Blades in the Dark: A bunch of hacks

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

Foglet: Jun 17, 2014; Reality is an illusion.
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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

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 23:44

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

Tangentially related news: the soundtrack for Sunless Sea has been released on iTunes/Bandicamp/Google Play/elsewhere. It's distillated awesome and a great thematic fit for Blades in the Dark.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2015 05:41

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

https://plus.google.com/+SeanNittner/posts/SJTy9Ex2y1N
1. SRD seems to be coming any moment now;
2. Evil Hat is stepping forward and offering a hand as a publisher for "Forged in the Dark" games (a tentative name for BitD-powered stuff).

# ¿ Nov 28, 2017 06:20

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

Pollyanna posted:

Hmm, I was thinking more of running a heist on Castle Ravenloft in a Persona 5 or maybe even Lupin-style. I really like the idea of a bunch of hardened, gritty thieves and scoundrels straight out of Bloodborne doing some crazy poo poo in one of the more brutal D&D settings. Imagine Castlevania + Thief. If I wanted to heavily alter it, I could even make it a sort of long-running thing, where the aim is to eventually ransack the whole of the Castle over a few scores...but then that�d be wildly different from the original game.

Coincidentally, our very own Flavivirus is supposedly working on an expansion titled Rhapsody of Blood for the second edition of his Legacy game (PbtA isn't Blades in the Dark, but close enough) which sounds extremely close to that premise.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2018 07:49

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

Pollyanna posted:

Hot diggity poo poo, that is a baller RPG! I am really interested in that expansion and I�d love to try playing it when it�s ready.

JoJostlevania is indeed a void in my tabletop heart in desperate need of filling.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2018 20:00

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

Vulpes Vulpes posted:

Did that Leviathan Song expansion by Walton ever come out? I really loved his Dungeon World stuff and I'd like to see more from him.

Not much came out yet. Most of the promised supplement and alternate setting stuff is in the works or in the plans, the nearest being a full release of "Scum and Villainy" in... June, probably?

# ¿ May 11, 2018 04:11

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

Nuns with Guns posted:

The discontent people are expressing is probably from disappointment that a lot of the promised stretch goals have had basically no news for years. I'm phone posting rn but when I looked at the January update last night there were quite a few where the only news John could offer was "in development" or "waiting on response". I can get how you'd be annoyed if you backed the project because a particular hack had a pitch you liked, then three years later there's still no news on if it even exists in a rough draft form.

Me, I'm still amazed how, almost a year and a half since the game's release date, they still haven't made the Special Edition or its contents available for purchase anywhere outside of a certain limited offer last November or announced any specific plans to do it other than "someday, we think". And this is content that's been finished; I'm not holding my breath hoping to see anything that's not even started anytime soon. Perhaps that Forged in the Dark publication scheme will provide at least some of the much desired Blades material.

# ¿ May 11, 2018 22:22

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

Nuns with Guns posted:

That sucks, man. I'd offer to scan and share my Special Edition but I don't have a scanner and iirc the best scans come from ripping the book apart to get flat scans of each page and I'd feel awful doing that.

I do have it too! I'm not even that frustrated I had to break my piggy bank for the "printed SE + PDF SE" bundle, they are pretty great overall! I just have no love for the "kickstarter exclusive" model (esp. for non-decorative stuff), I think it does more harm than good in the long run, and thus I don't like it that Blades remain that way, intentionally or otherwise.

# ¿ May 12, 2018 12:08

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

Judging by Harper's posts, most (or all) third-party stretch goals were intended as unpaid work from the very beginning; thus, no financial relations with their authors, meaning no hard obligations or supervision. So, the situation right now now is kinda sorta a logical outcome.

I don't know, it just sounds terribly counter-intuitive to me to tie their unlocking to the financial progress of the crowdfunding campaign - and then make it so that the extra funds totally do not count for the creators themselves. (Also, it's pretty crappy that this small yet important detail has been quietly kept under the rug until now).

# ¿ May 28, 2018 07:11

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

Comrade Gorbash posted:

Where is it saying it�s unpaid?

See latest Kickstarter comments.

Benjamin Brown 3 days ago
So, to be clear, the stretch goals were going to be unpaid work from some pretty notable industry figures in exchange for ownership of their content and... exposure, I guess?

John Harper (Creator) 2 days ago
@Benjamin: Yes, that's very common. I've made stretch goals for several of those authors, also without payment. Not for exposure, but because I was excited to work on the project and wanted to support it with my efforts.

# ¿ May 28, 2018 15:00

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

I also like the "IF any of the authors of the other stretch goals bow out of their commitments, I will replace them with other authors so those stretch goals will be completed" part; I presume the replacement will be based on the same unpaid principle, keeping the full potential for the story to repeat (otherwise, if he means he will pay the new authors, why not just pay the ones he has?)

# ¿ May 29, 2018 05:49

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

There's been a couple of replies on G+, I think it makes sense to quote them here in their entirety.

John Harper posted:

As I said on the KS comments, this kind of trade of work among designers was very common on RPG kickstarters. I did work for Dungeon World, Undying, and some other KS projects without pay. My friends volunteered to make stuff for my project, so I said yes. Putting that kind of extra content up as a stretch goal was the default method for KS projects in my circle at the time.

Obviously, it's not ideal and could have been communicated better, but it was so common and there hadn't been any backlash to it, so no one thought to lay it out explicitly.

I'm totally willing to pay stretch goal authors if that will help them put the work on the top of their queue. I have zero problem doing that, even though that wasn't the original deal.

I just want the creators to make the things they want to make and for the backers to get the stretch goals. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen.

Stras Acimovic posted:

Lex. A couple of things.

"That�s why we have one stretch goal three years after funding."

That's not why.

For one, the game itself took several years to come out (the final version was almost march of last year). If you've tried writing a 360 page book you'll understand how much effort it takes to put out something of that magnitude. The fact that John pulled it off in two years while doing all his own art is impressive. The fact that he hasn't gotten a second one out is not shocking to me at all now that I've been through that crucible.

Some of the hackers/strech-goal-writers were free as soon as the KS ended, but for many (and I'm in the mix) there was a huge pause as the rules kept changing regularly, and folks took a step back till the game finalized. I know at least 3 hacks that didn't go for any sort of forward motion in that time (Coneycatchers forex had a playable demo with the first ruleset, the one with rolled effect ... you can see the amount of changes that would be needed to catch it up).

In two years that it took for rules to settle, I know two stretch-goal authors that have had kids, some that have been through grad school, and many that have pressing jobs and other commitments that have cropped up. The thing about big projects is that they take time. And priorities and life situations change meaning someone that thought they could just whip off a quick hack just can't at this moment.

So just to wrap back�"just over a year since final rules release, folks haven't managed to write a full book" doesn't sound quite as dramatic.

Two�for many of us we thought we'd smash out a couple quick sheets and that was the end of our commitment. ... ... ... eyes that 360 page pdf_ I'm not sure anyone was ready for what hacking this entails any more than PbtA authors suspect the amount of work a full game takes.

Three�yeah John didn't pay me to do goals for him out of his KS budget. It's true! I was going to do them anyway because I was excited. I wasn't offered a chance to "work for exposure" I volunteered to help him out at the time.

I know this is going to sound weird, but a lot of us indie authors do this for each other's projects. We want to see the project succeed and we volunteer some time to help that.

He doesn't own the material I've written. He has however repeatedly helped with layout, coaching, playtests, support, hype, etc. And doing the goals has actually gotten us a lot of support�the first product has paid for it's own art and layout. We'll see how the second does.

SO. You're not super wrong to ask for updates imo. I do speak to a lot of the authors on the regular for other reasons, and I know most of the projects are in motion in one way or another (there's about 3 I know nothing about, the rest I'm not terribly worried). But asking for some ironclad schedule, or demanding things be finished is probably not going to happen. Not on this project, and not on other KSes.

# ¿ May 29, 2018 08:22

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

To be fair, I see it as less like "make it for us so that we''ll be able to sell it as ours" and more like "make it for yourself so that you're able to sell it as yours", the difference being that the latter has much less of a "do a part of our work for exposure" undertone. But yeah, all the "that's just how we rolled back then in the darkest ages of 2015" and "please don't demand schedules or obligations to finish things from Kickstarter projects" noise sounds awfully... unprofessional (yeah, I'm aware of the irony, hobbyist industry and all).

A person in the comments - an FitD author, no idea whether it's for one of the stretch goals - is saying:

quote:

I think some expectations for KS TTRPGs are set by Kevin Crawford. He recently stated that some of his productivity is because he uses a simple and well established game system, OSR.

I just wanted to say my expectations have recently been set by Legacy 2. That's an example of doing things right which will very likely bring me back as a return customer. While I like Blades a great lot as a product, to the extent of buying a premium hardcover, Harper has been making me less willing to commit to another crowdfunding of his.

# ¿ May 29, 2018 11:45

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

Serf posted:

I'm pretty confused here. If the stretch goal money wasn't being paid to the authors to produce material, where was it going? What was the point of them being stretch goals? If the person was going to work for free anyways, why add the extra money requirement? Seems like a real backwards rear end thing to do.

A Google+ commenter posted:

That's not how Kickstarter works. You don't pay for a service, and unlocking stretch goals does not pay for the content of those stretch goals.

Yeah, no idea here either.

# ¿ May 29, 2018 12:58

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

I felt I had to mention it in the Shadowrun thread: Karma in the Dark went final last October. It is legitimately amazing.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2019 16:42

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

A set of detailed street-by-street maps of Doskvol has been released a few days ago. $8 only, same author as the amazing Dogs in the Bark v0.1 hack.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/307609

# ¿ Apr 25, 2020 22:19

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

Speaking of cyberpunk BitD, anyone know anything about Neon Black?

# ¿ Dec 24, 2020 11:12

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

Helical Nightmares posted:

I've been eyeing Wicked Ones which is...

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/338480/Wicked-Ones?src=hottest

Anyone have opinions on it?

Ran two sessions of it; the rulebook is Very much disorganized while being Very Good.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2021 10:19

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 23:44

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

https://loverdrive.itch.io/swords-under-the-sun

# ¿ Mar 30, 2021 17:25

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