Understanding and Hacking Blades in the Dark (Part One)

[@rchou01]

1:34 - What is Blades in the Dark? 4:29 - Genre and Influences 6:55 - Historical Origins of the Thieves Guild 8:00 - Power Progression in Blades 9:14 - The Gang as a Character 9:46 - John’s Overview 10:30 - Idea Origins & Gameplay Reasoning 12:13 - Comparison to Shadowrun 13:42 - How The Gang Encourages Group Buy In 15:42 - Gang as Mechanism for Group Splitting / Cameos 18:46 - Comparison to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 19:30 - Fictional Positioning & The Core Resolution System 20:11 - John’s Overview of Fictional Positioning 22:01 - Fiction First, Fictional Positioning in Blades 23:30 - Comparison to Apocalypse World 24:04 - Blades’ Fictional Positioning Factors 26:29 - How Player Actions Informs FP 29:11 - The GM’s Input: Setting FP 30:44 - The Back and Forth: FP as Conversation 31:31 - The Flashback 34:05 - Dissing Shadowrun (Comparison) 34:37 - What are the Modular Pieces of Blades? 36:04 - Type of Games Good for Blades Hacking 37:07 - Layer I: Hacking as a Writing Exercise (Redefining Actions and Other Terms) 41:34 - Adam’s Aside: FP is Core Mechanic in Blades 42:24 - David: Yup! Along with a Team of People Doing Crazy Jobs, etc. 44:28 - Layer II - Changing or Removing Entire Modules 48:09 - Why Open Source is Awesome for RPGs 50:04 - What “Space” are Good for the Blades System? 52:16 - Blades Against Darkness Discussion (Dungeon Crawling Hack) 53:42 - Rivalries, Factions, & Scale in the Blades System 54:28 - RFS Supporting the Narrative Ecosystem 55:44 - Individual PC Capability vs. Crew/Faction Tiers 57:24 - Star Wars Power / Faction Analogy 59:30 - Player Death

[@AkeelaTheGhost]

You're a scholar and a gentleman

[@OnBr0kenW1ngs]

Every hero doesn't wear a cape

[@metalheaddrummer101]

you are bestperson.

[@trashpanda5869]

Hey bro. I love you.

[@lucaslgm]

3 years later, still best comment.

[@ChristophSapinsky]

The satire about the Thieves Guild that John is talking about is called Rinconete y Cortadillo from Novelas Ejemplares by spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes written in 1613

[@Runehammer1]

Great vid here guys... love dogma too :)

[@MatthewCaulder]

Glad that Adam's example of "party as character" was Warhammer Fantasy. It's a great example of the mechanic.

[@AdamKoebel]

+Matthew Caulder I agree. Best part of that whole design.

[@SidTheGhostBox]

I don't think there's any Tabletop RPG that I've been as much forwards to getting my hands on than Blades in the Dark! Super excited to read and try it out :D

[@morganj426]

I'm DMing a game of Blades in the Dark with some of my close friends this fall, and we're currently working on worldbuilding a new setting! I'm super excited to play it, and I'm in love with the systems, and I'm really glad about how hackable the game is.

[@natanoj16]

How did it go? My group has also been playing for a year now

[@greystorm9974]

This is by far the most influential system for my 30 years of being a GM. I love it!!!

[@ZandoFox]

Listening to this video after having listened to the first few episodes of The Adventure Zone Steeplechase is very interesting

[@PogMcDog]

I found this randomly as recommended. God damn it YES!

[@MocharaidThree]

I bet the Mirrorshdes cast wish they had the Flashback system x3 Honestly, listening to more of this video, Blades in the Dark sounds like a better Shadowrun than Shadowrun :P

[@Kidoitimaki]

It is. There's even a couple hacks (Karma in the Dark and Running in the Shadows) set specifically in SR's universe

[@natanoj16]

In many ways It also feels better.

[@princealiaps3751]

In what away is Blades better than Shadowrun? Do you mean the mechanics of Blades? Lot's of folk love SR world but feel the rules stink. Myself I,ve never had a problem with SR rules. Blades & SR are very similar in focus but i love both rpg's. I think that some will be burning to go outside Duskwall to explore the world in that RPer classic wandering mode. But Blades is very much the sandbox experience.

[@ethancooper1056]

There was a game called A Song Of Ice and Fire from Green Ronin that had a similar mechanic to the crew sheet before characters were made, everyone at the table would work together and make a noble house and actually place it's boundaries on a map in Westeros. There were systems for designing provinces and for different measters to do different things when they were in charge of finance and such. There was a fortune roll at the end of every month that would give the GM an idea of what was gonna happen in the coming month and stuff. it's still in print, I recommend it.

[@RalphusMaximus]

I love that the system can very much allow for a game run in the John Wick universe with very little adjustments. Build a hack and call it “The High Table.”

[@chevtothemax]

The more I hear him talk about this the more I think a WW1 trench warfare setting/hack would be AWESOME.

[@AdamKoebel]

+StellWair ooooooh

[@chevtothemax]

that is a free one for anyone to use as I have no time or experience to do it. :)

[@Morec0]

I'm currently doing a hack inside of the setting, fleshing out the city of "Sevrin" on the Severos continent into its own place, as well as a few other details. This interview(?) is great for helping me understand how to really dig into that.

[@Fishingworth]

It's funny he mentioned serenity being a whole other character in Firefly because Margaret Weiss Firefly RPG actually has a separate character sheet for the ship and the ship's stats help the players as they pilot and combat using the ship.

[@bonzwah1]

I love all the shadowrun comparisons haha. Yeah that system is so famously clunky and poorly edited, but man what a fun setting. Definitely gonna be approaching future shadowrun games with a forged in the dark mechanics.

[@gendor5199]

7 years ago?? Damn, I had no idea this game was so old. It's cool!

[@danieltallon4316]

This game is amazing, and I love playing it on One More Multiverse.

[@Z3noparadox]

This is super exciting!

[@crit-c4637]

The setting of "Blades In The Dark" sounds a lot like Dishonored (City of Dunwall/ Duskwall, leviathan/whale hunting fleets, electroplasm/whale oil refineries, noble elite, constabulary/city guard) with other elements mixed in.

[@kareemjonson]

+Crit - C that's because it is. There's more to it though. Check out Ghost Lines for another game set in the same universe.

[@jacobanderson8189]

+Kareem Jonson Dishonored came first. Ghost lines was inspired by it and other media (ghost busters, apocalypse world). Blades took elements from both. Different universes.

[@fhbjr]

Pretty awesome system. Hope to play or watch somebody playing it someday =)

[@MouseAndShiraz]

It is occurring to me how easily so many books and shows would translate to Blades. Game of Thrones? Play as members of a family in the rabid political fallout of the civil war? Grabbing land and raising armies and double-dealing and backstabbing, etc. Indulging in vices and going paranoid with the stress of never knowing who is on your side. Obviously it'd be a much more social game than I think core Blades is meant to be, so you'd have to put some more focus there, but yeah. I think the innate hackability (and the general subject matter the systems of the game broadly supports) is what excites me the most, even though I absolutely dig the Fallen London/Dishonored/Thief vibe of the core setting. I can see it translating into an incredibly diverse set of games across so many genres.

[@karlthemadscientist6295]

So +Adam Koebel did you ever get a list of "the little black boxes" in Blades from +John Harper?? I'm not sure my list is the best. lol

[@housecaldwell]

"Don't fight Darth Vader; he's challenge rating 30!" LOL. ("Darth Vader, fight not. Challenge rating 30 he is. Mess you up, he will.") Well, I'll never be able to watch THAT scene the same way again!

[@anonymousbosch9265]

Deadwood in the dark; preachers, Chinese, mining interests, railroad Barrons, sheriff deputies, tavern owners, temperance league, politicians

[@SteelVoltagerpg]

Could be cool doing a vigilante hack of this!

[@MattBalara]

When I squint at it, I sooooo want to love Blades, but when I really dig in with open eyes I always end up thinking, "this is so much more complicated than AW, DW, etc. and I don't feel like the complexity gives me anything a game needs." It feels like typical PbtA stats, moves, etc. with crew rules bolted on would be more than enough and feel the same, just be much simpler in play. Am I missing something Adam/John?

[@natanoj16]

Feels like you are missing something yes. I have played both PbtA and BiD now and they feel very differently. But BiD is absolutely Inspired by the Apocalypse

[@stratos971]

Bought the game instantly

[@larptx]

Is Womb of Night available to people who weren't Kickstarter backers?

[@Lamolex]

Have to have bomb-threat just become a really famous band and itch shadow running

[@bagrym]

blades in the dark, a DMs guide to PC mass slaughter

[@whenindrought]

+bagrym but... 59:00

[@brandonslone3972]

i been reading up on the many political upheavals that changed the world of the 19th century into the world of the 20th century and as such i been wanting to make a cloak and dagger system were player try to do thing that my be or not noble but doing so in a environment that requires less then noble means i had been looking into burning wheel for ideas but hacking Blades in the Dark may be a easier start

[@andrzejzielinski9213]

The alpha team

[@stratos971]

If you change the stress to favor of the gods then you could make this into a Viking game fairly easy.

[@AdamKoebel]

+Jeremy Marshall nice!

[@nightsyko]

+Adam “skinnyghost” Koebel the settings makes me really think about dishonored