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I think the tough part of people making good hacks will be playing with the heist - > down time - > find next heist cycle, and the territory mechanics. That being said, I'm super interested in how the standard fantasy hack will turn out. Really dig the dice pool and stress/consequence mechanic. Blades just hits a sweet spot combining some of my favorite bits of PBTA and fate.
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Jun 9, 2017 00:57
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In case it's of note to anyone, I pre-ordered a copy from CSI back in late March / early April and I got a shipping notification yesterday.
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Jun 9, 2017 01:18
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Demon_Corsair posted:I think the tough part of people making good hacks will be playing with the heist - > down time - > find next heist cycle, and the territory mechanics. Well, that and coming up with a new idea that someone else hasn't come up with already. Although maybe that's just me not being able to think of a good idea for a hack.
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Jun 9, 2017 01:43
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Evil Mastermind posted:Well, that and coming up with a new idea that someone else hasn't come up with already. Although maybe that's just me not being able to think of a good idea for a hack. Nobles scheming plots of courtly love and throwing jousting tournaments. Or to take even more "inspiration" from fate, Atomic Robo.  Actually, some modern fantasy that's kitchen sink similar to dresden files/monster of the week could be interesting. Heists are taking down different monsters? Demon_Corsair fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Jun 9, 2017 |
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Jun 9, 2017 05:19
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Demon_Corsair posted:Actually, some modern fantasy that's kitchen sink similar to dresden files/monster of the week could be interesting. Heists are taking down different monsters? PLEASE. I really wanted the special edition, but 30$ shipping to Spain is insane. Will we be able to buy them later on? Or it'll be just the standard now that the game is released?
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Jun 9, 2017 10:42
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Besides Runners and Scum and Villainy, are there any other current hacks that are in a playable state? I know that one of the ones that caught my eye was a dungeon crawly one.
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Jun 9, 2017 10:50
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I think that one is released already. Can't recall the name though.
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Jun 9, 2017 12:47
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Demon_Corsair posted:Actually, some modern fantasy that's kitchen sink similar to dresden files/monster of the week could be interesting. Heists are taking down different monsters?
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Jun 9, 2017 15:02
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I've been considering something similar but instead of 'monsters as Heist' it was just 'modern urban fantasy heists.' Like Leverage with elves.
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Jun 9, 2017 15:04
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admanb posted:Clearly we will have to buy copies of the standard edition to carry around so the special edition can stay undamaged. Do the kids these days not have to make book covers for their grade school textbooks anymore?
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Jun 9, 2017 15:19
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Demon_Corsair posted:I think the tough part of people making good hacks will be playing with the heist - > down time - > find next heist cycle, and the territory mechanics. I wonder if a sort of high-adventure dungeon crawling hack could work. There's already a dungeon crawling hack, but it's much more in the vein of Darkest Dungeon or Torchbearer. Maybe a sort of optimistic treasure-hunters sort of hack could work with this system, because I love the system a whole lot.
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Jun 9, 2017 15:23
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homullus posted:Do the kids these days not have to make book covers for their grade school textbooks anymore?  ...now I just need to find some brown paper bags...
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Jun 9, 2017 15:29
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dwarf74 posted:Hah! I haven't thought about doing that in years. Great idea. I searched the internet to reassure myself that this isn't some bizarre thing that people have completely forgotten, and found non-grocery-bag options, such as felt and plastic, here.
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Jun 9, 2017 15:31
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Harrow posted:I wonder if a sort of high-adventure dungeon crawling hack could work. There's already a dungeon crawling hack, but it's much more in the vein of Darkest Dungeon or Torchbearer. Maybe a sort of optimistic treasure-hunters sort of hack could work with this system, because I love the system a whole lot. I hope so, I backed swordfish islands, and being able to use blades for a exploration hex crawl would be super rad. I was planning to use dungeon world, but blades would be a way better fit. Think I may have just killed my game though. Told my players about scum and villainy and they all seem way more excited about it then the base setting. Which is probably on me as a gm not doing a great job selling or making the world come alive.
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Jun 9, 2017 15:53
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Which one is S&V? Name has me thinking Star Wars?
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Jun 9, 2017 15:59
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Galaga Galaxian posted:Which one is S&V? Name has me thinking Star Wars? Pretty much yeah, you're Han Solo or the movie Guardians of the Galaxy or Firefly.
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Jun 9, 2017 16:07
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How is Scum and Villainy shaping up, anyway? It occurs to me if my current group doesn't end up really enjoying Strike!, we could easily continue our current fantasy magic space bounty hunters game with a system like that, and I already know at least a few of the players loved Blades in the Dark when we played it.
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Jun 9, 2017 16:39
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Harrow posted:How is Scum and Villainy shaping up, anyway? It occurs to me if my current group doesn't end up really enjoying Strike!, we could easily continue our current fantasy magic space bounty hunters game with a system like that, and I already know at least a few of the players loved Blades in the Dark when we played it. One thing that appeals to me is that your ship (the crew replacement) is limited to three choices. It never sat right with me that the crews in blades were so specialized, so have more generalized ship types seems like a good change. Haven't really looked at any of the playbooks yet.
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Jun 9, 2017 16:55
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My special edition came with some plasticky spots all along both covers that make it look like somebody jizzed on it so they're sending me another one so.... TWO FOR ONE BOOKS
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Jun 10, 2017 01:24
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Now you'll have a copy for backpack tranportation and toilet reading!
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Jun 10, 2017 17:33
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BetterWeirdthanDead posted:Now you'll have a copy for backpack tranportation and toilet reading! I like to think of those as "walkin' around copies".
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Jun 10, 2017 18:15
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Evil Mastermind posted:I like to think of those as "walkin' around copies". Which one?
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Jun 10, 2017 19:00
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admanb posted:Which one?
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Jun 10, 2017 19:03
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It plausibly hides the real jizz
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Jun 10, 2017 23:12
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Finally got my book! It's smaller than I thought but yeah, the special edition is incredibly pretty.
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Jun 19, 2017 20:48
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Slowly working on that Modern urban fantasy hack I've mentioned before, as at least now I've worked out crew types. You've got your Haunters, who are ghost focused. Jobs like 'exorcise ghosts', run 'be a shame if ghosts happened to this nice building' rackets, and do the occasional 'call up aunt Mabel and find out where she hid the good silver' medium jobs. You've got the Thirteenth floor guys, who specialize in breaking into liminal spaces and stealing poo poo from them. Your kids disappear into a fantasy world in your closet? They'll retrieve them. A second hand store on your street that only exists on alternate Tuesdays and you work those days? They'll break in and steal that cursed artifact you've had your eye on. There's Monster Hunters, who are just what they sound like. Probably almost respectable except for the whole 'work for pay instead of for the general good' thing. Crossroaders: These guys go after supernatural bargain-makers. Grift the devil? Sure. Get someone -out- of a deal with the devil? Also sure. gently caress the devil up with cold iron crowbars for going too far with evil genie tricks? That too. Illusionists uniquely deal with the rest of the magic criminal underworld. They're specialized in covering up magical phenomenon and providing plausible explanations for events. Frame up jobs, making bodies go away, and flat out stealing dangerous poo poo and disposing of it. Secret societies: (Basically just cults from the core, but with a veneer of "actually worshiping dark gods is for the desparate, we just want to accumulate temporal power with the -trappings- of cults and also running around in masks and cloaks is cool.)
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Jul 1, 2017 14:08
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Is it still possible to get the special edition hardcover? It looks amazing.
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Jul 22, 2017 23:25
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Last John said, nope. They had a limited number of them for backers and presumably some extras for friends or mistakes or whatever. But chances of them ever selling it again are slim for multiple reasons (kickstarter exclusivity and printing run costs being two big ones). Secondhand or bust sadly.
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Jul 22, 2017 23:36
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Boo. Oh well, thanks anyway.
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Jul 22, 2017 23:46
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So some of those emergency overstocks they had for the Special Edition are up for sale. No international shipping for it, though there are services you can use. More info here.
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Aug 9, 2017 22:52
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Hell yeah!
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Aug 10, 2017 00:05
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Has anyone played Scum & Villainy and/or have thoughts on how it compared to vanilla Blades? My Blades group may switch to it soon, but may scrap the "your crew is determined by your ship type" rules.
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Aug 10, 2017 22:55
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BetterWeirdthanDead posted:Has anyone played Scum & Villainy and/or have thoughts on how it compared to vanilla Blades? I'm running it with a group right now, and we've run into some annoying issues (even ignoring the Blades learning curve), but it's overall been a good experience. The Gambit and Ship-Debt systems both feel good for the narrative situation, and the initial story setup stuff has lead to some really interesting situations. (The muscle taking a blaster pistol as her rival. It keeps showing up in different people's hands to blast her away, and the last session culminated in her getting hold of it!) That said, the system is still very beta, and it has some serious ground to make up before finalization. Examples include: the skills are a mess and over-specific; the crew advancement is tiered without actual crew growth, which the game merely apologizes for instead of dealing with; the playbooks don't address all the fictional concepts, such as assassins, leaving some strange gaps in possible characters; the sector has felt small in play; the rebel playbook is a mess in terms of fictional starting position relative to character ability and job scale; and in a strange thematic twist, BetterWeirdthanDead posted:My Blades group may switch to it soon, but may scrap the "your crew is determined by your ship type" rules. The ships are pretty seriously customized during crew creation, so I don't know if that's even particularly problematic. It would be pretty easy to ask them to pick "smugglers / bounty hunters / rebel alliance" and then let them piecemeal a ship together. But, as with those genres, the ship is its own character, so it might be worth investing some time in making it feel like on.
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Aug 11, 2017 16:17
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Whoopsie, that's $50 I wasn't expecting to spend this month.
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Aug 11, 2017 19:29
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Thanks for the S&V info! Follow-up regarding ships: Do ship repairs and upkeep eat into a lot of downtime? My Blades crew only has 3 PCs, so our default two downtime actions are almost always indulging and healing.
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Aug 11, 2017 21:04
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Ship repairs have eaten a little, but that's because they got in a space battle and it needed work after that. The upkeep is just a cred-sink (to replace the 'crew stash'), not downtime.
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Aug 11, 2017 21:15
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I'm pretty sure I've a handle on the heist mechanics, and the game already feels very interesting, but could someone give a basic overview of the downtime mechanics? I understand it is both how you find your way to the next heist, as well as its own realm-management mini-game?
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Sep 23, 2017 10:52
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 This is the core gameplay loop. Free Play -> Engagement Roll -> Score -> Downtime. So you finish a Score then:
So it's a very mechanics driven section of the game still. Free play is where you discuss who you want to hit next, figure out How you want to hit them, then provide the Detail and move into the Engagement roll. The "realm-management mini-game" is done through Scores as well. You run a Score that results in you gaining a Turf or you can also run a Score that results in you gaining a Claim. Claims are listed on the Crew Sheet, and you generally follow the connected paths therein claiming things as you go. Claims have an actual mechanical benefit beyond the fictional benefit. Turfs do too, but it's "just" "permanent" Rep. If you want to skip to another section of the Claim Map, it'll be more difficult and likely require multiple Operations or Long Term Projects to discover and then Claim it. Beyond that, the other thing that keeps the city moving is GM Clocks. Factions work on projects and if you're not interfering with (or helping) them, they're still going to advance those clocks while you're off doing your own thing. That'll impact the fiction, but isn't going to directly have a mechanical side besides maybe making some Fortune rolls to see how well they do. Or when they come calling to take something of the Crew's.
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Sep 23, 2017 20:23
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DemonMage posted:
With my group I found we got bogged down in free play. They would take endless rolls trying to case a place or follow someone and I would finally just say, ok that sounds like an approach, its go time on a job. How do you balance the line between looking for a new job during free play, and actually kickstarting a heist. I think I big part of that wasn't I wasn't really impressing how much you could do with a flashback.
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Sep 23, 2017 20:36
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Yeah, that's the key. Getting people to lean on Flashbacks. Get them to watch some Leverage or Ocean's movies and see how they're about to be hosed... except flashback to where they anticipated this very thing. That and Load where you don't even need to figure out what items you brought with you until you need them. Basically free play should involve cool roleplaying scenes. If no one has any cool roleplaying scenes they want to [edit]explore[/edit], then you quickly discuss Who you want to Hit. Once it's pretty clear they've picked the Who, ask them for the How and the Detail and then just go right into the Engagement Roll. If they want some more specific info they can Gather Information, but don't let them keep rolling for the same bit of information or just get caught trying to figure out every aspect of a plan ala Shadowrun. DemonMage fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Sep 23, 2017 |
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Sep 23, 2017 20:44
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