Help me "get" Forged in the Dark.

[Reynard]

I picked up Band of Blades as inspirational reading for my "The Boys meets The Black Company" game, not intending to feel any pull to run it. But I was wrong. As I read through the thing, I find it intriguing and inspiring. But I also know that I don't "get" FitD games. So, I am asking those familiar with and fond of BitD and BoB to help me make sense of the thing.

Here's the first rule: no wall of text explanations. I won't read them and they won't help. Rather, I want to ask specific questions and get specific answers, one at a time, at my pace. If I ask a question that needs a very long response, rather than do that, tell me the right question for the first part of that response.

So I will start with this:

According to the book, the basic mode of play on a mission is:
GM sets the scene
Player says what they want to accomplish
Player says what action they want to use
GM decides on the position and severity
Player rolls the action (potentially getting bonus dice)
The dice tell what kind of success or failure occurs
The GM determines the consequences based on those results (which the player can buy off with stress)
Is that about right?

 

[Tutara]

Pretty much. There is a strong element of negotiation between player and GM throughout - a player can take stress to improve their effect or the number of dice they roll, or take a ‘devil’s bargain’ to boost their chances in exchange for a complication (‘The lock is old and rusty, but so is the door. It’s easier to pick but will make a lot of noise when opened’ for example).

Note that this negotiation is codified to an extent - players shouldn’t just be begging for an easier position, they need to give something towards making it happen (usually stress or consequences).

 

[pemerton]

@Ovinomancer, @Manbearcat and @hawkeyefan all have extensive BitD experience.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I picked up Band of Blades as inspirational reading for my "The Boys meets The Black Company" game, not intending to feel any pull to run it. But I was wrong. As I read through the thing, I find it intriguing and inspiring. But I also know that I don't "get" FitD games. So, I am asking those familiar with and fond of BitD and BoB to help me make sense of the thing.

Here's the first rule: no wall of text explanations. I won't read them and they won't help. Rather, I want to ask specific questions and get specific answers, one at a time, at my pace. If I ask a question that needs a very long response, rather than do that, tell me the right question for the first part of that response.

So I will start with this:

According to the book, the basic mode of play on a mission is:
GM sets the scene
Player says what they want to accomplish
Player says what action they want to use
GM decides on the position and severity
Player rolls the action (potentially getting bonus dice)
The dice tell what kind of success or failure occurs
The GM determines the consequences based on those results (which the player can buy off with stress)
Is that about right?

Maybe. It could be right, but you need to always be applying the agenda and principles of play. If you aren't, and are instead ignoring them or replacing them, then the above has the same general steps but will end up not right.

The main thing to grok is that the GM's role in FitD is largely reactionary. You can't plan for what players are going to do, nor should you (outside of maybe some general case things to aid, like some stock scene complications and some stock ideas for consequences). So, don't. Follow. And always, always, always set scenes with an immediately threat looming. If you're setting a scene, it's because there needs to be some action taken to head something off. No neutral scenes.

 

[hawkeyefan]

GM decides on the position and severity
Player rolls the action (potentially getting bonus dice)
The dice tell what kind of success or failure occurs
The GM determines the consequences based on those results (which the player can buy off with stress)
Is that about right?

Your summary sounds right. I’ve narrowed in on the steps above because I think these are where a good chunk of the GM’s work will be.

The big thing to do as a GM is to determine consequences. You always want to have something interesting happen. Learning how to do that is something that will get better with practice. Just know that the Position, combined with the die roll, is what determines if there’s a consequence, and if so how bad.

So set the scene. Establish the stakes. Telegraph the potential consequences. Then, depending on the roll, don’t be afraid to follow through. The player rolls a 1-3 when in a Desperate position? That’s a serious consequence. Don’t softball it. The player has options through playbook abilities, gear, or Resistance Rolls to lessen the severity.

Have the consequences flow from the fiction and establish a new situation. I think these are some of the key bits to GMing FitD games.

 

[Tonguez]

The way I grokked onto the game is that rather than thinking about ‘my characters next Action” think of it as “lets negotiate what Outcome we want for this scene” - what can the players add to get it or the GM do to complicate it, and then let dice determine consequences.

 

[Reynard]

Thanks everyone.

I do feel like I am getting a little bit of contradictory advice in that it sounds like like I'm supposed to decide what happens (consequences) at the same time players are (outcomes). Can someone speak to what im mixing up there.

Let me give an example of how I think it is supposed to work:

Let's say I the mission is to load up on provisions from a village the Legion is passing by/through. The villagers of course don't want to give up their grain and pigs or whatever, so tensions are high.

If iwere doing this scene in a trad game, I would establish for myself beforehand that there is a group of tough led by a deserter that are going to resist the Legion stealing their stuff and conscription the able bodied young men.

In BoB am I still doing that as part of my scene setting, or am I supposed to invent those sorts of things only in response to actions and roll results. If the former, I am still not sure how the GMs job significantly departs from other ways of playing in which you give players lots of room to choose their goals and approaches.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

In BoB am I still doing that as part of my scene setting, or am I supposed to invent those sorts of things only in response to actions and roll results. If the former, I am still not sure how the GMs job significantly departs from other ways of playing in which you give players lots of room to choose their goals and approaches.

In my experience you might be starting a given scene or encounter in what you're saying is not a significant departure from a trad approach. The biggest difference is how things proceed from there, which is much more improvisational, and often much faster-to-resolve.

-The range of outcomes based on a PC's chosen action, and then roll, is extremely broad. In a trad approach it might be pretty binary—the PCs convince the toughs, or they don't. The matrix of different options and roll results in FitD mean that way more kinds of things could result. A miss on a desperate action might mean that not only do the toughs attack, but more of them show up to flank the PCs.

-Once you resolve the first action, the outcome determines what happens next, not some preplanned plot trigger or victory/fail condition you've set up. So let's say you offered the rolling player a Devil's Bargain that, no matter how they roll, the deserter leading those toughs is going to want to duel them. Or a different bargain, that he's going to become their enemy for the foreseeable future. If the player takes the bargain, and gets the associated bonus on their roll, that will set up both immediate and lasting consequences. Maybe in the resulting duel the player rolls a success with consequence that means they beat the deserter in a manner that's so extreme they gain a lasting rep for brutality among the civilian population. Or if the bargain is that the deserter is now an enemy, a future missed roll could mean he's ratted your unit out to the undead army's scouts, and they try to ambush you.

Some might say that establishing the deserter-led group of toughs in the first place isn't a pure FitD play loop, and that you'd want to let something like that appear based on rolls. But I think occasional trad-style setups are fine, especially early in a session or mission, as long as you let things take a more improvisational direction for the rest of it. And in the case of Blades in the Dark or Scum and Villainy, you might start the score with a situation like you described—a clear sub-goal and obstacle—based on the results of the Engagement roll (the roll that's meant to start you in media res, basically, partway through the score).

Btw, I'm very excited that you're giving BoB a close read. I would say, though, that I find that one among the more difficult FitD games to really understand or use. Even Blades in the Dark was a little wriggly for me. It wasn't until I read Scum and Villainy, and started viewing all of the mechanics through a pulpy, fast-paced Star Wars lens that it really clicked for me. Not saying you should put down BoB at all. Just noting that I think I'd have a really tough time GMing it, since it doesn't seem to allow for as much flexibility when improvising and reacting, which is almost all you're doing as a FitD GM. I'd be constantly worried about running it off the rails (since that game is definitely on rails, at a macro level) or violating the tone and premise, in a way that I wouldn't with most other FitD games.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Thanks everyone.

I do feel like I am getting a little bit of contradictory advice in that it sounds like like I'm supposed to decide what happens (consequences) at the same time players are (outcomes). Can someone speak to what im mixing up there.

Let me give an example of how I think it is supposed to work:

Let's say I the mission is to load up on provisions from a village the Legion is passing by/through. The villagers of course don't want to give up their grain and pigs or whatever, so tensions are high.

Well, one, the players are going to tell you what the mission is, and how they're approaching it, and then the engagement roll will say how it's supposed to open. This is the hard shift stuff, because it's very different from D&D preplanning or prep or even GM says improv. The GM is reactive here -- they have to wait for the players to tell them what they're doing, how their doing it, and then the engagement roll to see how it's going when you start in media res.

If iwere doing this scene in a trad game, I would establish for myself beforehand that there is a group of tough led by a deserter that are going to resist the Legion stealing their stuff and conscription the able bodied young men.

In BoB am I still doing that as part of my scene setting, or am I supposed to invent those sorts of things only in response to actions and roll results. If the former, I am still not sure how the GMs job significantly departs from other ways of playing in which you give players lots of room to choose their goals and approaches.

No, because once you open the scene, the players get to say how they're going to try and deal with it. And you, as GM, don't have "no" authority over those actions. Well, I mean, we're talking about non-bad-faith declarations, that aren't violating the principles of play for the players (like, "I find the solution to win in the toilet!"). Instead, you challenge them, and if they players succeed, what they're trying happens, or happens and you level a cost. If they fail, you level the consequence. The success level and consequence level are determined by position and effect (or whatever BoB calls these).

 

[innerdude]

I've noted before that the biggest thing that made PbtA / FitD style games "click" for me was playing Ironsworn solo. As both player and GM for the same character, the mindset of "taking things as they come" and extrapolating from established fiction in the moment, rather than prestructuring events like I would in a trad game, all came together like magic. I just got it.

Yes, you're still drawing on the fiction of the setting, and making judgement calls as the GM, but to make the experience fun and compelling, you have to radically put aside the notion that anything you've thought of in the "GM brain" side of the equation is actually true until the game and its mechanics make it true.

The fiction may revise in ways that are totally unexpected---but still true to the game world and the results of your character action declaration.

From my reading of Court of Blades, the main things FitD layers on top of this is the ability for the players to exert even more control over consequences by trading off position for effect, and then letting the scenes play out and see how it goes.