Tag: Advice

Progress Clock

We started our Blades in the Dark campaign last Wednesday with a character creation session. I had hoped that we’d be able to get down to the first score as well, but it was not to be. Honestly, character creation, although pretty straight-forward, was rather time-consuming. When you have three or four people around a table making decisions on their own characters as they try to form a coherent picture of them in their minds, it can take a while. Add on the collaborative decisions required of them for Crew creation, and you can comfortably double the time required.

Anyway, current progress looks like this:

• Three of four characters created, an Akorosi Cutter, an Akorosi Hound and a Whisper from the Dagger Isles
• Crew created: It was a toss-up between Bravos and Smugglers but, with the general vibe of the crew so far, Bravos won out in the end.
• Decided that their main sponsor faction will be the Crows of Crows Foot.

I’ll get a character creation session with our last player in the next week or so and then we’ll be ready to launch into the first score.

Creating Opportunities

That’s what this game is all about, right? Taking chances, building relationships, gathering information, making your own opportunities. Well, that’s what I’m doing today. Instead of the recap of the first score, I’m using this opportunity to discuss the advice levelled at the players in a Blades in the Dark campaign. At this point, I’ve dealt, at length, with the GM advice, but what about the players? Surely they deserve a little guidance too!

Yep, they have not been forgotten.

Starting on page 182 of the Blades in the Dark book, at the end of the How to Play chapter, we have the section entitled…

Player Best Practices

We have a total of eight of these listed here. Not as many as for the GM, but there’s a lot in each one. Here’s what we’ve got:

• Embrace the Scoundrel’s Life
• Go into Danger, Fall in Love with Trouble
• Don’t Be a Weasel
• Take Responsibility
• Use Your Stress
• Don’t Talk Yourself out of Fun
• Build Your Character through Play
• Act Now, Plan Later

As usual, I’m not going to go into detail on all of these. This time, I’m going to group them.

Embrace the Scoundrel’s Life + Go into Danger, Fall in Love with Trouble + Don’t Talk Yourself out of Fun

These three best practices all relate generally to the same issue. You, as a player of Blades in the Dark, are not there to play it safe. You are not at the table to make optimised choices. Your character lives in a brutally unfair world and they have become adept at surviving it and even profiting from it. Lean into that! Will they have to make difficult choices that might lead them or their crew to harm? Yes! Will they have to take wildly risky actions to achieve their goals or create those opportunities? Yes! Will they have accept the consequences of their actions, which might include conflict with the highest powers int he city, imprisonment and death? Yes! This is the good stuff, in fact, not the downside. These are the parts of the game that keep it moving forward and allow you to craft scenes of kick-ass action, ice-cold espionage and even heart-breaking tragedy. This is why you want to play. If you’re playing to win, instead of to find out what happens, you won’t get the most out of this game.

Don’t Be a Weasel + Use Your Stress + Act Now, Plan Later

You know, there’s a common thread running through all the best practices for players, to be honest. I think it can best be described as “let go.” You have a say in what happens in the story, of course, but you should not be precious about your character. Push them as far and as fast as you can, drive them like that proverbial stolen car. These three practices are about doing that within the rules of the game. You do stuff by rolling with Actions, not skills. It’s important to choose the right action for the job, even if it’s not your best. That’s where stress comes in! One of your companions can spend stress to help your actions succeed with an assist, or you can spend it to push yourself. It’s invaluable for resisting consequences that would be otherwise inevitable. You can even use it to work in a flashback and do a setup action to get you out of a particularly sticky spot. You will build up the stress, of course. You’re going to have to indulge your vices to shed it or you’re going to find yourself traumatised. That’s where these stories end up sometimes. Your PC might build up a weakness or two, they might be brought to the end of their tale through the extremities of stress. But what a tale it will have been!

Take Responsibility + Build Your Character through Play

Blades in the Dark is a story game. You are telling a story at the table with your friends and you want it to be the best it can be. You want it to have ups and downs, ins, outs and what-have-yous. Dark, tragic, thrilling, horrific comedic, action-packed, whatever you want it to be, you can contribute to it. You have the option to add as much or as little as you like. Some players are going to invent new NPCs, locales, factions, street-vendors, family-members, ghosts, you get the idea. This is all good. But a player’s greatest power to contribute to the story is through their own character. The actions they take, the things they say, these things can add as much to a session as the NPCs invented by the GM, probably far more. Maybe you are already delighted with the general atmosphere and vibe the rest of the table is bringing, so you don’t feel like you need to add too much, you still have a responsibility to your own character, to have them grow from their beginnings into fuller, more alive beings. You start with a “sketch” but, through the actions you choose for your PC, how they comport themselves in various situations, the risks they are willing to take, you’ll make an unforgettable character and story.

Conclusion

Like I stated above, there is a strong theme across all of these best practices: don’t be boring. In a game like this where the story evolves collaboratively at the table and is not even slightly left up to a published campaign frame or the GM, the choices you make as a player will dictate the sort of experience you have. Be bold, don’t behave.