The core mechanisms of Blades in the Dark (action rolls, resist rolls, and clocks) marry gamist and narrativist play beautifully, while allowing room for negotiated sim too. The book could be organized & written better, but once you have things down it's pretty sweet and as streamlined or drawn-out as you want it to be, on the fly even.
Tell Me About Your Favorite Mechanics
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
Scum and Villainy is a much cleaner explanation of the BitD mechanics.
thullgrim
Hero
I love random character creation in WHFRP 4e. There’s something exciting rolling to see if your a servant, a rat catcher, a wizard, or whatever else. That the system incentivizes the random rolling by awarding additional XP at start for playing the random creation game is a nice bonus.
Parmandur
Book-Friend, he/him
Ooooh, interesting.
Building on that, Travellers in it's various forms has my favorite character creation. Love the random life path that ends up with a usable, if not really superheroes, character.
The first time encountered a life path was Cyberpunk 2020 and I still considered it the pinnacle of the form.
I like the way BitD does resistance rolls. It’s like a generalized saving throw. It gives the players control over consequences, but you have to be careful not to push your luck to hard lest you take too much stress. I like that it allows you to hit them with consequences that make sense for the situation even if they are harsh. It’s influenced the way I do Defense Checks (formerly saving throws) in my homebrew system.
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
My favorite character creation method in the prose format suggested by HeroQuest 2nd Edition. Write a 100-word summary of the character and underline the important bits. Those are your traits. Have a trait the positively affects the situation, get a bonus. Have a trait that negatively affects the situation, get a penalty.
My favorite way to track damage is strikes. Usually three strikes and you’re out. Dead or unconscious depending on genre. You get hit, take a strike. Simple. Some games use armor as breakable protection to cancel hits, like 24XX.
For task resolution I have three top contenders.
1. Opposed 2d6 rolls. Traits (as above) give you advantage or disadvantage.
2. Up-and-Down Beat. From HeroQuest 2E. The number rolled for this action becomes the DC for the next action. This guarantees a flow of up beats (successes) and down beats (failures). Traits (as above) give you advantage or disadvantage.
3. Over the Edge 3rd Edition. Roll 2d6. Active, TN7. Reactive, TN8. Positive twists from 4s. Negative twists from 3s. Traits (as above) give you advantage or disadvantage.
My favorite way to track damage is strikes. Usually three strikes and you’re out. Dead or unconscious depending on genre. You get hit, take a strike. Simple. Some games use armor as breakable protection to cancel hits, like 24XX.
For task resolution I have three top contenders.
1. Opposed 2d6 rolls. Traits (as above) give you advantage or disadvantage.
2. Up-and-Down Beat. From HeroQuest 2E. The number rolled for this action becomes the DC for the next action. This guarantees a flow of up beats (successes) and down beats (failures). Traits (as above) give you advantage or disadvantage.
3. Over the Edge 3rd Edition. Roll 2d6. Active, TN7. Reactive, TN8. Positive twists from 4s. Negative twists from 3s. Traits (as above) give you advantage or disadvantage.
GMMichael
Guide of Modos
Everything that can be invented has been invented. We're just here to have fun.
I like positioning zones, versus grid-location. Because few things suck the fun out of combat like having to ask if you have enough movement left for that.
Sure. I was honestly curious if there was a new twist on wealth checks, tho.
I like zones for cinematic action, but like counting squares if tactical positioning matters.
I forgot to answer my own question!
1) Aspects from Fate. They are easily portable to any other game with something like a metacurrency (I use them in combination with Inspiration in 5E, frex) and superior to most other methods of trying to weave together the Player's concept of their character and the game system representation thereof.
2) I really like the (older) Year Zero Engine core dice pool mechanic, where different dice represent different elements of the attempt so have different impacts for success and failure.
3) momentum and threat from 2d20. It keeps things moving and makes metacurrency spends dramatic. I incorporate it into a lot of games, including using a Bennie pool in Savage Worlds.
1) Aspects from Fate. They are easily portable to any other game with something like a metacurrency (I use them in combination with Inspiration in 5E, frex) and superior to most other methods of trying to weave together the Player's concept of their character and the game system representation thereof.
2) I really like the (older) Year Zero Engine core dice pool mechanic, where different dice represent different elements of the attempt so have different impacts for success and failure.
3) momentum and threat from 2d20. It keeps things moving and makes metacurrency spends dramatic. I incorporate it into a lot of games, including using a Bennie pool in Savage Worlds.
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