Blades in the Dark: A bunch of hacks

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Blades in the Dark: A bunch of hacks

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

I just picked up the early access version on DriveThruRPG and I really like what I'm seeing, though I don't have much to base it on. I'm actually interested in your critiques, QuantumNinja, because I'm considering hacking this for use in a very different setting/time period and I'm wondering what you'd have done differently, or what previous versions did better.

Harrow fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Jan 13, 2016

# ¿ Jan 13, 2016 20:50

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 12:49

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

One question I have after reading this thread and v5 of the rules: how is Effect determined based on an Action roll? I read earlier in the thread about some sort of separate roll to determine Effect after a successful Action roll, but I don't see anything about that in the current rules--was that removed? If so, is it entirely up to the GM to interpret the circumstances/degree of success and assign the Effect level?

Fenarisk posted:

In a few months all the stretch goal hacks are coming out, so look for those. Some of the notable ones are cyberpunk and I think a pirate one. There's also a dungeon crawling adventuring company one but we will see how that goes.

I was just thinking that a dungeon crawl hack seems pretty natural.

My own setting, if I ever end up running that game, would probably require a hack of its own, since I doubt anyone's already making a version of this for an alternate-history World War I where magic is real. But the basic core of this system seems like it would fit perfectly with what I'm trying to accomplish, so my plan is to playtest it with my group for a while and then see if I want to hack it to fit the game I'd been planning. It helps that my group is stacked with Dishonored fans so Blades in the Dark's own setting will be a pretty easy sell.

Harrow fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Jan 13, 2016

# ¿ Jan 13, 2016 22:31

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

QuantumNinja posted:

I think my post summed it up: there is a ton of complexity where there could be none, and a lack of complexity where some could help. I feel like the entire core mechanic could be replaced with a pair of d8s, for example. Other examples include four tracks for health, 30 factions to keep track of as a GM (even just 1/3 would be annoying to do clocks for), a two-axis system for GMs specifying how rolls might go (fixed in previous versions!), 12 attributes (more than Shadowrun), an under-specified GM clock economy ("add some ticks, or don't, or whatever, when some rolls <5"), and flat itemization.

More importantly, all of these congeal into 5-7 complicated subsystems. Maybe these are excusable, individually, since none is unlivable. But together, I can only ask: "Why?"

While the first release was a half-complete game with a narrative-first promise and some middling problems, the latest is full of bloated subsystems that decries that promise. I mean, think about this: we have four tracks for health, but each of the three dozen items gets a single-sentence description, all crammed on a single page. Like I said, it's bloated in some ways and spartan in others. At the end of all of that, I gotta ask: "Why? Why all of this complexity where I shouldn't care, and none of it I might?"

As such, it's left a bad taste in my mouth.

Four tracks for health? All I see is harm, or do stress and trauma count, too? (Those seem like separate systems to me.) I'm probably missing something.

Anyway--coming at it totally fresh, it seems like a consistent and coherent game to me, but I haven't played it yet. I intend to, and maybe my opinion will change. I agree that it's weird how little description items get, and the book seems organized very strangely, and there are some areas where the rules and/or recommendations are unclear to me just based on the wording (does the Whisper's Tempest ability require an Attune roll or what? How does the GM determine effect level? Just how does Planning work?).

I think what I like, at first read, is:

The Attribute/Action division system. I like how that's set up and how it's independent of playbook.
Most of the playbooks.
How harm and stress work, along with using vices to relieve stress.
Clocks. If I'm understanding them correctly, I'm way into the idea as a way to track the players' progress both for the GM and for the players. It also seems like an elegant way to piece together and play through a heist as you go.
Crew advancement is super neat and something I might want to graft onto other systems. I like the idea of the party advancing as a group while they advance individually.

I may have a different opinion after running a session or two, though.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2016 01:31

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

QuantumNinja posted:

Yo I didn't say it was a bad system. There's a ton of cool poo poo, like I said in my first post about the fifth revision. But you wanted my complaints, so I trotted them out. Basically, I think it could be a lot better, and I'm sad about it.

Oh yeah, I get you. I'll probably end up agreeing with you after I play it, who knows. I'm happy to have your take on it going into a playtest so I know what to watch out for and what might trip me and my players up.

EDIT: I think I can see how it got where it is, though. It looks like it's really trying to emphasize the "running a crew" aspect of things--it's all very Lies of Locke Lamora, or at least that's the vibe I get. That mashed up with Dishonored. All of the things that actually happen while you're on an operation seem like what's handled in more narrative terms or with less nitty-gritty detail, while the crew management, projects, and long-term healing and trauma stuff get a lot of detail. It's kind of interesting and I'm not sure what to make of it. I think I'd be tempted to add more detail to items, possible loot, and that kind of thing were I to create a hack down the line.

I love this system's bones, at least on a reading, but I can see how it's sort of... lopsided.

Harrow fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Jan 14, 2016

# ¿ Jan 14, 2016 02:37

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

QuantumNinja posted:

I agree with this statement so hard I don't really know how to express it.

I'm excited about the fact that it's going to be treated as an open-source system, though. I'm excited to start hacking it apart and rearranging it myself.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2016 03:06

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

Is someone doing a pirate hack yet? It seems like a very natural fit.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2016 17:17

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

Are there any actual play things I could watch/listen to to get a good idea of how the game flows and how combat works? (I'm especially interested in combat--do you just have one clock for the opposition and tick things off as you kill enemies? What determines when an enemy dies? Just progress on the clock?)

# ¿ Jan 14, 2016 19:37

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

Lemon Curdistan posted:

The game treats "combat" the exact same way it treats all task resolution.

Which is to say, the whole combat is one obstacle clock, and the effect of each PC's action determines the progress on that clock (and enemies should die/be disabled/flee as is narratively appropriate depending on actions and progress on the clock)?

Also, how is effect determined? I remember reading earlier in the thread that there at least used to be separate rolls for an action and then for its effect, but I don't see anything like that now.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2016 19:48

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

A question for people who've played:

When would a non-Whisper roll the Attune action? What can someone without specific training in ghostly magics do with the Attune action? Related questions: Does the Lurk need to Attune in order to use the Ghost Veil ability, or is that just a "pay the stress and it happens" thing? Does the Whisper need to Attune to use Tempest, or is it the same deal?

# ¿ Jan 15, 2016 23:52

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

Doodmons posted:

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?

I think it's like--you're insubstantial, gaseous and such, but you can't straight-up walk through walls without paying the additional stress.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2016 04:02

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

Gonna run a test of this on Saturday.

How do people generally handle progress clocks during play? Do you draw them in some place where the players can see them all, or do you keep them hidden but give the players feedback about their overall progress?

# ¿ Jan 19, 2016 00:02

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

QuantumNinja posted:

Unless you have a great reason (and I didn't in the 6+ sessions of playing this game), make them public. Here's the 'GM Action' about making a clock:

(Emphasis mine.)

Aha, I missed that in the text. Okay, cool. I was already planning on having a battlemat and some markers out for sketching diagrams and stuff so I'll draw clocks on there, too.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2016 18:56

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

I've got a couple more rule questions, now that I've run this a couple of times. It's pretty likely that I've missed things in the book or that some of this is supposed to be up to player/GM interpretation, but!

1. What, exactly, can you do with the Attune action? My current interpretation is that if it's covered by a specific special ability that a class has, others can't do it without taking that ability--like attuning to control a ghost would fall under the Whisper's Compel--but I'm not really sure what you can do by "channeling electroplasmic energy" outside of things like Tempest.

2. Are ghosts visible without attuning? Is it up to the ghost? The players are dealing with a ghost right now and I figured he could show himself to them (he wants them to arrange for him to possess a gang leader), but looking through the book it seems that perceiving ghosts at all falls under the Attune action, so I might've sidestepped something.

3. What happens if a ghost possesses a body and the body is killed? Is the ghost ejected, or are they trapped (and potentially could be dissolved in electroplasm and destroyed)? Is it different when the possession goes full vampire?

# ¿ Feb 1, 2016 21:55

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

QuantumNinja posted:

This game's health system is a mess:

You mess up a roll that has Harm as a consequence and the GM declares that as the outcome.

You take harm at a rating of 1-3 when you mess up a roll, the GM decides how much

You can take the damage and put it in the relevant box (3 damage, by the way, puts you in a BAD spot). If you cant mark the box, it goes to the next size up (as expected).

If you'd like to mitigate some of that damage, you can make a Resistance roll. You roll Xd, the relevant dice pool, and take 6 - [max single die] stress. This stress is dealt regardless of how well you roll.

If you took stress, the GM can reduce the damage of the harm. From the book: "Usually, a resistance roll will reduce the severity of a consequence. If you're going to suffer fatal harm, for example, a resistance roll would reduce the harm to severe, instead."

If your stress track is full after this, you take Trauma. Once again, the book: "When you take trauma, circle one of your trauma conditions... When you suffer trauma, you're taken out of action. You're 'left for dead' or otherwise dropped out of the current conflict."

Congratulations, you just took harm in Blades in the Dark!

You forgot a step! If you have armor, you can mark that off instead of taking the harm. So we have even more steps in the decision-making process. :v:

Resisting harm is interesting to me, because it means that if you say you want to resist harm, you can do so no matter how well you roll. Even if you roll straight 1s on your resistance roll, you still get to reduce the severity of the harm, you're just going to eat 5 stress for the privilege.

In play, it hasn't been super complicated for my group, though it did take a while to explain the concept of the resistance roll to one of my players. Poor dude kept loving up and almost got trampled by Akorosi goats.

The healing clock hasn't come up yet, though. I'll probably find some way to simplify it when it does, because the sheer number of downtime actions involved in getting one character back up from even a 2-rated harm is pretty huge. Then again, I get the feeling that players are supposed to play multiple characters (this is even mentioned in the rules for getting "lost" while overindulging in a vice). Maybe the rules expect that, if a character is taking a couple of operations' worth of downtime to recover from a 2-rated harm (which is -1d on all rolls, pretty nasty), then the player should just play a guest star character during that time.

Harrow fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Feb 2, 2016

# ¿ Feb 2, 2016 15:57

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

The health rules make more sense when your players realize that they're supposed to be trying to strike a balance between taking harm and spending Stress to avoid it. (My players haven't quite gotten there yet--they see Stress as total anathema, but that's lead to more than one of them with a couple of level-2 harms coming out of a particularly nasty mission. Get some traumas, people, c'mon!)

# ¿ Apr 8, 2016 14:36

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

Iceclaw posted:

Using a mechanic solely because Roleplay mandate it and not because it's useful to it is the mark of a lovely mechanic.

Well, it's also useful. The healing rules are set up as they are because you're supposed to really want to avoid taking harm. Anything above level 1 harm is pretty nasty--it's either -1d on all applicable rolls (level 2 harm) or you're so badly hurt that you need someone's help to do drat near anything (level 3 harm). You take stress to resist harm because it's easier to get rid of stress than it is to get rid of harm, but at the same time, you're supposed to feel some amount of tension there because maxing out your stress gives you a trauma that you can (almost) never get rid of.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2016 19:53

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

QuantumNinja posted:

The objection to this argument is: the narrative didn't demand these things, the system did. A system applying external narrative pressure can be nice, but at the fine-grained level of wounds it comes off as kludgy instead of interesting.

I think the fine-grained wound tracking makes some sense for a game trying to do what Blades in the Dark does, and burning stress to sort of twist the narrative enough to avoid the nastier harm is a neat way of applying pressure and encouraging players to balance the two. From what I can tell, it's supposed to enforce two ideas: every wound is a story (hence the specificity of wound tracking), and your characters are walking a very fine line and living a very dangerous life (which is why wounds can be so nasty and stress can lead to irrevocable consequences).

I'd never apply it to a heroic adventure game, though, maybe unless I was going full Darkest Dungeon with it. It's a system that wouldn't make sense for a story in which your characters are The Heroes, but makes perfect sense (at least for me) for a story in which the characters are constantly living on the edge.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2016 15:28

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

Fenarisk posted:

After re-reading and playing around with some ideas, here's my modification for harm: Any 1 harm boxes are cleared with 2 ticks of the harm clock, 2 harm boxes are cleared by 4 ticks of the harm clock, and 3 harm is cleared by all 8 ticks of the harm clock. This would be cumulative, since really most rolls are going to be hitting the 2 effect result if the player is lucky. This way two downtime rolls for stress and harm can reasonably get a character ready for the next job without being hosed, or one downtime roll can mitigate a good chunk of either while still allowing another action. If a player is in a bad spot they can always spend 1 coin to do a third downtime action (or more).

I could be mistaken, but I think level-1 harm is cleared right away when you take a Recover downtime action, no roll required. The recovery clock only comes in for level-2 and 3 harm.

Captain Walker posted:

I think one of the ways you're supposed to scale difficulty is just make harder/softer moves, like Dungeon World. A failure on a Skirmish roll against a couple chump guards has a very different fictional risk and mechanical consequence than the same roll against expert Red Sash assassins. You can wiggle out of the harm with stress either way, but how badly you want to depends on the nature/level of the harm.

Disclaimer: I have run this game all of once.

This is pretty correct, yes. It's all down to the "position" system or whatever it's called now--before a player rolls, the GM tells them whether they're in a dominant position, risky position, or desperate position, and that determines the consequences for partial successes and failures. Desperate rolls also give XP.

Iceclaw posted:

On a slightly similar subject, I'm having trouble visualising progress clocks. If players start ticking one clock to get by an obstacle, then decide midway to use another method, would you reset the clock? Create another one?
For exemple, PCs need to open a safe. First they start to try to use brute force, making little progress because it's sturdier than expected (Say 3/8 progress), before deciding to kidnap a NPC who knows the combination. Would you keep the already begun clock, even if it doesn't make sense that taking a hammer to the safe would make kidnapping someone easier, or do something else?

I think you'd keep the clock, if only to preserve the flow of play. Because a clock is for an obstacle, not a specific method, it's probably best to just let progress accumulate even with a change in method.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2016 17:21

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

Iceclaw posted:

Yeah, that's what the rules seems to say. However, it bother me that despite for all intent and purpose, the group forfeit their progression by switching methods, yet it is still treated mechanically as progress. It feels a bit too much like a videogamey thing where you have to complete random tasks to fill a bar, know what I mean.

I'd go with something similar to how Galaga Galaxian put it. I'd say keep the progress, but put them in a risky/desperate position for switching methods. All of that is just to reduce player frustration and just keep things moving without actually removing the danger. If that's too gamey for you, then do what makes sense.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2016 17:54

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

Call me when the cyberpunk hack actually exists. That's the one I'm really excited for.

# ¿ Nov 21, 2016 17:19

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

I like how many of the class abilities are changed to just let you push yourself to achieve special effects. The Whisper's Tempest ability, especially, seemed both overly vague and overly expensive before ("take stress to, I dunno, do storm stuff?"), but now it lets you push yourself to either use lightning as a weapon along with any other action, or to create storm effects in your immediate vicinity. And that's unrelated to what action you're rolling. You can use Tempest to Skirmish with lightning or use a heavy fog to cover you when you Prowl and you do both (and other things) by pushing yourself. It's neat.

Big fan of the smaller healing project clock, too.

Perfect timing on this full release, as far as I'm concerned, because I'm just about to start running Blades in the Dark again and it's nice to have a new version to go along with that.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2017 20:55

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

One thing: I really wish they would've bookmarked the PDF.

esquilax posted:

It's not just a smaller healing clock - he changed the entire process in a good way. I like the changes.

Sweet. I hadn't gotten there yet, but yeah, that's a nice change.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2017 21:02

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

QuantumNinja posted:

editing like Shadowrun (see: "health penalties are explained in the 2nd paragraph on page 31"),

Wait, how does it mean a book has bad editing if health penalties are explained in a paragraph on a page?

# ¿ Feb 16, 2017 14:35

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

All it says on the character sheet is "-1D." To be fair, that's pretty unclear if nobody at the table has actually read the rules, but I really don't think we can judge a game's editing and clarity based on whether its character sheet lets people play the game correctly in that scenario or drat near every game is going to fail that test. Like, the character sheet also doesn't tell you what your load does, or how armor works, or what a project clock is, or when you need to circle one of those traumas or what trauma even means.

Sure, it'd be nice if they could fit "-1D to related rolls" in there, but ideally someone has actually read the rules, y'know? And I'd expect any game to have a couple "I don't remember how that works, let me look it up" moments in the first session or two.

Your criticism of the healing clock rules doesn't make sense to me, either, because the page you pointed out is the page where the recover action is described. Like, that's where you'd go in the rules to find out anything about the healing clock.

Harrow fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Feb 16, 2017

# ¿ Feb 16, 2017 22:09

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

homullus posted:

I get it. To you, it does not constitute "enough change" to be different, the super-extended dance mix playtesting is a positive overall, and missing your ship date by a year isn't that big a deal. I hope you can see that such thresholds are arbitrary (see the Ship of Theseus), and the lack of blowup on G+ is not very meaningful, since many people do not actively participate in G+ gaming communities. It doesn't require archive digging to see what he said; it's still on the KS campaign page:

The part in bold supports my point that people had reason to expect it to be 1) on time, and 2) the same. Two years of playtesting!...before the year of playtesting that made him overhaul it multiple times. If you're not inferring from the results that the game wasn't as done as he said, or that at the least the playtesting was not done beyond a very small group, I don't know what to say. The part in italics is the allowance you alluded to, and confirms that he was up front from the beginning about the possibility of it being altered. So I guess if you want to lean back in your chair, thumbs behind your lapels, with a self-satisfied smile about how right you are that people have no reason to be annoyed, ok, but I think it's reasonable to find fault with the Kickstarting of this game or be happy with the Kickstarting of this game..

I don't blame people for being mad that he missed the ship date by a year--that is an entirely reasonable thing to be angry about--but I do think people are overreacting if they think the final game is so thoroughly different from the one he kickstarted as to no longer be the same game. If he'd shifted focus entirely, like totally swapped settings or decided to add mini-based combat and poo poo, I'd say that'd constitute enough change to be a bait-and-switch, but what we got was a more refined version of the game he pitched.

Again, though: the very late ship date is entirely reasonable to be mad about and I'd be mad about it had I kickstarted the game.

QuantumNinja posted:

That said, that sort of thing isn't enough to turn me off the game (I do play Shadowrun, after all), and my playtests of Blades have all been great fun. I'll certainly be playing it a few more times, and I'd recommend everyone give it a go. I just wish it was more refined and polished, that's all.

Yeah, that's fair. I think I reacted harshly to your comment about it falling into mediocrity and thought you were talking about the quality of the actual game. I'd agree there's definitely still room for more polish, but the game is a really fun game on its own merits.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2017 14:26

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

My opinion probably doesn't matter because I wasn't a Kickstarter backer (I bought into the early access instead), but I agree that, as far as late Kickstarters go, this is one of the better-handled ones. I can still understand people who are upset at the lateness, but I'd definitely much rather have "late, but with frequent communication and periodic updates to game materials that I can access and use to play" instead of "complete radio silence for years."

# ¿ Feb 17, 2017 15:33

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

homullus posted:

Good vs. on time is a false dilemma, though, as is "I'd rather have it be one year late than have it be Far West late." There is no reason not to expect somebody to produce something good and on time, especially when they tell you it is mostly done -- "it just needs explanatory text and lots of art" -- and that it has 26 months of testing behind it before launching the KS. I too am relieved that it won't be a pile of crap and am excited for the hardcover version, but a year overdue for is bad, full stop. Four years overdue is even worse, but that doesn't make a year overdue not bad.

Sure, but let's assume the situation is: author thinks it's almost done, playtesting reveals a lot of refinements that should be made, and the process of iterating and testing to refine will push the release past the promised delivery date. Would you prefer it be delivered on time, but as a worse product, or late, but as a better product? It was probably a mistake to say it was almost done in the initial pitch, but after recognizing that mistake, what's the better option going forward: rush it out on time, or delay it and hope you produce something better?

Like, I'm not saying a year late is good. It is, in fact, bad. But in a case like this, I would rather have the late, good product.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2017 23:33

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

Have they put out a PDF with bookmarks yet?

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 19:19

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

Lemon-Lime posted:

Yes, ten days ago.

Sweet, I clearly wasn't paying attention.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 19:29

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

Lemon-Lime posted:

There's no reason why you'd remove the equipment load stuff, because the goal shouldn't be to recreate the mechanics of Persona 5.

Trying to recreate the mechanics of Persona in a tabletop game is a fool's errand for sure. I should know. I've tried. It was a total mess. :negative:

# ¿ Apr 20, 2017 17:12

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

The hardest time I had when I ran Blades in the Dark wasn't getting my players to use flashbacks during a score, but rather to get my players to not spend an hour and a half planning before starting a score. They had a really tough time not doing that, largely because they tended to play huge jerks in every game we played before then and they relished planning out their future misdeeds.

Captain Walker posted:

So I should delete this google doc we haven't touched in probably a year?

In all seriousness, I still think a Megaten tabletop game could work, but it'd have to be more traditional main-series stuff rather than something explicitly based around gaming RP interactions for mechanical gain.

Hah, probably. I couldn't get past the actual mechanics of Persona to get closer to the idea of what people would probably actually want out of a Persona tabletop game. Really, something like Monsterhearts would probably be more fitting than the weird poo poo I was trying to force it into in my head (and honestly I'm still trying). I'd love to come up with a cool tactical battle system that makes use of something similar to Press Turn or something like that, but I'll need more distance from freshly having played some Persona before I can do that, probably.

Lemon-Lime posted:

Watch a Coen brothers movie then play Fiasco together, a week before you play BitD.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2017 18:22

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

Lemon-Lime posted:

I resent the book claiming planning isn't fun, because it's often the most fun part of any session in games I've played, but the way the rules makes the heists planning-free is great.

Yeah, my players love it so I don't deny them some planning. I just try to pay attention to when they start either spiraling or rehashing stuff and use that as the point to jump into the action.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2017 20:10

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

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.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2017 15:23

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

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.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2017 16:39

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

DemonMage posted:

Runners in the Shadows

Oh wow, Runners in the Shadows actually looks really promising. Anyone here tried out the playtest at all?

Shadowrun was the first thing I thought of when I was thinking of what I would love to run with the Blades in the Dark rule set.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2017 19:10

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

Pollyanna posted:

Good to know...I�m sure I can finagle it into 2.5 max somehow, but I bet it�ll run over anyway. I really like how this game sounds so far, still working through the book but it�s a very interesting setting.

For what it's worth, when I ran Blades in the Dark, my sessions tended to be around 2.5-3 hours or so.

Pollyanna posted:

I was wondering, how hard would it be to adapt other settings to the game? e.g. if I stitched in a score in Ravenloft or something. I don�t know how porting works in PBTA games, unfortunately...

This depends on how much you want the game to reflect the new setting.

If you want your players to play criminals doing heists in Ravenloft, maybe with other gangs and organizations competing for turf in one way or another, you could probably adapt Blades in the Dark by just replacing the names of items, types of people, groups, and places with things that make sense in Ravenloft. But if you want to use the base system to play dungeon crawls or something, you have a lot more work to do. If you read through the actions, all the downtime rules, and the kinds of items and special moves each playbook has, it's all really focused on heists and managing downtime in the criminal underworld. Trying to go beyond that is going to require a different set of actions, new playbooks and special moves, and probably different downtime rules.

That said, there's already a hack for playing dark fantasy dungeon crawls with the Blades in the Dark system, called Blades Against Darkness, that would be a decent place to start if that's something you want to do at some point.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2018 13:50

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

Pollyanna posted:

I figure I�ll get used to the original before trying to run a hack, but maybe in the future I�ll try hacking and slashing. Secret wall chicken treasure tho

Yeah, definitely run it a few times first. I've tried to hack systems I hadn't played yet before and it has never actually worked out :v:

One tip I'd offer for running Blades is not to plan too much detail ahead of time. Be ready to improvise. The system works best when the players drive the narrative as much as possible--you'll need to give them a goal or two to start out, but eventually they should have their own goals and aspirations and reasons to do heists.

I think as a new GM, the hardest thing for me to learn was how to avoid planning stories and instead focus my planning on creating situations that are ripe for players to have adventures in, then prepare tools that would help me to improvise when needed. I tried for a long time to plan in a lot of detail and treat my games as a video game-style branching narrative and it took a ton of time and wasn't all that rewarding.

Also, read the section on pre-heist planning and flashbacks several times and make sure your players know that flashbacks are a core system. If your players are anything like mine, they're gonna want to plan in a lot of detail before a heist, and you might be tempted to join in and just riff for a while, play out all the pre-heist planning, etc. But if you play the system as-written, you and the players will come up with a goal for the heist, a setting, and a very basic method, and then just go. If at any point a player wishes they'd had an opportunity to plan ahead for an eventuality, or case the joint, things like that, that's when you pull out a flashback. The player gets to say "I planned for this all along!" and you all get to play out exactly how they did so before returning back to the action. It's an awesome system and a ton of fun when players really lean into it.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2018 23:11

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

Flavivirus posted:

Yup, Rhapsody should be out pretty soon - it's going to the printers in a few days. It's a pretty barebones book at about 60-something pages, but I've had a lot of fun with it.
I have plans for expanding it into a modern P5-style setting where the gothic evil castle is invading the corners and alleys of a city and people on the fringes have to band together and stop it, though that's a ways off. I'm actually bringing in more Blades ideas for that one, to help manage the downtime between castle raids where you maintain your social links, get rid of stress and try to keep your job/avoid expulsion from school/stave off debt collectors.

Well that sounds sick as hell.

Tsilkani posted:

You have my attention, and eventually my money.

Edit: hell, thinking about it, Persona is a great match for PbtA, and I'm honestly kind of surprised it hasn't been done.

I took some half-hearted stabs at a Persona TTRPG while back but at the time I couldn't get over a desire for some more "game-y" combat mechanics, so I resisted going PbtA-style with it. That might be an idea worth revisiting at some point.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2018 20:39

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

What I want most is a really good Shadowrun hack for Blades in the Dark. I'm one of those "the setting is cool but I just can't make myself care about the system" babies when it comes to Shadowrun, and the Blades in the Dark framework seems downright perfect for a more narrative take. I know someone's been working on one for a while but I have no idea if it's any good (reading over the latest draft of the playbooks suggests the writer is kinda committing the "bad PbtA hack" sin of writing way too many special moves without really understanding how the whole system works).

Harrow fucked around with this message at 14:25 on May 25, 2018

# ¿ May 25, 2018 14:23

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 12:49

Harrow: Jun 30, 2012

Lemon-Lime posted:

Harper basically treated the stretch goals as a marketing tool and nothing else, presumably. They were an incentive to get people to give the KS campaign (and thus him, personally, since the other authors were all unpaid) more money.

It's real scummy.

Yeah that's... not good, if that's the case. It makes a certain amount of sense if it's money earmarked for producing, like, printed copies of those hacks, paying people to do document design, or things like that, but that doesn't sound like the case.

If that money wasn't going to pay people to produce that work, and it isn't going into that work at all, then that's some dishonest poo poo right there.

# ¿ May 29, 2018 18:42

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Blades in the Dark: A bunch of hacks

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