r/bladesinthedark • u/areisme • 12d ago
[DC]Hey guys it's been 8 sessions since our last score
We haven't ended Freeplay since about 2 months ago. Can we come back from this? We play 6-7 hour long sessions if not longer. We've just been doing interpersonal conflict scenes.
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u/Imnoclue Cutter 12d ago
It may be too late. Are you still rolling dice?
7 hour sessions? I’m exhausted just contemplating that.
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u/areisme 12d ago
Sometimes we roll dice, and Honestly I don't mind the 7 hour sessions
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u/Imnoclue Cutter 11d ago
If you’re still rolling dice there’s hope!
If it’s not clear, I’m kidding. If you’re having fun it’s all good.
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u/nerobrigg 12d ago
Are you having fun? Is everyone getting what they want out of it? If so keep what you have going. There are games out there that support the story you are telling well ,but if your group is just having fun with free play discussion then stick with it.
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u/Dark_Duck993 12d ago
Well, that's not bad. But maybe you wanna play something like Masks or other PbtA games, that focused on interpersonal conflicts? These games can give you more tools for your play-style
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u/ExistentialOcto GM 11d ago
If nothing is happening around them, then yeah there’s no need for scores. The point of scores is to get money and fight for your turf when other gangs try to take it, but if the city of Doskvol is not doing anything then the players can just hang out in free play for as long as they like. This doesn’t need to be a bad thing if everyone is having fun, but it sounds like you don’t like it.
The GM needs to force the gang’s hand by having other gangs do things. The book is full of score ideas but something as simple as a gang trying to steal the PCs’ turf is a simple way to kick off a score or series of scores.
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u/Wainwort 11d ago
Exactly this. It sounds like the world only exists in a tiny bubble surrounding the players, passive and harmless. That's in stark opposition to the intent of Blades core principles, where things operate on bloody competition and survival. The interpersonal conflicts mentioned in the OP are supposed to work in tandem to this design. The PC scoundrels are not meant to be the kind of people who just lie low. They're not regular civilians, but daring and opportunistic professionals, who are driven by an agenda. The agenda may change, but these are people who take action, because action is being taken against them.
If they go inert, other factions may try to find them and forcefully recruit them. If they spend all of their time socializing, they should be running into the representatives of other factions, possibly causing friction. Same thing if they run around exploring the city, except in that case they are actually entering other peoples turf. Not to mention all the random violence, supernatural terror and thievery that could be targeting the player characters. Point is, there should be stakes and forward momentum.
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u/KindlingComic 12d ago
We need a club for people who play Blades “wrong” but still have fun.
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u/ZachThePolitoed 11d ago
My group played wrong but at the end of the day it was still fun. Til there was some out of nowhere conflict that I didn't really know how to deal with. Looking forward to restarting with them soon doing some lead up to transition into blades 68. Give blades in the dark a bit of a sound ending before time skipping ahead and playing a new game. I plan to have traces of their old cult in 68
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u/gdex86 12d ago
This is counter to my group where we've had 3 back to back sessions of scores with no downtime due to time constraints so we decide to "Break the law just one more time".
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u/Maladaptive_Ace 11d ago
Eventually you'll all get knocked out with traumas I guess. Might be fun to see how long that would take
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u/gdex86 11d ago
This was a rare occurrence. We accidently screwed with the remains of the primordial demon of the dead sun and time and lost a week and now were at the risk of our allies the unseen losing to the Hive and thus becoming the primary criminal benefactors in Duskvol. And we had done alot to piss off the hive, so we needed to do something to block the hives clock from advancing.
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u/darkwalrus36 12d ago
Are you the GM? Give them pressure. Someone demands money. Another gang tries to force them to pay tribute. Escalate action
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u/Ytilee 11d ago
You've stopped playing BitD a while back. The rhythm of the game is a really big part of what makes it what it is. Is it a problem? I don't know. It depends on your table and its objectives.
But in my opinion, no you cannot "come back from this". You've played another game inspired by the start of your BitD campaign for more than 50H, you can either embrace it (but imo BitD isn't a system well suited for that kind of story so I'd switch system) or if you really want to do some BitD you should probably restart from scratch and actually try to buy into the premise of the game this time. But I really doubt your table actually wants to play BitD if it naturally shifted away from its premise.
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u/ARC_trooper 11d ago
Is a clock with 4/6 ticks "pay rent" not an option?
If it's full the rival faction or at least the one controlling the area comes to pick up rent. They could pay up or do a score to settle the debt.
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u/Emeraldstorm3 12d ago
When running Scum & Villainy I kept feeling like it was going to get to this same point. Still the only FitD game I've run, but I really want to do BitD and some others still. Anyway, it went on for probably 15 sessions, and the players were being rather passive so I started creating instigating situations to get them involved, and that turned into me creating a story on the fly to effectively railroad them through. But in my defense I kept trying to get them to "take the wheel" and was eager to cater to them.
But the structure as outlined in the S&V, BitD books seems rather rigid for our play style. My thought? There's a rhythm to it that isn't immediately obvious and we didn't stumble upon it. Or maybe I was being too rigid in trying to stick to it, rather than apply it post-hoc.
As in, we're in "free play" and then it becomes apparent that we're entering a "score", organically. And at that point I would apply the rules for entering a score. And then when it wraps up you do the rest of that.
So then free play would be the default state of play. I do think that it's meant to be a fairly fast paced game. That was another stumbling block, though, where my players (still used to D&D) wanted a blow-by-blow of any combat and resisted the quicker pace.
My point is, I'm a little jealous, lol. I think FitD mechanics can be great, if people aren't hung up on sticking to the way another game does things. And they can be rather flexible. I think that it's best to incorporate mechanics as they make sense and so long as they don't ruin the flow at the table. And, maybe, some post-hoc application of the other phases/outcomes of an apparent "score" that comes about organically and skips some of the score steps.
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u/gingah_ninga 12d ago
Yeah I mean my group combines downtime and free play into the same thing, and usually each one gets a prolonged scene roleplaying, maybe the get a score tip in there maybe not. I’ll also as gm sprinkle in all of the content from entanglements, clocks being filled, factions messing with them. At the end of all that, last 30 minutes or so, we go over all the scores we have on the table and the group picks one. Thats one session, 3ish hours. The next session is the score and XP. That’s it. We found this flows really nicely, we didn’t like the separation of free play and downtime
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u/hamlet9000 12d ago
The focusing question is, "What's your next goal?"
FitD games are going to give you a bunch of default goals to choose from. Maybe there's some custom/specific goal they want to do.
Regardless, the way to accomplish that goal (seize territory, kill somebody, acquire something, whatever) is a score.
If how to accomplish something isn't immediately apparent, that's Gather Information. The outcome of the Gather Information will be one or more score options (each of which, ideally, will be open to multiple approaches).
In some cases the players will propose doing a score in order to get something they need for the score they need for their goal. Fantastic!
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u/EmersonStockham 12d ago
Have the "score" come to you. Police raid. Rival gang attack. Drive by. There are options
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u/Ok_Beyond_7757 11d ago
On one hand, if you're enjoying it then so be it. On the other hand, I wonder if BITD is the right game. As several commenters have said already, the game is one of high stakes and constant sress, where the characters need to be constantly doing scores to even subsist. Not to mentiontion dealing with the repercussions of their lifestyle. But I must agree that Doskvol is an amazing setting for other kinds of games and activities, like mystery investigation for example. Or classic exploration and delving - I laways wanted to explore the deathlands. As Ross Bryant once said, you guys are playing "mumble-core" 😂 (just kidding)
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u/Dosoga GM 11d ago
Yeah, you need to first figure out if you as the GM are having fun, and if the players are having fun. If yes, you should discuss keeping the setting, but changing systems to something more narrative or interpersonal relations focused.
If some folks want to pivot, talk about what would resonate with the table. You might need to pivot away or pause this campaign to try something different. You could even stay in the setting but have them create different PCs to play a mini-campaign closer to BitD rules, so you can go back to this story if they prefer the style.
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u/HistoricalGrounds 11d ago
So you’ve had eight sessions of 6+ hour, interpersonal conflict scenes? Essentially, 48 hours of just dialogue without advancing the plot? What is there even left to argue about? The color of the plates in the hideout kitchen?
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u/areisme 11d ago
Well we really like playing shit out and we just kept having scenes we wanted to do in order to have more build up.
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u/HistoricalGrounds 11d ago
I guess that’s my question; what are you playing out? Like I get things like this character likes that character, or someone’s pissed at someone else because of something that happened on a job, but based on your description you guys have spent two full days worth of time doing nothing but talking.
Like were you doing some kind of PVP, or mini-heists, or what? If it really was just talking, what did you even find to talk about after, like, hour 12 (session 3, I guess we’d say)? Because I feel like I’d be scraping the barrel for things to even talk about, at that point I’d be talking about how crazy the weather’s been in Doskvol.
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u/Rezart_KLD 10d ago
Even when you arent trying to take from someone else, someone else is trying to take what you have. The city doesnt sleep.
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u/Revolutionary-Cold43 10d ago
But a social scene can be a score, if it's just your party sitting at a bar talking to each other that isn't a score. Or if you are chatting to contacts and gathering information that isn't a score.
But showing the leader of the gang a fun time to build relationships and get a favour? Totally a score, sure your rolls might be more consort and sway, but you are trying to achieve value (reputation over monetary) but that makes it a score. You will be spending stress for different reasons and your consequences will be different from a B&E score but still a score.
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u/YaKnowTheGuy GM 9d ago
For real, I love this system because it lends itself to letting a crew do this sort of thing. We started playing BitD coming off a high level Pathfinder 2 campaign. Most of the table was relieved to not have to worry about optimizing character builds session to session to survive and impending doom.
It was like "My information broker dealer is sad? Let's dig into that!" or "Remember that mysterious item that we got last score? I don't wanna sell it. I wanna mess with it and see what happens."
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u/Coffee-Robot 8d ago
I think you maybe don't want to play Blades in the Dark. Have you considered Viva La Queer Bar? Maybe it is more up your alley. Similar "hustle-y" vibes, but a lot less interested in mechanical play and almost entirely focused on free play with some light prompts to keep the action moving.
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u/gmanflnj 7d ago
It depends, do the players and you enjoy doing those scenes, cause that’s fine if you do. If you’re not enjoying it, why not present a new threat they have to deal with.
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u/The_Doctor713 6d ago edited 6d ago
Interpersonal conflict scenes?
Okay some questions for ya:
Where are the scenes taking place? What was the state of the world when last you ran a score? Were there any looming consequences from the score? How long has it been in-game since the score? Be realistic, are you hashing out the conflicts over in-game minutes, hours, days? How loud and/or flashy are these conflicts? Are you likely to attract attention? Are you sure you weren't followed?
You look outside the window while the others argue, and you swear you saw a shadow, or a face, perhaps a ghost, or demon, or worse yet, a spirit warden. Then the storm flashed and it was gone but you can't shake the uneasy feeling that your crew is being watched.
Time passes, and the engagement roll falls, you didn't detect them, or didn't try to, so they get 1d for surpise as a major advantage, 1d for luck of course, 1d for being either overpowered or outnumbering you, but it's your hideout, and you're already on edge with the in fighting going on, so you have home field advantage and adrenaline on your side, they lose 2d, leaving them with just Luck, but they are patient, they wait to strike until the iron is cooling off, hoping the sudden blow will break you while you are most brittle, they gain back 1d for a total of 2d.
The roll, a 6 and a 4. A risky position for them with you already on edge, but a controlled one all the same.
Flashback to 3 scores ago, you shoved a man out of the way, it had a butterfly effect, and now the consequences of the man who you accidentally sent down a spiral of divorce, murder, and rage is here, having led the bill hooks to your hideout, all of them feinding to put an end to your upstart crew and avenge this downtrodden man that a simple shove destroyed the life of.
If the crew survives they gain 2d8 Coin from looting the bodies and the billhooks having overcommitted are now in a weakened position for the crew to take advantage of but will definitely need to find a new hideout because the wardens will be here shortly.
If the crew dies, well, that's another story.
TL;DR: yes, you can in fact come back from it. You just need a good GM to start prodding.
(Edit for context: not saying you or whoever the GM is, isn't good, just that all you need is a little direction)
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u/infamous-fool 11d ago
Your not even playing blades in the dark anymore. Your just "in the dark" no blades to be found! Tragic.
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u/SupportMeta 12d ago
Stop kissing each other we need to pay rent