Been playing Blades in the Dark after I convinced my group to make the switch from 5e. To be honest, I am struggling to enjoy running this game. My group seems to like it (the system is pretty slanted towards favouring the players though). I just feel as if I improv everything and feel detached from the game. I am not sure if it is because I don't roll dice as the GM or because I have been corrupted by fantasy settings and can't enjoy the setting. A non-fantasy game I enjoy is CoC.
Anyone got any tips for running a fun game with this system?
Nominally Blades in the Dark kind of is a fantasy system and you can definitely treat it as such. Hell, one of your core classes is "spooky magic dude". Reskin the setting to put it in a more traditional fantasy city if you need, but you can totally treat the default BitD setting as fantasy by way of Dishonored.
As for running fun games in it, I would say don't treat running the game like a classical adventure, treat it like a heist movie. You're not taking the players exploring and discovering new things with a wide eyed look of wonder and sword at your hip to fight dragons with. No, in this your players are scoundrels and cutthroats and criminals trying to pull off scheme after scheme to stay afloat. Don't set up quest hooks as much as set up targets. Design each target to have multiple ways to get to it, multiple options for your plots and events to occur, and then let their actions guide the direction in the narrative while you control the overarching plot. It's a lot less in control than some games, but it means that you don't have to do all the work and can focus your efforts on the good stuff: Specific encounters, overarching plotlines, and particularly impressive set pieces.
If the setting itself is bothering you though, it's totally changeable and mutable. As a recommendation though, I would say that a good idea to make it feel more like what you want is to add rival gangs, factions, and characters to it that shift and change as the players do things. It gives you an ability to have the criminal landscape of the setting shift in response to the players and lets you set up all kinds of fun stuff. Romeo and Juliet scenario between two rival gangs, both hiring the party to kill the scion of the other? Police take down a mysterious ship filled with cargo and treasure, stored in a well-guarded evidence warehouse? An enemy wizard type sends demons after them for stealing from him?
The difference between a game like Blades and a game like D&D is huge from a mindset perspective.
In D&D you are master of the world, players come into your world and are at your mercy while you throw challenges and treasure at them til they die.
In Blades you are a director in an crime-action movie where the players are the main cast.
To get the most out of it you want to embrace the director mindset. Imagine there is an audience out there who are all rooting for the crew, and imagine your players are their characters biggest fans in the audience.
Describe the scenes with detail, focus on the making the NPCs both interesting and dangerous but let the players drive the direction.
Also: don't be afraid to threaten your PCs with being maimed or killed. The game is slanted in their favour as you said, let them get themselves out of trouble.
Ryan Flores
It’s not, actually, a very good game.
Matthew Foster
Thanks for the tips.
Care to elaborate? I am not disagreeing with you since I don't enjoy it but my players do.
Lucas Kelly
I have to wonder how much experience you have with a variety of RPGs as a whole if you think Blades is no good. It's the very definition of what it means to be a modern RPG, so if you're just a surly grognard stuck in his ways, then I can very much understand why you'd feel that way. But otherwise, I again question quality and efficacy of your assertion, especially given its terse nature.
Landon Wood
There were supposed to be multiple settings for the game available as supplements, promised as part of its crowdfunding, but they're vaporware. There were multiple more traditional fantasy settings in the group.
The game's regular setting with the pseudo-victorian thing, the eternal night, the demons, and the dystopian magical dictatorship was meant to evoke the Thief series and Bloodborne.
Carter Russell
Also the mechanics are player-centric because BITD is technically a hack of Powered by the Apocalypse, the system for Apocalypse World, whose designer heavily focuses on player control over GM control.
Jackson Carter
>There were supposed to be multiple settings for the game available as supplements promised as part of its crowdfunding Hacks, not settings, but sure.
>but they're vaporware Both the sci-fi one and the fantasy one are pretty much done, so I'm not sure what you mean by "vaporware". In fact, I'm fairly certain the sci-fi is already released in some fashion or another.
>meant to evoke the Thief series and Bloodborne How did you miss 'Dishonored'? Blades, as a setting, is literally nothing without that initial premise.
Michael Parker
>It's the very definition of what it means to be a modern RPG That doesn't make it good, you condescending prick. I'm not that guy, I have a shitton of experience and I'm certainly neither a OSR or DnD only fag, but Blades in the Dark is a crap game built on broken core ideas.
Sebastian Parker
And you're still not presenting any semblence of an actual arguement, badwrongfunfag.
Oh, don't get me wrong: I wasn't insinuating that modern game design is inherently better or even all that great, but then, the user I was replying to wasn't exactly making an argument, either. Now, how Blade's core ideas are in any way broken is a new one to me, especially since some of those ideas are actually quite innovative on their own, but I welcome you to share your thoughts. I assume you mean how they function as a whole, which there are indeed a few problems in that regard, but again, what RPG, modern or otherwise, doesn't have a few snags?
Thomas Smith
>Hacks, not settings, but sure. BITD is itself a hack already, and not very much would change mechanically outside of maybe communication in the sci-fi one >Both the sci-fi one and the fantasy one are pretty much done Where are these updates coming from? >How did you miss 'Dishonored'? Dishonored is just brighter Thief with more magic. It was redundant.
Christopher Carter
>BITD is itself a hack already It started as a hack, but the end product is very different from any PbtA game. You'd know that if you actually played either of them.
>Where are these updates coming from? The Blades in the Dark G+ community. Google+ is the primary community for many RPGs, especially more modern ones. Scum and Villainy is the name of the sci-fi hack and it is indeed available as an early access product.
>Dishonored is just brighter Thief with more magic. It was redundant It's still the primary source of inspiration, taking wholesale from many of the game's more particular aspects and framing devices, which, again, you'd realize if you'd actually played Blades.
Jeremiah Ross
Scum and Villiany has been putting out playtest versions for months. If you can't fucking google for a pdf you're either an idiot or a troll.
Evan Gonzalez
I'm not trolling, I'm just retarded.
Robert Johnson
I've played quite a bit of Blades. I just haven't played a lot of Dishonored.
Most hacks are distinct enough like BITD is.
Dylan Johnson
I just mean that it's even more distinct than most hacks, as you said. Blades isn't even under the Powered by the Apocalypse license because it's so different from its initial designs, whereas games like Dungeon World obviously are not. In fact, Blades has its own license for its own hacks, labelled Forged in the Dark, which Scum and Villainy uses. Also, taking the chance to look it up: Blades Against Darkness is the more fantasy-esque or D&D-like hack promised as part of the kickstarter campaign.
Aiden Myers
>I just feel as if I improv everything and feel detached from the game. Write more ahead of time. The improv-heavy PbtA and Blades encourage you to leave blanks and find out what happens and such. That doens't mean you can't write yourself notes that "float" and then pick pieces that fit when opportunities come along. You just can't have the whole jigsaw complete behind your DM screen.
Daniel Rogers
I'm already aware that Blades Against Darkness is the high fantasy hack.
Juan Sanchez
Yup, this is good advice. You as the GM control all the other factions in the game and their movements. As such you should be able to understand how each sees the crew as a whole, or how certain NPCs might react in certain situations.
Like with D&D, I often have particular event and/or story hooks in mind for my players to experience. Now, in Blades, it's much easier for your players to step over those hooks entirely since they have much greater narrative control, but that doesn't mean you can't adapt those ideas or change them up entirely for scenarios further down the line.
Okay, user.
Luke Russell
My PbtA group thinks blades is too rules-heavy, someone hold me >what do you mean i won't have a grasp on entire ruleset 2 session in without bothering to open the book once. >Pff i won't look at that handout that lays out rules in 2 pages either >2hard4me lets play dungeonworld
How is Blades any more rules-heavy than PBTA other than the party types and the clock mechanic?
Austin Cook
I'm about to run a game for my group, and one of them brought up the idea that perhaps for a first session, I pre-write characters and a gang for them (and run the intro scenario, maybe) for our first session, so they get a feel for the game before they make their own characters. We've done this kind of warm-up game before with other systems, any thoughts on if it will help here?
Parker Ortiz
If your players are fine with it, I can't imagine why that wouldn't help. Personally, as a player, I hate that kind of stuff since it seems like both a waste of time and an erasure or revoking of my creative input, but again, that's just me. If nothing else, it'd at least help them to understand the rules and setting a bit more before deciding whether they want to invest their time in creating their own characters, since they might not like the game, but I don't know if that's the angle here.
Logan Hall
Blades is an interesting game. Just because the local hipsters approve of it doesn't make it good as well.
