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[RollPlay: Blades Q&A] Episode 13: The Dockers Are Burning

RollPlay: General & Archives RollPlay®: Blades
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#21

The dynamic between Carriless (@iNcontroLTV) and Rune (@AnneMunition) is probably my favourite in the show.
From Rune skipping around in glee after Carriless first displays his “She Who Slays In the Dark” Cultist Power against the Wannabe Eels Gang, followed by Carriless escorting Rune to the Dimmer Sisters home like an amused parent on Halloween night.
To then on the Fog Hounds ship where Rune was about to Attune to Satarras Demon underling, Carriless notices and Snaps at Rune not to ever do that (an act and in a style much unlike the Carriless standard), and Rune pretty much just Pouts because Carriless told her off.

Rune does have a clock for Favour with “She Who Slays In The Dark”, it’s not been brought up since the incident with the Wannabe Eels where her resisting the Goddesses Power brought the clock down from 2/4 to 1/4, I hope now that Aldo has expressed interest in learning about how to harness said powers, which Carriless seems more than agreeable in ushering Aldo towards, perhaps this new spotlight on gaining the Goddesses Favour will prompt Rune into moving her Track along also.

@iNcontroLTV Mentioned near the end of the episode that people had been hounding him alittle about which skills to take, I’ll admit and apologise that I am amoung them, I’ve been vying for Carriless to get the Occultist Veteran Skill So that he could more regularly Converse with She Who Slays In The Dark, he went for Daredevil this episode (Damn), but he did mention that Occultist was also on his Radar, so once again, sorry for the pestering.
I, as a fan, just really want to see more of the Goddesss in the Show, The Goddess talking to you and to her new prospective acolytes could pave the way to some highly interesting RP moments for the whole cast, including John.

I’ll close out with the now standard and very much deserved acknowledgement of this being one hell of a show, cast, DM and World. Looking forward to the time change this Sunday, right now it’s 06:25am here in the UK (Worth).

P.S. Myth MVP (Obligatory Myth Acknowledgement).

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#22

@iNcontroLTV
The whole ‘the devil’ idea with Carriless has me giddy with delight. [spoiler]I actually yelled loudly at my screen when you had him demand TWENTY FUCKING COIN from the fucking Dockers. Like holy fucking shit. That coulda got the crew into a tussle right on the docks and wow. Just wow. O.O[/spoiler]

[spoiler]I was so worried that you guys were screwing yourselves by not just bargaining with the Dockers right off the bat, but instead you OBLITERATED an entire 30 man ‘wreck your shit’ squad. That type of fight took dozens of Bloodletters to do something like that head on, along with Lampblack support even![/spoiler]

For a while I’ve been anxious to see the Last Word get more crew (like an actual gang rather than just 4 people)… but maybe they’re different. Maybe tier for them actually just means they are like Skurock… [spoiler]who fights like a big gang (hope thats not much of a spoiler) BY HIMSELF[/spoiler]. Maybe the four of them are just… like that. Maybe they don’t NEED a gang.

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#23

I, seemingly also you, find myself completely taken in by Carriless as a Character and @iNcontroLTV’s performance, just when I begin to feel I’ve gotten my head around his previous actions or reveals, Geoff goes ahead and imparts another facet of the enigma that is Carriless Firm.
For me, one of the primary mysteries of the show has been, who/what is Carriless Firm and what is his Goal.
Tonight we got to look behind the mask and see a glimpse of the true face behind the smile and I find myself all the more intrigued and elated about what we’ll learn next.

The bold plan to, as you said, Obliterate The Dockers as opposed to parley with them did at first fill me with a sense of trepidation, the plan was heavily dependant on The Dockers overcommiting their forces into the house.
I think a case can be made that The Last Words low numbers but high potency was a key asset to this encounter, The Dockers knew that they needed more than one man per Last Word member to really stand a chance since getting routed during their last attack, so they overcompensated. Their Falsely perceived guile at learning The Last Words “Hideout” thanks to Cattaby and their superior numbers led to them going on the complete offensive, in their eyes they had numbers and the element of surprise, that’s a better position than most Player Characters start an encounter in so I think @OneSevenDesign took that into account when rewarding the Critical Encounter roll.

With the tier and scope of their future targets being so much greater than their own, I wonder whether the cast will decide to recruit subordinates or not, each member being a one man army could be fun also. They might then be able to catch up with Myth :P.

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#24

Is he bound by word? Not necessarily but he takes “contracts” very seriously (hence the handshake thing). When he believes something to be true he doesn’t go against it.

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#25

I’ve been dropping clues and making hints for awhile… he has also acted rather “odd” for the entirety of the show always with this in mind so it would be harder had I not been releasing tidbits for the eventual payoff :slight_smile: I’m excited to see where we go from here.

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#26

Is Carriless delusional? hmm maybe? I’d say I’ve been playing him pretty true to what he is so if you see signs of that definitely keep it in mind but if you think he has been fairly straightforward well… :wink:

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#27

Thank you ! I really just did that because that is exactly what Carriless would think fair at that moment. Everything after that was an escalation of him being extremely tied to handshakes and their importance.

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#28

no apology necessary friend! I was saying it mostly as a joke :slight_smile: I like that you all get excited / involved and if it bothered me I never would have taken it. The idea of HIGHER risk and reward really intrigues me and definitely plays to the character for Carriless.

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#29

Ah well, I’m glad you see the bright side of our collective badgering :). Daredevil does seem like a good fit, I can see why it was suggested to such a degree. Hopefully Occultist next :stuck_out_tongue: (slip another subtle suggestion in there on the sly).

I look forward to seeing Carriless rise higher in Favour with the Goddess, and all the Boons that entails.

1 Like
#31

Of the 30 dockers who went into the building 3 escaped out the front windows and were killed near the beginning of the fight, 4 escaped upstairs and threw the piano out of the window and jumped. Those 4 got murdered at the end with wheats crit.

The 23 left were killed when Anne blew the building to shit during the first crit and the following role of a 6.

4 were also with the boat and were killed by wheats shots and the others jumping down.

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#33

I’m confused about your question then, killing 23 people with one engagement roll and a follow up 6 is pretty insane.

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#34

Completely ignoring all the cool plot shit from the episode for a second*: Was this a new song playing in the breaks btw - the one that builds with the horns and choral effect? I really liked it.

  • not that I’m not appropriately hyped, of course!
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#36

That’s a mistaken impression. I never said that everyone in the house would die because of those rolls. So, they didn’t.

The critical result on engagement meant that the first obstacle was cleared – in this case, the Dockers on the first floor who would have potentially been able to survive and attack Rune and Aldo. They were instantly taken care of by the engagement roll. This is extremely powerful, but that was the situation at hand.

I then rolled a 6 to assess casualties among the Dockers as a whole. That meant “really bad for them” so I calculated in my head that a few people would conceivably survive the initial lightning strike and fire, but would be in bad shape to fight. So that’s what happened.

There was never any point at which anyone was rolling to see if all the Dockers instantly died.

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#37

If the PCs ever fight an enemy Whisper with Tempest, they’ll be glad that they can’t instantly vaporize 40 people with a single lightning strike. :slight_smile:

The conditions of the trap and its perfect execution lead to the high body count, not merely a single attack by Rune.

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#38

Uh… I just noticed that there was an old second page in the conspiracy map PDF. Ignore that, it was just a test of various design elements. I forgot to delete it!

Anyway, I fixed the PDF so it’s just the first page now. Carry on.

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#40

I fell a bit behind with Blades and just jumped back in with this episode; happy I did so! Great show all, looking forward to the second season.

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#41

John, you said this more than once: “She” is not amused about Carriless getting in the way of the foghounds revenge.

Recap (mild spoilers if you are not caught up): [spoiler]Rune and Marget killed some member/officer of the foghounds. Marget tried to take the reign (or even took it for a while). Truth came out, and now Bear is angry they killed his friend and points swords. Marget hides. Rune is with the Last Word. Foghounds hire dockers to help.[/spoiler] Right? Hope so!

So their first assault went against Miss Cattaby and against Carriless and Aldo somewhere else, right?

Does “She” care about directly exerted revenge? Or is she about making them suffer by hurting peers? Because they only hurt peers. And if “She” likes to see revenge done directly, by killing who did you wrong, then going after peers of the wrong-doers is not on “Her” radar, and Carriless should not be scolded when ingulging his vice at all. On the contrary, they did him wrong by going after him, and not the ones who did them wrong. He (as well as Aldo and Cattaby) is entitled to revenge from this point of view.

I know that “She” also likes random killings, so not sure if I communicate my train of thoughts coherent enough… I’m tired.

Just curious :wink:

#42

She Who Slays in Darkness is a said by humans to be a goddess of justice or vengeance, depending on your point of view.

Her preferences and desires are not those of a human being, and cannot be easily understood or categorized into simple little boxes. She doesn’t have to be consistent or explicable. She isn’t a person. What is she, really? No one knows.

Her followers can only hope to do their best and try to stay in her good graces. As with all religions, there is much disagreement about what that means. Because of his bond with the goddess, Carriless has a bit of an advantage, and can sense when she is displeased.

Bear was taking revenge on Margette and Rune for the murder of his friend. Carriless had several chances to stay out of the way of that vengeance and allow Rune and Margette to be killed, but instead he chose to defend his friend.

(The Foghounds didn’t hire the Dockers. The two factions are loyal allies.)

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#43

@OneSevenDesign I was wondering if an issue some people are having with the game (in this thread and the feedback one from a few weeks ago) is whether some people watching don’t realize the stakes of the players actions. I know when people pull a crit out of their arse the effect it can have on the game. Some of the watchers don’t seem to see that link which is fine because they haven’t watched over 50 hours of blades games.

I know it might be a bit clunky for the players and your Gm style but would it be worth trying to lay out the stakes of rolls to the new audience for at least the first 2 or 3 sessions? So people can really see the impact and risks of the players actions and rolls?

It might screw up the game flow for the players (which would obviously suck) but it might get more people on board with the Game they are watching? This is all purely from a show point of view and not the game side of things as the players have a handle on whats happening.

#44

Seems like most people follow along just fine. Some people will always be confused about something, but that doesn’t mean its common. I’m not seeing any overwhelming confusion, just a few scattered comments from people who couldn’t figure things out on their own.

During the live chat, I see the vast majority of people reacting along with each roll and critical, easily following along with the stakes of the action.

Having said that, I will continue to fight to not be interrupted with a dice roll while I’m still explaining what the roll is for. That’s definitely an occasional issue.

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