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A thing I'm not clear on is how spending Stress interacts with fail forward. Let's say a player fails a roll to sneak down a corridor and the fail forward effect is that a guard comes unexpectedly through a door and spots the player. The player doesn't want this to happen and spends some Stress to avoid the effect. If the effect is "a guard comes out of a door and spots you" preventing that effect defies fail forward in that the player failed and nothing interesting happened. If the effect is "the guard spots you" then even if they player spends the stress, there's still a guard in the corridor and their life is now harder, which seems like something Stress is supposed to prevent.
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Apr 17, 2015 14:36
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I wasn't sold on every action in the game being at least 2 rolls when I'm coming from Apocalypse World's "everything you need to know in 2d6", so this is good news to me.
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Apr 24, 2015 01:37
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Y'all have to admit that if this wasn't both a professional designer with cred and an otherwise professionally run Kickstarter, this would be a big red flag, right? Like, "the game started being fundamentally rewritten after the Kickstarter closed" sounds bad. It's probably not, it's just game devs doing the sensible thing and changing a rule that received lukewarm feedback in an open playtest - which is good. I was ecstatic upon seeing the Kickstarter for Blades in the Dark as it was, conceptually, the RPG I've always wanted. I ran a session of it and it was... okay. It wasn't bad by any stretch, but it basically wasn't nearly as good as I thought it was gonna be. Part of that was the group getting used to the new system, but we all felt like we were fighting it to have fun. It looks so similar to PBtA and the fact that it really isn't PBtA at all really threw us. I still have high hopes for the game, but I've tempered my expectations.
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Apr 25, 2015 00:38
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Jimbozig posted:Yes, the fact that the core mechanic was what needed revision based on playtester feedback is a red flag. Like, duh, obviously it is. Changing your core mechanic can have knock-on effects and can be very tricky. This exactly. It's a problem that this had to happen. It's entirely a good thing for the game that it is and I don't think anyone here is complaining. All I'm saying is that I asked my friends to back this Kickstarter because I knew John Harper would do a good job and that the Quick Play looked good. They're less than enamoured with the system and probably aren't going to react well to hearing that the game is being rewritten, since that makes it sound like I was lying when I said the game was playable. Anyone who knows anything about game design knows that this is actually fine and it's only going to make the game better.
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Apr 25, 2015 13:45
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Those diagrams are really helping me grok Blades. Am I right in thinking that the players don't have to complete a clock all at once and can move between them? Example: Players breaking into a mansion. It has a 4-segment "locks", a 4 segment "guards" and a 4-segment "traps" The players roll sneaking to get past the outer guards and get 2 segments. They get to the house itself but they'll still have to contend with guards inside. The door's locked and trapped. They roll 2 segments on the lock but boss the roll for traps and get all 4 segments. There'll be more locks in between them and the score, but they've dealt with the traps completely. Inside the house, they Murder some guards, pass the roll but only get 1 segment. There's still gonna be more guards. They get to the vault itself, where there's a guard and the entrance to the vault itself is locked. They Distract the guard, getting one segment and dealing with that threat, and lockpick the vault - but only getting 1 segment, meaning there's still one left. They nab the treasure, ghost past the guards and traps that aren't a threat anymore, but have to bust a locked window open with mayhem to fill in the last segment on the locks before they leave. This seems more natural to me than "gotta fill in all the lock segments before you can deal with the traps." It's more of a "there's gonna be more trouble from this threat during the heist" clock than the progress timer on the particular door you're lockpicking or the HP of the guard you're trying to murder. Like, straight up, a particularly badass guard, a custom lock or a nasty magical trap could warrant a clock all by themselves and then the players know poo poo's getting real. Particularly if they get a partial success on Murdering the guard and the Effect is "he stabs you the gently caress to death and you die for reals" rather than a more lukewarm "he bonks you on the head with his truncheon and you're woozy"
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May 8, 2015 03:42
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I must say I'm liking the changes. I think I'll need to playtest this draft to get a feel for it, but it's looking good.
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Jun 27, 2015 01:25
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I don't know about anyone else but even considering this game is very much My Jam, until the rules are finalised at least as much as the core game mechanics being set I can't really get that invested in it or muster up the effort to follow it because if I decide I like it that game might literally not exist by the time of the next revision. Until a version of the game comes along which I can be pretty sure looks like what I'll end up having paid for, I'm not really that interested in reading it. I would if I had the spare time to do proper playtests and submit feedback - but I don't, and I'm willing to bet many other people don't either. I bought a game that I thought I would enjoy and it basically doesn't exist yet, so... ehh? Edit: That's not to say what I've read of these playtests looks crap. Far from it. It's just I have no idea what's going to carry over so even if I like some bits, I can't really consider those "in the game"
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Nov 2, 2015 01:40
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Harrow posted:A question for people who've played: I assume anyone can roll Attune as all the PCs can be assumed to have basic training in the occult (as represented by actually having the Attune skill) as can a significant minority of crooks, Bluecoats and other people who have to deal with this kind of poo poo. I imagine Tempest requires Attune rolls, yes, even if only to determine how effective it is. I think Ghost Veil is just a pay stress thing. The thing I'm not clear with about Ghost Veil is when it says you go insubstantial, but then there's an additional stress cost to be able to go through solid objects. What does that mean? Do you turn into gas and can go through gaps unless you pay the stress cost or something?
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Jan 16, 2016 01:10
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Demon_Corsair posted:Reading through the damage and healing rules and it makes me wonder if this game is meant to be played with each PC have a couple different characters to pick from. Considering one of options for overindulging on your Vice is "you don't get to play that character this session" I'd say 100% players are supposed to have multiple PCs at once. I ran a full campaign of Blades during the v7 playtest and while the healing rules have been greatly accelerated in this version, a combination of Harm and overindulgence meant that about half the party required a second PC at one point.
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Feb 9, 2017 15:24
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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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Neopie posted:Has anyone hacked this for Scifi/cyberpunk or the like? Also, I hear there are more crew playbooks and other playbooks coming besides the ones in the core? There's already an alpha for 'I can't believe it's not Firefly' out, called Scum & Villainy. I believe there's also going to be Null Vector, a Ghost in the Shell themed cyberpunk hack; Womb of Night, a space pirates in a 40k-alike setting and Throne of the Void, a Dune/Rogue Trader style hack.
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Mar 23, 2017 20:05
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Neopie posted:But the others aren't out yet, I'm gathering. Alright, I'm thinking about running a sort of... mecha anime and cyberpunk game using this, and I'm trying to figure out just how much I need to hack. At the moment, you'd need to hack quite a lot. The Hull playbook could get you quite far for all your giant robot needs, and the ghost field can easily be renamed to be the Cybernet without really losing anything, but most of the animeness and cyberpunkishness is going to come from refluffing. Blades does grungy *punk dystopian underworld very, very well so if that's what you're looking for in your game then it should work well. If you want, well, a mecha anime then you may have your work cut out for you. I would recommend Tokyo Nova for all your mecha anime cyberpunk needs, by the way. It's Shadowrun written by crazy Japanese people and it has both mecha anime and cyberpunk coming out of it in spades.
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Mar 23, 2017 21:55
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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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God drat those are beautiful. Why did I cheap out and get the standard hardcover...
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Jun 8, 2017 16:47
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