Blades in the Dark: A bunch of hacks

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

That Old Tree: Jun 24, 2012; nah

Blades in the Dark is the latest effort from industry veteran John Harper, possibly best-known for Lady Blackbird. Well, he was; it's probably going to be Blades now, because that poo poo caught fire and destroyed on Kickstarter, achieving $180,000 of its $7,500 goal, eating through nearly two dozen stretch goals. Don't worry, most of it is up to other people to write. It probably won't suck the life out of the core game's author and cause another embarrassing RPG industry implosion!

Quick pitch: You're a crew of Garretts and Corvos looking to grow a criminal empire in a smog-choked Victorian-style city beset by ghosts and other supernatural weirdos. There might also be lightning guns and monorails.

The Gates of Death have been destroyed, which isn't as "eternal life" as it might sound because it just means ghosts loving everywhere. Also demons, I guess? Now, the Empire rules scattered city-states hunkered behind electroplasmic fences, because ghosts are basically transparent cows, and the wilderness is a haunted hellscape. These cities are likewise connected by electricity-powered trains, which may sound familiar if you've played Harper's previous game Ghost Lines (they're the same setting). Despite these and other technological marvels, the setting is very Victorian London stereotype, full of gas lamps and coal fires getting grime all over the teeming dirty peasants crammed into ~~Mega City One~~Dunwall, while the rich elite eat stuffed pheasant off diamond-encrusted slaves' backs. John Harper calls it "industrial fantasy."

Blades is a game about playing a gang of filthy criminals moving up in the underworld. Typically, projects like Thief: The RPG are ill-starred, since vicious backstabbing loners tend not to work together very well. Luckily, we have the terrible scourge of ~story games~ to thank for a functional game about criminal empire-building. On top of each character having their own traits, their Crew has its own character sheet, reflecting their pooled resources, prestige, allies and enemies. Plus, the basic premise is that you all want to form a gang and are not actually anti-social goons. So maybe not all that much like Garrett and Corvo.

Characters choose from a selection of playbooks that guide you in what kinds of actions you favor and what gear you have. Thanks to stretch goals, there are seven core playbooks, ranging from the Cutter (bruiser, back-alley brawler) to the Lurk (cat burglar), from the Spider (mastermind with back up plans) to the Whisper (scholar and occultist). There's a touch of cross-classing available. The Crew has a playbook, too, covering groups like Thieves and Cultists. Crews have a lair and other resources, including minions, special group training, and libraries.

To resolve actions in Blades, players roll a pool of d6's and take your highest result (multiple 6's count as a Crit). This is a "fail forward" kind of game, so even if you don't get what you want, something happens. When you're setting up an action, your group hashes out whether what you're doing is Controlled, Risky or Desperate�your "position"�which helps determine how easy it is to succeed and determines the quality of your success. Even if you roll poo poo, you can re-try from a worse position. The GM doesn't roll anything, but they do determine how hard things are, not just by helping do adjudicate an action's position, but also by setting up "clocks" for long-term tasks. Clocks are segmented circles that demonstrate progress towards an objective, from "break into the mansion" to "kill all the guards." Actions fill in the segments of the clock, and once it's filled up the objective is completed or the obstacle is overcome.

Typically, your Crew will pursue a Score in order to acquire Coin and Hold to bolster their position in the underworld hierarchy. Scores generate Heat, though, which means you're getting more attention from the bluecoats, but you're also getting famous enough that bigger crews are taking notice. When you're on the job, characters trade off being leader ("on point"), using their particular expertise to advance the crew's agenda, even if that's just setting up things for the next person who's going on point. The Lurk leads the party through the sewers into the mansion basement, the Hound knocks out the guards in the library, the Whisper deals with the occult seals on an ancient book, and the Cutter leads the charge against the demon that pops out. Characters who aren't on point are instead "backup" and provide assistance, say by facing an Effect in place of the person on point, or providing a bonus die to an action. In addition to any other problems that arise, failed group actions add Stress to everyone providing backup because they so totally could've done better you guys.

Stress is your damage track. Once it fills up, you suffer some Trauma, whether it's a bad wound or a new personal enemy. Your Stress resets to 0 and you start the journey to Trauma all over again. Once your character has acquired four Traumas, the mean streets have proved too mean for him, and he retires. Depending on the Coin in his Stash, he retires in ignominy or he settles into a slightly more honest small business empire.

Between Scores, characters spend Coin and Hold to buy toys and influence, to advance Downtime plans like setting up front businesses or bribing officials to be friendly, and to try to reduce the Heat drawing attention to your Crew. Characters also engage in their favored Vice to reduce their Stress, staving off that next bit of Trauma.

Character and Crew advancement comes in "ticks" in certain categories, and once you have enough you get a new Skill rank or buy a new move. These ticks are awarded for things like the group agreeing on which Skills you used best, fulfilling your playbook's themes, or doing what your Crew does best. For instance, at the end of the session everyone might say your Hound used Prowl to great effect, so you get one tick over your Cloak Skills, and you also "hunted or killed a challenging target" which gets you a tick towards a new special move. Maybe you also pulled a couple of Desperate tricks, so you get two ticks you can place anywhere. Finally, your Thieves Crew might get an advancement tick towards a new special ability after executing a successful robbery.

You start out as a very low-level Crew, but as you progress you should move up, controlling multiple neighborhoods, bribing more important officials, and potentially turning the whole city of Dunwall into your giant gang's turf. Maybe somewhere along the way you steal cool jars full of souls from creepy witches, uncover deathgod cults' plots to subvert city councilors, or even organize construction efforts to seal up the crumbling wall before ghosts overrun the city. There is a pretty extensive Faction Ladder used to track your influence over other groups and parts of the city, and to track your Crew's relationships with other potential allies and rivals.

There are a number of suggested tools to give the game a quick start up time. The base advice on how to run all the set up and planning that goes into executing a Score is mostly "don't." Your PCs are experienced criminals. They already bought floor plans, they already timed guard patrols�take a few minutes to outline what their "plan" is, then get into the actual caper. There is a Flashback mechanic for pulling contingencies out of your rear end, something that the stretch goal playbook the Spider is probably expert at. The GM section also has some tables for randomly generating Scores, or they can just act as lists of possibilities to choose from! They include Client/Target, Work, Location, Troubles and Twists.

The world of Blades in the Dark is full of ghosts, demons and other monsters, which means it's ripe for adventures other than the purely criminal enterprise. Among the Kickstarter's stretch goals are a grip of playsets that completely change up the game, providing new player and crew playbooks tailored to them.

quote:

� Broken Crown: A playset for the game that adds new character and crew types so you can play a group of revolutionaries intent upon doing the impossible � assassinating the Immortal Emperor himself. By James Stuart.

� Bluecoats of the Watch: A playset for the game that adds new character and crew types so you can play the meanest gang in Duskwall: The City Watch! Play as the inspectors, enforcers, and guardians that hunt and capture the scoundrels in the darkness.

� The Ghost Lines: A playset that adds a whole new dimension to the game beyond the walls of the city. Play as the daring Rail Jacks that deal with deadly ghosts on the electro-train lines which connect the cities of the imperium.

� Leviathan Song: The hunting vessels sail out from Duskwall, enormous steam ships financed by the noble houses, captained by their unrecognized scions, and crewed by the unwashed masses. Following signs from shipboard dogs, gifted orphans, and madmen trained to hear the demon-song chanted in the depths, they sail the Never Sea, harpoons and hoses ready, preparing to drain the great beasts of their precious fluid. A new playset by Jonathan Walton (author of the Dungeon World Planarch Codex).

Also in Addition On Top of That
On top of the core game and its directly related stretch goals, the Kickstarter's runaway success resulted in a bumper crop of setting hacks.

quote:

� Band of Blades: A complete dark fantasy hack, Band of Blades allows you to play a small band of soldiers desperately trying to shift the tide in a war against powerful sorcerer-kings and their undead minions. By Stras Acimovic.

� Blades Against Darkness. Get your dungeon-crawling fix with this total reskin and new playset for the game! You are a tomb robber � desperate for coin, driven by a thirst for knowledge, on a quest for your inscrutable deity, or, perhaps, just crazy. One way or another, you�ll take almost any job that comes your way. The Gods know there is plenty of bloody work to be had in the dark passageways below the earth. drat little is honorable. Most all of it will get you killed. But you just might make it out alive... and rich. By Dylan Green.

� Blades of the Jhereg: The underworld of Adrilankha is ruled by a council of five ruthless bosses, known as the Right Hand of the Jhereg. You and your crew of scoundrels have been given a tiny piece of turf and are expected to impress them with your greed and opportunism. Will you rise to power in the Organization or be strangled by your ambitious rivals? Blades of the Jhereg is an official licensed supplement for Blades in the Dark featuring the world of Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos novels (Jhereg, Yendi, Teckla, Taltos, etc.). The playset will include the character and crew types, NPCs, factions, situations, maps, and additional rules needed to play the exploits of a Jhereg criminal enterprise in Adrinlankha. Just remember to keep an eye out for that upstart Easterner. People say he's trouble. By John Harper (with editorial oversight from Steven Brust).

� Coneycatchers is a reskin of the game with new character and crew types, factions, situations, and a guide for playing in Elizabethan London. By Jason Morningstar (author of Fiasco, Durance, and Night Witches).

� The Doomed: "Look, we don't have to worry about The Dark Avenger; he's in the morgue. The Hero Squadron just got their minds swapped by The Mystic Eye or whatever, who knows. What I'm saying is: nobody's around to stop one little bank robbing spree. We just keep it low key and it's us and our powers versus a bunch of beat cops. What could go wrong? " The Doomed takes Blades in the Dark to the worlds of superheroes. You'll be playing the small-time villains trying to make it big in a world where an alien invasion is just another Tuesday. New characters and crew types give you everything you need to play in the style of The Superior Foes of Spider-Man and the Giffen/DeMatteis Injustice League. By Sage Latorra (co-author of Dungeon World).

� Moon Over Bourbon Street: A completely new setting for the game, plus new character and crew types. You are a thief in Crescent City, a bustling m�lange of French colonials and planters, Spanish traders, American river men and adventurers, and Afro-Caribbean free men and slaves. Steamships traveling up and down the Mighty River disgorge a constant stream of valuable cargoes along with scoundrels and gamblers of every bent. But at night, the city turns dark indeed.... By Chris Bennett.

� Null Vector: Four artificial intelligences secretly rule the world. You and your crew of cyber-augmented outcasts are some of the only people who know the truth. Will you oppose the invisible masters? Will you join one of the AIs, to bring its vision for humanity to life? What will you do to change the world? Null Vector is a complete reskin of the game for cyberpunk thriller action in the vein of Ghost in the Shell.

� P38: Blood on the Streets. Italy, the 1970s. Upstart bank robbers compete and consort with the organised crime establishment, while the public follows from the front pages of newspapers, afraid and morbidly fascinated. This, however, is only the surface. The criminal underworld traces a wide, murky network, connecting the mob, terrorism and espionage. Some want to tear down the bourgeois state and start a revolution, others are building support for an authoritarian coup. Many are just in it for profit. Everyone is involved, and no one is innocent: terrorist groups and ruling parties, idealist students and national security agents, gangsters and foreign spies. In P38: Blood on the Streets, you will step into this web, for money, power and ideology. What will you make of it? A playset based on one of the darkest decades of Italy�s republican history, by them crazy Italians: Flavio Mortarino, Alberto Muti, Renato Ramonda, Enrico Ambrosi, Daniele Di Rubbo, Luca Veluttini and Domenico Marino.

� Scum and Villainy is a complete reskin of Blades in the Dark for playing Rogues, Scoundrels, Bounty Hunters and aliens of all types looking to make a credit and keep their ship flying in a Space Opera setting. Includes new character types, crews, ships and modified basic moves that encourage blaster-shooting, hoverbike chasing and other over-the-top cinematic action. By Stras Acimovic.

� Sparrow's Folly is a complete reskin of Blades in the Dark for playing gritty adventures in the Wild West, with new character types, crews, and factions, plus the guide and maps to Sparrow's Folly itself. By Allison Arth.

� Throne of the Void "The forms must be obeyed." �The Great Convention The Interstellar Empire was unified less than a century ago by the first Imperator. Since then his iron fist has enforced the compact that binds the Empire together. But he ages, and his grip weakens. And now the churn of plans, schemes and politics begins. In this decadent world, inhuman nobles, merchant guilds and religious groups all aim to control the throne by any means necessary. You play a crew of Agents, serving a powerful faction of the Interstellar Empire vying against Agents of other factions ... and those of your own. You will be trying to move wheels-within-wheels as you play large-scale political and faction-based games in a deadly web of shifting alliances and rivalries. Throne of the Void is a complete stars-and-starships hack of Blades in the Dark and includes new character types, crews, factions, changed faction and downtime rules, plus galactic maps to the Empire itself. By Stras Acimovic.

� Womb of Night: A black expanse stretches between the stars, whose dim light shelters the thousand colonies of humanity. Riding the star-seas between them are crews of traders, marauders, explorers and pirates - all guided by the Sisterhood, whose Navigatrix acolytes portend safe passage through the hellish storms that make up the roiling mass they call the warp-space. In Womb of Night you play brave opportunists who seek out their fortune in the void of the cosmos, preying on fat merchant ships or finding rich new worlds to exploit. Space holds riches and power beyond your dreams, if you're bold enough to take them. By Adam Koebel (co-author of Dungeon World, and GM of Swan Song. Adam knows a thing or two about tense situations in space. His primary inspirations for Womb of Night are the art of Moebius, 70s heavy metal and a heavy dose of psychedelic culture.)

Other
There's a G+ community, where John Harper has been pretty active. There's a growing FAQ pinned at the top of the community. On a personal note, it's nice to see the author being really engaged with feedback and publicly musing on pretty significant changes to his game in pursuit of making it fun and accessible.

Here is the first part of a session run by John Harper on Google Hangouts. Here is a write-up of that session.

Welcome to a thread guaranteed to die a pathetic death waiting for Kickstarter fulfillment. Prove me wrong, motherfuckers!

That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Apr 14, 2015

# ? Apr 14, 2015 11:37

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 19:42

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

I'm currently running a PbP game of this.

The system feels quite flexible and fast-playing, and the "one detail for planning then drop the players in medias res" is a general principle that you could apply to other games. I could definitely see it being used in a SWAT/HRT/Rainbow Six-type setting.

The clock mechanic also strikes me as eminently poachable because it dovetails well with a GM never saying no. Even the most outrageous ask can be reduced to a "long-term project" with a clock that the party can work on over multiple sessions.

I feel like I already got a lot of value out of the quickstart rules.

I do think though the game could use with some options for cutting down on the number of Actions - 16 feels a little too many for a quick oneshot/fast Chargen.

EDIT: My thread title was totally going to be Blades in the Dark: Dirty D6s Done Dirt Cheap

# ? Apr 14, 2015 12:30

That Old Tree: Jun 24, 2012; nah

gradenko_2000 posted:

I'm currently running a PbP game of this.

The system feels quite flexible and fast-playing, and the "one detail for planning then drop the players in medias res" is a general principle that you could apply to other games. I could definitely see it being used in a SWAT/HRT/Rainbow Six-type setting.

The clock mechanic also strikes me as eminently poachable because it dovetails well with a GM never saying no. Even the most outrageous ask can be reduced to a "long-term project" with a clock that the party can work on over multiple sessions.

I feel like I already got a lot of value out of the quickstart rules.

I do think though the game could use with some options for cutting down on the number of Actions - 16 feels a little too many for a quick oneshot/fast Chargen.

EDIT: My thread title was totally going to be Blades in the Dark: Dirty D6s Done Dirt Cheap

Woops, I forgot to talk about the score generation stuff in my post! Yeah, the Quickstart definitely had a lot of value for a teaser on an unfinished game. It helped me up my pledge.

He already said he's cutting down on Effects, I think, and he made a pretty big G+ post about eliminating half of the "roll to-hit, then roll damage" aspect of the system. Maybe Skills will get a paring, too.

# ? Apr 14, 2015 12:56

Dzurlord: Nov 5, 2011

It looks like he's also expanding the clocks to handle more situations that come up, which I think is pretty great. Both for random obstacles, long term goals, consequences that you eat if you don't want stress, everything.

Also, John's said that all the Dunwall playbooks can play with one another, which I think would be awesome. Crew of thieves plus one leviathan hunter or inspector or something could be awesome. (Kind of makes me think of City of Stairs a little, and then maybe I'll reskin it for running a group of conspirators for or against a government).

I sort of hope the skills don't get pared down too much, but I can be sold on that.

A bunch of friends of mine are way into this; we all want to play rather than run it, but I should just get us all to rotate GMing and get this ball rolling with the quickstart rules. I'm super excited for it!

# ? Apr 14, 2015 14:04

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

It should be pointed out that John Harper's mini-RPG Ghost Lines takes place in the same world.

quote:

On the Ghost Lines

It is the year 891 of the Imperium that united the shattered isles of the cataclysm under one rule � all glory to his majesty the Immortal Emperor.

You work the ghost lines�the electro-railroad that passes through the ink-dark deadlands between cities. Spirits of the dead, drawn to the vital essence of the living, often get entangled in the powerful electrical field generated by the trains. Line bulls like you walk the length of the cars, magnetized boots clanking and breather-mask hissing, to clear the offending spirits with your lightning-hooks before they do too much damage.

Each city of the Imperium is encircled by crackling lightning-towers to create an electrical shell that spirits cannot penetrate. By law, all corpses are incinerated with lightning-oil (to destroy the spirit essence within) but sometimes, wealthy citizens, heretics of the spirit cults, or the criminal element arrange for a ghost to escape destruction at the crematorium.

So called �rogue spirits� are also dealt with by bulls like you. For a fee, of course.

# ? Apr 14, 2015 14:29

Ego Trip: Aug 28, 2012; A tenacious little mouse!

Womb of Night is almost word for word from Warp Riders.

http://youtu.be/PjKI_U9ENwU

# ? Apr 14, 2015 16:39

Impermanent: Apr 1, 2010

I'm so bummed I missed this kickstarter. Is there any way for me to buy in for a copy of the rules quick start rules?

# ? Apr 14, 2015 17:25

That Old Tree: Jun 24, 2012; nah

Impermanent posted:

I'm so bummed I missed this kickstarter. Is there any way for me to buy in for a copy of the rules quick start rules?

He's going to do one of those "late backers" things, so that might be it whenever that's ready.

# ? Apr 14, 2015 21:02

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

So: a hack based around the idea of low- or no-powered wannabe superheroes fighting crime. Think Arrow/Daredevil/that upcoming "We Are Robins" comic.

Talk to me.

e: I'm thinking of playbooks like The Striker (DD), The Weapons Master, The Sleuth, or Control (the Oracle-type). Not sure what to do for crews, though

Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Apr 14, 2015

# ? Apr 14, 2015 21:07

That Old Tree: Jun 24, 2012; nah

Evil Mastermind posted:

So: a hack based around the idea of low- or no-powered wannabe superheroes fighting crime. Think Arrow/Daredevil/that upcoming "We Are Robins" comic.

Talk to me.

e: I'm thinking of playbooks like The Striker (DD), The Weapons Master, The Sleuth, or Control (the Oracle-type). Not sure what to do for crews, though

They're definitely "Teams" instead of "Crews." Ideas off the top of my head are: the Nine-to-Fivers (government agents), Outcasts (certain versions of X-Men), Fightin' Family (Fantastic Four) and Bickering Soap Operatives (Avengers, or really every team ever).

# ? Apr 14, 2015 23:34

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

I seriously can't wait for this to come out. I look forward to running my group through it. It all looks goddamn fantastic; I haven't been this excited about a kickstarter since Feng Shui 2. (And before that, Fate Core.)

# ? Apr 15, 2015 00:08

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Plague of Hats posted:

They're definitely "Teams" instead of "Crews." Ideas off the top of my head are: the Nine-to-Fivers (government agents), Outcasts (certain versions of X-Men), Fightin' Family (Fantastic Four) and Bickering Soap Operatives (Avengers, or really every team ever).

I was thinking more street-level than that.

NIMBYs: We don't give a poo poo about what's happening in the rest of the city. This is our goddamn street, and we don't want you superassholes doing whatever the hell it is you're doing or peddling your poo poo here. We don't care where you go or what you do, you just ain't doing it here. Get out of our neighborhood.

Thrillers: You know what the best thing about fighting gangsters and D-list supervillains is? The rush. Parkour-chasing thugs, dodging blasts from a laser pistol, beating up nameless goons, you loving love it. This isn't about justice; you're in it for the kicks.

Wannabes: Listen, you can't just go to one of the major super-teams and ask to join up. You need to build a rep first. Take down a few metadrug dealers, get some exposure on the news, that kind of thing. Stick with us; we're on the road to the Big Time!

Wronged: It's not about stopping crime, or taking down every two-bit thug or mob boss. It's about taking out that particular mob boss. And yeah, it doesn't matter who you have to ally with to do it. Ends justify the means.

# ? Apr 15, 2015 15:53

Helena P Blavatsky: Oct 17, 2003; onward to victory

A game about heists where you can apparently get through 1 or 2 heists in a single session with explicit mechanics on how your group works socially with the larger world makes this the first RPG I've been really excited about in a while. I wish I had known about this 5 days ago since I would easily pay the money for the quickstart, but now I have to wait. Sucks.

# ? Apr 15, 2015 17:12

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

I admit I'm slightly disappointed that the near future STALKER South Pacific hack seems to have fallen behind the couch cushions (I mean, good for John Harper, he seems like a cool dude, but a novel? Eh), but if even half of the stuff unlocked for this game comes out it's still going to be a really solid game.

# ? Apr 15, 2015 18:30

EscortMission: Mar 4, 2009; Come with me
if you want to live.

I was sold from the minute I learned that the "dispatch other people in combat" skill was openly called Murder instead of Combat, Melee, Attack, or whatever. For a quickstart with something like a paragraph of setting material, the mechanics themselves do a surprisingly good job of setting an appropriate tone for what you should be doing, where you should be doing it, who you should be killing, and how bad you should feel about it afterward. (This amount of bad is "none bad" as far as I can tell)

I am praying that with Null Vector, I will finally be able to run a Shadowrun game in a system worth half a drat. :allears:

# ? Apr 15, 2015 20:36

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

Something I hope the full game goes into a bit more detail on is a clearer explanation of what separates Murder from Mayhem and when to call for the latter over the former. Is Mayhem strictly meant to be nonlethal brawling? If your intent is to kill in a fight do you ALWAYS use Murder?

# ? Apr 15, 2015 21:10

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

The way I interpreted it is that Murder is what you use on unsuspecting targets, then Mayhem for dudes that can fight back.

# ? Apr 15, 2015 21:20

Ronwayne: Nov 20, 2007; That warm and fuzzy feeling.

Kai Tave posted:

Something I hope the full game goes into a bit more detail on is a clearer explanation of what separates Murder from Mayhem and when to call for the latter over the former. Is Mayhem strictly meant to be nonlethal brawling? If your intent is to kill in a fight do you ALWAYS use Murder?

Kai, to put it in Transeldritch game terms, Murder is Zhang, Mayhem is Storms.

# ? Apr 15, 2015 21:27

Dzurlord: Nov 5, 2011

Kai Tave posted:

Something I hope the full game goes into a bit more detail on is a clearer explanation of what separates Murder from Mayhem and when to call for the latter over the former. Is Mayhem strictly meant to be nonlethal brawling? If your intent is to kill in a fight do you ALWAYS use Murder?

I read it as using Mayhem for brawling, throwing down, and busting heads - fatal or not. Murder is knives from shadows, dedicated killing, finesse dueling, that kind of thing.

I agree that a little more clarity would be helpful.

# ? Apr 16, 2015 02:53

DemonMage: Oct 14, 2004; What happens in the course of duty is up to you...

John answered that on G+:

quote:

Think of it this way.

"I kill him."
"Um, okay. How do you do that?"
"I channel a million volts of electroplasm through his skull."
"Whoa. Okay. Attune then, eh:?"

"I kill him."
"Okay. What do you do?"
"I smash him over the head with a chair and shove him out the window. I'm rolling Mayhem."

"I kill him."
"Okay, how?"
"I step in close and put my blade through his throat. I Murder him."

Murder is murder. It's definitely the action you want if you want to kill someone smoothly and quickly, leaving a minimum of evidence and suspicion. But you can kill someone in a variety of ways, using various actions, depending on the situation.

# ? Apr 16, 2015 08:21

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

So Murder is "quick and quiet" and Mayhem is "loud and messy." I can live with that given that Mayhem has other applications as well (wrecking things, causing a ruckus) while Murder is strictly, well, Murder. It seems a little fuzzy around the edges but I suppose that's by intent.

# ? Apr 16, 2015 08:55

Dzurlord: Nov 5, 2011

According to John, we're getting a new quickstart rule packet on (hopefully) Monday. It was supposed to be today, but turns out that he's doing a bigger system overhaul and more examples. Sweet!

# ? Apr 17, 2015 14:07

unseenlibrarian: Jun 4, 2012; There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

I wound up bumping up to the hacker tier because the one setting that seemed good for this that didn't show up as a stretch goal is modern urban fantasy. So I will probably work on it myself. Little bit Daniel Faust, little bit Skin Game, little bit Leverage with wizards, demon mob bosses, etc, etc.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 14:19

Doodmons: Jan 17, 2009

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.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 14:36

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Doodmons posted:

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.

I think what's supposed to happen is that the player sees the guard coming, but the game freezes at just the moment before the player gets spotted. "The danger manifests" - the player sees the guard riiight about to come out, so you offer them a choice: he either gets spotted, or he scoots across the corridor anyway and avoids getting spotted, but he takes stress from exerting all that extra effort.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 16:45

Lemon-Lime: Aug 6, 2009

I've been reading a bunch of noir novels and watching the Bosch series and now I really want to run something like that in this system. Going to be tough deciding what to run first: Robbery-Homicide detectives in either Duskwall, Sharn or 50s LA, the cyberpunk hack, a Thief hack, or just straight up vanilla BitD. :ohdear:

# ? Apr 17, 2015 17:22

Macdeo Lurjtux: Jul 5, 2011; BRRREADSTOOORRM!

50's LA with 50's sci fi tech. The players are hunted by Joe Friday and his partner Robbie the Robot.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 18:41

Fenarisk: Oct 27, 2005

Really hoping the 70's italian mob setting can be easily reskinned to Boardwalk Empire.

Also finding a way to run this type of game in Eberron :getin:

# ? Apr 19, 2015 00:56

Galaga Galaxian: Apr 23, 2009; What a childish tactic!
Don't you think you should put more thought into your battleplan?!

Why didn't someone tell me we had a thread for this? :mad:

This game is so cool it managed to get (most) of my old online group back together. We've played 3 sessions so far and while I'm not sure we're doing things quite right, I'm having a good time. 3 sessions in and my Hound has managed to kill 4 people and be indirectly responsible for the death of a fifth person. I'm a bit surprised at myself at how fast I'm starting to see killing someone as an efficient solution to a problem. :v:

At least I've only killed people who are murderous scum like myself (assuming Spirit Wardens count as murderous scum).

Of course, that might be partially because I used the highwayman from Darkest Dungeon as a "my guy looks like this" reference.

I've also caught myself musing every once in a while about how you'd adapt it to modern day criminals (ala GTA or Payday) and Shadowrun. Sure there are eventually going to be kickstarter stretch goal hacks for this stuff, but that is later!

Galaga Galaxian fucked around with this message at 08:12 on Apr 19, 2015

# ? Apr 19, 2015 08:08

Liquid Communism: Mar 9, 2004; Out here, everything hurts.

unseenlibrarian posted:

I wound up bumping up to the hacker tier because the one setting that seemed good for this that didn't show up as a stretch goal is modern urban fantasy. So I will probably work on it myself. Little bit Daniel Faust, little bit Skin Game, little bit Leverage with wizards, demon mob bosses, etc, etc.

Throw in some Laundry Files. Computational demonology is always fun!

# ? Apr 19, 2015 12:58

Lemon-Lime: Aug 6, 2009

Liquid Communism posted:

Throw in some Laundry Files. Computational demonology is always fun!

I would've murdered someone for a Max Gladstone playset instead of Steven Brust. :argh:

# ? Apr 19, 2015 13:05

Redeye Flight: Mar 26, 2010; God, I'm so tired. What the hell did I post last night?

Kai Tave posted:

So Murder is "quick and quiet" and Mayhem is "loud and messy." I can live with that given that Mayhem has other applications as well (wrecking things, causing a ruckus) while Murder is strictly, well, Murder. It seems a little fuzzy around the edges but I suppose that's by intent.

Murder is also the other "quick and quiet" option, which is to say the nonlethal takedown (at least as interpreted in our PBP, shoutouts to Gradenko). To go back to the Dishonored comparison, both the lethal and nonlethal stealth takedowns would use Murder, whereas swordfighting the guards is Mayhem.

# ? Apr 22, 2015 06:53

Lightning Lord: Feb 21, 2013; $200 a day, plus expenses

I've already got plans to run Shadowrun in this when it drops. Hopefully the setting hacks mesh well with each other.

Plague of Hats posted:

They're definitely "Teams" instead of "Crews." Ideas off the top of my head are: the Nine-to-Fivers (government agents), Outcasts (certain versions of X-Men), Fightin' Family (Fantastic Four) and Bickering Soap Operatives (Avengers, or really every team ever).

Bad Weirdness Magnets (Doom Patrol)

Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 11:09 on Apr 22, 2015

# ? Apr 22, 2015 11:06

Foglet: Jun 17, 2014; Reality is an illusion.
The universe is a hologram.
Buy gold.

I was getting a serious Fallen London/Sunless Sea vibe from Blades in the Dark which turned out to be no coincidence at all.

# ? Apr 22, 2015 12:15

Lemon-Lime: Aug 6, 2009

Foglet posted:

I was getting a serious Fallen London/Sunless Sea vibe from Blades in the Dark which turned out to be no coincidence at all.

Still incredibly mad this never happened.

# ? Apr 22, 2015 12:25

Galaga Galaxian: Apr 23, 2009; What a childish tactic!
Don't you think you should put more thought into your battleplan?!

Group played our fourth session today. After gaining a fatigue/Vice level at the end of the third session, I went from 0 to 7 stress in this session one score thanks to us getting rather greedy. We pulled it off pretty well given the rolls we failed at first. :toot:

I didn't even have to kill anyone this time.

Lightning Lord posted:

I've already got plans to run Shadowrun in this when it drops. Hopefully the setting hacks mesh well with each other.

Shadowrun/Generic Cyberpunk is the hack(s) I'm most anticipating. As well as GTA/Payday/Heist-Movie style modern day stuff. I mean I love the "Industrial Fantasy" setting of Duskwall, but I know I can wrap my brain better around criminal activities in more familiar settings.

# ? Apr 23, 2015 00:35

A Fancy 400 lbs: Jul 24, 2008

It looks like from the G+ group we're gonna get the update QS tonight. I'm gonna start planning my own campaign after that. Any good tips for introducing people to the system from GMs that have already run a bit?

# ? Apr 23, 2015 00:53

Galaga Galaxian: Apr 23, 2009; What a childish tactic!
Don't you think you should put more thought into your battleplan?!

John Harper posted:

I've decided to go all in on a bigger batch of tweaks and additions, so the QS update has been delayed. Sorry about that! I'm working to get it ready as soon as I can.

Time to keep waiting. :v:

Galaga Galaxian fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Apr 23, 2015

# ? Apr 23, 2015 21:08

Fumaofthelake: Dec 30, 2004; Is it handsome in here, or is it just me?

Galaga Galaxian posted:

Time to keep waiting.

I made the mistake of not backing so no QS rules for me. Those of you with the privilege of waiting for the update exist to me as Golden Gods with the world at your fingertips.

# ? Apr 23, 2015 22:12

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 19:42

Lemon-Lime: Aug 6, 2009

Galaga Galaxian posted:

Time to keep waiting.

I'm okay with this. Hopefully he decides he's getting rid of the separate Effect roll too, he wasn't 100% sure last I'd heard.

# ? Apr 23, 2015 22:56

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

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