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Serf posted:here's a prefab score for blades: Some examples would be nice.
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Feb 28, 2019 20:09
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Yeah, I linked to another prefab Score (Gaddoc Rail is also by Nittner). I just think it's too bare bones. I'd rather start with something that is malleable. "Here's an idea. You and your players do all the work" is the story game ethos, but it didn't have to be. It's neither friendly now helpful to people new to a genre or type of game. It could instead be "Here is a detailed framework for events, with advice on different ways to run it depending on how your players go off the rails"
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Feb 28, 2019 20:11
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I have never ever used a prefab adventure, but i'm including on in my kickstarter on account of 'other people might like them.'
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Feb 28, 2019 20:17
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I realize it wasn't obvious, because I didn't say it: Eidolon Sky is a pay-what-you-want adventure. So you can check it out for free. It shows why I think a Blades adventure could be 29 pages / what I would want from a full adventure. Gaddoc Station / Charterhall Universities aren't adventures, they're just adventure writing prompts.
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Feb 28, 2019 20:20
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Because clicking through and signing up for the rowanrookanddecard website might be a bit much, some highlights:   
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Feb 28, 2019 20:27
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that looks interesting, but is way overboard for what you'd need in blades, where you largely just make things up as you go along. which is a bit by necessity since flashbacks are a thing and players have a great deal of narrative control with resistances etc.
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Feb 28, 2019 20:41
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It's also a better deal for Spire because a huge selling point of Spire is the setting.
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Feb 28, 2019 20:43
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I do think it's important to note that the Blades book has a gigantic chapter full of NPC gangs/individual potent movers and shakers, with details usable to bring them into play, what they want, what they're good at, etc.
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Feb 28, 2019 20:59
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I fundamentally reject the notion that Blades is any more special as some kind of "narrative conversation" game than Spire. People like games where there are conversations. But the whole point of a prefab adventure is that the GM can sit down and say "Here's the sitch. You start here, you're doing this." You can do a Gaddoc Station-style sheet for Spire, and you can do a Eudolon Sky-style adventure for Blades. If you want to sit down with your players and answer fundamental questions about the universe with your players (sometimes I do, sometimes I don't), Gaddoc Station is good enough. But if I just want something handed to me, it's not enough. You can run Blades with a conversation. You can also run it as a "Here's the adventure." and as the game progresses have the conversation as questions not answered by the adventure come up. "Hmm, I don't know, do you know the bartender at the Angry Lion?" The idea that you can only have a good adventure of Blades if the players get to help design the initial adventure is poppycock. Blades would be well served by having cool published adventures, which I think goes back to the original point that good adventures that show cool stuff and assumptions are something a lot of narrative games have abandoned because they take a lot of loving work.
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Feb 28, 2019 21:48
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Night10194 posted:It's also a better deal for Spire because a huge selling point of Spire is the setting. This is also the case for BitD, though. There's a reasonably detailed setting guide at the end of the book with a long dramatis personae, the mechanics are pretty dry so you really want the table to lean hard on the setting for colour, and the book definitely puts its gothic Dunwall clone setting forward as a selling point. A prefab Blades "campaign" would work perfectly fine as a series of pre-made stand-alone scores that the GM can just draw from whenever the crew needs a new job, coupled with a loose overarching plot in the form of a handful of important NPCs and what they're trying to accomplish. The scores themselves just need a description of the location you're hitting (with a few specific important "rooms" that each get a one-line description, for colour), the thing you're stealing, who you're stealing it for, who you're stealing it from, and a bunch of obstacles and clocks (also with a one-line description). All of that is stuff that you, the GM, would write down while making the score up for your players, but the whole point (like pre-made adventures) is to give you a bunch of "encounters" that have already been written for you. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Feb 28, 2019 |
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Feb 28, 2019 21:58
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i suppose fundamentally i feel like it would slow things down a lot to have to stop and consult some big adventure to see what happens where and find out facts about npcs/places. i tend to make notes about what we've established in the score/game thus far and reference that as needed. my prep for blades/scum & villainy took about 10 minutes it just seems like you would rapidly run into issues if you tried to plan out too far ahead in blades. this goes back to the whole "if there is no map there is no truth" thing
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Feb 28, 2019 22:01
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I really love adventures even for games like AW just because they're a really reassuring fallback in case my creativity fails. I think of them as a pile of detailed GM moves. I can sit there and not touch the adventure all session, but if I need a setpiece or situation or grotesque piece of imagery I'd rather grab a preprepared one if I'm drawing a blank. You also get detail out of them - improvising situations and npcs is easy but improvising detail is much harder, and a few details can make a huge difference in how well the fiction flows.
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Feb 28, 2019 22:11
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Sure, but I also think that's how you're running your games, Serf, not something endemic to Blades. I'm one adventure shy of finishing my first Blades campaign as a player (two prior GM campaigns), and it's been going like gangbusters. We picked the score the prior session because our GM is sane and wants a little heads up. He showed up with a map of the entire area (a train yard and factory he had pulled from some old website). This map was fact. We were able to establish truths (there were smuggler tunnels running underneath, etc.) but the GM didn't really ask us any open ended questions to establish the adventure. The adventure was entirely established when we sat down. Things changed based on what we asked, etc., but there were hard truths. The villain was established from the get go (in the GMs mind). It ended up being a big reveal (to the players) of a long-running campaign villain, and it was awesome. If the GM had opened with "So who's trying to stop you from robbing the factory?" that would have resulted in far less fun. The session was dope and the players felt dope and it was a good session, and we weren't really consulted. Three of the five players (IIRC) did flashbacks, we all changed truths as the session went along, but fundamentally there was a throughline and an adventure that the GM had ready to go. And it would be nice if you could buy these things for narrative games. (And there's a spectrum between "1 page of vague ideas you have to define yourself" and "Horror on the Orient Express". I don't know what you consider to be a "big adventure" that takes time to consult, but 16 pages of ideas doesn't feel overwhelming to me.)
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Feb 28, 2019 22:12
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Nuns with Guns posted:
Thing is, no matter how weird it gets a) it’s still just some schmoe running the game and so their thought process isn’t going to be some magical thing that can’t be documented; b) if you guess like 3 things a group might do, you’ll cover 70% of actual groups. The worst is adventures that are railroaded in games that are supposed not to be. Hello Firefly. quote:All this aside, I can't say that I can think of a D&D-derivative or any other mid-to-high crunch game that doesn't have a sample adventure in the book, plus lots of supplements with more. 13th Age  Just the one campaign book. Also Strike has only one (and it’s a bit weird). Panic at the Dojo has none. Spellbound Kingdoms has none. Unity has none. Black Hack has none.
hyphz fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Feb 28, 2019 |
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Feb 28, 2019 22:14
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hyphz posted:13th Age There's definitely an adventure in the back of 13th Age, it's called Blood and Lightning. For SPK I highly recommend The Dragon Scroll which is a separate pdf, it's a perfect combination of grotesque, delicious and bleakly funny.
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Feb 28, 2019 22:24
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edit: wrong thread somehow, sorry
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Feb 28, 2019 22:31
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CitizenKeen posted:(And there's a spectrum between "1 page of vague ideas you have to define yourself" and "Horror on the Orient Express". I don't know what you consider to be a "big adventure" that takes time to consult, but 16 pages of ideas doesn't feel overwhelming to me.) outside of the sotdl one-shots i ran to demo the system, i don't really like using prefabs and anything more than 2 pages is probably too much. something like Michael Prescott's 1-2 page dungeons is pretty ideal imo and i mean you can run blades the way you've described, sure. its just a lot more work when you could be letting the game help you generate all that stuff in the course of play
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Feb 28, 2019 22:49
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Warthur posted:Lee Gold, who started the very first RPG fanzine (Alarums & Excursions). Just go here and you can email her for the latest copy, just send her an address. Runs about 5 bucks for US domestic postage via paypal/cash/money order. You too can get published in it as well.
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Feb 28, 2019 22:56
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Serf posted:and i mean you can run blades the way you've described, sure. its just a lot more work when you could be letting the game help you generate all that stuff in the course of play Absolutely agreed. Some find that trade-off to be worth it (multi-session builds to big secrets, etc.). Additionally, some tables don't enjoy (for any number of reasons) asking players to contribute at the outset. Also additionally, the key of the discussion (IIRC) was on the value of adventures as a tool for learning the system. I wouldn't use an established adventure for Blades or Spire. But I can see tons of value to someone who's never played anything Powered by or Descended From the Apocalypse, to have a wide open adventure framework upon which to hang their hat.
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Feb 28, 2019 23:02
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Rhandhali posted:She still runs it and puts out a new issue every month. Almost 45 years straight with only a couple of issues missed. It's quite remarkable. Now that is guest of honour material.
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Mar 1, 2019 00:21
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hyphz posted:Thing is, no matter how weird it gets Yeah and you can reasonably anticipate how your particular group will react to a broad outline with NPCs and story hooks, too. Take some time to chart out 70% of scenarios yourself if you're that anxious about covering all your bases. hyphz posted:13th Age I was thinking more of games from slightly bigger companies than one-man outfits like Spellbound Kingdoms and Panic at the Dojo. There's no way there aren't third party adventures for 13th Age or the Black Hack though. And that's not counting all the regular D&D adventures you can run in those games by just translating some rules over. Is Unity formally out and published? I know they were letting people buy the complete PDF after a lot of requests. They also unlocked at least two PDF adventures during the kickstarter, so you might want to ask them if it's possible to purchase those now, toom
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Mar 1, 2019 00:31
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Want an easy way to find out if any of your facebook posts are public that you didn't know about? Just attract gamergate/toxic gamer attention and they'll swiftly let you know that you've messed up.CitizenKeen posted:
This should probably move over to the Blades thread, but i'd be up for brainstorming Blades adventures, mini-campaigns/storylines and putting in effort in indesign etc to make them into pdfs if there's interest given how broadly popular it is here. PST fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Mar 1, 2019 |
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Mar 1, 2019 00:32
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hyphz posted:13th Age Huh? As noted, there is an adventure in the 13th Age corebook. There's also several full adventure modules (Shadows of Eldolan and the Strangling Sea), multiple seasons of organised play adventures and several free RPG day adventures. Plus the books like High Magic & Low Cunning and The Crown Commands that present linked set piece encounters at various levels (they aren't full adventures, but they are a session's worth or linked encounters). There's also another full campaign book in the works (although, like all 13th Age stuff, it's taking forever). 13th Age in Glorantha also has at least two adventures in the book.
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Mar 1, 2019 02:00
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I always thought a problem with prefab adventures is that they're usually bundled in with the core book, and written at about the same time (which may or may not involve any playtesting, and if it does so is still from a different perspective than a totally new group) and thus can't easily incorporate lessons learned from feedback.
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Mar 1, 2019 02:51
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I always thought a problem with prefab adventures is that they're usually bundled in with the core book, and written at about the same time (which may or may not involve any playtesting, and if it does so is still from a different perspective than a totally new group) and thus can't easily incorporate lessons learned from feedback. This was actually a big problem with the first prefab campaign for WHFRP2e. Paths of the Damned was developed so close to the game coming out that it even still has old dummied out abilities on some of the NPCs from earlier versions of the rules compared to release. Also awful balancing and a lot of railroading but that's all of WHFRP2e's campaigns. I think the intro adventure for that game is a wonderful example of exactly how to do a 'back of the core book' adventure badly. Same for Dark Heresy.
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Mar 1, 2019 02:58
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PST posted:I mentally inserted a 'so why bother' in Moth's comments on it, which wasn't there, so the 'and here's why' wasn't needed, so yeah I was aware of it, it was just misplaced so apologies to Moth for the overly elaborate explaining what they already knew.
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Mar 1, 2019 03:08
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First edition Dark Heresy was the dungeon crawl in an abandoned mine, wasn't it? Or was that the rpg day thing? Either way, it totally missed the point of being an investigative game.
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Mar 1, 2019 03:08
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I always thought a problem with prefab adventures is that they're usually bundled in with the core book, and written at about the same time (which may or may not involve any playtesting, and if it does so is still from a different perspective than a totally new group) and thus can't easily incorporate lessons learned from feedback. This is usually a problem with mechanical implementation: when your monsters are too strong or the DCs are too high or whatever, because playtesting hasn't been enough to let you really nail down what the numbers should be like. But I would imagine that having a well-written plot or sequence of events or plan for the players to follow is generic enough. Like, I don't think it should be a problem to write a dungeon-crawler module for D&D even if the statblocks are "wrong" one way or another.
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Mar 1, 2019 03:11
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moths posted:First edition Dark Heresy was the dungeon crawl in an abandoned mine, wasn't it? Or was that the rpg day thing? It was actually a proper investigative mission with some surprisingly good gothic horror imagery and all, about an evil church on a small world and a demon trying to possess a superior in the Inquisition. Just it had lots of 'Roll your 30% stat at -10 to proceed with plot' and a conclusion that revolved around making a WP test, a WP test, a Fel Test, or a bunch of combat tests, all at -10 to -30, with low level characters with 25-40 in those stats. The actual game design part was awful. In the name of being 'hard'.
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Mar 1, 2019 03:11
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The worst pack-in adventure I ever saw was the one for DANGEROUS JOURNEYS. The characters are captured and put on a slave ship (so if you spent your character points on special equipment, well, sucks to be you), you deal with a bunch of unfun bullshit that you have no choice in (because duh, you're chained to rower's bench), and at the end of the adventure you have a chance to escape and, dice willing, you do! Wasn't that a fun kickoff to a campaign? Wasn't that an awesome introduction to roleplaying for new players? I mean, it does give the characters a reason to be together and stick together (strangers in a foreign land) and go on adventures (your broke and a zillion miles from home) when it's over, but my god what a miserable slog . The adventure takes up 40 pages of the core book.
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Mar 1, 2019 03:16
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Oh, also, there was next to no actual space for the players' investigations to actually matter much to the conclusion of the spooky events. Any attempt to stop things getting to that point the book explicitly told you to stonewall the players to get to the pre-planned climactic scene. DH's intro adventure was just awful for how to run an investigative horror game.
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Mar 1, 2019 03:18
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Ok so the dungeon crawl had to be the Free RPG day one. Vampire the Requiem also had a stinker for their RPG Day intro adventure, it threw the players head-first into the deep end of vampire politics. The "adventure" was basically a list of NPCs and some assurances that the players will probably figure out something to do with them. Meanwhile my players (who have never touched VtR) are asking questions like "are we related to Ordo Dracula?"
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Mar 1, 2019 03:32
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FMguru posted:The worst pack-in adventure I ever saw was the one for DANGEROUS JOURNEYS. The characters are captured and put on a slave ship (so if you spent your character points on special equipment, well, sucks to be you), you deal with a bunch of unfun bullshit that you have no choice in (because duh, you're chained to rower's bench), and at the end of the adventure you have a chance to escape and, dice willing, you do! Wasn't that a fun kickoff to a campaign? Wasn't that an awesome introduction to roleplaying for new players? I mean, it does give the characters a reason to be together and stick together (strangers in a foreign land) and go on adventures (your broke and a zillion miles from home) when it's over, but my god what a miserable slog . Yeah. Christ that's such a horrible adventure, particular since DJ is mind-numbingly complex in character generation and buying equipment is similarly involved, so it's a double gently caress-you because like a third of your character creation is immediately tossed out the window. There's a second adventure in the "basic" game that's slightly less assholey but it's still not particularly good in any sense of the word.
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Mar 1, 2019 04:03
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CitizenKeen posted:Absolutely agreed. for my first few sessions of blades (i started it after scum & villainy, which had a bit of a rockier start), i used nittner's scores as an example to guide my own prep. after that i was able to wing it pretty effectively, but i do think they're valuable to show you what you should put into preparing a score in the sense of what questions you should have in mind going in another good example imo is monster of the week, which has 2 sample mysteries and walks you through the exact steps on how to make your own mystery with a monster, bystanders, locations, etc. one of the better versions of this i've seen in pbta, but i think that being based on a pretty well-defined genre of television helps with that too
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Mar 1, 2019 04:22
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Someone needs write an adventure for Blades in the Dark that, if you read into it just a bit, becomes immediately and obviously just Saints Row: Doskvol.
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Mar 1, 2019 04:28
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If we're just throwing out prefabs good or bad, Fragged Empire has a set of prefabs that seem to be the ideal kind for me - a good way of easing a new group and GM into the system, setting, and playstyle and giving plenty seeds for future sessions. I plan on running a group through them... eventually and seeing where it goes, and it takes a ton off of my plate which I appreciate as not the world's best GM. It'll definitely give me a better idea of what my group wants to focus on in the system.
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Mar 1, 2019 04:30
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ProfessorCirno posted:Someone needs write an adventure for Blades in the Dark that, if you read into it just a bit, becomes immediately and obviously just Saints Row: Doskvol. Wait. Is that not the default?
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Mar 1, 2019 04:41
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ProfessorCirno posted:Someone needs write an adventure for Blades in the Dark that, if you read into it just a bit, becomes immediately and obviously just Saints Row: Doskvol. Which Saints Row? IV?
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Mar 1, 2019 04:51
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ProfessorCirno posted:Someone needs write an adventure for Blades in the Dark that, if you read into it just a bit, becomes immediately and obviously just Saints Row: Doskvol. I feel like that's the default state of play for a crew of Bravos. Third Street Saints are not to be hosed with!
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Mar 1, 2019 05:03
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Ettin posted:Which Saints Row? IV? Saint's row 2 had the best story.
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Mar 1, 2019 05:07
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