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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8459132" data-attributes="member: 6696971">[USER=85870]@innerdude[/USER] , I've offered several people to watch our Blades game on Wednesday nights (tomorrow at 8:30 EST).  At this point in my life, it it can't be done via post-mortem of excerpts, then the next best thing (or perhaps the first best thing) is to (a) watch an actual play loop with proficient participants and then (b) ask them about x, y, and z (anything that is particularly important to you to penetrate the mysteries of or that are unclear in your watching).If this interests you, let me know.I'm sick with a head flu, so the game is 50: 50 tomorrow night, but I'm pretty headstrong and stubborn so if I can run at all, the game will be on.  If this interests you, just PM and I'll get you an invite to Discord.[HR][/HR]I'm going to copy and paste a post I wrote to Malmuria the other day when he inquired.  This is basically what a Blades loop looks like that I run:my GMing is bog standard Blades in the Dark:* Play to find out.* Make the world real, compelling, and dangerous.* Follow their lead (ask questions > use the answers, present opportunities > follow, telegraph threats > tell them consequences > present decision-point and ask > resolve > follow through, present thematic/dramatic need based choices).* Follow the rules > lead an interesting conversation > follow the fiction > create an atmosphere of curiosity and transparency.A typical play loop will look like this:ME: Alright what is the Crew up to?US: We collectively consider the accreted fiction to date, particularly the recent stuff. They look at the Setting/Faction Clocks that are online with particular attention paid to the stuff that is about to go boom and/or the most dangerous stuff with the worst downstream consequences. They look at their own agendas as it relates to their dramatic needs or their Friends or Rivals. They look at the Claim map.THEM: They winnow down a list of maybe 2-3 things from a menu of maybe 5-6 things they could focus on.US: We discuss what that would look like in the fiction, win cons, loss cons, implications on the current gamestate and fiction (eg Hold lost for a rival gang, shutting down a dangerous clock, downtiering a supernatural plague, eliminating a rival, starting a setting clock or increasing the dice pool of an existing one to help a problem, gaining faction with someone, getting a persistent asset for their loadout or a Claim, etc etc.THEM: They winnow it down further to the Score they want to focus on for the evening.ME: I ask them questions about what each of them are doing, what their cohorts are doing. If its just simple Info Gathering then they pick a Contact or Friend or an allied Faction and they make an Action Roll and we get a result. If its more complicated than that and/or if they're still kind of musing between a few Scores I'll just say "alright how about this...and we'll talk about a scene opener which includes a place and people and situation and then we'll run a fast-paced Free Play scene."RESULTS: This stuff will crystalize (a) the Score target (which carries a lot of info in it from Tier to Scale to consequence space)/goal/detail (eg route, entry or attack point, the social connection...etc), (b) the locale/people involved/situation, and (c) the Engagement Roll dice pool. This stuff will create opening Position (threat level of the framed situation to open the Score) and constrain all aspects of my decision-space for framing fairly significantly. I'll have a little bit of wiggle room, but not much (and that wiggle room is, again, constrained by all other aspects of system and its all table-facing). They'll decide Loadout for each of them right before this and off we go.CONVERSATION: From there its just the typical conversation. We'll perform any firming up of the situation that needs to be done for actions to be declared. I'll tell them the potential consequences most of the time. Sometimes, its obvious. Sometimes its more open-ended (eg if you're in Six Tower with 3 rating Occult and your Enemy is a Demon who just reconstituted via a Setting Clock that wasn't disrupted...they're now on the table to deploy). We'll sort out Effect by tallying relevant factors. One or more people will roll dice (Setup before primary Action? Group Move? Assist? Push? Cohorts involved?). If there is success, we'll move the fiction along by following it based on all of the above and the Effect (if they've got sufficient Effect to resolve the obstacle, we move to another obstacle...obstacle space is relevant to locale to Score type to Score target to locale to present goings-ons with the Crew or with the ward they're in...to whether things were complicated during Info Gathering - which is transparent conversation...if they don't have enough Effect to resolve the obstacle, either its a Clock and they need 4+ticks to resolve or if they have Limited or Standard Effect and they need Standard or Limited to resolve, then the situation will change and we'll continue until that obstacle is resolved). If there is a complication, then they'll choose to Resist and how and we'll resolve that. Etc etc.And this is all Score dependent. If its a Transport Score through a Ward, we use a Ward map and draw a route with obstacles (and they reroute if things get hairy on their current route). If its a Social Score, then I'll tell them the Clock that gatekeeps the next Clock and if we're Tug-of-War or Mission Clocks and if the NPC is a Master Level Threat (so I'm just putting Complications on them that they can choose to Resist or not). Etc etc.All of this continues until the win con of the Score is achieved (they make it to the destination in the Transport Score, they exfil after their infil if there is a complication at the end of their Stealth Score, after they've scorched all the earth they had set out to scorch in an Assault Score, after they've completed the Clocks to win a Social Score...etc etc)...or they bail because things have gone south...or everyone Stresses out or perishes or a mix.PAYOFF/FACTIONS/CRIME BOSS/HEAT/ENTANGLMENT/DOWNTIME - We resolve collectively per Blades 101. The most abstract part of this is Faction and Crime Boss and we discuss together per normal conversation. Basically extrapolation of the Fiction for relevant fallout and who would be the power broker in the ward that would be most interested in/perturbed by the Crew's Score on their territory...or if there even is one.Rinse/repeat until the Crew is toast (2 of my recent games have been crushed due to the game of spinning plates overwhelming the Crew and leading to death of members/arrests/dispersal of the Crew and the other one was just a clustereff of an early Score leading to the Crew's demise). One of them is still online and going strong at Tier 3. One is starting up just now as an Untouchables/True Detective game that is investigating the huge uptick of child abductions (its an inquisition by the state Church of Ecstasy into possible apostasy) in Duskvol. We'll see how that goes.</blockquote>

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