Let's talk about "plot", "story", and "play to find out."

Crimson Longinus · Feb 5, 2026

Fenris-77 said:
Oh jesus. If you manage a coherent account of actual Blades play, I'll respond to it. I think that sounds fair. Unlikely, but fair.

This is not about my accounts of play. This is about whether the decisions based on clocks are meta. You seem to think they are not. It should not be this difficult to explain why you believe this to be the case. Instead of even attempting to answer, you result to ad hominems.

Crimson Longinus · Feb 5, 2026

zakael19 said:
A consequence clock is just a way to be non-arbitrary about outcomes in a way the players can see. A goal clock is a way to be non-arbitrary about progress in a way the players can see. The actual practice of engaging with a clock uses the same Positon and Effect mechanics as every single other Action in the game. If you want Great Effect to move beyond what the GM says is Standard, you want that and engage with that in the fiction.

Of course there’s meta/mechanic engagement, the game demands that. You’re supposed to always have a meta channel open; but it’s all supposed to go fiction -> mechanics -> fiction.

Dozens of hours of play and I haven’t had any issues keeping that going after getting myslef
And my players all comfy and performing with the design.

No one is questioning whether this works. It is question of whether this meta-channel makes decisions based on information it provides metagaming, and to me it seems pretty clear that it does.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a thing.

Fenris-77 · Feb 5, 2026

Crimson Longinus said:
This is not about my accounts of play. This is about whether the decisions based on clocks are meta. You seem to think they are not. It should not be this difficult to explain why you believe this to be the case. Instead of even attempting to answer, you result to ad hominems.

No, it really is about your generally incoherent account of how Blades play works. I'm happy to disagree and walk away though, I don't see much profit in the current exchange. An appeal to spurious fallacies doesn't really add much, although it is perhaps revealing.

Kannik · Feb 5, 2026

Lanefan said:
Many rom-coms suffer from the same problem: in order to further the plot (such as it ever is) the script-writers have the characters do stupid and very avoidable things, leading to that same face-palm response from me.

Just a quick aside for those reading this thread and unfamiliar with what might be termed more "narrative" games so that a wrong impression isn't created: This is not an intention nor a feature nor a requirement for playing these kind of games.

Quite the contrary, as the intention is to create developed and consistent characters, and so acting out of character just for "plot" reasons is antithetical to the whole thing.

Fenris-77 · Feb 5, 2026

Crimson Longinus said:
No one is questioning whether this works. It is question of whether this meta-channel makes decisions based on information it provides metagaming, and to me it seems pretty clear that it does.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a thing.

If you say meta enough it must be true at some point, right?

zakael19 · Feb 5, 2026

Fenris-77 said:
If you say meta enough it must be true at some point, right?

Well, the game is quite clear about keeping a metachannel open and using the mechanics and procedure of the game, before returning to the fictional perspective. So whatever you want to call that, it’s not hiding that you should use the rules of the game to push the outcomes and story your table wants together (see: the discussion of how different consequences can play out depending on how the table desires).

Fenris-77 · Feb 5, 2026

zakael19 said:
Well, the game is quite clear about keeping a metachannel open and using the mechanics and procedure of the game, before returning to the fictional perspective. So whatever you want to call that, it’s not hiding that you should use the rules of the game to push the outcomes and story your table wants together (see: the discussion of how different consequences can play out depending on how the table desires).

That's not the use of meta in this case, but otherwise I agree.

zakael19 · Feb 5, 2026

Fenris-77 said:
That's not the use of meta in this case, but otherwise I agree.

Yeah no I know I was just trying to clarify that the game already is clear and expects you to engage with it at multiple levels throughout play. The P&E discussion is inherently fusing fiction and mechanics in a very open and deliberate way that the whole table can see and understand.

Crimson Longinus · Feb 6, 2026

zakael19 said:
Well, the game is quite clear about keeping a metachannel open and using the mechanics and procedure of the game, before returning to the fictional perspective. So whatever you want to call that, it’s not hiding that you should use the rules of the game to push the outcomes and story your table wants together (see: the discussion of how different consequences can play out depending on how the table desires).

Yes, it is clear, so I do not understand why some people wanted to deny it so much.

But this is also the thing that makes the game not so great for immersionist first person perspective, as it sort of expects you to often assume more of a third person author perspective. Which again is not bad thing, just a matter of taste whether you like it or not, but again something certain people keep denying. I don't know why.

Now advocating for my character's interests and advocating for most interesting story are different things, and these certainly are things that can come into conflict in most RPGs, but I think games who ask to inhabit the author stance more actively are more prone to it.

And I think most of the mechanics in Blades are structured from the perspective that the players are advocating for their character's interests, and achieving them is desirable. There are mechanics for avoiding "bad stuff" and by spending XP you can get more of such features and other features that just makes your character better at achieving their goals etc. But then it also says not to care about the character success and forge the best story. So I think there is a bit of tension between the rules and the intended style of play.

And I am sure people again will get defensive and mad at me for slandering their favourite game or something, but I hope that even if you would disagree with me about how well Blades is designed, you would see my point about the tension between the crafting the best story and advocating for the interests of the character, and how it is an interesting design challenge for the rules to support both.

soviet · Feb 6, 2026

Crimson Longinus said:
You can telegraph that the clock has ticked, but realistically it is pretty hard to constantly telegraph at which point of a six segment clock you're at. The players just know this by looking at the clock, thus decisions made based on that are somewhat meta.

So every decision made by a player in an RPG is somewhat meta by definition? IRL I don't know my to-hit bonus, damage dice, hit points, AC, movement rate, and skill modifiers, but I do know these things for my character when I play an RPG.