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[RollPlay: Blades Q&A] Episode 14: Helker Skelter

Ask us questions about episode 14!

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Don’t have any questions, just want to say I loved today’s episode and especially loved being able to watch it live again. Thanks cast and crew!

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@OneSevenDesign, are you tempted to switch out the casts dice to only D5s from now on? :stuck_out_tongue:

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I’m super stoked for the new timeslot and being able to watch all 4 hours! And @OneSevenDesign awesome job with the Conspiracy map. It’s the sort of thing I drool over, and it’s an awesome way to build audience-interaction as we sit here and try to put pieces together ourselves (and it helps give some substance to characters we’ve only heard once or twice).

Edit: I do have one question, have we heard of “Silver” from (I presume, the REAL) Eels? I know the teenage group are sort of posing as the Eels and I don’t recall ever hearing about what happened to the original gang.

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Awesome show today! Everyone was bringing their all like usual, every time I watch I get inspired, this game should honestly be a t.v. show. Thank you all for making and sharing this experience with us. @OneSevenDesign @AnneMunition @iNcontroLTV @Ezekiel_III @djWHEAT

Now my question, how long have you had this conspiracy figured out? Did you have a vague idea and make it over time with the players input, or was it a set thing from the start? I ask cause I struggle at home with connecting elements of my own campaign. Thanks for your time and making this wonderful game. :smiley:

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For the outstanding crew upgrades, I suggest going for a special ability unless you really think you need something from the 2 upgrades (cohorts, vehicles, secured lair, etc).

There’s tons of good special abilities to pick from, but I’d maybe suggest something like Bound in Darkness (assist a teammate across any distance), War Dogs (gain +1d for vice and an extra downtime action if you’re at war, which you are), or Synchronized (when you make group actions, two 6s from different people will count as a crit).

Just some food for thought, there’s a lot of choice.

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Synchronized sounds potentially very strong, @OneSevenDesign would Myth also trigger the Ability Synchronized or does it only work when two or more Main Player Characters do a group action?

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Regarding Silver and the Eels, let’s just say The Last Word isn’t the only crew in town.
[spoiler]The Bloodletters. I’m talking about the Bloodletters. Well… technically the Six Towers Gang. They weren’t the Bloodletters yet when they killed the Eels.[/spoiler]

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Someone brought it up previously, but @OneSevenDesign do you think the crew will end up basically being higher tier as individuals, but not get their crew up so to speak. Kinda like Lord Scurlock?

I have a similar situation in the group I GM where the crew has been getting basically no rep because they just go about doing stupid shit, getting into desperate situation, or going on long character arcs. I now have a group who, as tier 1, has taken down the Crows, the Dockers and Silver Nails. It doesn’t help that they seem to be rolling incredibly well as well. They’re incredibly in character and into deep immersion, so their scores are almost always entirely quietl.

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That conspiracy map is just brilliant! And now because of it, I can’t help but imagine that there should be a flashback of Scurlock channeling Hannibal by standing over Remira and her dead family asking, “So tell me, how does that make you feel? Who have you now become?”
Of course this means that when Blades becomes a movie, Mads HAS to play him.

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@OneSevenDesign

As an assasin group why would there be any confusion with Aldo leaving a lesson and the Last word killing someone on behalf of the Crows…

Ohhh… I see. Never mind.

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The Eels are a small gang originally from the Bloodletters series. Silver was their leader before she got killed [spoiler]by Canter Haig[/spoiler].

My method is to play a few sessions to see what happens, then create something that fits the facts as established in play.

Yep, Myth would trigger Synchronized (during a group action).

Yeah, they do seem to be headed in that direction.

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LOVED this episode guys.

One thing: The crew DOES NOT need to call out what items they have before they enter the score right? They can just say they have it and check the appropriate boxes for the loadout they chose (ie: Light/medium/heavy) when they need it?

So if Cattaby needed a rifle, she had it, but then couldn’t carry a bunch of other stuff instead, etc. It hasn’t really came up, but sometimes I think they ignore solutions based on the fact they might not realize they can have items that just ‘make sense’ for the score they’re on…

edit: fixed so not sounding like a knowitall jackass, I could be misunderstanding!

That is how it has worked out. RAW is you make your character’s loadout before every job, and it can always change so you can have whatever your character has access to according to the sheet.

Rules as performed in both the Bloodletters and Blades series has been very DnD-ish where the characters basically went “here is the loadout I want my character to have” and then they just use forever, only changing when they get something new, like the spear thingy Carriless picked up from the Lord Suker job, or Canter’s really fine coat and pistols.

Since I don’t think they’ve ever used the entire loadout, they very easily could just go “But wait John, I’d like to flashback to when I remembered to grab this item before we left the hideout.”

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today we got the @AnneMunition AnneVP lightning strike of doom which was badass.

@OneSevenDesign do you think this hit develops a new trait for the last word? This doesn’t seem “professional”…it more seemed vindictive especially after they had just demanded 20 coins from the dockers to leave them alone. Also I’m interested in which direction you take this raven+last word connection…whether people will assume ravens=last word or whether the ravens hired the last word and whether that will cause any other gangs to join forces to fight them

That’s correct.

Yep! My buddy Vincent wrote that. I love it. (Also, the flying eels on the cover were my idea).

Yeah, I was thinking that, too.

He was an NPC. But he was involved in the original campaign.

Yeah, he was one of the PCs.

To bring this back on topic for this game, though: the Immortal Emperor is the kind of person that would be very interested in Kotar artifacts and discoveries, and his agents are most definitely already on the case.

It’s been nice to see Miss Cattaby, with seemingly great effect, take part in combat these last few episodes. Miss Cattaby was involved in the assualt on Lord Sukur but not to a high degree, although saying that, the showdown between Rune and the Ghost ( Cue Duel of Fates from Star Wars Episode 1 for that fight. ) plus Myth taking out that score of hollows does occupy a large sum of my memory of that encounter.

This effectiveness, ability and desire to be more combat inclined, narratively speaking, seems like it stems from Miss Cattaby being attacked by the Fog Hounds, death was thankfully avoided but it did result in her incurring the Trauma, Vicious. Miss Cattabys self imposed edict of not allowing anything like that to ever happen again would most certainly fuel this fervour for strength, which in Miss Cattabys case takes the form of proficiency with firearms.

I did feel that since Lord Sukur was taken out Miss Cattabys progression had plateaued alittle, but now that it’s been revealed that she’s a major part of the new narrative to find Kotars Artifacts and she’s changed her usual behaviour due to her Trauma, I can honestly say that Miss Cattaby very much has my attention. I’m looking forward to seeing where Miss Cattaby goes from here.

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Me too! Cattaby is a cool character.

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