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

[Scott Christian]

No, I’m not blind. What a douchey way to disagree.

I have run both types of campaigns as well. I’m not blind to the differences. I have a different experience than you, and that’s led to a different point of view. Telling someone they’re blind because they don’t have the same exact view as you seems… myopic, at best.

You are right. It was wrong and myopic. I should not have used that word, and I apologize.

Have you run any games that were designed specifically around little to no prep? D&D and similar games typically benefit from some kind of prep… a location map and key, NPCs and monsters with detailed stats, and so on.

But what about a game that doesn’t rely on those things? Do you have any experience with such games?

Yes. I have played several story centered games. Once Upon a Time and Moth's story/card game that I can't think of right now. I ran a long campaign of Vampire the Masquerade many years ago. I have also played Cthulhu, and right now we are playing Daggerheart. I consider all of those pretty rules light (maybe not Vampire), prep light, and a strong focus on improv and narrative.

I have not played Blades in the Dark, but I have seen it used as an example many times.

 

[zakael19]

Ah. Using the phrase "harder to do" in an idiosyncratic way. Most everywhere else, that'd mean some variant of "lower odds of success on the dice."

Huh? No, that's what I meant - position and effect never affect the dice pool. Thus it's never "harder to do" being judged, it's "how much risk is it to do this thing based on the fiction" and "what will you get out of it."

You know, the same sort of thing a GM adjudges in any game, just clear and in teh open. Blades says "try not to say no" to things, which in another game a GM would just go "no you can't do that" a lot of the time. Instead say "hey, that would probably be limited effect and pretty risky, yeah? Do you want to maybe try a different approach? Or do you have some gear that'll boost your Effect? Maybe your friends can help, or you can Push yourself?"

There's so many tools in Blades, that the GM needs to be absolutely honest with the fictional position and effect.

 

[Umbran]

Huh? No, that's what I meant - position and effect never affect the dice pool. Thus it's never "harder to do" being judged, it's "how much risk is it to do this thing based on the fiction" and "what will you get out of it."

I was responding to, and I quote (with my emphasis):

"Generally if you want to do something that's just like, harder to pull off based on tehfiction? It's going to affect your position and effect - you'll get less, and it'll be more dangerous."

So to me, that "harder to pull off" is being judged. If you weren't, you couldn't say the thing harder to pull off would have these lesser, riskier results.

 

[zakael19]

I was responding to, and I quote (with my emphasis):

"Generally if you want to do something that's just like, harder to pull off based on tehfiction? It's going to affect your position and effect - you'll get less, and it'll be more dangerous."

So to me, that "harder to pull off" is being judged. If you weren't, you couldn't say the thing harder to pull off would have these lesser, riskier results.

"Harder to pull off based on the fiction." My entire statement was about how we understand the fictional impacts of a desired course of action.

As in like, "so you want to fight a gang of Bluecoats with a dinner knife? I mean, you're good at fighting but that's pretty risky! That's going to be desperate position, and you're going to be at limited effect, maybe you'll bruise them a little."

Nowhere in there am I talking about their dice pool (chance of success), I'm talking about how hard it is to fight a group of guys with swords with your dinner knife.

Blades has set outcomes, it's a PBTA dice pool variant. If your best die is a 6, it's the best outcome (crits on doubles 6s). If it's a 4-5, it's ehhh; and if it's a 1-3 it's bad. Position affects how bad things can be on the 5-; and effect determines what you'll get on the 4+. The odds of success are entirely driven by the dice pool.

 

[pemerton]

"Harder to pull off based on the fiction." My entire statement was about how we understand the fictional impacts of a desired course of action.

As in like, "so you want to fight a gang of Bluecoats with a dinner knife? I mean, you're good at fighting but that's pretty risky! That's going to be desperate position, and you're going to be at limited effect, maybe you'll bruise them a little."

Nowhere in there am I talking about their dice pool (chance of success), I'm talking about how hard it is to fight a group of guys with swords with your dinner knife.

Blades has set outcomes, it's a PBTA dice pool variant. If your best die is a 6, it's the best outcome (crits on doubles 6s). If it's a 4-5, it's ehhh; and if it's a 1-3 it's bad. Position affects how bad things can be on the 5-; and effect determines what you'll get on the 4+. The odds of success are entirely driven by the dice pool.

I don't know exactly how BitD explains what you've posted here. I think Ironsworn does a pretty good job. And your post is clear too!

It's pretty hard to translate it into a difficulty-based system without loss or distortion, but here's my attempt:

In D&D, the difficult position would be reflected by a penalty to the roll; and the limited effect also perhaps by a penalty to the roll or, in combat, by a penalty to damage (eg using a knife rather than a greatsword is, in effect, a penalty to your damage). So you will probably need more than one go to succeed. You'd have to be pretty lucky to succeed in one go.

In BitD, if you're trying with desperate position and limited effect, you'd also have to be pretty lucky (eg roll a crit) or push yourself (or whatever) to succeed in one go. It's more likely that you won't fully succeed, and that the situation will bite you hard.

 

[Fenris-77]

That sounds like double, or triple, jeopardy.

It is harder to do, and you get less for it, and it is more dangerous for you?

Because it's a tough thing to attempt in the situation. It's not double jeopardy though, just a function of how Blades has both position and effect as adjudication tools. It's not like a D20 game where chances to hit are the only slider with damage as a constant. The flip side is that with planning the same character can get extra dice and more damage out of that same system.

 

[Fenris-77]

The die pool doesn't change, no. Position is set by how advantageous the situation is for the PC and each level, Controlled/Risky/Desperate has increasingly bad consequences for a failed roll, but without changing the chances of success. Effect, Great/Standard/Limited is set by assessing a range of factors, including scale, quality, and potency all of which index how appropriate your available tools are in terms of expected efficacy. The default is Standard which would put two ticks on the clock to achieve the desires success, with Great adding one tick, and Limited taking one tick away. So you can see that the range isn't the same as, say, critical damage in D&D.

In addition, after position and effect are set the player may choose to trade one for the other (in either direction). The most common is to trade worse position (Risky to Desperate) in order to increase effect (Limited to Standard) which represents taking more risks to try and get a better shot it.

Personally, I love position and effect as adjudication tools, but it does take some actual play experience to get used to, even on the player side.