Blades In The Dark Session 2: Skillageddon
Session 2 of Blades in the Dark Included the following: Boat Stealing for a pile of Concertinas, Guards chasing a peregrine falcon, and lots of terrible jersey accents. Fun as all hell.
I’m enjoying the teamwork mechanic, and the ability to setup people for greater success by risking yourself and narrating how your actions assist others. Being able to have others setup help to give you greater chances for success is damn helpful, especially when the other option is being surrounded by angry men with guns and swords.
I think the only item I’m having problems with is the skill rolls. For Blades in the Dark, you have 4 primary Stats (Guile/Intrigue/Vigor/Resolve), but then each of those has 4 skills underneath them. Quite often, at least in our game, we would need to pause play in order to hash out what skill was the “correct” one to roll or call upon, which was especially troubling as for some actions such as bartering with a merchant, there was no explicit skill called. I feel that the skills are a bit much, at least from having played multiple other PBTA games, and would hope to see future revisions return to the more simplistic method of having the 4 Primary Stats assigned a numeric value to roll for dice, and change the current skill lists to something such as “Talents” or make them moves such as the basic/starting moves on the play-sheet. I feel that each of the Primary Stats has enough flexibility to allow for a crew to naturally feel out what would be appropriate to roll at the table. I’d be curious to see how the others at the table felt.
Props to Russell Benner for running us and dealing with the interesting methods we’ve been using to keep our sheets from flying away.
It seems to me that the correct action is the one that the player wants to use. In the case of haggling with a merchant a player could decide they want to use Deceive to trick the merchant into thinking it’s worth less than it really is or they could use Sway to charm the merchant into giving them a discount.
BitD works a bit different than PbtA style games in that it’s a bit less narrative first. You actually choose which action/skill you are using prior to narrating it. From the rules: “Tell the group which action your character performs to overcome the obstacle. It’s usually obvious, but make it explicit anyway. There’s some overlap among actions, meaning several of them might apply, depending on the specific approach you take. The choice is yours, as long as your character actually performs the action in question. You can’t roll Mayhem unless you proceed with wild violence.”
It seems to me that the correct action is the one that the player wants to use. In the case of haggling with a merchant a player could decide they want to use Deceive to trick the merchant into thinking it’s worth less than it really is or they could use Sway to charm the merchant into giving them a discount.
BitD works a bit different than PbtA style games in that it’s a bit less narrative first. You actually choose which action/skill you are using prior to narrating it. From the rules: “Tell the group which action your character performs to overcome the obstacle. It’s usually obvious, but make it explicit anyway. There’s some overlap among actions, meaning several of them might apply, depending on the specific approach you take. The choice is yours, as long as your character actually performs the action in question. You can’t roll Mayhem unless you proceed with wild violence.”
It feels like BitD has a bit of a boardgame mentality to it where you set up your actions and then do them. This is especially true with all the crew advancement and claims which feel very boardgame/computer game. The more I understand BitD, the more I think it’s not useful to compare it to PbtA style games.
It feels like BitD has a bit of a boardgame mentality to it where you set up your actions and then do them. This is especially true with all the crew advancement and claims which feel very boardgame/computer game. The more I understand BitD, the more I think it’s not useful to compare it to PbtA style games.
Colin Fahrion I don’t know much about the mechanics of the game yet, but it was remarked to me yesterday that instead of “fiction first,” it’s more “flow chart first.”
Colin Fahrion I don’t know much about the mechanics of the game yet, but it was remarked to me yesterday that instead of “fiction first,” it’s more “flow chart first.”
I haven’t had a chance to play it yet myself but I’ve read it and been gobbling up play reports and people’s questions and comments. At some point I’ll have time in my schedule to game again and I’ll organize a game of it.
I haven’t had a chance to play it yet myself but I’ve read it and been gobbling up play reports and people’s questions and comments. At some point I’ll have time in my schedule to game again and I’ll organize a game of it.
The biggest issue I think we ran into Colin Fahrion was that each of the 16 things don’t quite feel unique so we were saying we would like to do this then pause and debate about which action that fits into. Also if you have a particular stat, I felt like I was trying to say hey its a puzzle I have good discern so let me roll that even though it didn’t quite fully fit the situation. Some more distinction between these actions I think will strengthen the game.
The biggest issue I think we ran into Colin Fahrion was that each of the 16 things don’t quite feel unique so we were saying we would like to do this then pause and debate about which action that fits into. Also if you have a particular stat, I felt like I was trying to say hey its a puzzle I have good discern so let me roll that even though it didn’t quite fully fit the situation. Some more distinction between these actions I think will strengthen the game.
I think something else that bothered is, talking the game over afterwards, was how the shifts worked. We had a player roll snake-eyes, but because another player had rolled a 6 to shift the effect one step, that became a 4-5 result instead.
Russell Benner anything else we had discussed?
I think something else that bothered is, talking the game over afterwards, was how the shifts worked. We had a player roll snake-eyes, but because another player had rolled a 6 to shift the effect one step, that became a 4-5 result instead.
Russell Benner anything else we had discussed?