Ask me questions about episode 3!
4 Likes
How big was the risk of death by electrocution, when @AnneMunition rolled EMP witchcraft vs the city grid?
I am loving this show more and more with every episode. Thank you to DM @OneSevenDesign and the Crew for making this show such a joy to watch.
Also Thanks to @iNcontroLTV and @djWHEAT for bringing back the pre-show media reviews/discussions 
a few memorable moments from the episode :
“Secret secrets”
Carriless complements
The Crew notice the new clock
Geoff & John part 1
Geoff & John part 2
Zeke’s Crit + “and a two for Geoff”
Anne MVP
11 Likes
Episode 3 Roll Results
[details=Rune “examines the mark in the book”]
- Attune 2d6 +1 help
- desperate
- great
- 2, 3, 6
- success (6)
- adds 1/4 on “She Who Slays in Darkness” clock (1/4 total)[/details]
[details=Vana “acquires some assets (i.e. BEER!)”]
- Fortune 0d6 + help + 2 stress
- 5, 2
- partial success (5)[/details]
[details=Vana “delivers the assets (BIER-TJE!)”]
- Consort 2d6 + 1 help (no bargain)
- devil’s bargain: extra heat
- devil’s bargain: sacrifice a coin
- devil’s bargain: make a promise to the guard
- standard
- risky
- 5, 5, 6
- success (6)[/details]
[details=Carriless “rolls the engagement”]
- Fortune 1d6
- 3
- bad (3)
- adds 1/4 on “reinforcements” clock (1/4 total)
- adds 1/4 on the “massive fire and explosion” clock (1/4 total)[/details]
[details=Carriless “jams the door”]
- Prowl 2d6 +1 help
- standard
- risky
- 6, 3, 3
- success (6)[/details]
[details=Aldo “swings the wrench”]
- Skirmish 3d6 +1 (no bargain)
- devil’s bargin: lose the wrench
- great
- desperate
- 2, 6, 6, 6
- crit (6)
- adds 1/4 on “reinforcements” clock (2/4 total)
- adds 1/4 on the “massive fire and explosion” clock (2/4 total)
- starts “marines” clock (0/8 total)[/details]
[details=Aldo “intimidates the workers”]
- Command 2d6 +1 from crit
- standard
- risky
- 4, 5, 3
- partial success (5)[/details]
[details=Rune “commands Myth’s attack”]
- 2d6
- 6, 3
- success (6)[/details]
[details=Carriless “walks through fire”]
- Prowl 2d6
- standard
- risky
- 6, 1
- success (6)[/details]
[details=Carriless “attacks the mark”]
- Skirmish 3d6
- standard
- desperate
- 3, 2, 6
- success (6)
- adds 2/6 on the “Clave is dead” clock (2/6 total)
- adds 1/4 on the “massive fire and explosion” clock (3/4 total)[/details]
[details=Rune “plugs in her lightning hook”]
- Attune 2d6 +1 help from Vana’s foresight (no bargain)
- devil’s bargain: destroy the lightning hook
- great
- desperate
- 6, 2, 2
- success (6)
- removes “reinforcements” clock (0/4 total)
- removes “massive fire and explosion” clock (0/4 total)
- removes “marines” clock (0/8 total)[/details]
[details=Rune “commands Myth’s attack again”]
- 2d6
- 6, 6
- crit (6)[/details]
[details=Aldo “wrenches the worker”]
- Skirmish 3d6
- great
- controlled
- 3, 4, 2
- partial success (4)[/details]
[details=Aldo “cleans up”]
- Skirmish 3d6
- great
- risky
- 3, 5, 3
- partial success (5)
- Aldo takes 2 harm[/details]
[details=Aldo “resists the harm”]
- Prowess 2d6 +1 help
- 1, 6, 3
- Aldo only takes 1 harm (instead of 2)[/details]
[details=Clave “has human feelings”]
- Fortune 2d6
- 1, 3
- bad (3)[/details]
[details=Carriless “attacks Clave”]
- Skirmish 2d6 +1 help
- standard
- risky
- 6, 3, 5
- success (6)
- adds 2/6 on the “Clave is dead” clock (4/6 total)[/details]
[details=Carriless “attacks Clave again”]
- Skirmish 2d6
- standard
- risky
- 1, 1, 4
- partial fail (4)
- Carriless takes 2 harm
- adds 2/6 on the “Clave is dead” clock (6/6 total x_x )[/details]
[details=Carriless “resists the harm”]
- Prowess 3d6
- 4, 4, 3
- avoids Clave’s attack (0 harm)[/details]
[details=Aldo “slips off the ship”]
- Prowl 1d6 +1 from Foresight
- desperate
- standard
- 2
- bad (2)[/details]
[details=Carriless “slips off the ship”]
- Prowl 2d6
- desperate
- standard
- 3, 4
- partial success (4)[/details]
[details=Carriless “lights a man’s cigarette”]
- Command 2d6
- great
- risky
- 2, 2
- bad (2)[/details]
[details=Aldo “threatens a man’s face”]
- Command 2d6
- great
- risky
- 6, 3
- success (6)[/details]
[details=Summary of rolls (crit/success/partial/bad)]
- Geoff/Carriless - (0/4/2/2)
- Zeke/Aldo - (1/1/3/1)
- Anne/Rune - (1/3/0/0)
- Wheat/Vana - (0/1/1/0)[/details]
[details=Clocks]
- Iramina’s trust - (3/4) decreasing…
- She Who Slays in Darkness - (1/4) ominous implications increasing…[/details]
[details=Factions]
- The Unseen (+1) Tier IV
- The Fog Hounds (+1) Tier I
- The Lost (+1) Tier I
- Lord Scurlock (-1, with Rune specifically -3) Tier III
- City Council (-1) Tier V
- The Bluecoats (0) Tier IV[/details]
15 Likes
I really appreciate the effort you put into this, it’s nice to look at a concise list after the show. 
7 Likes
Are we going to see more jobs come their way. Their current assignments only fill about 4 or 5 more episodes.
Are we going to see a kind of assassins creed type situation where they’ll need to take out some lower level people before moving onto the main targets, or possibly new plot threads and people?
I realize its probably spoilers to answer but was just curious.
She would have taken level 4 harm, which is fatal. But, as always, she could make a resistance roll to reduce the harm down a level.
2 Likes
It’s up to the players. But yes, I’m sure they’ll look for other employers and also create their own missions, too.
1 Like
Thanks for another awesome episode! It was great to see a good example of a full fight take place.
My question is, when the “plan” started at a 1-3, you basically started 2-3 clocks of “bad shit”. Was the number of extending circumstances due to the Tier Level (like the alarm / Marines) or due to the horrible engagement (like the electrical room blowing up).
I’m just curious how you got a feel for starting all those and which things came into factor when you started those. (Number of clocks by engagement start, clock size by Tier maybe?)
Looking forward to further episodes!
1 Like
Great episode tonight.
Did Geoff decide to fight Lady Clave with his fists because Carriless Firm is crazy and that’s how he fights or did he forget about his assassins rigging?
2 Likes
Hi John, love the series and great system you’ve conjured up!
Do you think you’re being too light on the crew? I’ve watched a few episodes of your other game with Adam and some others, and they seem to have one helluva time getting by, levelling, etc. Haven’t watched further on, but yeah.
Or is it that you trust Adam and those guys to face your full fury, and are maybe giving this crew a slight break due to newness?
I don’t mean this at all negatively btw, I like the badassery that happens, but there has only been a slight hint at fatal harm… once. Were there other times, veiled under your subtlety? (Like, they were in desperate and COULD have been brutally destroyed but nailed their roll like Anne did with the powergrid-fu and you just didn’t mention how terrible it coulda been for em?)
It’s interesting watching a Blades campaign with players that are more accustomed to “play to win” role playing games. Blades is not a player vs. GM game and it seems it will take the cast some time to get used to it.
I adore Geoff but there’s no need to lawyer in Blades 
They haven’t really been fucking up their rolls. There was a good chance at A fatality on this run, and almost everything went perfect EXCEPT the engagement roll, which was only a three. If that had been a 1, I imagine things could have gotten really bad.
No lawyering? What is this heresy!? 
5 Likes
I dunno, I like it when he makes an elaborate argument, puts a lot of effort into it and John just nods and says something along on the lines of ‘Sure, if you think so’.
The failed engagement roll meant that the plan type didn’t work as intended and the PCs lost the initiative. So, I described some events that resulted in that outcome, using my understanding of the situation on the ship.
There were major repairs taking place, so I thought, “What if one of the repair jobs suddenly goes haywire, right when they try to launch their deception?” This is also in keeping with the idea that a bad engagement roll isn’t necessarily the PC’s ‘fault’ – it’s just bad fortune.
Since the ship probably has an alarm, and the marine squad probably wasn’t birthed on board during repairs, I made a ‘reinforcements’ clock to count down to their response to the problem. For the marines themselves, I assumed one squad on-call and the rest on shore leave – so a small gang (5 people) with Tier IV gear and combat training. That means ZERO effect for the PCs in a fight with them, by the way. (They’d need to push themselves and attempt setup actions to hurt the marines at all.)
Anyway, in short, first I decided that things went bad because of the failed engagement roll. Then I looked around at the fiction and made clocks to reflect what I saw.
He did it to be a badass. And it worked out.
Nope.
- Aldo’s roll against Master Chauk. It was desperate, so Aldo was risking severe harm (level 3) as the base, +1 because Chauk is a higher-Tier badass. So that’s fatal harm at risk.
- Carriless walks through the fire. Risky roll, so Carriless is risking standard harm (level 2) as the base, +1 because of the potency (it’s metal-melting electroplasmic fire). So that’s incapacitating harm at risk.
- Carriless fights Clave. She’s a master sword-fighter, desperate roll, so that’s severe harm at risk (level 3), +1 because of her higher-Tier finely crafted weapon. Fatal harm at risk.
- Rune channels the city power grid. Obviously, fatal harm at risk.
They rolled sixes, so they avoided those consequences. Even with 5s, they would have suffered all of the above. I’m not pulling any punches.
9 Likes
Wow! They are rolling really well. And I was thinking you are just soft on them.
At the rate the players get experience how far are they form the “end game” ? It seems to me that they are “leveling” too fast.
2 Likes
They’re a Tier Zero crew with no significant assets, authority, or connections. They’re very, very far away from the endgame. If I had to guess… maybe 50 sessions away? Could be more. (For comparison, my other group on YouTube, The Bloodletters, are Tier II after 13 sessions, and they are very good at crew development.)
There’s no “leveling too fast” in Blades. The range of power is very compressed, unlike some other RPGs. People are people in Blades. A “top level” character and a beginning PC aren’t as far apart as, say, a level 1 and level 20 D&D character are. Both characters can be killed by a knife to the spine, or get taken out of play by too much Trauma. You never reach a point where you’re a 100 HP juggernaut.
3 Likes
I meant “leveling” more as a character progression and not a stats progression, if that makes sense. I mean, there is a finite number of things a player can put experience in to. Every PC has theirs expiration date. And when you get between 4 and 8 exp every session, what is the “shelf life” of a Blades character?
hoooooooly shit what
10 Likes