Blades in the Dark

Anyone (else) have it?

Anyone have any actual play experience with it?

Anyone want to talk about it?

Never heard of it, but sounds cool! :-)

Thanks for providing the context link, jabes!

For any TLDRs to the website out there, in summary it's a game that started as a "Powered by the Apocalypse" hack (of Apocalypse World/Dungeon World "fame"), but turned into its own thing (was KSed) with its own/new dice mechanic (which is the part I didn't like form PbtA) set in what I would describe as Victorian-horror/magi-punk dystopian world.

I was hoping to just talk about people's experiences with some of the nuanced, seemingly peripheral mechanics.

Especially those associated with the Crew, Downtime, Heat, and Turf and things...

Anyone out there (here) have actual play experience?

Oh, another one of those...
I bought Urban Shadows because I didn't knew it had social justice bullshit in it, but I'm not spending any more money on social justice propaganda games.

Uh... thanks for the input... ?

Wait... No... no, actually that was useless. And demonstrably ignorant. And self-indulgent/selfish/not constructive. And off topic.

I didn't ask you, or anyone, to buy the game.

Just seeing if there's anyone here to chat about some things in it with.

I appreciate you cursing at me though, and trying to make a gaming post political, and just generally being the type of user that is a poison to communities like these.

See ya around!

@Kalajel it seems weird judging any game that uses a particular engine as having a particular social agenda, it would be like not playing Pathfinder because you didn't like the TSR... This game was made by Evil Hat so does that mean your boycotting all FATE systems too?

I haven't got it but looks interesting. I'm a fan of gaslight fantasy so this is certainly up my ally... Looking at the play books it's a cool looking mix of PbtA and Fate. I'll probably pick up the system just to see what they did with that!

It does seem to pull in lots of little bits from various non-PbtA sources.

The dice mechanic eschews the 2d6+ system for a take the highest/lowest result dicepool, but retains "No", "Yes, but", "Yes", "Yes, and" spectrum.

There are a lot of "mini games" tho, that I'm wondering how they play, or if they can be disregarded ...

Knowing evil hat those mini games are probably modularised so you'll be able to put them in as desired

Having tried it yet, but it's on the short list of 'games to get to'. Have someone local that's dying to give it whirl.

I'm not judging. Maskot told me that all games using the Apocalypse World engine had social justice in them. I am acting based off previously obtained information which was provided to me, unless Maskot is wrong... Or have you forgotten the discussion we had back in the Urban Shadows OOC thread?

I'm not too sure what this is supposed to be about. I don't remember cursing at you. As for my post not being constructive, I disagree: some people might want to be informed that the game they're considering to buy has a giant stinking turn splattered somewhere in there... But I forgot, it's 2017, therefore we're not allowed to have an opinion...

See ya around!

You're not sure why I don't appreciate you derailing a discussion I was trying to have?

You just admitted you're only regurgitating something someone spit into your mouth so that you could enjoy its taste again. You haven't bothered to actually inform yourself, much less anyone else. So, no, not constructive.

If you knew the first thing about the topic/game/setting at hand would know it's you're own stinking turd you're smelling. Why do I get the feeling you're gonna continue to slurp it down?

I suggest we tone it down before this thread devolves further into toxicity. Two suggestions:

1) Be open to differing opinions. It is okay to be critical of media, even if it stems from political views.

2) Be careful about tone. It is difficult to establish nuance with text alone, and our choice of words and phrasing can have unintended connotations. Yes, many of us are adults and can probably handle language; however, we ought to realize the tone we establish when we choose such words.

I'd say everyone needs to take a step back. Opinions were stated, reactions were made, and spiraled a bit, but those involved have been around here long enough to know better. So let's take a deep breath, consider how our words were interpreted, and get along. And of you can't get along, pretend like you are.

.....Anyway, how about that Blades in the Dark game? I'm very interested in hearing people's experiences with it because the premise is very intriguing.

When that opinion is expressed in terms of politics you've violated site terms.

Which means we can't further explore that opinion without further violating site terms. Which means I can't actually talk about what the game is about in those terms to provide counterpoint.

Which I guess means one is free to violate site terms without consequence once per thread here cuz it's an "opinion"? But no one is allowed to dispute that opinion? How is this not poisonous to this community?

It's a sucker punch. An attack with no chance of defense. When you do that to someone in a real life establishment, you get kicked out, cuz you're clearly a danger to that establishment.

Let's just get this thread back on track please.

I don't remember what in what episode it was, but the Total Party Thrill Podcast spoke about it recently....they seemed to like it. Hope somebody here will speak about it cause I have to admit it looks pretty interesting.

I've always been a fan of many aspects of AW/PbtA games except for the core mechanic. I like a little bit more crunch in my games. And that's mostly why I'm so excited about Blades, it's a new core mechanic applied to the strong narrative-facing approach of PbtA and seems to have taken great steps to increase the viability of long term play through increased mechanical granularity and advancement options.

But I almost feel like they've went too far. They've woven a very complicated web of relationships between rewards (Reputation, Coin, Downtime/Projects/Healing, etc.), and expenses incurred upon those rewards (Turf, Heat, Stress, etc.).

I backed it, but haven't had a time to give it more than a cursory glance sadly. There seems to be some fiddly bits, but it also seems most of them come up at 'downtime' as if that is a different game in itself.

Nice. I didn't catch wind of it until well after it was Kicked. Saw it in my FLGS and swooped it up.
Yes, exactly. Almost boardgame like even...

Only having read it, it seems like it's a lot easier to lose/spend Coin and Rep and things, than it is to gain it...

Hah! I forgot I backed it at the physical level, so it was quite a surprise to find a physical book in the mail box when I got home from work today.

Having had the time to plow a bit more through it, I have to say I like the way the book presents the setting. The two page spread per district with just enough info so you get the basics, but not so much that there's too many details you'll never end up using.

Heh, that's a pleasant surprise indeed!

I agree about the setting. It's nice to have a skeleton, but plenty of room for tacking on your own flesh. This was also something I didn't particularly like about PbtA's, they gave you the tools to worldbuild, but nothing concrete to go on right out of the box.