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[RollPlay: Blades Q&A] Episode 9: Tears for Fears

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#21

Oh yeah I understand that. The question is how long does it take for the ghost to come out? I feel like John mentioned it at some point but I can’t remember.

Because remember they work different shifts and she might have to work longer to deal with the confusion that was caused. Who’s to say when she gets back.

Also, there wouldn’t be any ravens. The ravens are what tell people where the actual body is. There will be a lot of confusion as the bells rung, no ravens went out, and no body was found. Then a body will eventually be found but still no ravens.

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#22

hmm i didnt know about the ravens. the good thing is aldo isnt writing a whole lot else so there shouldnt be any link to the group

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#23

in one of the previous episodes ( I think it was the one where they assaulted the Laviathan hunter) John said it sakes a few days for the ghost to come out. that was the reason rune was able to pull the ghost out of the corpse of the armwrestler in the episode where their target was in the lost district

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#24

Ghosts appear within three days or so. It’s different for every ghost, which is there is such a rush to dispose of the bodies and either prevent the ghosts from rising at all, or at least disposing of them before they have a chance to start attacking people. Because after that, it’s only a matter of time before you start getting vampires and other nasties that ghosts turn into. Really, it’s a lot like Hollows from Bleach.

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#25

@OneSevenDesign I know you won’t spoil anything about the fallout of Grace’s death, but could you at least give us a taste?

#27

Yes, some people use Lightning Hooks to deal with ghosts.

Many dangerous and powerful people are going to be driven to desperate things because of Grace’s death and the revelation of their secrets. It’s gonna be chaos.

And it all hinged on two rolls:

  1. When they Studied Grace in the train car and got a 6, she didn’t get to study them back. So she thought Cariless was going to honor their bargain.

  2. When Cariless put it all on the line to try to poison Grace. That was an all-or-nothing roll… on a 1-3, Cariless would have gotten wrecked by Grace and her supporters. Even on a 4/5, he still would have been in an awful position, with a paralyzed Grace and a few dozen of her friends swarming him.

Geoff is brave, is what I’m saying. :slight_smile:

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#28

@OneSevenDesign
@AnneMunition

When Grace was slowly dying of ‘rat poisoning’, shouldn’t Myth have warned Rune.

Rune could flashback to the murder, rush there, and consort/command with Grace if still alive or attune with Grace’s ghost and compell her to reveal what she wants to know.

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#29

No question I just wanna say that this show is awesome and I love it!
The scene with Aldo and the bluecoat was intense.

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#30

I almost wish Zeke had gone with ‘losing a taste’ rather than ‘getting a taste’, purely so we’d have some divergence within the group, especially compared to Rune who’s getting in deep and Catterby who seems to be able to keep a kind of detachment in the face of a vault full of gold.

Still, this way the crew can come together to form a psychopathic team of daemon hunters, so it’s not all bad!

I’m definitely looking forward to some of the fallout from Grace’s death - it should give Catterby and Rune some good chances at RPing after a very light week for them this time. Aldo seemed to be being held by his book (which he has now) and she didn’t seem to have the same kind of power over Cariless.

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#31

From a mechanical standpoint, getting a taste for it is the most dangerous of the two though. It will depend on how evil John is.

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#32

@OneSevenDesign even though I love @Ezekiel_III New clock and the RP potential of it, what would actually filling it do? If you don’t want to tell us that is cool, but I would love to know.

#33

If I remember correctly: Didn’t they hint in the episode he might be another recruit for she who slays in the dark? The clock was called something like “acquiring a taste”, so that would fit in just fine.

#34

Being Criminals in a specific sandbox-style world.

You can be basically any type of criminal (variety of Crew Playbooks) and the world is inspired by things like Thief and Dishonored. Victorian Era with hints of magic and a pinch of steampunk.

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#35

Something like that. IIRC, his choices were either a clock where he becomes more like Carriless, or starts a redemption path where he stops trying to kill people.

So far Ms. Cattaby is the only person who hasn’t had that kind of choice if I recall correctly, but if the trend continues, then this is the Crazy Train on the Highway to Hell.

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#36

That was one of the best sessions that I’ve ever seen.

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#37

Sounds like a great ride! Sign me up. First Class, baby!

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#38

Two questions and some comments:

  1. Could Cattaby have resisted the complication of leaving a footprint for gathering information? What might that have looked like – what does it mean to resist that kind of a complication?

  2. I noticed that both for confronting Grace, and for the murder score, you didn’t use the “Plan Type + Detail” setup. Instead, each one of those had the team discussing the plan for the score, and coming up with a plan that was practically complete in all details.

  • (Now, I know pretty much everything is up to GM/group discretion; the group is colorful and fun, and it’s not that those bits were lagging in any way. It just seems strange to me to let that part of the game slide; I feel like not having the plan nailed down is a central component in the game . So I’d love to hear your thoughts on whether, or how, you tweak that for this group.)

And beyond that… WOW, this episode was intense. Hats off to all the players – and especially to Zeke and Geoff, who clearly both put a lot of effort into guiding the game towards directions they choose. Each of them is doing outstanding work setting up entire scenes, setting the tone, making things happen. Kudos.

That being said, this episode was pretty disturbing to me. Mostly in the sense that it seemed to be focused on playing out an execution – and more than once. It’s not the murder that got to me here, and it’s not the gore; it was the sense of playing out a murder scene that was essentially unopposed. That means we’re not really watching it for the conflict, nor the tension – those were two murders that were highly controlled, narrowed down to a small number of dice rolls that weren’t much of a risk. There’s… something kind of disturbing in that. ::shudder::

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#39

I feel there was a huge risk there for Careless. He made 1 desperate roll for him to do what he wanted to do, and if he got ANYTHING but a 6, he would of been in deep shit. But I agree with you
when it comes to the @Ezekiel_III kill.

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#40

His odds were very good - better than 50-50 for a straight 6, and outright failure had less than a 7% chance. Success+complication could have moved him to a more dangerous position, but given that he could resist most likely immediate harm (what would have been a success to keep the server quiet, but a complication that doesn’t obliterate that success?), he likely would have been able to weasel out of the situation if he’d needed to.

But the truth is, that isn’t really my point. My point is, roleplaying – and especially roleplaying with strong narrative, like Blades in the Dark – is always telling a story. And there’s a decision, influenced by the system, the GM, the group, of what kind of story to be telling.

The stories being told in this episode weren’t stories of risk-taking, even when risks were being taken. The focus, the emphasis, weren’t really on “here’s the dangers you’re facing; here’s how awesome you are for overcoming them.” The risks were minor speedbumps on the way to getting to the scenes of execution. Playing out the execution – the detail of the fates Aldo and Carriless had in mind for their victims; their own mindset when performing the kill – that’s where the focus was.

And don’t get me wrong – this isn’t a criticism. It’s an observation. It’s not a criticism because,
(a) I think it’s absolutely fine to decide that that’s the kind of story you want to tell. It’s got drama, it’s got character, it’s got disturbing darkness, and that makes for good stories (for a certain type of “good”).
And because (b) it’s not any one player pulling towards this type of story; we’ve seen plenty of other tones and styles in the series, and these particular scores and opportunities really lent themselves to this particular approach.

For myself, this ties into the one issue I do have with Rollplay Blades so far – I’m waiting for them to tangle with some more determined opposition. So far, they’ve pretty much disposed of each enemy that’s cropped up; haven’t suffered any entanglements that were more than momentary setbacks; and haven’t made any enemies inclined to take the initiative (at least as far as we’ve seen). It’s not surprising that play style should drift into “murdering people who can’t put up much in the way of a meaningful opposition,” because so far a meaningful opposition just hasn’t really been established. (I haven’t seen Episode 10 yet, but it sounds like that’s very likely to change – with the fallout from Grace’s death, plus taking on Skurlock and Sitara, who I expect will be capable as hell.)

I think it’s fascinating how different crew types and play styles affect the game – a crew of Shadows, for example, doesn’t have nearly the same opportunity or ability that Assassins do to get rid of enemies. Shadows, as thieves and spies, are also forced much more into their enemies’ strongholds – vs. assassins, who, at least for incautious targets, have the option of drawing their foes out where they’re unguarded (think of all the times victims didn’t get the benefit of their Tier, because the crew cut them off from it. Or of how the toughest score was where they had to beard their target in his stronghold) . It makes for a very different game. Of course, as the crew progresses, makes enemies, rises in Tier, gains more assets they need to protect, that’s likely to change as well :slight_smile:

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#41

@Deabaker : And just a little more musing on how Carriless’s kill really drifted into execution territory for me:

Hypothetically speaking, Grace could have been much less helpless than she was.

  • The fact that she was easily duped into meeting in a dangerous place, was a GM call. John played Grace as very secure in her own invulnerability, to the point of not even taking the most elementary precautions. That’s a choice.
  • Grace being willing to play straight with the Last Word was a GM call. She could have been crafty and duplicitous, as she’d been with Aldo so many times previously. She could have run, terrified, and stayed the hell away from crazy murderers who are fine with killing her. She could have had protections in place (I can’t imagine that somebody as well-connected as Grace can’t get rid of a ghost dog in the space of 24 hours if she’d wanted to). She could have taken more initiative, looked after herself better, but she didn’t. That’s a choice.
  • John said a complication, when reading Grace’s intentions, would be for her to read their intentions as well. That would have been a real wrinkle, had it occurred – but when it didn’t, he didn’t merely interpret that as “Grace doesn’t know what your intentions are”; he interpreted it as “Grace trusts you to fulfill your side of the bargain.” Even though the crew never really did anything to inspire trust. That’s a choice.
  • The risks of poisoning Grace could easily have been made much more challenging. OK, Carriless has Commanded a minor server to do his bidding, but does that mean the rest of the wait staff don’t notice what’s up? Is this server so good an actor and with such steady nerves that he can basically shit his pants without anybody, including wily Grace, notice anything? Does Carriless’s Command of one lowly server also mean nobody objects to him manhandling Grace out of the pub? That’s a choice.

Now, I want to stress – when I say “that’s a choice,” these are perfectly fine choices. Some of these choices come way before John even knew Carriless would have a go at Grace – they facilitated the original score, coming to an accommodation about the book, and maybe setting Grace up as a new regular (and wily) element in the game.

That being said, I think these examples demonstrate my point fairly well (albeit with a particular focus on one particular participant, John as the GM – which I don’t mean to imply that he’s somehow “doing this on purpose” or any such thing): that there are choices being made here, which, when aggregated, can really build towards the “execution of the helpless” feel.

So, it’s much more than just “was it risky, or wasn’t it risky.” It can be risky and also be focused on that particular tone – whether by intention or by natural drift. That’s all.

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