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Does anyone have a spot open in a group for BitD? I'm interested in learning the game beyond the very basics and would love to learn via actual play.
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Oct 11, 2020 17:22
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 09:57 |
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Josef bugman posted:This is one of the big things I really dislike about the setting. I know a lot of people like the idea, but I find the whole "all the time ghosts" thing just not my style. I'm doing a campaign set in a homebrew city and we've downplayed the ghost angle in favor of an "arcane" field. I'm with you- the emphasis on ghosts just doesn't work for me either.
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Feb 3, 2021 14:24
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Josef bugman posted:Thank you! This is also a great idea and I am probably going to steal it. How has it worked so far for you? IMO, this will work but only with the right group of players. Making magic a nebulous, narrative plot device rather than a 30 page list of Recipes for Breaking the Game can be a lot of fun for some people, but not others. My group is having a blast with it and the one "wizard" character is more of a semi-sane hobo shaman than a stereotypical mage. He took the Tempest Special Ability and basically when he tries to use magic, I go with "yes, but" and assign a number of stress I feel matches what he's trying to do. The bigger, more overt of an effect, the higher the number. It's worked great for us. E: also, I did a lot of work prior to the first session writing up summaries of the factions. I think this is a must-do if you're looking to replace the Duskvol setting with your own. Draw up a city map, notate where the districts are, describe the districts and give them flavor and rankings for things like wealth and criminal influence. Describe the major political, religious, and criminal factions as well. In my settings, I created 6 noble houses and 7 criminal factions, as well as a few faiths and cults. Then devise a chart that shows what the existing relationships already are when the campaign begins. Which Houses hates the thieves guild? Which gang is sanctioned by the Church as long as they target heretical cults? Etc etc It can be a lot of work but with Blades, once everything is set up, there is an emergent narrative that will come about as your players make choices about who to target and who to seek alliances with. It's mostly front-loaded which I very much prefer to the usual workload of coming up with entire adventures every time. FLIPADELPHIA fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Feb 3, 2021 |
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Feb 3, 2021 17:49
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The approach I've used is that I attach stress to it and also Heat, if the display is overt or witnessed. We've played maybe 10 sessions and it hasn't become an issue for us. But much of that has to do with the type of players you have.
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Feb 3, 2021 18:44
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Kumo posted:Guess I'll weigh in with my BitD experience. I played a Blades game online starting about 6 months ago and learned the system as a player on the fly. Then about 2 months ago I introduced my IRL rp group to it and we've been rolling it ever since. My experience is similar to yours in that I soft rolled it at first with very basic stuff and most of our first couple sessions were free play with a few rolls added in as necessary. Slowly I've been expanding the use of the rules to where now the group is openly using the faction and tier mechanics to come up with scores and such. I think the slow burn approach worked really well and introduced the more narrative style in a fun and non-stressful way. Fewer rules to get in the way starting out.
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Feb 4, 2021 22:20
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DarkAvenger211 posted:
I got extremely lucky with my Blades online group and generally, the players get to decide and the GM may or may not offer an opinion. When you have players who are actively running the session, it just flows.
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Apr 16, 2021 05:07
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I got a wild hair today and started working on a rough hack for BitD that would be a typical fantasy adventuring party in a region rather than a group of scoundrels in a city. Changing up the playbooks and abilities seems pretty easy, and I'm thinking that factions could be really fun to hack as well. Have factions like Goblins, Highwaymen, Undead Cults, etc along with various "districts" being sub-regions like swamps, mountains, etc complete with some minor settlements and maybe 1-2 actual towns. I'm thinking the tier 5 factions could be the town rulers and maybe a dominant religion, with various other factions like the citizens of given regions, other adventuring parties, cults, etc. Instead of scores the Party would go on adventures / missions to clear out dungeons, explore ruins, rescue prisoners, deliver goods, etc. Are there any other hacks out there that have tried this? If not, what are some problems you may foresee cropping up during play?
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Apr 29, 2021 01:42
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Really great advice in that post, thank you for taking the time to reply. I am thinking that a sort of homage to old school D&D where the characters are expected to basically create a fiefdom / faction with holdings and such could be very cool. The party can start out with a basic hideout and over time, they can decide if they want to make it something more grand like a manor, keep, fortress, wizard's tower, or secret lair. FLIPADELPHIA fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Apr 29, 2021 |
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Apr 29, 2021 02:30
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My group ran blades with 6 players for about 8 months and had no issues.
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Mar 20, 2022 01:53
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Could you be more specific? Iron sworn has a whole system built around swearing oaths and promises to people, creating bonds with communities, etc. but there are only a couple dozen Moves in the system and maybe a half dozen are social in nature. FLIPADELPHIA fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Apr 5, 2022 |
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Apr 5, 2022 01:04
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CitizenKeen posted:I was wondering is there were any hacks that made social interactions / negotiations / investigations more nuanced / crunchy than “you progress a clock”. Gotcha. Not that I'm aware of- the FITD philosophy seems to prize a fairly basic set of outcome categories for each Move. This could be something you could homebrew though, with something as simple as a set of Attitude thresholds similar to the way Blades handles standing.
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Apr 5, 2022 17:54
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Awesome to hear it's going well for your group. My own definitely had an adjustment of a few sessions, but in the year or so since we started blades, we've pretty much all agreed that we'll never return to a system like 5E again unless it's for a dungeon crawl or something simple like that.
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Apr 6, 2022 16:51
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^ a good post The GM's role should align with the Creative Agenda of the group. If your group is doing wish fulfillment / stress relief for blue collar people on a Friday night, then just get out of the way and let people blow off steam. If your group is super creative and looking to build super meaningful narratives, a firmer approach may be needed (as the above posted hinted at). If your group wants to "beat" the GMs challenges, then stack those up and let them feel like bad asses. "Appear firm, be soft" is a really great default position for GMs in general though. I'm going to steal that phrase.
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May 17, 2022 17:10
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Yeah, ultimately the player decides the action rating, GM sets the effect level. There can be some negotiation but it shouldn't be a recurring "dispute".
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May 31, 2022 01:06
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Exactly. Blades has plenty of ways for a character to pump up a zero effect, if that's what they want to try / gamble on.
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May 31, 2022 02:33
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Let your players run wild with flashbacks IMO. They are one of the best features of this system and with the right players they can become some of the best moments at the table. In our experience, flashbacks usually don't need rolls because they usually don't involve things that have much risk. As an example, I was a player in my group for a couple of weeks, and I used a flashback to tell a mini story about acquiring a deadly poison. I had just served a bunch of bad guys from a sealed bottle of brandy and the flashback was to establish that the Brandy was poisoned. As a rule of thumb, we use flashbacks to let players create the past in a way that can affect the present. It lets things get cinematic. If your players want to engage in flashbacks that involve things like rolls, then it's not really a flashback IMO but there definitely isn't a rule against that and if everyone enjoys it, then I say go for it.
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Sep 8, 2023 14:49
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Have a ghost / spirit / vampire crash the party. They can be as destructive/ disruptive as you deem necessary.
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Sep 9, 2023 21:43
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My group just finished up a year long OSR game and we decided our next campaign will be scum and villainy set in Star wars world, right before the events of ANH. Any overall advice using S&V in SWuniverse? Lessons learned etc.
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Sep 26, 2023 21:17
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My group has played Blades for like 3 years now and we still struggle sometimes with the change in mindset necessary coming from traditional d20 systems. If you want to play this system and enjoy it, IMO you have to know the rules and more importantly, the intended flow of the game. That video linked upthread (the one highlighting the importance of the GM defining the threat prior to the action roll) is a great primer for this. But it's only one of many major differences between Blades and other systems.
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Jan 23, 2024 17:23
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Weirdly enough, I find that the tone of this game often does stay in the silly range, but at least for my group that makes the poignant, serious moments actually land a lot better.
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Mar 8, 2024 15:13
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 09:57 |
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Just wanted to let the thread know about a little trick my group did to completely revamp the way we play. My group has been playing Blades on and off for a couple years and it was been a great system for our narrative heavy, low prep, high improv style of play. But we've also had trouble maintaining momentum in our campaigns, and I had an inkling as to why. My theory was that we simply weren't correctly establishing stakes and consequences, or enforcing the effects of non-6 rolls well enough for the mechanics to really work. So as a bit of a shot in the dark, I found this very cool table for position / effect that lists consequences and outcomes for rolls. I had the design printed onto a large mousepad like material that now sits on the table and serves as the major prop or focus of our rolls. Put plainly, this had an immediate and drastic effect on our sessions. We went from several years of relatively easy heists and sessions to almost having a full party "wipe" overnight. If you are having difficulty getting the roll mechanics to "click" with your group, or finding momentum hard to keep up with vague or undefined roll outcomes, I highly suggest giving this method a shot.
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Apr 16, 2024 23:14
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