Blades in the Dark

[Stubbazubba]

Well, at least they're coming out up front and saying, "We have no idea how pacing in games works. We don't even have a working theory on this. We just glued someone else's IP onto a resolution mechanic that sounded groovy. We think games are just a series of random die rolls glued together with a narrative that matches the results (except where it doesn't). If you can figure out the interaction between intent, effects, game mechanics, and MC pacing on your own, then...this game will probably disappoint you, because it forces you into bad pacing models that are non-responsive to effects. But if you all imagine really, really hard, you can create a narrative that distracts you from how frustrating that is. Color! Hard choices! Never mind the fundamental disconnect between actions, effects, and result. We can't even wrap our heads around when someone has been successfully murdered or not. But if we re-frame that complete failure to even have a functioning ideal game experience (i.e. setting aside our otherwise crippling inability to execute) as an "opportunity" to make "hard choices" like, "Do you want to try to murder him s'more?" and rely on our plagiarized setting and tone to trick people into believing we have a real game product, then we will make kickstarter bank."

OK, so that just kind of started rambling, but give it to an editor and that's pretty much what this entire project sounds like.

[silva]

Nice trolling there, Stuba. Now you can relax.

[TiaC]

[Orion]

Most of the rolls in most of the games people actually play. If you fail an attack roll in D&D, that behavior is defined. If you succeed an attack roll in D&D, that behavior is defined. Same for saving throws. The skill system obviously ventures into make shit up territory depending on the skill (skills like balance, climb, jump, escape artist, swim, tumble, use magic device being fairly well defined, stealth and social skills being far more make-shit-up). But for a considerable portion of the game there are rules that tell you what a failure is, rules that tell you what a success is, and rules that tell you how to differentiate a failure from a success.

The thing is, the game actually does specify the consequences of rolling "danger" -- you take 0-4 damage. It's presented as a fiat consequence you can pay stress to negate, but you could just as easily look as it as HP damage you can take a fiat consequence to negate. This is also why Blades isn't a bear world. When you roll Sway to bribe the duchess into letting you use her library, the MC is free to declare that if you fail, a grizzly bear will crash through the window. However, the players always have the option to veto bears.

On another note, I think you ought to distinguish between roles that output fiction and rolls that just point to other rolls. You can say that the consequences of an attack roll are defined because they point to a damage roll, but that's only meaningful if the consequences of a damage roll are themselves defined. Only terminal rolls matter when evaluating the risk of bears.

This was bugging me too, but I noticed something this exact moment: the "pointman" only pass the baton if the group makes an action. Otherwise, he can do as many actions as he wants.

This is only kind of true. You are allowed to take solo actions during a group scene, but only under punishing and incoherent restrictions.

I think you answered your own question here, no ? If the player declare he wants to "sneak in the room and murder the sleeping person inside", then he first does a sneaking test followed by a murdering one, right ? Perhaps assigning a default clock (4-segments) for the apparently more difficult test (sneaking in) and no clock at all for the easier one (murdering a sleeping person). Do you think this would make sense ?

The problem is that it's possible to salami-slice any goal into a nigh-infinite number of steps. Nobody actually makes you make a separate roll for every distinguishable step of a process. What actually happens is that we pick the most salient skill, and allow it to include a modest amount of other activity that might have fallen under a different skill if it were a bigger deal. For example, we can assume that cross-country travel will involve a certain amount of climbing, jumping, and maybe even swimming, but when we call for a survival check to travel, we skip over that stuff. If we want a task to be a big deal, we split it over 2 or 3 rolls and pick the most appropriate combination of skills. The problem with Blades is that obstacles take a variable number of steps, and thus you can't count of chunking them in a way that makes sense.

[silva]

Hmm, I didn't find any restrictions to perform individual actions while on a group. Perhaps we have different editions of the same document ? In my reading, if you are leading the team on a infiltration and suddenly a goon jumps at you, you may opt to take him out individually, and this don't incur any restrictions at all. Its only if you decide to lead the team in taking him out (or some other coordinated group action) that the teamwork restrictions come into play.

Also notice that the teamwork rules are entirely optional - the group can opt to send the cutter in alone to take out the guards, then the whisper to take out wards, etc. Its totally allowed. The catch is: Teamwork seems to allow a easier management of stress and danger than having each player act individually, even if it also brings its own restrictions to the table.

[silva]

Interesting graph Ive found:

[deaddmwalking]

The only part I find interesting is the distribution of possibilities for zero dice. Anyone want to explain how that is supposed to work?

[TiaC]

Well, sometimes the GM just makes shit up even when you fail.

[silva]

The only part I find interesting is the distribution of possibilities for zero dice. Anyone want to explain how that is supposed to work?

When you dont have a relevant ability for the situation, you roll 2D6 and take the lowest result.

[silva]

Someone put up a nice list of Devil Bargains at the game G+ community. Ie:

All Or Nothing - If the danger comes to pass you cannot resist it.

Now Or Never - If you don’t overcome the obstacle entirely, you must abandon it forever.

Quelle Horreur! - You’re in for some sleepless nights. -1d on long-term projects next Downtime.

Lay Out - You're gonna find yourself face-down or flat on your ass, no matter what else the outcome.

Leave Yourself Open - If the face the effect of the danger at hand, you'll be -1 level on your effect roll to resist it. (Stacks with 1-3 result on a desperate move).

SMASH - whatever you're using for this, it's broken, shattered, ruined. And it probably makes a bit of noise.

Ghostly attraction - Your activities attract a host of ghosts, think the 'frighteners'.

Full list here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/11274828693 ... F5MHy8VMag

[Orion]

Plans, Scores, Flashbacks, and Teamwork

At some point the group will get together to run a joint operation. Hopefully, that operation is a "score," which will reward everyone with coin and xp, and the crew with influence (called "hold" because apocalypse world had a mechanic called "hold", although the name makes little sense in this context). When this happens, three new rules come into play: plans, flashbacks, and teamwork.

Plans: In order to start an operation, you need a plan. This isn't really a rule as such, because the plans don't do anything mechanically, but it's a useful step to run through, so I have no complaints. This is supposed to work like a heist movie, in that the plan isn't explained before it's enacted; the players explicitly aren't supposed to make an actual plan, at least not a complicated one; they just declare that their characters have a plan. All the players do is pick one of 5 types of plan (assault, deception, infiltration, occult, and social) and then provide one key detail, which is basically just how they get started (point of attack, method of deception, point of entry, occult phenomenon in question, or social connection). By default, the players need to use something already established or do gather information actions to fish for one from the MC. However, if the MC doesn't enjoy playing legwork, they may allow the players to just make something up. The type of plan you declared has no relevance whatsoever, but the salient detail obviously does. The only reason we even write up "planning" as a rule rather than a thing players are compelled to do by natural law is that unlocks access to the flasback system.

FlashbacksPlayers earn the right to use flashbacks by declaring a plan, because the flashback actions are assumed to have been part of the plan all along. Well, except that there's an example of play in which a character ambushed in her sleep by a murderous intruder gets to declare an action that's "sort of like a little flashback, almost". So... yeah. That happened. (There is an example of a PC being ambushed in their bed because there was one in Dogs in the Vineyard; as in Dogs in the Vineyard, they brag that you the MC can "push as hard as necessary" because the ambush scenario uses the game rules, and you're not allow to just kill a PC by fiat; why they think this is a unique feature of their games will always remain a mystery) Anyway, the flashback rule is really simple: flashbacks mostly work the same as regular actions. For instance, when the MC says the city watch shows up, you can declare that you already bribed them to look the other way. Then you roll your bribery check as normal and find out whether the bribe worked. The only difference is that you may have to pay up to 2 stress if your flashback action was dependent on special circumstances and unlikely opportunities. Obviously, this is flagrantly unbalanced. In most cases I expect this to be unnecessarily harsh. Actions are actions, after all, and I imagine that most players will be able to come up with acceptable actions in the present tense if it gets them out of paying stress. At best, most flashbacks might bump a future action up from desperate to risky or risky to controlled. In one example, the PCs were frisked on entering a building, so the player spends 1 stress to declare that they already hid their weapons inside. They still have to make a feint roll to conceal the weapons, and presumably they have the option to fight unarmed. Paying stress to roll a separate action with its own risks in order to get a bonus to future action doesn't sound worth it to me, especially when the player could presumably make a feint roll to hide the weapons on their person and avoid paying stress at all. If the MC declares that hiding a concealed weapon through the pat-down is desperate, but stashing them in advance is risky, it might be worth the up front stress. I confess that I have not math-hammered it to find out. On the other hand, I can imagine scenarios in which the flashback is an incredibly good deal. If you can swing it so that the flashback bypasses entire obstacles, then you are golden. The flashback action always takes one roll, so you need to set it up so that the special opportunities that enabled you to make that roll also solved other problems at the same time. For instance, the 2 stress example is declaring that you got the combination for the safe ahead of time by binding the ghost of a former owner. If the ghost was out of play before the flashback, then that's a bad deal compared to just rolling to pick the lock. However, if the ghost is hanging around the manor and would otherwise have showed up as an enemy, that's amazing.

TeamworkWhen the op actually starts, you choose one character to be on-point. They call the play for the team, and in addition* to their normal actions and abilities they get three special options. That asterisk is a big one, so watch out for that. Anyway, your teamwork abilities are leading a group effort, overcoming the danger by yourself for the benefit on your team, or setting up another character to solve the problem.

Leading the team. Supposedly, you use this when the whole team pitches in, but actually you mostly use it when the whole group fends for themselves. Everyone rolls, and you use the best result from the whole group. However, you the leader also have to pay 1 stress for each PC who failed their roll. The example they give makes perfect sense. When the whole group needs to sneak into a building, they each roll a stealth check, and then the leader risks themselves to cover everyone who messed up. I actually really like this rule. It solves the D&D problem where group stealth (or group balance or whatever) can't possible succeed, because the team inevitably crashes and burns under the weight of iterative failure chance. At the same time, it imposes some cost to carrying the weak links, which is only fair. It's also a good rule if the PCs are actually combining efforts, but each participant puts themselves at risk. For instance, if the team gets into a D&D-style team on team throwdown, everyone helps kill off the enemy, but everyone risks taking an arrow to the knee. If you have fighters strong enough to take out the enemy by themselves, it makes sense that involving you noncombatants makes matters worse. However, it's obviously inappropriate for a task where everyone can contribute but the risk doesn't scale. Also, I find it a little weird that the character leading the fight doesn't need to have any skills in fighting or in leadership. Still, despite my objections, I do like the
leadership rule, and I would consider it one of the highlights of this game.

Overcoming is more problematic. Mechanically, it's the reverse of leading. The point man rolls their own skill, and then everyone else takes stress if they don't roll a 6. Again, there are some situations in which this makes sense; anything where only the professional should be involved, but a mistake will endanger everyone. The example they give is creating a diversion; specifically, using your social skill to lure a guard away so that the rest of the group can slip past. Okay, this is good. Only one person is logically involved in the persuasion, but everyone could be exposed if they fail. Tanking the guards while everyone runs past would work the same way; they take stress from adds if you fail to hold aggro. Disarming a bomb would be another good example. Nobody but your demolitionist should be touching wires, but everyone is liable to go up in flames. However, there are obviously examples where this makes no sense. If you're picking a lock with a poison needle trap, you're definitely overcoming an obstacle for the group, but you're only one in actual danger. Their explanation? "It's stressful to watch a teammate do less than perfectly on an action that effects everyone." Yes, it seems that Stress can represent actual stress, like mild anxiety watching someone work.

The huge problem with overcoming is that it makes a mockery of their promise that you can still use normal solo actions. In 90% of all cases, whatever solo action you wanted to take was intended to actually solve a problem. All the problems on a mission are by definition group problems, because the group objective will either succeed or fail. The example the give is moving just you. If you distract the guard long enough everyone to sneak past, you have to overcome, but if you only distract them long enough for you to get by, that's a solo action. Presumably you could temporarily lift wards the same way. There's a huge, blatantly obvious hole in this system: what if you stab the guard while everyone else waits around the corner, or what if you pick a lock? Does the guard come back to life after you walk past them? It's troubling. It's possible that you're supposed to solve this with a "linked plans" guidelines, but that's still awkward and I don't feel like going into it right now. Ask me about it if you care.

Setup. If your action just sets up another player's action, then you roll the action roll (to-hit check) but skip the effect roll (damage). Instead, you add your effect dice the next player's effect dicepool, assuming their action succeeds. This is basically just punishment for having the wrong person on point. There's no way under normal circumstances rolling damage one with more dice is better than just doing damage twice. You suffer the full consequences of taking an action, so you would only do this if you don't have any skills the MC believes could plausibly solve the problem by themselves.

Passing the BatonAfter you use any of the three teamwork powers, you nominate another character to be on point. This is not optional. If you want to go twice in a row, or if you don't want to go at all, you can pay 1 stress to tag someone in, or they can pay 1 stress to tag in. This is, in my opinion, kind of dumb. It makes sense to enforce some metagame fairness and give everyone a turn in the hot seat, but it makes no in-character sense to tag out your specialist until the problem is solved. In the examples of solo play, a character who only picked 50% of a lock was allowed to just roll again to finish picking it, but if you're overcoming the lock as a group, you have to stop picking it an let someone else do something. Mechanically, if only one person has a relevant skill, you're basically forced to roll a setup action so you can hand the baton back.

Backup Actions
If you're not on point, you have three options to help out. Assist a roll, face a danger, and follow through on a setup. These rules are simple and functional. To assist, you spend 1 stress and give someone a bonus die. That's an okay deal if they're rolling to overcome, since you might lose a stress anyway if they don't roll well. Technically you can also assist a group effort by giving a bonus die to any one team member, but you shouldn't do that ever. This rule isn't exciting but I have no problem with it. Facing the danger is also very simple. If they rolled a danger on their action roll, you take it instead of them. You roll a saving throw and pay stress exactly as though you were the target all along. I actually really like this rule. It's short and sweet and while it's sometimes improbably to think someone else could absorb the entire threat, it's improbable in a cool way and it encourages people to think of cool stuff. Follow through is just a syntax error. It says "when you follow through on an action set up by the character on point, you become the character on point." Technically, this can never happen because setup is a teamwork move and when you do a teamwork move you stop being on point. Setting up gives a bonus to next character on point, which means that you already have to hand off "on point" status before they can take their action and get a bonus. You simply don't get to preempt the on-point character and become point by following through on something. It's a distinction without a difference, but it pisses me off.
To recap: I like the options to lead the team and face a danger, but the overcoming rule sticks in my craw. I suspect it was set up to force buy-in from the other players and encourage them to use backup moves. When everyone's stress rides on the roll, people are more likely to pony up for assist dice or suggest a devil's bargain. They might also ask for a setup move in place of the overcome. Although I can understand the reason for the design choice, it simply creates too many stupid scenarios for my taste, or at best, requires too much complex adjudication.

[Username17]

I assume the flashback action is in there because of the Leverage RPG. Honestly, it sounds like someone put chunks of various pretentious storygames into a food processor and hit "frappe." Obviously the overall effect is more of a "crocoduck" than it is anything remotely functional. The only thing I find even mildly interesting about the proceedings is that the pieces that are identifiable as having come from Apocalypse World stand out as being noticeably bad.

They are stealing some ideas that are good, some ideas that are bad, and obviously they don't really go together because this isn't a design. But even in that context, the Apocalypse World bits are really noticeable as being bad because Apocalypse is bad. Even in the context of being a pretentious rules-lite, it's just bad at being what it is. Of course the pieces of it are bad when held up for scrutiny individually.

That's why literally every single time someone on this board has said that I have been overly harsh to Apocalypse World they have been literally unable to name check a single part of the actual game that they really use in its intended methodology and context.

-Username17

[silva]

If Im on point and rolling Overcoming, can I receive +1d from each member on backup ?

And my undesrtanding of Stress is that it represents mental and emotional damage too, not just physical.

[Orion]

That's why literally every single time someone on this board has said that I have been overly harsh to Apocalypse World they have been literally unable to name check a single part of the actual game that they really use in its intended methodology and context. -Username17

Class design. Character creation in Apocalypse World goes fast because not only is there little crunch work to do, most players can choose an archetype quickly. That's because the classes really grab people, and because they use sufficiently different abilities and subsystems to make powergaming class selection fairly irrelevant. It's a very good thing that they explicitly build in the option for starting characters to have major leadership roles, and if the player is interested in being a cult leader, they'll go straight for the cult leader class. This is much better than the classes in Blades in the Dark, which basically don't matter. You can't necessarily even tell what class someone is because they don't have significant abilities. Apocalypse World does gives its classes powerful features, and they lock you in to one playstyle in the first session, but it's also generous enough with multiclass levelups to forestall most regrets about class choice.

Further,

I still maintain that Apocalypse World is a good product; the problem is that people don't understand why it's good. It's probably best not to think of Apocalypse World as a "game" at a all. What it is is a manual for improvisational single-author fiction (with audience participation like when improv actors ask people to shout prompts). Listening to people to storytellers used to be a very popular hobby, and evidently still is in some circles. AW appears to inspire MCs to tell stories audiences like to listen to, and so I'm willing to call it a success. I have a far easier time getting people to show up for an AW session than for Sundown or D&D, and everybody leaves happy.

Anyway, if you copy random parts of AW into actual games with actual rules, it's obviously going to be terrible, because it goes against the grain of what those games are doing. This is especially true because AW does provide some avenues for player input that most games don't, and if you copy the MC dickery into a game where the players don't have those tools, the result is really insulting.

EDIT: As we all know, the gaming den gives all RPG products derisive nicknames, even splats for games we actually like. As the author of this review, I claim naming rights. From now, all complaints about this game must refer to it as "Blades in the Dick."

[Maxus]

Seconded.

[Username17]

Class design.

Oh come on. An integral portion of Apocalypse World "class design" is that each and every character class responds to creepy sex (including giving and/or receiving surprise sex) differently. It's supposed to be one of the most important parts differentiating each class. So unless your home games are way creepier than I believe them to be, I'm gonna give you a big old NOPE on you using the fucking class design in its intended methodology and context.

instruction manual

Now you're just taking the piss. Apocalypse World very explicitly tells you how the MC is supposed to act, and it is as an abusive domineering antagonistic asshole. I know for a fact that you don't follow those instructions and hold anyone who would in open contempt.

So again and still:

That's why literally every single time someone on this board has said that I have been overly harsh to Apocalypse World they have been literally unable to name check a single part of the actual game that they really use in its intended methodology and context.

How many times do I have to say this before I get to drop the mic?

-Username17

[Leress]

How many times do I have to say this before I get to drop the mic?

-Username17

[Longes]

EDIT: As we all know, the gaming den gives all RPG products derisive nicknames, even splats for games we actually like. As the author of this review, I claim naming rights. From now, all complaints about this game must refer to it as "Blades in the Dick."

It should obviously be "Blades in the Derp".

EDIT: Actually, it should be "Bears in the ...".

[Aryxbez]

I think his notion of saying its like a "storytelling exercise" opposed to a RPG, seems a valid criticism. Wouldn't mind Frank tackling that bit, course then I guess would then technically be saying that if fails as a Game?

Ask me about it if you care.

Sure, once feel more up to it, I wouldn't mind ye tackling more into that nonsense.

Lastly, Blades in the Dark Sounds kinda interesting at least, just now sounds confusing as hell as a game to play. Seems like it has 4e-style metagame effery, that if played 4th edition long enough, ye get kinda used to. So I submit that, I would be willing to try it with Silva as the GM (as Trenches thread here, or some skype/IM thing), but only if he knows the rules as well as Orion seems to in this review.

[Username17]

The point is that Orion has not even implied that he is actually using Bear World at all. In any capacity. What he is saying is that Paternalistic Dictator Storytime Theater is a fun evening. At least when there is a benevolent dictator. Which is true, but has fuck-all to do with Bear World, because that piece of shit demands the paternalistic dictator to be a capricious dick. It doesn't suggest it, it demands it.

All Orion is really saying is that Bear World gives so much power to the MC that he can unilaterally ignore most of the rules and play benevolent dictator storytime theater and the players won't even know he's rewriting the game on the fly.

-Username17

[MGuy]

What I got from Orion was that B-World is basically not a game but a bunch of words that tell you you can go and make up your own story and have other people around that 90% of the time can't effect the plot of that story in any way. You might as well have a game where you get your friends together, start telling a story, and have them roll a d10 whenever they want to add something. 50% of the time they get to shut the fuck up. 40% of the time they can add a story element but it doesn't change anything. And on a perfect 10 they get to change something, no questions asked. Seems like you might as well just write a game that's that for free and not have to worry about the bears.

[silva]

Lastly, Blades in the Dark Sounds kinda interesting at least, just now sounds confusing as hell as a game to play. Seems like it has 4e-style metagame effery, that if played 4th edition long enough, ye get kinda used to. So I submit that, I would be willing to try it with Silva as the GM (as Trenches thread here, or some skype/IM thing), but only if he knows the rules as well as Orion seems to in this review

.
Blades rules are super simple, Ary. I would say its between BoL and WoD in the complexity spectrum. Differently from most games, though, its crunch seem to lie more on the structural level then on a processual one, If that makes any sense.

It would be a pleasure to have a game of it with you and other Denners. I bet Orion would like to play/GM too. Orion ?

What it is is a manual for improvisational single-author fiction (with audience participation like when improv actors ask people to shout prompts). Listening to people to storytellers used to be a very popular hobby, and evidently still is in some circles. AW appears to inspire MCs to tell stories audiences like to listen to,

Curious. What makes you think AW is this kind of "GM tells his story for the audience" kind of game ? Because this is the exact opposite both from what the rules actually do, and from how the game is played by all groups I know (from real life and internet reports). In fact, AW is the most radical player-driven game I know of, to the point that some traditional-games GMs have difficulty in learning how to play it.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I think this is a really good example of how much of a waste of time it is to respond to silva. He has had the explanation for how Bear World is functionally single-author fiction given to him at least three times, and yet here he is again, asking for more like he was a derp version of Oliver Twist.

[silva]

Saying "because so" is an empty statement. Please cite actual rules and contents and their actual in-game consequences or shut up.

[Zaranthan]

I think this is a really good example of how much of a waste of time it is to respond to silva.

We're talking to silva? I thought this was an Orion topic?