downtime rules make sense, the character playbooks are flavourful and interesting and the basic rules actually work and are compelling to use. In the final release version the healing rules were altered to be significantly less lethal, the Engagement roll mechanics make a ton more sense and there've been a bunch of small improvements to things here and there. I'd strongly recommend this game to anyone who's interested in the genre.
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Feb 16, 2017 15:20
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Yeah, the game has definitely benefited from all the time spent iterating on and playtesting the rules. I'm glad he made all the big changes he made early on.
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Feb 16, 2017 16:29
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I'm 13 sessions into my own campaign, which actually started on v6 and it's been super solid. The kind of janky things were rules on the outskirts, like the Engagement roll and gang Tier/Hold, which has been cleaned up in v8. We largely avoided the harsh Harm recovery rules by not being a particularly violent crew, which meant I only caused L3 Harm results (usually resisted down to 1/2 with armor and rolls) a few times over that period.
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Feb 16, 2017 20:37
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Harrow posted:Wait, how does it mean a book has bad editing if health penalties are explained in a paragraph on a page? My criticism about editing was based on the confusion I saw in this thread about rules (see Demon_Corsair's posts). The way Harm is presented on the character sheets makes it seem pretty serious (e.g., -1D to all actions at 2 harm). it is only clarified in prose, in a paragraph, partway through the "Consequences & Harm" section, halfway down a page wedged between paragraphs explaining harm levels' prose correspondence and harm stacking. It would be pretty easy to skim over an otherwise clear system and completely miss a serious and important clarification/nerf about the harm mechanics. And it isn't mentioned elsewhere in the book that I can find (not even the extended playtest). This doesn't seem like an isolated incident, either (e.g., harm clock progress clearing on damage is a throwaway line on pg. 155). That strikes me as sloppy editing, leading to those situations where your GM may stop and say 'Hold on, I know it's explained somewhere in the book...' That said, that sort of thing isn't enough to turn me off the game (I do play Shadowrun, after all), and my playtests of Blades have all been great fun. I'll certainly be playing it a few more times, and I'd recommend everyone give it a go. I just wish it was more refined and polished, that's all. QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Feb 16, 2017 |
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Feb 16, 2017 21:12
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So I'm clear, your criticism of the book's layout and editing, described as being as bad as a game notorious for extremely lovely editing, I'd that if someone tries to skip past the section all about consequences and harm and glean info straight off the character sheet first that they might not fully comprehend how consequences and harm work.
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Feb 16, 2017 22:02
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All it says on the character sheet is "-1D." To be fair, that's pretty unclear if nobody at the table has actually read the rules, but I really don't think we can judge a game's editing and clarity based on whether its character sheet lets people play the game correctly in that scenario or drat near every game is going to fail that test. Like, the character sheet also doesn't tell you what your load does, or how armor works, or what a project clock is, or when you need to circle one of those traumas or what trauma even means. Sure, it'd be nice if they could fit "-1D to related rolls" in there, but ideally someone has actually read the rules, y'know? And I'd expect any game to have a couple "I don't remember how that works, let me look it up" moments in the first session or two. Your criticism of the healing clock rules doesn't make sense to me, either, because the page you pointed out is the page where the recover action is described. Like, that's where you'd go in the rules to find out anything about the healing clock. Harrow fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Feb 16, 2017 |
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Feb 16, 2017 22:09
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QuantumNinja posted:My criticism about editing was based on the confusion I saw in this thread about rules (see Demon_Corsair's posts). The way Harm is presented on the character sheets makes it seem pretty serious (e.g., -1D to all actions at 2 harm). it is only clarified in prose, in a paragraph, partway through the "Consequences & Harm" section, halfway down a page wedged between paragraphs explaining harm levels' prose correspondence and harm stacking. It would be pretty easy to skim over an otherwise clear system and completely miss a serious and important clarification/nerf about the harm mechanics. And it isn't mentioned elsewhere in the book that I can find (not even the extended playtest). This doesn't seem like an isolated incident, either (e.g., harm clock progress clearing on damage is a throwaway line on pg. 155). That strikes me as sloppy editing, leading to those situations where your GM may stop and say 'Hold on, I know it's explained somewhere in the book...'
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Feb 16, 2017 23:18
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Harrow posted:All it says on the character sheet is "-1D." To be fair, that's pretty unclear if nobody at the table has actually read the rules, but I really don't think we can judge a game's editing and clarity based on whether its character sheet lets people play the game correctly in that scenario or drat near every game is going to fail that test. Like, the character sheet also doesn't tell you what your load does, or how armor works, or what a project clock is, or when you need to circle one of those traumas or what trauma even means. I agree that a goodly number of games fail that test, and that's fine. But when your game preaches fiction-first and is clearly AW-inspired, it would be nice if i didn't have to read large chunks of the rulebook to correctly understand how basic systems work. (As a counter-example, AW2E was playable after the character sheet release and the book mostly aided with side ambiguities.) That's the basis of my criticism. And given the number of people who have shown up in this thread mentioning they misunderstood how health was supposed to work who both skimmed the book and played the game, I think it's a legitimate criticism. And it leads me to speculate that there are likely other, similar ambiguities floating around for that same reason. To reiterate, however, I agree the game is fun and worth playing. I've run upwards of 20 sessions of it over the playtest versions. My complaint, as I I wrote in my last post, is that I was hoping for more polish and refinement (and less greebly complexity sprinkled in random places) in the final product. We're talking about a game that missed its Kickstarter delivery date by well over a year; I think asking for some polish at that point is reasonable. If you disagree, that's fine, too. We're allowed to have different opinions! 
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Feb 17, 2017 02:23
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With all due respect if the issue is "I only skimmed the rulebook and therefore I was confused about the specifics of the rules" that's something that I think you can honestly say the solution to is, without undue harshness, to RTFM. We're not talking about something that's buried in an unrelated section over halfway through the book, and it's not really a failing of layout to have the specifics of harm and consequences given in the early portion of the book dealing with basic mechanics and interactions, under the heading Harm and Consequences. Since the game preaches fiction-first it's also not unreasonable to suggest that someone shouldn't look at "-1d" and go "well I guess in this fiction-first game this is the one particular rule that's completely detached from the fiction and therefore I take a penalty to talking good because of my broken leg."
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Feb 17, 2017 02:56
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QuantumNinja posted:We're talking about a game that missed its Kickstarter delivery date by well over a year lol if you go into a kickstarter expecting the delivery date to be accurate
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Feb 17, 2017 03:10
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Nuns with Guns posted:lol if you go into a kickstarter expecting the delivery date to be accurate I mean some people can and do Kickstarters that either hit or, in some rare cases, beat their estimated deadlines but they're pretty much in the minority. In the specific case of John Harper and Blades in the Dark it seems kind of weird to play the "well his game was late by a year" card when he's been steadily revising and revamping the game during that time period which isn't usually what people object to when a Kickstarter goes late as opposed to the more common "drops all communication with everyone, does nothing, makes excuses" approach.
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Feb 17, 2017 03:16
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Kai Tave posted:I mean some people can and do Kickstarters that either hit or, in some rare cases, beat their estimated deadlines but they're pretty much in the minority. In the specific case of John Harper and Blades in the Dark it seems kind of weird to play the "well his game was late by a year" card when he's been steadily revising and revamping the game during that time period which isn't usually what people object to when a Kickstarter goes late as opposed to the more common "drops all communication with everyone, does nothing, makes excuses" approach. The game he is releasing is different from where it started, which is something people object to with Kickstarter.
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Feb 17, 2017 03:25
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John is going live right now with a Blades Developement AMA on Twitch.
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Feb 17, 2017 03:30
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homullus posted:The game he is releasing is different from where it started, which is something people object to with Kickstarter. It's really not though. I mean I know where you're going to try to go with this but Blades in the Dark as it stands now is recognizable as a game that sprung from Blades in the Dark as it originally started. This isn't like that video game that was showing off gifs of some Hyper Light Drifter-style fast-paced 2D actiony top down game and then after funding closed said "actually we're going to make a 3D game with a completely different artstyle and gameplay, thanks for the money." Consolidating the skill list, tweaking playbooks, and adjusting how some rules work doesn't constitute some gross bait-and-switch maneuver, and while I'm currently too lazy to go archive digging to check I'm pretty sure that Harper did say that the game as presented in early drafts wasn't 100% set in stone, but nonetheless what was promised was a narrative-driven game of criminal gangs doing crimes in not-Duskwall with clocks and playbooks and an approach that eschews drawn-out planning in favor of simply diving into heists with minimal fuss and that's precisely what was delivered. And this is all without even touching on the fact that a lot of these changes were probably at the very least nudged along by the ongoing open playtesting which he encouraged people to do, so at every step of the way backers were given an avenue to provide Harper with feedback and were regularly provided with updated versions of the game as time went along, meaning that nothing was sprung on anyone out of nowhere and if Harper had decided to go and do something really completely stupid that everybody hated I imagine there would have been a big outcry about it but I don't recall any serious blowups coming out of the Blades G+ or Kickstarter page. There's always going to be a non-zero number of people who are unhappy that a thing changed, but in this particular case I feel confident going on on the limb that says that way more people are at worst neutral and at best positive about the final product.
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Feb 17, 2017 03:37
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Kai Tave posted:I mean some people can and do Kickstarters that either hit or, in some rare cases, beat their estimated deadlines but they're pretty much in the minority. In the specific case of John Harper and Blades in the Dark it seems kind of weird to play the "well his game was late by a year" card when he's been steadily revising and revamping the game during that time period which isn't usually what people object to when a Kickstarter goes late as opposed to the more common "drops all communication with everyone, does nothing, makes excuses" approach. I consider it a nice bonus when a kickstarter actually delivers something within the timeframe that was estimated, but generally I don't go in expecting it unless it's either someone with a lot of experience running one and an established history of reliably delivering, or it's a case of "it's all done except for the art!" A kickstarter like this, where you can tell work is constant and ongoing because there are regular revised editions out, and the creator is responsive to feedback and using the time to actually improve the final product, is about as ideal as I'd expect most of the time. So yeah, I agree but with more words.
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Feb 17, 2017 03:39
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Kai Tave posted:It's really not though. I get it. To you, it does not constitute "enough change" to be different, the super-extended dance mix playtesting is a positive overall, and missing your ship date by a year isn't that big a deal. I hope you can see that such thresholds are arbitrary (see the Ship of Theseus), and the lack of blowup on G+ is not very meaningful, since many people do not actively participate in G+ gaming communities. It doesn't require archive digging to see what he said; it's still on the KS campaign page: quote:The game is very close to finished. The design has been playtested and refined for the past 26 months and about half of the book is written. The design style and layout templates are done. What remains is a chunk of explanatory writing and lots and lots of art and map-making. The part in bold supports my point that people had reason to expect it to be 1) on time, and 2) the same. Two years of playtesting!...before the year of playtesting that made him overhaul it multiple times. If you're not inferring from the results that the game wasn't as done as he said, or that at the least the playtesting was not done beyond a very small group, I don't know what to say. The part in italics is the allowance you alluded to, and confirms that he was up front from the beginning about the possibility of it being altered. So I guess if you want to lean back in your chair, thumbs behind your lapels, with a self-satisfied smile about how right you are that people have no reason to be annoyed, ok, but I think it's reasonable to find fault with the Kickstarting of this game or be happy with the Kickstarting of this game..
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Feb 17, 2017 04:39
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Nuns with Guns posted:lol if you go into a kickstarter expecting the delivery date to be accurate I don't care that it was late. What I said was: QuantumNinja posted:We're talking about a game that missed its Kickstarter delivery date by well over a year; I think asking for some polish at that point is reasonable. This reflects the same opinion I posted in this thread in November 2015: QuantumNinja posted:I'd rather have the game November 2016 and it be amazing. Everyone's already said it: this game seems to be due for tons of annealing yet, and while each subsequent edition is playable, it's getting better at a crawl. I hope Harper takes six more months and makes it great instead of rushing it and delivering it closer to the current state. I still stand by that. I'd love to wait another six months and get something that addresses my complaints above (because they certainly are immanently addressable).
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Feb 17, 2017 04:55
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I'm not nearly delusional enough to think I could ever stop people from being annoyed about anything ever but in the grand chronicle of Dumb Kickstarter poo poo, even narrowing the window to Dumb Elfgame Kickstarter poo poo specifically, a game that showed up a year late in a revised but still recognizable format is still pretty low on the tier list. Maybe that says more about how Kickstarter expectations have been lowered by so many projects that have failed so spectacularly that a mere year's delay doesn't strike me as especially onerous but by the time Blades launched it was still pretty much good practices to be okay with the possibility that when you Kickstart something you have no guarantee that you'll actually get what you're putting money down for. I'm out about $150 on the Deck of Legends which has since fallen into a black hole of nothingness, so yeah in my case I feel pretty self-satisfied that I actually got a thing I paid for out of a Kickstarter and the worst I can say about it is "well it was late but not, like, Alas Vegas late."
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Feb 17, 2017 04:56
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I'm sorry for the incredibly stupid question, but the last version of BITD that I played was a lot shorter, but at the same time I believe it was labeled a "Quickstart" version. Can we expect something like that coming down the pipe? Or has the game changed way too much to be feasibly summarized into such a form ever again?
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Feb 17, 2017 05:57
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QuantumNinja posted:I don't care that it was late. What I said was: I'm glad that you can reference how consistently you're disappointed in the game for the past year, but you're still complaining about the delivery date even if you're going "We waited an extra year... and for this!" *sweeping gestures exaggerated for a hyperbolic, joking effect* I wouldn't have minded it being held back more to get another thorough cleaning, but who knows, maybe this last final draft of the completely done complete draft will have even more tweaked rules in it? I'm withholding my judgement until I get the final book. Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Feb 17, 2017 |
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Feb 17, 2017 05:58
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Nuns with Guns posted:I'm glad that you can reference how consistently you're disappointed in the game for the past year, but you're still complaining about the delivery date even if you're going "We waited an extra year... and for this!" *sweeping gestures exaggerated for a hyperbolic, joking effect* This isn't the final draft -- it hasn't gone to print yet and it's still open to proofreading.
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Feb 17, 2017 09:50
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admanb posted:This isn't the final draft -- it hasn't gone to print yet and it's still open to proofreading. Yeah and he's said the last three versions of it were "basically" the final draft but they keep getting small (but good) edits. I'm not complaining
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Feb 17, 2017 13:53
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homullus posted:I get it. To you, it does not constitute "enough change" to be different, the super-extended dance mix playtesting is a positive overall, and missing your ship date by a year isn't that big a deal. I hope you can see that such thresholds are arbitrary (see the Ship of Theseus), and the lack of blowup on G+ is not very meaningful, since many people do not actively participate in G+ gaming communities. It doesn't require archive digging to see what he said; it's still on the KS campaign page: I don't blame people for being mad that he missed the ship date by a year--that is an entirely reasonable thing to be angry about--but I do think people are overreacting if they think the final game is so thoroughly different from the one he kickstarted as to no longer be the same game. If he'd shifted focus entirely, like totally swapped settings or decided to add mini-based combat and poo poo, I'd say that'd constitute enough change to be a bait-and-switch, but what we got was a more refined version of the game he pitched. Again, though: the very late ship date is entirely reasonable to be mad about and I'd be mad about it had I kickstarted the game. QuantumNinja posted:That said, that sort of thing isn't enough to turn me off the game (I do play Shadowrun, after all), and my playtests of Blades have all been great fun. I'll certainly be playing it a few more times, and I'd recommend everyone give it a go. I just wish it was more refined and polished, that's all. Yeah, that's fair. I think I reacted harshly to your comment about it falling into mediocrity and thought you were talking about the quality of the actual game. I'd agree there's definitely still room for more polish, but the game is a really fun game on its own merits.
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Feb 17, 2017 14:26
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It was late, but John was communicative and open throughout the entire process, and kept releasing builds so we could see how things were going. Compare that with something like Rosemont Bay, which hasn't had an update of any kind in almost 2 years, and I think BitD was handled pretty well.
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Feb 17, 2017 15:08
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My opinion probably doesn't matter because I wasn't a Kickstarter backer (I bought into the early access instead), but I agree that, as far as late Kickstarters go, this is one of the better-handled ones. I can still understand people who are upset at the lateness, but I'd definitely much rather have "late, but with frequent communication and periodic updates to game materials that I can access and use to play" instead of "complete radio silence for years."
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Feb 17, 2017 15:33
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I backed for hardcover, and I'd rather it be good than be on time, within reason. A year ain't so bad when I'm still waiting on project dark.
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Feb 17, 2017 18:09
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dwarf74 posted:I backed for hardcover, and I'd rather it be good than be on time, within reason. A year ain't so bad when I'm still waiting on project dark. Good vs. on time is a false dilemma, though, as is "I'd rather have it be one year late than have it be Far West late." There is no reason not to expect somebody to produce something good and on time, especially when they tell you it is mostly done -- "it just needs explanatory text and lots of art" -- and that it has 26 months of testing behind it before launching the KS. I too am relieved that it won't be a pile of crap and am excited for the hardcover version, but a year overdue for is bad, full stop. Four years overdue is even worse, but that doesn't make a year overdue not bad.
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Feb 17, 2017 21:57
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homullus posted:Good vs. on time is a false dilemma, though, as is "I'd rather have it be one year late than have it be Far West late." There is no reason not to expect somebody to produce something good and on time, especially when they tell you it is mostly done -- "it just needs explanatory text and lots of art" -- and that it has 26 months of testing behind it before launching the KS. I too am relieved that it won't be a pile of crap and am excited for the hardcover version, but a year overdue for is bad, full stop. Four years overdue is even worse, but that doesn't make a year overdue not bad. Sure, but let's assume the situation is: author thinks it's almost done, playtesting reveals a lot of refinements that should be made, and the process of iterating and testing to refine will push the release past the promised delivery date. Would you prefer it be delivered on time, but as a worse product, or late, but as a better product? It was probably a mistake to say it was almost done in the initial pitch, but after recognizing that mistake, what's the better option going forward: rush it out on time, or delay it and hope you produce something better? Like, I'm not saying a year late is good. It is, in fact, bad. But in a case like this, I would rather have the late, good product.
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Feb 17, 2017 23:33
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I don't even care that the book is finalized, I'm just happy they are finally putting loving bookmarks in.
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Feb 18, 2017 23:42
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homullus posted:Four years overdue is even worse, but that doesn't make a year overdue not bad. Agreed. I mean, internet forums are a valid place for dissatisfaction.
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Feb 18, 2017 23:52
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So many tabletop and board game kickstarters could benefit from a longer development cycle. Backers still mentally and emotionally view backing a project as preordering, and have an expected timeframe for delivery. I think that what game kickstarters miss out on most is s solid play test cycle. Sure you have your backers to playtest, but getting useful feedback from those not trained in giving it can be a challenge. That extra year in the oven definitely made Blades a better game - as did the streamed games john ran online. Watching the 6 towers/bloodletters game evolve has been very interesting.
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Feb 18, 2017 23:52
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One thing I learned after a night of character creation. Picking which factions your crew has relationships is a pretty big burden for new players. No one has any idea who is who and there are too many to really explain. So we just kind of picked at random. And one thing I found annoying when picking a hunting ground is there isn't a great list of which factions operate where. Especially when your assassin crew picks white crown....
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Feb 23, 2017 06:31
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Demon_Corsair posted:One thing I learned after a night of character creation. Picking which factions your crew has relationships is a pretty big burden for new players. It's an odd part, but I think it's reasonable to ask your players to read through the short form of the faction descriptions (which I think is still only one or two pages) and choose them based on that, then ask them to tell you why they have that relationship -- whether that means describing a job they did for or against them or something more abstract is up to them. If your players can't invest enough to read a couple pages before you start (which is fine; different groups work different ways) I would run a couple sessions before you ask them to pick faction associations, maybe set them well in the past, give them various hooks based on the factions YOU (or the GM) find interesting, and then pick relationships based on that.
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Feb 23, 2017 06:58
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I mean, it'd be fine if it was six factions on a page. But there are DOZENS of one page summaries and you're asking a lot to have each player turn each faction around in their head, weigh it against what they (and the party) have made, and then declare it their sworn enemy.
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Feb 23, 2017 08:36
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I think it might be easier if you limit the list to, like, Tier 1 and 2 factions. If you're Tier 0, going to war with the Imperial Military might not be terribly wise.
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Feb 23, 2017 12:55
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Golden Bee posted:I mean, it'd be fine if it was six factions on a page. But there are DOZENS of one page summaries and you're asking a lot to have each player turn each faction around in their head, weigh it against what they (and the party) have made, and then declare it their sworn enemy. As a general rule when it comes to these things, my solution has always been to not hold the players to the choice permanently. It's like a level 1 character having to go through a zillion feats without the foreknowledge of the internet - let them pick whatever's cool-looking, and let them change it once you/they have a better feel for how this is all supposed to work.
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Feb 23, 2017 13:08
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Golden Bee posted:I mean, it'd be fine if it was six factions on a page. But there are DOZENS of one page summaries and you're asking a lot to have each player turn each faction around in their head, weigh it against what they (and the party) have made, and then declare it their sworn enemy. Page 283-284 summarizes all the factions on one page.
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Feb 23, 2017 22:26
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admanb posted:It's an odd part, but I think it's reasonable to ask your players to read through the short form of the faction descriptions (which I think is still only one or two pages) and choose them based on that, then ask them to tell you why they have that relationship -- whether that means describing a job they did for or against them or something more abstract is up to them. I do the opposite of this and require no reading at all, because I don't like to lean too heavily on sourcebook lore (although it's a useful crutch sometimes). Instead I just ask the player to pick some factions that sound cool and tell me about them. "The Crows, huh? What makes them so dangerous?" "The Bluecoats, they're the cops. Do they run this town, or are they in someone's pocket?"
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Feb 24, 2017 15:50
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It's possible that I missed it in the book, but are there any guidelines as to what jobs should pay?
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Feb 24, 2017 16:09
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Demon_Corsair posted:It's possible that I missed it in the book, but are there any guidelines as to what jobs should pay? Page 146, Payoff has those guidelines.
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Feb 24, 2017 16:19
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