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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 9318466" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Like you, I don't mean to be flippant here...but if "there is no concrete reality (with the caveat that there is no reality in any game) to begin with" in your Blades game, then people at the table don't know what they're supposed to be doing.  I don't know who and how many (whether its just the GM or the GM and some players or all players), but I do know that saying "you can't plan at all in Blades" and you can't/don't concretize a Score in such a way to make strategic and tactical decisions?I'm sorry, that is fundamentally not understanding how the game works and is just ignoring so much of the game's engine/features which govern the running and the playing of it.  This feels a little bit like when I brought up the Social Interaction module of D&D 5e back in late 2015 (year after release) and commented on how it looks to be cribbed from Apocalypse World and the silence from ENW was absolutely deafening.  The whole site, in unison was all "huh...what is that?"  When I explained it, everyone was all "hmmmm...that is interesting...never saw that section...well, no one reads the DMG anyway and no one would run that social minigame anyway!"1) The setting is concretized via all of its default information and the various statistics (Scale, Range, Tier, Magnitude, locations, Faction HQs/Leadership/Assets etc, each District's value for Wealth/Safety & Security/Criminal Influence/Occult Influence and Fortune Rolls around these) in the books that you either (a) lean into/rely upon or (b) transparently change in the course of play.2) A session's Score should be plenty concretized/fleshed-out (location dynamics, obstacle/threats dynamics, opposition roster dynamics, any starting Mission/Racing/Tug-of-War/Faction Clocks that structure/govern the Score....all of which lean on that 1) above) in the course of the Info Gathering/Free Play phase and then post Engagement Roll where the situation is framed and opening Position/obstacle 1 is going to follow-on and be constrained by game statistics, action resolution machinery, Clocks, enforced fidelity to and transparency around Win Con.  The potential constellation of consequences looming around the Score should be fairly well understood if not outright known and any given consequence (or multiple consequences) for an Action Roll (and subsequent Resistance Roll) should be telegraphed to inform player decision-making.Yes, there is going to be a little bit of grey area with Devil's Bargains and Flashbacks and a possible cascade of multiple (non-Resisted...which is stupendously rare) 1-3 Action Roll Consequences bringing in some wild cards for dynamic fiction/gamestate.  But its not even close to just a pile of wild cards and mutable fiction/wobbly gamestate.  Its like a potential few wild cards (and plenty to most of those are either Resisted outright or they're wholly in the hands of the players via accepting/proposing/resolving Consequences, Devil's Bargains, and Flashbacks...so the "wild-carditude" is almost wholly mediated through the players and system) in any given Score.If your game of Blades is or feels like a complete ass-pull without any player-facing fiction providing borders/parameters + without reliance upon and integration with FitD's significant statistical/keyword arrays and procedures + without table-facing Clock tech governing resolution?  Then something has gone wrong. Like here is a quick example I can jot down right now:The Crew determines they want the Duskvol Times to run a story indicting an Enemy Faction (lets say the Lampblacks).  Here is a quick and easy schematic that could come about via established play, game statistics, and info gathering/free play.* Inkrakes:  Tier 2, HQ Charterhall (W4, S&S4, CI0, OI0), Faction = Allied with Bluecoats and friendly with Lampblacks and Lord Scurlock while negative with The Crew, Editor-in-Chief Gabby Byrnes (Master Threat, leader, connected, cunning, reckless), Assets include Scale 1 Bluecoat (including Expert Threat leader) patrolling perimeter and 2nd floor halls of Area/Scale 4 building and Skilled Threat Hull (tough, shields, protocol) that mans front desk security.* Structure is ancient and the haunted canals (Mag 1/Scale 2 Hollows) beneath lead to the first foundation of the building, long-sense closed, that features a dumbwaiter shaft to the 2nd floor (egress hatch into the building soldered).* The spirt that animates the Hull is Gabby Byrnes ex-lover (the Lampblack's former leader who suddenly disappeared without a trace), who was going to leave her, so she killed them and forever chained them to her via the Hull.  It hates Gabby but it can't overcome its protocol by itself.Then you have whatever Score archetype the players choose, the detail, any further assets they employ, maybe a bit more Free Play/Info Gathering beyond what generated the above (which might include actual Action Rolls with risk if they push too hard for stuff) and whatever Clocks get generated (value and type) based on how they approach things. If Scores aren't being concretized, if framed situations/obstacles aren't well-rendered and given specific parameters (relying upon game statistics/keywords) when introduced?  Then yeah...I guess both the game layer and the setting will feel like an amorphous pile of goo where folks are making uninformed decisions upon a substrate of shifting sand?  That would suck.  But that is in defiance of the agenda/principles/best practices and the beefy, robust game engine that Blades in the Dark relies upon.</blockquote>

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