[Blades in the Dark]: Electric Demon Whale Blood Boogaloo

fadingathedges

The streets of Duskwall are haunted. By vengeful ghosts and cruel demons. By the masked spirit wardens and their lightning-hooks. By sharp-eyed inspectors and their gossiping crows. By the alluring hawkers of vice and pleasure. By thieves and killers and scoundrels like you — the Blades in the Dark.

The noble elite grow ever richer from the profits of their leviathan-hunting fleets and electroplasm refineries. The Bluecoats of the constabulary crack skulls and line their pockets with graft. The powerful crime syndicates leech coin from every business, brothel, drug den, and gambling house. And then there's your crew of scoundrels: all the way down at the bottom rung. Can you make it to the top? What are you willing to do to get there? There's only one way to find out...

I decided to KickStart this because it looks fantastic, even though I have no time and no reliable group. It feels good enough that I wanted people here to talk about it.

Want to be Walter White, Locke Lamora, or Garth Brooks in a setting where it won't ruin most of the other angles of the game? Two out of three ain't bad!

The sample of play video is a 2 part series, it pretty much sold me.

https://youtu.be/jsmw4wC7iOE

I'M OUT!

saint&sinner

I agree. Very exciting. Especially the Blades of the Jhereg (from Steven Brust's Dragaera series).

Alderaan Crumbs

I normally don't promote too many things but this...wow! I wasn't very interested in Apocalypse World or its derivatives (not that they're bad, they just didn't grab me), but Blades in the Dark sucked me in right away. The concept of NOT spending minutes to hours planning your heist/dungeon-crawl/shadowrun/etc. grabbed my attention and after backing it enough for the Quickstart, I was hooked. The teamwork mechanics set ideas ablaze and you look foward to every throw of the dice, even if you're more into roleplaying and more narrative games. The mechanics don't supplant narrative and imagination, they help create them. They're only involved as much as you want them to be and you lose nothing if you choose to "skip" a rule, even sporadically.

Dice-lovers will enjoy the "fiddly-bits" but, as a fair explanation, there aren't charts of modifiers to stack for the perfect bonus. Instead, you can "min-max" (without the negative connotation usually applied to the term) by really diving into the fiction and pushing the game forward, narratively and mechanically.

John and his friends have been very involved and their love for the game is infectious. John's transparency and support is top-notch and he's already made backers and fans a solid part of the process.

The stretch goals are phenomenal and if you can't find something to yours tastes, I'd be surprised. I highly recommend taking a good look and at the very least, backing to the level needed for the Quickstart. Also, hop over to the Blades in the Dark G+ community*! Nice folks and John's doing a bang-up job of answering questions.

*If it helps to know, I'm not a social media person. I don't use FB or Twitter and I rarely e-mail. I mention this because I joined the Blades in the Dark G+ community because of this Kickstarter and it's been a great, new experience.

mpureka

John Harper has put together a bunch of really excellent games in the past - Lady Blackbird probably the best known, but Agon and Lasers and Feelings are also both excellent, so this game is coming from a pretty solid pedigree. And the world builds on the work he did for Ghost Lines, which is super cool.

I would encourage everyone to check this out, it's really slick stuff.

fadingathedges

Alderaan Crumbs wrote: »

The concept of NOT spending minutes to hours planning your heist/dungeon-crawl/shadowrun/etc. grabbed my attention and after backing it enough for the Quickstart, I was hooked. The teamwork mechanics set ideas ablaze and you look foward to every throw of the dice, even if you're more into roleplaying and more narrative games. The mechanics don't supplant narrative and imagination, they help create them. They're only involved as much as you want them to be and you lose nothing if you choose to "skip" a rule, even sporadically.

I've only seen what they do in the play sample and the mechanics seemed very slick. I absolutely love the idea of picking a plan archetype and then diving into it, then retconning as needed with the "flashback" mechanic.

How does the point / backup thing work? Or can you share anything about the 'group' character? Like, at the beginning they mention making your lair, but don't go into it at all.

e~ Actually, @Alderaan Crumbs how did you get the QuickStart PDF? I backed high enough but never got an email.

Neaden

@fadingathedges It's in a backer's only update here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2080350433/blades-in-the-dark/posts/1187067 I think a new one might be coming out soon though. I backed this just because it was John Harper making it and while I haven't finished reading it looks as good as I expected so far.

The on point / backup is rotating. So during a heist one person is on point while you distract the guards, and everyone else is on backup. Once they do their thing one of the backups is on point for the next challenge, say scaling the wall. You could trade back and forth between two people but I think the implication is that everyone get's their shot.

fadingathedges

I actually found that and have read about half so far - thanks though.

Devil's Bargain is a really cool mechanic.

Neaden

So I had a chance to finish reading the Quickstart, looks really good so far. I'm not sure how playable it would be out of the box without more setting information and guidance on setting difficulties, but it is a great start. If you haven't had a chance I would look at Ghost Lines as well http://www.onesevendesign.com/ghostlines/ which is where the setting for this game first started.
Edit: Just checked Kickstarter, it looks like he's going to post a new quickstart on Monday with more examples which is good. Would anyone be interested in a pbp here once that's out?

fadingathedges

I don't have time to commit - finals, then out of the country for a week - but I will definitely read along when I'm able.

I might suggest you try something live, like irc or a skype, just because of how much interaction there is in the game. There isn't much your turn/my turn as such... Devil's Bargains will take a long time, etc.