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.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I don’t know. Do you already know this person? How are you building rapport? How much time do you have to do that?

Do you think it is convenient, that every time someone tries to persuade someone we need to discuss this sort of checklist?

Without knowing all that, I think Sway is the obvious way to go.

How, why? Based on what?

I mean, if there’s nothing preventing someone from staying at a distance from the fight and then firing at a target… sure, why not go with Hunt?

Right. So the player uses their descriptions to make use of desired skill plausible, Just like I have been saying.

Hard to admit? No, not at all. But again… I’ve seen plenty of games that didn’t face the confusion that yours does.

Is it hard to admit that some of the fault is your group’s?

I am sure some of it is fault of our group, but also, a lot of other people have said similar things, even in this thread. It is frustrating to discuss this game, because hard core adherents will not listen any criticism, and say that to them everything just magically works without being able to explain how. And the ambiguity of skills is objective fact about this system, and it is hardly surprising that it could lead to situations I describe.

I already did explain it… it’s to promote creative play.

I also didn’t say it wasn’t related to skilled play.

So now we are supposed to creatively angle for use of better skills. But when I say we are doing it, you say we are doing it wrong? Which is it?

Yeah, but you can adjust if you want. Also, you seem to be ignoring a lot of what’s in the book already.

You keep saying stuff like that. Then be specific. Quote what we are ignoring.

I donMt think it’s more appropriate. I said an argument could be made.

Mate. It is a duel between two disciples of the same martial school, a master and pupil in fact, fought using the ritual weapons of said school. It cannot get any more duely than this, so if this is not a clear case for finesse in combat, nothing is.

And this. This is the sort of discussion is what happens at the table.

No. I said that the game doesn’t always grind to a halt so a decision on how to proceed can be determined. I never said that there is not overlap in some of the actions.

It’s just not an issue for my groups at all.

How? Do everyone magically and telepathically always agree what skill is most appropriate, or do you defer to the opinion of one person (presumably the GM or the person using the skill.) Because otherwise it will happen. Lately we often just defer to the choice of the skill user, to get past this, but this of course means that people are free to use their best somewhat plausible skill.

Waylaying someone in a battle is different than facing someone in a duel.

Is it? What if the other guy thinks it is duel, and but I am fighting dirty? What if they are distracted by other combatant? What exactly are the parameters of waylaying in battle? On what basis are you making these determinations?

Right. And I’m telling you that the GM should likely ramp up the pressure so that resource usage is not something that never matters.

So one of us does not understand how the system works, it seems. You can take coin out of stash right? And you will get stash every time your gang levels, right? Even if you do not do the smart thing and take Little Something on the Side at first opportunity you will soon have some stash. So a situation where you absolutely cannot do a downtime action and must make this hard choice can only occur when you stash is depleted. And sure, such could happen so often than this eventually happens, but apart the early game this seems unlikely, and would mean that the characters are simply unable to accumulate stash at all, which probably is not intended or assumed level of pressure.

Flavour of your action declaration is not what I’m talking about.

Yes it is. It affects the fiction which affects appropriate skill.

To some extent, sure. But players are also meant to follow the fiction, embrace danger, and not be a weasel.

I’d personally filter whatever I wanted my character to do through those principles, and then of any options that might remain, choose what was most advantageous for me.

Yes, so do I. Yet we apparently do not agree what that means. I understand it as characters making choices to do dangerous things in the fiction, but the players using their game savvy for trying to ensure that this succeeds. You seem to understand it to mean something else, but I am not sure what, expect that you think we are doing things wrong somehow.

I like this game well enough, even though I have my issues with it. But it is frustrating to try to discuss matters relating to it here, as aficionados of the game are so defensive about it.

 

[Fenris-77]

I like this game well enough, even though I have my issues with it. But it is frustrating to try to discuss matters relating to it here, as aficionados of the game are so defensive about it.

To be fair, your account of how the game plays is very odd. Fishing for specific stat use just isn't how the game is supposed to be played past a certain point. It's like goofy advantage fishing in D&D. Obviously, you want to use your best skills, and you can set situations up in order to do that, but it's the GM's job to reign that in past a certain point, usually via position and effect. Letting players use whatever skill they want on the flimsiest of excuses runs precisely counter to the account of play given in the rules.

It's worth pointing out that the resistance mechanics are specifically set up to reward broad rather than deep skill acquisition. In most of the games I've played my character would have died many, many times if I'd focused my skills to max out on 3 and 4 dot specializations.

If you have fun playing that way, all power to you, but your use of the rules at your table is not in any way standard. The issue at hand is your attempt to explain 'how the game works' using your idiosyncratic version, which simply isn't accurate.

 

[zakael19]

It's worth pointing out that the resistance mechanics are specifically set up to reward broad rather than deep skill acquisition. In most of the games I've played my character would have died many, many times if I'd focused my skills to max out on 3 and 4 dot specializations.

My last FITD game most of the characters were action specialists, and then we had one who had 3 dots in each attribute. They muddled their way through rolling lots of 0d and 1d stuff, pulling things out by the skin of their teeth usually by spending copious amounts of stress. Great fiction and gaming.

Edit: oh yeah, that was the character who managed the astonishing feat of nothing higher than a 3 on a 5d pool.