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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fenris-77" data-source="post: 8676153" data-attributes="member: 6993955">Sure, I'll attempt a precis. The three levels of position are controlled, risky, and desperate. The three levels of effect are limited, standard, and great. The standard action in Blades is Risky/Standard and that's what the rules for everything are based on. You can improve position/effect via better equipment and skills, generally. The point of the rubric isn't precisely mechanical, although it has mechanical effects, but more as an actual rubric for adjudication. For example, every weapon has a damage number (based on standard effect) but that ranges up and down. Here's where it gets interesting though, and, more importantly, the blow back on even success with complications gets worse as your position worsens. The GM sets position and effect based on the fiction, plus skills and gear. From there the player can decide to trade position for effect (or vice versa) depending on what they are trying to accomplish (so I could change standard/risky to desperate/great, for example)The basic mechanic is a d6 pool where you start with your skill dice, usually between 0 and 3. You can add a die via the stress mechanic or by taking a devil's bargain, which means you take a for-sure consequence in exchange for a die now. You can also get a die from help. So you're rolling something between 1 die and maybe 6 dice, with 6's as complete success and 4-5's as success with complications. The player knows what the position and effect diad is to start, and they can exchange worsening one for bettering the other if want. Usually this means worsening you position (and thus upping the cost of failure) in exchange for upping the success level. Anyway, I really like how the mechanic gives the player some real agency while still coloring inside the lines of the fiction, if you know what I mean.</blockquote>

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