RPG a Day #29 System

 

I’m going to try and take part in the #RPGaDay writing prompts for 2021. The idea is there’s a prompt every day that asks you to write about something in RPG’s you really like. There are a couple of alternate prompts offered but I’m going to try and do the main one every day. If you want to try it yourself, you can head here for the calendar for this year.

There are a lot of really great RPG systems out there. I’m certain that there will be a great many people writing about some of the most popular and oldest systems on the market. I want to write about one where I love the system and enjoy it so much that it overrides my feelings about the setting. Not to say that the setting is bad. I’ve seen it used to great effect and enjoy a live play in this setting quite a bit. However, the dark tone of Blades in the Dark isn’t one that I gravitate towards.

Blades in the Dark is a story focused system that recreates heist stories. In Blades you’ll take the role of a member of a team of criminal who specialize in a type of crime. This can be anything from theft, espionage, to assassination. While these are your specializations they aren’t the only type of crime you commit. A session will consist of your group determining what sort of job you’re going to pull, how you’re going to infiltrate the location, and then starting play.

Preparing for the job takes the least amount of time in the game. Where some crime games make scouting out the location, uncovering information, and getting any equipment you’ll need a major focus of the game Blades choose to focus instead on the operation itself. To accomplish this you simply pick your job and target.

Once you’ve decided on a job you decide what approach you’re going to take. Will you go in violently with swords, bows, and magic? Will you attempt a stealthy approach and sneak in under cover of darkness? Or will you infiltrate using your social graces by entering the location during a grand ball or business meeting? However you decided to approach the job your GM will make an approach roll. They’ll build a pool of dice based on advantages, luck, complications, and information you might have and roll the dice. This sets what position you’re in when the session truly begins. Best case scenario you’ve begin inside the location with no complications having arisen to stop you. Worst case scenario you’ll be starting with your back to the wall and with some sort of opposition coming down on your position.

From there the game proceeds. You roleplay your way through the rest of the job, working the location, folks, and even ghosts to complete your objective. As you play through the GM will ask for checks. You’ll determine what skill you’re using to accomplish something, roll a number of dice equal to your skill, and take the highest individual dice. If you roll a 6 then you succeed with no complications. If you rolled more than one 6 then you’ve scored a critical and get a spectacular success. A 4 or 5 is a partial success you’ve done what you wanted but something went wrong, you lost a piece of equipment, hurt yourself, or raised some suspicion. A 1 to 3 is a failure and goes badly for you, it’s unlikely that you succeeded and will probably have something bad coming your way.

One of the things I really like about the game is the stress system and how it is used to reflect the lack of in game preparation. As you go about the job you’ll build stress and if your stress gets to a certain level then you’ll abandon the job. Your character will have reached the end of their rope and peaced right out of the job. One of the drawbacks of partial success and failures is added stress. The other way to build stress is to call for a flashback.

Using a flashback is an action you can take at any time change something in the story. You get searched at the door on your way into the party; flashback to earlier that day when you bribed the guard. Your target is hosting a dinner party and you can’t get close to him; flashback to getting a waiters uniform earlier. You’ve accidentally gotten the attention of local law enforcement; flashback to your childhood and how this particular guard was your best friend back in the day. Every flashback gives you a bit of control over the story but it also gives you stress. The more useful the item the greater the stress with a limit of 1 or 2 points.

There’s a lot more to the system and the game. There’s an entire section on maintaining your gang and base of operations, reducing your stress between jobs, and working on side projects. I love the system in this game and enjoy playing it.

However, I’m not a huge fan of the setting. The world of Blades is dark and unforgiving. There’s a brutality to it that it I don’t find appealing. It’s just not my kind of setting. But I do love the mechanics.

I’ve been taking my spare time to jury rig my own setting. Something I do from time to time when I want to do something a bit different. For me I’m going with a 70’s spy film type of setting. That’s more my speed.

What’s a system you love despite the setting? Have you tried to reskin it? How did it work?

Let me know down in the comments. I’d love to hear.

Tomorrow, I’ll be back for mention.

Until then, stay safe and be well.