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Okay so that seems like it'll fit pretty good. Thanks for the tip, sold now.
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Apr 20, 2017 00:45
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Yeah for sure. I was just using "heist" the way I think Maxwell Lord was, which is to describe the core gameplay loop. Regardless of whether it's a heist, an all-out attack, a large drug sale, a smuggling operation, or whatever else, it's supported by the core loop of the game.
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Apr 20, 2017 00:47
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Opening a mission with 'So you're skydiving into the penthouse" seems pretty apt for a Blades heist opener.
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Apr 20, 2017 01:20
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Theory: Blades in the Dark does not require much hacking at all to be a more darkly-themed Persona 5.
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Apr 20, 2017 01:30
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There's no turf stuff, equipment loads aren't really present and vices need to be refluffed and given an xp tie, but should work aside from that.
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Apr 20, 2017 03:40
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There's no reason why you'd remove the equipment load stuff, because the goal shouldn't be to recreate the mechanics of Persona 5.
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Apr 20, 2017 16:48
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Lemon-Lime posted:There's no reason why you'd remove the equipment load stuff, because the goal shouldn't be to recreate the mechanics of Persona 5. Trying to recreate the mechanics of Persona in a tabletop game is a fool's errand for sure. I should know. I've tried. It was a total mess. 
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Apr 20, 2017 17:12
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Harrow posted:Trying to recreate the mechanics of Persona in a tabletop game is a fool's errand for sure. I should know. I've tried. It was a total mess. So I should delete this google doc we haven't touched in probably a year? In all seriousness, I still think a Megaten tabletop game could work, but it'd have to be more traditional main-series stuff rather than something explicitly based around gaming RP interactions for mechanical gain. For content: how do you guys, as GMs, encourage players who are used to D&D and Shadowrun to help establish narrative details., use flashbacks, stuff like that?
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Apr 20, 2017 17:22
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Watch a Coen brothers movie then play Fiasco together, a week before you play BitD.
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Apr 20, 2017 17:48
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The hardest time I had when I ran Blades in the Dark wasn't getting my players to use flashbacks during a score, but rather to get my players to not spend an hour and a half planning before starting a score. They had a really tough time not doing that, largely because they tended to play huge jerks in every game we played before then and they relished planning out their future misdeeds.Captain Walker posted:So I should delete this google doc we haven't touched in probably a year? Hah, probably. I couldn't get past the actual mechanics of Persona to get closer to the idea of what people would probably actually want out of a Persona tabletop game. Really, something like Monsterhearts would probably be more fitting than the weird poo poo I was trying to force it into in my head (and honestly I'm still trying). I'd love to come up with a cool tactical battle system that makes use of something similar to Press Turn or something like that, but I'll need more distance from freshly having played some Persona before I can do that, probably. Lemon-Lime posted:Watch a Coen brothers movie then play Fiasco together, a week before you play BitD. 
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Apr 20, 2017 18:22
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I resent the book claiming planning isn't fun, because it's often the most fun part of any session in games I've played, but the way the rules makes the heists planning-free is great.
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Apr 20, 2017 19:40
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Lemon-Lime posted:I resent the book claiming planning isn't fun, because it's often the most fun part of any session in games I've played, but the way the rules makes the heists planning-free is great. Yeah, my players love it so I don't deny them some planning. I just try to pay attention to when they start either spiraling or rehashing stuff and use that as the point to jump into the action.
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Apr 20, 2017 20:10
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Yeah, planning is fun for the first 10-15 minutes, but when you start getting into weird details, things fall apart fast. I definitely didn't have this happen to me last night in my Star Wars game while we were planning an infiltration and am definitely not sour because of it. I like that BitD doesn't require it, and more heist games should follow suit.
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Apr 20, 2017 21:25
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I bit the bullet and got the PDF and the game seems pretty cool, but something that seems kind of impressive is that following the Cataclysm, the society as presented actually managed not just to survive, but to actually grow and somewhat advance. Even with the potential of building more lightning towers outwards to expand.
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Apr 20, 2017 23:57
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Planning is fine but really needs to be strictly limited and reined in or it has a tendency to overtake entire game sessions, multiple hours worth, spent agonizing over details and planning for a zillion contingencies. There's a reason that movies, television shows, and books frequently elide over planning, looking in only at the highlights or reducing it to a brief montage, then go back to fill in details later if they need to do so. A rule like "when it's time to start planning a heist set a timer for 15 minutes and you have that much time to make your plans, then you've gotta dive in and go from there" would be one way of going about it, or something like "go around the table and everybody gets to weigh in on one aspect of the heist and their idea for how to deal with it, then after they do so one other person gets to bring up a single complication that might interfere, then pass the spotlight over to someone else."
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Apr 21, 2017 00:07
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Not sure what I was doing wrong but I felt with the planning phase I was basically just telling the players how the heist was going to kick off. When they ask a question like where are they vulnerable should I give multiple answers? In this case I told them about a skylight, but should I also mention a sewer entrance? That seems like a lot of information for a 4-5 roll. We actually played out the planning phase for our first heist because I forgot about the planning rolls, and it went hilariously sideways. Playing it out doesn't fit nicely with the whole plan - > score - > downtime cycle though. How do you guys handle trying to hire someone after planning a heist? Unless I missed a rule for that somewhere, it's part of the downtime options. Demon_Corsair fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Apr 21, 2017 |
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Apr 21, 2017 02:35
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Phone posting, but I believe you can perform downtime actions as part of a flashback.
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Apr 21, 2017 02:42
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Demon_Corsair posted:Not sure what I was doing wrong but I felt with the planning phase I was basically just telling the players how the heist was going to kick off. You can do anything in a flashback. Hiring someone would likely be a sway or consort, with consequences based around extra costs. The difference between doing it in a flashback vs downtime is that downtime is waaaay safer. You can't suffer consequences for downtime actions, just varying levels of result.
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Apr 21, 2017 06:17
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Just chiming in to say I've finally found an online group and have run 3 full sessions with the new rules to see how they work in action. The system is great, and it was an absolute blast that went super smooth in terms of rules. The best part is that The Slide is basically Saul Goodman, a failed magistrate court lawyer, right down to having a very similar scene when the group brought some rival thugs to a neutral gang they're trying to get cozy with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO5HCzw2fVA
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Apr 23, 2017 19:35
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Ran Blades in the Dark for the UK National Student Roleplaying and Wargaming Championships - I think it went really well. The setup was that the crew have screwed up and angered The Unseen, a Tier IV crew, and need to get the hell out of town - which takes a lot of money. It just so happens that one of their spies contacted them to let them know about a juicy score, but she's been arrested and put in Ironhook Prison. Step 1 is spring her from the joint, step 2 is execute a big score based on her intel to make a boatload of fast cash and then step 3 is evac from the city before the hit squads catch up. I ran the same scenario twice for two teams on two different days. Both teams absolutely hustled the jailbreak, but did it in completely different ways. Team 1 used flashbacks to set off explosions on the perimeter to draw the guards away and pre-arrange a prison riot in one of the cell blocks. Meanwhile they stole some guard uniforms and searched the prison for their contact, before smoke bombing and cheesing it out through the sewers. Team 2 went in in the dead of night and used stolen guard uniforms, trance powder and bribery to get some guards to help them find the contact. When an Unseen assassin tried to shank them up, they just let the guards handle it. They pretty much just walked out, with the bribed guards taking care of the one who didn't want to accept. The heist itself was stealing a massive gemstone from a private museum in a noble's estate. The stone was in a safe inside a strongroom on the secure floor of the museum. The noble had a small army of house guards, a team of special forces bodyguards, a couple of Whispers who have ghost warded the critical locations and bound a couple of ghosts to use as bloodhounds and attack dogs, and the noble's butler was a hired vampire. Team 1 split into two groups, one of whom used flashbacks to arrange a soiree which they attended as art loving nobility and managed to keep most of the guards' attention on the lower floors of the museum while the second group used grapple guns and wrecking tools to come in via the roof. They stealthily used paralytic gas to clear the top floor guard-by-guard but things went sideways when one of the elite bodyguards didn't get paralysed fast enough and fired a shot. The team dressed as nobles pulled out all the stops on using social skills to raise absolute merry hell and preventing the guards from mounting an effective response. The grapple gun group use a black salt bomb to ghost-proof the strongroom and blowtorch off the ghost warding sigils on the safe so the Hound's ghost dog can just walk in through the wall and grab the gemstone. They rappel out the estate to the waiting boat while the noble team get ushered to a carriage by the guards who profusely apologise for inconveniencing them. Team 2 decided to use flashbacks to arrange a meeting with the museum owner, under the guise that they are foreign art dealers who want to sell him things for his collection. They get inside the mansion grounds no problem but when the owner wants to take only of the party to tour the museum and leave the rest with his guards, they get paranoid and panic. One of them gets a crit when he sneezes a load of trance dust into the noble's face - so the museum owner his in a hypnotic suggestive state and high off his face, but nobody has noticed. They take advantage of this and convince the blazed museum owner that he really wants to show these art dealers his secret hidden collection. The elite bodyguards are getting increasingly incredulous and suspicious and one goes running for backup. They manage to get all the way to the secure floor of the museum with the owner before his personal doctor comes running with more bodyguards to see what the hell is going on. All hell breaks loose and the party go loud. They had been previously searched for weapons, so aside from the Spider's hidden sleeve pistol they only weapon they had available was pockets full of trance dust and sleep powder so the fight is mainly them throwing handfuls of it in bodyguards' faces and pushing them down the stairs. They then run around the museum convincing people that assassins are trying to kill their lord and that as honored guests they need to be protected. It ends up with them in the safe room having glued the door shut with ghosts coming in through the walls being shot at by the party as the Lurk tries desperately to crack the safe manually with a stethoscope screaming "I can't hear the tumblers over this gunfire!" They end up using a ghost key to phase out through the wall and flee across the gardens. The nice thing about flashbacks is that you can plan for exactly as long as you want before a heist. The players wanted to talk long enough that they had an idea of what they were doing (and planning is fun, in moderation) but every time someone thought of a problem or couldn't make a decision, instead of getting caught in a 20 minute loop we could just go "we'll save that for flashbacks." It's a really nice system.
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Apr 28, 2017 13:36
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poo poo that is awesome. I plan to steal that setup. I need to spend a weekend watching heist movies and writing up a list of score ideas. My last session was way more Fargo then heat. The job was to sneak into a red sashes drug processing house and steal the finished product and it ended with a couple guards dead and the building catching fire and due to the chemicals stored in the house, exploding.
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Apr 28, 2017 16:57
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I'm running Blades on the 13th and not going to lie, I'm probably going to have them break Basso out of prison and rob Bafford's manor. 
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Apr 28, 2017 18:56
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I forgot that I bumped my backer level up to getting a hardcover, but I got mine yesterday. Pretty nice quality, and I like that it's the size of a novel instead of the size of most RPGs. It has a very powerful ink smell, though, and I hope that fades soon.
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May 2, 2017 13:54
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Lynx Winters posted:I forgot that I bumped my backer level up to getting a hardcover, but I got mine yesterday. Ha, same. I was like "wait, what did I order...ohhhh right." Yeah, it's pretty nice, and joins my slowly accumulating collection of indie hardcopy RPGs.
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May 5, 2017 04:48
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I feel like running this game twice has taught me more about interesting campaign planning than a decade of running D&D.
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May 8, 2017 05:26
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Kai Tave posted:Ha, same. I was like "wait, what did I order...ohhhh right." Yeah, it's pretty nice, and joins my slowly accumulating collection of indie hardcopy RPGs. Bumping up to the hardback was only like  and I'm glad I did, it's gorgeous.
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May 8, 2017 07:01
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Mine hasn't arrived yet. I got the special edition, though, so it should be coming before long. 
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May 8, 2017 14:36
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I still haven't seen my BitD book, or my AW2e for that matter, but I'm in Europe. 
Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 14:47 on May 8, 2017 |
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May 8, 2017 14:44
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What sort of limits do you put around gathering information. Our last couple heists seem to bog down gathering info and waaay to much planning. The players seem to keep making more and more rolls to get to get as much detail as they can. I'm also not sure about how much should be info rolls and how much should actually be played out. The last heist actually "started" when a few rolls at a meet with a potential target started spiraling out of control. E: My players are either new to role playing or come from D&D. They were asking me what it looked liked when a ghost possessed a person, how it could be detected, and the looks on their faces when I said "I dunno, you tell me" was priceless. Their first suggestion was the eyes glow but a heavy hood could hide it, and I reminded them that whatever they decided I would inevitabley use against them
Demon_Corsair fucked around with this message at 04:47 on May 20, 2017 |
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May 20, 2017 04:15
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I don't put any limits on it. Gathering info either costs downtime actions, or has consequences to failure (and partial successes). A info-seeking roll that sparks a chain of events that end up launching the heist sounds like a great session to me. They only get to make safe Gather Info rolls by spending downtime actions on it*. Anything else can have consequences, which are the meat of Blades. *whether you play those out or just make rolls and provide info is entirely up to you.
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May 20, 2017 05:58
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Lemon-Lime posted:I still haven't seen my BitD book, or my AW2e for that matter, but I'm in Europe. I haven't either and I'm in California. I added my physical copy on via backerkit though, so maybe I'm just low/last priority. 
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May 20, 2017 06:09
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Also just hustling them along and letting them use flashbacks can help a lot if the game is dragging. Just saying "Okay, you've got <a target/job>, so just go ahead and pick an approach and give me the detail. You can always flashback when something unexpected comes up if you need!". On the other hand if there's lots of roleplaying going on and everyone is having a good time, there's not a need to rush to the next job. You could also bring the job to them. Have things they've done in the past come back to haunt them or claim their due. Put a clock on the job and let them know that they've got time to do things, but not a lot of time to gently caress around. You're not looking to punish them, just motivate them to move onward. Also keep in mind this rule: pg36 posted:Each attempt to gather information takes time. If the situation allows, you can try again if you don’t initially get all the info that you want. But often, the opportunity is fleeting, and you’ll only get one chance to roll for that particular question. So if they're trying to eek out information, you can just say they've learned all they can about that particular aspect. And/or show the passage of time, or consequences of the rolls. Also you could set up an Investigation Clock (again page 36) since they're expending a lot of time/resources working at, which then makes it a Downtime Activity and so they're going to need to spend Coin/Rep to work on it more if they want. Which Gathering Information doesn't have a cost (besides roll results) since it's not a Downtime Activity normally. pg153 posted:Activities on the downtime list are limited; normal actions are not. During downtime, you can still go places, do things, make action rolls, gather information, talk with other characters, etc. In other words, only activities that are on the list are limited Basically I favor just answering some questions and trying to move them onto the job if they're not doing any interesting/fun roleplay.
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May 20, 2017 06:22
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Galaga Galaxian posted:I haven't either and I'm in California. I added my physical copy on via backerkit though, so maybe I'm just low/last priority.
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May 20, 2017 06:22
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I don't want to add to anyone's anxiety but I added my physical copy through Backerkit and got it like a couple few weeks ago, so if you're concerned you might want to drop John Harper a line.
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May 20, 2017 06:23
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Kai Tave posted:I don't want to add to anyone's anxiety but I added my physical copy through Backerkit and got it like a couple few weeks ago, so if you're concerned you might want to drop John Harper a line. You're actually better off contacting Sean Nittner, as Evil Hat is handling distribution.
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May 20, 2017 08:03
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If you got the Special Edition, that's coming in a separate batch that their distributor (Alliance) hasn't shipped out yet. We'll be getting tracking numbers as soon as they go out.
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May 20, 2017 09:07
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The real silly is John Harper being sick and saying "sorry guys bladesinthedark.com isn't ready yet" but just leaving it unreachable instead of putting up a basic "under construction" page.
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May 20, 2017 13:01
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Demon_Corsair posted:What sort of limits do you put around gathering information. Our last couple heists seem to bog down gathering info and waaay to much planning. The players seem to keep making more and more rolls to get to get as much detail as they can. The best thing about players making Gather Information rolls is it adds more cool failure points. Nothing is better than having a trusted contact give comically false info on a failure that your party is forced to believe because they were secretly turned by some other faction. Remember every NPC can betray the party! And should if they are over relied on to solve the puzzle of every heist.
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May 20, 2017 13:53
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Lemon-Lime posted:I still haven't seen my BitD book, or my AW2e for that matter, but I'm in Europe. This from Sean Nittner at Kickstarter "18 hours ago", so sometime during May 19'th quote:General update - Hi all, I just got word from Alliance that they have not yet started shipping out the special editions. I thought it would happen this week but they are still processing other orders and packing up the books. So us filthy Euros don't need to worry yet.
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May 20, 2017 22:49
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| # ? May 16, 2024 23:46 |
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If any Euros or Pacific region people want to try BitD in Roll20, there's a Strayan GM recruiting for a game right now: https://app.roll20.net/lfg/listing/76640/blades-in-the-dark-aet-slash-gmt-plus-10
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May 22, 2017 09:32
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