Just had my first session of this game (in fact, it was the first Blades game for all of us), we've decided to play as Vigilantes. Thought it's pretty exciting to play, very different from the usual stuff I play like DnD, WoD or even Fate. We've ended our first heist as absolute cripples, with loads of stress and harm, and the downtime fixed barely any of it. I don't think we're going to survive going on another one like this, so hopefully the next few scores will be easier.
>>97748888I wanted to like this game, but it divorcing itself from the cause-effect chain of events in favor of postcognitive convenience was too much a playstyle paradigm shift
>>97748888It's nice playing things that work different than what you usually play. Also nice quads.
>>97748888I've started as a Whisper, and I want to pick up as many cool supernatural abilities as possible, Ghost Veil and Tempest, but most of the cool stuff requires you to push yourself and get shitloads of Stress. Which I've already gotten on my first score by just trying to not let the game force the clown shoes on my character, or at least survive. Since my DM allows picking Veteran, I wonder if I should just pick Functioning Vice on my first advance, and convince the party to take some sort of a Heat managing ability on our first crew advance, because we're gonna keep killing people and generating Heat. Like yeah, these are not exciting abilities. I'm not gonna exactly wow myself by adjusting my stress loss on downtime. But maybe I'd rather play this game for a long time and get these cool abilities later, then get 4 traumas by the third session and have to start from the beginning.
>>97748906Oh, I suppose I have another few questions.The DM seems genuinely baffled by equipment rules and how the game expects them to work. On our first score, we've faced some tier 2 gangsters and tier 3 gangsters. We start at tier 0, the gap between us and them is immense. Does this mean that our weapons should be completely ineffective against them? If not, what does weapon quality actually do? At which point should it come into play?Secondly, I have something called the ghost key in my inventory. It opens ghost doors. In the entire book, I don't think I've seen any mentions of ghost doors and where to find them. What's that about?Thirdly, I want general advice or your experience with Blades, I guess.
>>97748898Do you clash with heist movies too or does it take you out when you're the one breaking the time line?
>>97748898We actually didn't do any flashbacks so far. Our first score was framed very strangely - there was no plan, we didn't know who we're going after, nor did we have any idea what we'll be doing, we just followed a tip by a devil that we really should be at this one place during hour X, because shit is gonna go down. With that sort of a premise it just didn't make sense to do any flashbacks. How would we know to prepare for the events, if everything that happens during the score is a twist for both us and our characters?
>>97748937Me, I guess. I disliked having to assume I knew the circumstances I found myself in in advance of the events occurring.
>>97748929Gear either lets you do a thing narratively, or maybe increases your effect.
>>97748888The amount of potential attrition solely depends on the GM whim.
>>97748888There is already a BitD thread, no point making another and further triggering anons with this mess of a game.Also>Tried new game once>Is excited about itColour me fucking surprised.Call us when you are after a campaign or two, when you actually notice all the (countless) cracks and problems.
>>97748906Getting stress, dealing with stress, and eventually stress catching up to you is the basic lifecycle of a character. They aren't meant to stick around forever, because Stress is obtained when interesting things happen, and games are more fun when a lot of interesting things happen.I think Deep Cuts has rules for helping you play characters for longer, such as with overcoming Traumas. If you really want to just play 1 character, you should ask your DM to lower the difficulty a bit, at least until you get your bearings I guess. And speaking of DM's>Since my DM allows picking VeteranIsn't this a basic rule? You shouldn't need permission to take Veteran advancements.>>97748929I need to re-read the Tier rules, but it should mean your Effect is one level less favorable for each Tier difference, and comes into play whenever you engage with an entity with a different Tier level.High Quality/Fine gear gives you +1 Effect level, so if you were disarming a Tier 1 trap as a Tier 0 gang with fine tools, it cancels out the Tier penalty.At 0 vs 3 you would be ineffective in a fight. Of course, you can always even the odds by pushing yourself, ambushing them, Devil's Bargains, etc, but you just shouldn't fuck with someone if the difference is that large due to the cost investment. Pick on someone your own size.>I don't think I've seen any mentions of ghost doors and where to find them. What's that about?BitD is way more on the nose about asking players to take part in the collaborative story. A lot of things have no directly stated effect because you can use it for whatever you want as long as it makes sense, which then 'locks in' and becomes canon in your game. Maybe ghost doors are wormholes that lead to somewhere else, and by unlocking it you can quickly travel between 2 locations. Maybe you can conjure a door with the aid of a ghost, which then leads you to where they died. Maybe it's just a ghost field security system and they're just keys, but ghostly.
>>97748888Glad you got something out of it. Blades is a game with really interesting ideas but the core mechanic loses me. I'm all about immersive play and Blades is more about "telling story" and does this by zooming dice rolls out to discuss (metanarratively) "position and effect" which absolutely sucks the life out of any enjoyment I have playing it. You also negotiate the consequences before the roll. Which, in some sense, facilitates player autonomy, but in others just ends up gamefying the process rather than roleplaying it. The flashback mechanic and quantum inventory mechanic are often lauded as major game design wins, but felt super contrived at the table especially if the group that did heists actually *roleplayed* planning the heist, gathering the equipment, and considering contingencies in other systems.Basically, the system rewards players for being lazy or unprepared.
>>97748898I like Blades and associated games but Flashbacks are the one part of these games I point blank refuse to engage with. It disrupts the timeline, it disrupts immersion, and the entire concept that "planning is boring" is stupid and wrong. There's a very real problem which it's trying to solve, which is decision paralysis leading to overlong planning phases and stalling out, but there are better ways of solving it than skipping it.
