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Blades in the Dark Advice Please?
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<blockquote data-quote="Grendel_Khan" data-source="post: 9246340" data-attributes="member: 7028554"><p>This might come across as more aggressive than I mean it to be, but having run SaV (and also kinda taken it apart and put it back together to make it work outside of the imo underwheling default setting), this feels like a bit of a general FitD GM misfire. I was guilty similar ones early on. One of the biggest mistakes I think a GM can make with FitD is zooming in too far, and dicing up the action too finely—basically tilting back into a trad playstyle and rhythm. I think for FitD to work you have to sort of get in and out fast, but make consequences really sting, so the whole thing is worthwhile. And then, in most (though maybe not all) cases back, do Downtime, then get back into the mix.</p><p></p><p>That said, FitD games usually have interesting situations that a PC or entire group can fall into during Downtime, when a non-mission, free play scene suddenly blows up into one or more bad news encounters, and now you're heading into the next mission low on Stress or other resources. When that happens organically, and occasionally, I found that it can be really fun and memorable. But those really have to be super rare exceptions, imo. And in general, a GM that doesn't use the Engagement roll to cut to the chase for a job, and then let the job end (whatever the lingering aftermath), is I think not really playing to the system's strengths, and possibly breaking it a little. I say that, again, as someone who kinda broke things early on. FitD is my favorite system right now, but I think it's also very temperamental.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Though I agree with [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER] that FitD is more flexible than some folks give it credit for, so long as you stick to certain play loops, I agree with you that it's that it's a lot more restrictive than PbtA. But I also think that the emphasis on Blades as a heist game—and, by association, other FitD games kind of settling into heist-y modes and genres—is a little overblown. I think Blades does heists better than a ton of other games, but I don't think that's its real strength, which is creating a kind of pressure-cooker where every decision and roll you make could have tangible, mechanically supported consequences on your character and their environment. Where PbtA games usually have a more general sense of consequences, FitD games are often loaded up with buttons and levers that make those consequences concrete. Heat, Stress, Rep, Faction Status, Money, etc. You piss off a faction because of a roll or a Devil's Bargain and that change in status is quantified, including whether they're merely pissed or at war with you, whereas in another game you really don't know how hard you have to push a faction before it starts sending people to kill you.</p><p></p><p>Those mechanics, and how they make your actions more clearly consequential and setting changing, are what I think makes FitD shine, when it does. That's not going to work for every genre or narrative, but still a decent number of them. I'm running a lightly hacked version of Wicked Ones right now, and that game's take on FitD is doing a good job at sword and sorcery.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Grendel_Khan, post: 9246340, member: 7028554"] This might come across as more aggressive than I mean it to be, but having run SaV (and also kinda taken it apart and put it back together to make it work outside of the imo underwheling default setting), this feels like a bit of a general FitD GM misfire. I was guilty similar ones early on. One of the biggest mistakes I think a GM can make with FitD is zooming in too far, and dicing up the action too finely—basically tilting back into a trad playstyle and rhythm. I think for FitD to work you have to sort of get in and out fast, but make consequences really sting, so the whole thing is worthwhile. And then, in most (though maybe not all) cases back, do Downtime, then get back into the mix. That said, FitD games usually have interesting situations that a PC or entire group can fall into during Downtime, when a non-mission, free play scene suddenly blows up into one or more bad news encounters, and now you're heading into the next mission low on Stress or other resources. When that happens organically, and occasionally, I found that it can be really fun and memorable. But those really have to be super rare exceptions, imo. And in general, a GM that doesn't use the Engagement roll to cut to the chase for a job, and then let the job end (whatever the lingering aftermath), is I think not really playing to the system's strengths, and possibly breaking it a little. I say that, again, as someone who kinda broke things early on. FitD is my favorite system right now, but I think it's also very temperamental. Though I agree with [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER] that FitD is more flexible than some folks give it credit for, so long as you stick to certain play loops, I agree with you that it's that it's a lot more restrictive than PbtA. But I also think that the emphasis on Blades as a heist game—and, by association, other FitD games kind of settling into heist-y modes and genres—is a little overblown. I think Blades does heists better than a ton of other games, but I don't think that's its real strength, which is creating a kind of pressure-cooker where every decision and roll you make could have tangible, mechanically supported consequences on your character and their environment. Where PbtA games usually have a more general sense of consequences, FitD games are often loaded up with buttons and levers that make those consequences concrete. Heat, Stress, Rep, Faction Status, Money, etc. You piss off a faction because of a roll or a Devil's Bargain and that change in status is quantified, including whether they're merely pissed or at war with you, whereas in another game you really don't know how hard you have to push a faction before it starts sending people to kill you. Those mechanics, and how they make your actions more clearly consequential and setting changing, are what I think makes FitD shine, when it does. That's not going to work for every genre or narrative, but still a decent number of them. I'm running a lightly hacked version of Wicked Ones right now, and that game's take on FitD is doing a good job at sword and sorcery. [/QUOTE]
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