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Think of it like an action film and you are cutting between characters. Stay with one character as long as it is exciting (and engaging the rest of the group), but don't forget to check in on everyone else even if it's just dropping in for a shot or two so the audience doesn't forget they are there/wonder why they aren't doing anything. In an Avengers film we may stay with Captain America for 2 or 3 moves in a row if he is going toe to toe with the Big Bad and it's super dramatic, but we then need to cut around to see Black Widow beat up some henchmen and Thor shoot lighting at some mooks. This can also help up the tension of Captain America's action too. Cut away at a really dramatic moment when the group are on the edge of their seat and let them sweat as to what will be going on when we cut back. Rolled a strong hit and he has the bad guy dangling over a cliff edge - cut away! Rolled a miss and he's suffered level 2 harm and the bad guy is standing right over him about to strike - cut away! tanglewood1420 fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Apr 22, 2020 |
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Apr 22, 2020 21:36
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How easy you and your group pick up Blades is somewhat influenced by your gaming background. If you and your players have been immersed in the D&D style clear delineation between GM and player where the GM has storytelling power and the players have limited reactive agency, then yes it can be a bit of a shakey transition at first. But I have had plenty of success with introducing the system to roleplaying neophytes who bring no baggage at all, and also to players with a D&D background who were willing to engage in sharing narrative power (and found it refreshing and exciting compared to D&D). So I think it's a generalisation to say Blades is a more difficult system to understand or learn/teach. In many ways, the structure of Blades is more intuitive than 'traditional' roleplaying - the Apocalypse World 'conversation' approach that heavily inspired Blades is not that different from playing with dolls or army men with your friends as a kid really. One thing Blades absolutely demands is for the players to engage in the story. You can't really get away with playing it in a 'roll my dice when told to and ask the GM what happens' way you can in some games. It is brilliant for players who enjoy taking more agency in the game but can be draining for people who enjoy handing that responsibility off to someone else and not have to think too hard when gaming. If the mechanics do seem a bit intimating then Blades is really well designed in a modular way. The only essential mechanic is matching up the move name with what you are trying to achieve in the fiction, the dots each character has showing them how many dice they roll for each action and the 1-3 failure, 4-5 partial and 6 full success results. Everything else (position and effect, push for extra die, assisting a teammate, devil's bargains, flashbacks, resistance, special abilities, group actions, tier quality, potency, trading position for effect....) can be brought in at a pace everyone feels comfortable with. In my experience groups will pick up on pushing for extra die, assisting another player and using their special abilities very quickly during the first session. Resisting effects, asking for devil's bargains and flashbacks need a bit of reminding for the first two to three sessions before they internalise. More abstract influences on position and effect such as scale, potency, quality, tier and the like I find even experienced Blades players rarely consider unless explicitly pointed out by the GM. All that boils down to: For the first session if people are feeling a bit intimidated after looking over the playbooks and having the rules explained then just make every roll risky/standard, let the players know they can assist each other and/or take stress for an extra die and then just run with that. If you're having fun you can introduce everything else later. tanglewood1420 fucked around with this message at 12:46 on Jun 11, 2020 |
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Jun 11, 2020 12:42
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Take a look at the three starting situations in Scum & Villainy, you can reskin them pretty easily. I think they are each stronger in opening up the first session than the suggested starting scenarios in the Blades rulebook.
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Jun 21, 2020 14:58
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Push the players really hard. Blades PCs are extremely tough to kill if they go into a job without any harm, stress or trauma. They also have a ton of tools at their disposal to mitigate any situation the GM throws them into. Remember that a PC even with no rating in a skill can still be rolling two dice pretty easily by pushing/taking a devils bargain and getting an assist - and two die gives you a 75% chance of a partial or full success. Blades PCs are very competent even at the start. The danger comes from the slow attritional build up over time chipping away at them and by the crew getting too greedy and biting off more than they can chew by going after higher tier targets. In a one shot those two drivers of difficulty go away, so you have a ton of leeway to really put the players in tight spots. It will also encourage them to delve into all the tools the system gives them (pushes, assists, set up actions, trading position for effect, using gear and so on), which will show off the full capabilities, otherwise if you make it too easy they could very possibly just roll through a job comfortably and not really have a proper Blades experience. Also, of you've never run Blades or any FitD games before, then come up with two short lists of a) generic consequences (other than the obvious like suffer harm or get a worse position) and b) generic devils bargains. These will be lifesavers when you need to think on your feet and can always be easily adapted to any specific situation on the fly. Some examples I use often are You drop your weapon/something valuable Civilians/bystanders get put in danger A foe you thought you dealt with comes back An alarm goes off Set off a trap The lights go out Uh oh, this guard is some kind of badass And two all time classics... Something gets set on fire Snakes! tanglewood1420 fucked around with this message at 14:35 on May 20, 2021 |
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May 20, 2021 14:15
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Vagabong posted:Ran my first session last night, it went pretty well! Thanks for all the helpful advice, I think keeping the setting explanations short and sweet and then addressing details as they came up was the right move. Everyone pretty quickly got into the swing of things and we managed to wrap up the first score of planting cursed dice in a red sash gambling den before the end of the night, with a few hanging threads that I'm excited to chase up on. I think the only real issues were that I pretty much ignored position and effect in order to keep up momentum, and that I could of pulled my punches less against the PCs; between their pretty high chance of success by default and resistance rolls they can take a lot more punishment than I expected. Overall I think everyone had good fun, and the players seemed to appreciate the more freeflowing rules than what they'd absorbed about RPGs through cultural osmosis. I think ignoring position and effect in a first session is fine, in fact it is my usual approach when teaching first time players the game. And yes, in Blades you can go much harder than you think at first against the players. Keep putting them in difficult situations, they will always have ways to wriggle out of them (mostly) intact. It's one of the best things about the system.
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Feb 18, 2024 13:32
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