Recent content by thefutilist

The buy in to Blades is that you’re creating characters that can be traumatised by the events of the game in the way the system says. So your internal model has to account for that. Given that, Blades might or might not do that way in a satisfying way. In other words you can like trauma...

I'll respond to other stuff later but I wanted to mark this out. Ansillia having to choose between her life/being captured and the Lotus, never occurred to me but seems an obvious thing in hindsight.

I was going to run through the example with Apocalypse World but after two days of frustration I decided I’m done with the system. I can’t figure out how to use it. It’s not that I can’t create fiction with it or follow the procedures. I just don’t understand what the system is meant to do. I’ve...

This might be dependent upon the order of narration, what the group understands the narration to be doing and the scope of the narration. I think there’s a few important things going on. Let’s say I roll and choose the following: 1) I don’t achieve Halden’s primary goal (Get the Lotus) 2)...

OTHER KIND DICE – BASIC CARDS This was done using the good working outcome set found here: https://lumpley.games/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Good-Working-Outcome-Cards.pdf Taken from the following blog post. https://lumpley.games/2022/03/14/otherkind-dice/ We used: goal, secondary goal, you...

The first system I used was a 50/50 conflict resolution system. When two characters conflict, roll the dice and see which one wins. As a default the PC is Halden but depending on the system it could be all three of the primary characters. Before the encounter even started I noted a few...

I was talking to @pemerton about some tests I was doing comparing systems. I’m not great at combat/thriller set pieces that require a lot of granular orchestration. So I’m running the same situation in different systems with the aim of figuring out what I want and what I should be on the lookout...

I don't like the term Free form. Every Free form game has system mechanics, principles, agendas and best practices, even if they aren't explicit and formalised.

I think I've portrayed my stance as a bit more hard line than it is. I do frequently cross the line but it's the type of thing I wonder about.

It’s where author decision meta-mechanics can get tricky. Does the game assume that you the player wants their character to succeed? Some of my favourite characters, I’ve wanted them to fail because they’re morally repugnant. So if meta-mechanics exist, I’d use them to actively harm the...

This is both dependant upon the game and who you ask. I disagree with a lot of the other narrativist inclined types here because I do think they’re making stuff a bit mushy. So assuming you want narrativist stuff (and that’s not an automatic assumption with blades), you’re making two types of...

Here’s an example of act taken from one of my actual games. The Driver (pc) is trying to stop the Daughter (npc) of the Gunlugger (pc) from running off to join a raid on the broken city (a very dangerous place). They talk and he escalates to physically restraining her. I can’t remember my...

Some notes for later: The 2E version. Keeler the gunlugger’s taken off her shoes and she’s sneaking into Dremmer’s camp, armed as they say to the upper teeth. (On a 7–9, maybe I give her a hard bargain: she can get to Dremmer, sure, but only by breaking cover and alerting his guards.) She hits...

We get into this a bit in the generative resolution thread. I dislike the narr/sim framing though. From where I stand AD&D is closer to Blades than Vampire the Masquerade is. Vampire (and most 90’s games) were still taking their cues from 2E D&D but at that point I’m not sure the system knew...

I think we play rather differently. I find scale is determined in the orchestration phase you alluded to. I can see my players saying ‘climb a mountain’ or ‘bring order to the holding’ or any number of such large scale actions. Whether they’re broken down into component parts seems to be mainly...