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Glad to see the shout-out to Court of Blades; it's a wonderful extension of the system into a new setting. There's also Runners in the Shadows, which is a great way to play in Shadowrun's amazing world without dealing with its cumbersome mechanics.
Great video! I enjoyed playing blades in the dark especially for its collaboration between the Gm and Players which feels way more like we are working together with fun/wacky consequences. Flashback: we played again soon.
I first found out about this game when I saw Aabria Iyengar use the flashback mechanic in D&D in the Exandria Unlimited Kymal mini-campaign. Blades is a great example of what happens when a game is designed around its purpose, tightly focused as you said. And I agree that the mechanics have much broader potential applications. Like you, I'm always looking for mechanics and methods to graft into other systems. I'll be curious to see how it works out for you. Game on!
I ran one session and it wasn't for me, but the "game as a conversation" part will forever be a part of my games. Whenever I have to make a tough call, instead of just dictating it as so, I ask my players if it makes sense to them, and ask for context based on the story so far. If an NPC somehow fits a vague part of a PC backstory, I ask the table if I should connect those dots. There's no reason a GM should do all of the heavy lifting, hoping the players might like it. Actively involve them and it guarantees investment. That's why this book has a welcome spot on my shelf even though I prefer other mechanics. The fun part about this kind of gaming is that everything is modular.
Literally this! If I had to pick the most important takeaway from my time running this game, you nailed it, this is it. I feel like I've taken a load off feeling less like I have to shoulder the weight of the narrative and can share that with my players now
@BenDeHart The best part is the players appreciate it in my experience. That's also why I encourage vague backstories we can freely retcon as we see fit. There's no gaming police to stop us from having the most fun possible lol.
As a D&D 5e DM, when my players fail "knowledge" checks there are consequences. (I normally don't call for checks that don't have meaningful consequences for failure. No point to such a check, unless it's simply to a determine degree of success.) The most common consequence I use is misinformation - the character gets information that could lead them to greater harm or force the *player* to decide what to think is true (rather than rely on a dice roll to tell them). Here's one way D&D DMs can borrow from Blades in the Dark when a player fails a "knowledge" check: allow the player to "flashback" to a time where they spent money to acquire the knowledge needed to pass the check (e.g. a fee for a library or training at a school or hiring a sage, etc.). They deduct some amount of gold and either get to re-roll the check or convert it to a success or whatever result the DM decides.
I think there are some really good ideas here, but the major problem I see with misinformation as a consequence is that the player likely knows if they failed the check, which means they’ll disregard the information, right?
@@BenDeHart They don't know the DC -- and I vary the DC so there are times they roll high and get misinformation, and times they roll low and get it right. I also mix in the idea of limited success or success with some kind of cost (very much as you suggested in the video -- but my players often like simpler mechanisms like spending gold because having to come up with narrative explanations isn't enjoyable for some of them.)
I played a 6 month campaign of Blades and it is probably my second-favorite TTRPG after "The Sword, The Crown, and The Unspeakable Power." The Blades' system of Scores, Downtime, and Flashbacks is so good for skipping ahead to the good parts and bypassing the minutiae of micro-planning every detail. Players can still plan and prepare very effectively, and the rewards of planning are definitive rather than speculative.
Dude this came into my recommended and wow. I use clocks and time progression in all of my games. I like setting a proccedence for the players time. What they choose to do matters. And now finding this?? I'm mixing this into my next one shot and I think it's going to change my style forever. In a positive. Also very well put together video. It's hard to believe you dont have a few 100k! Sign me up for the long haul.
The support is much appreciated, and it’s cool to hear how you’ve been using these mechanics outside of blades since I’m about to rip them out for my other games wholesale lol
Thanks for the observations - I like your style. This is a timely vid for me. I'm half way through my 2nd 'Season' of Blades and our group has even just got to the point where we're all willing to GM! but I'm about to run some Adventurers League D&D in a festival (my first D&D for 2 years). The game changer for me with Blades as a GM - having spent hundreds of hours prepping past campaigns of D&D is that ... there is no real need to prep. There really isn't! I mean there are some great ways you can prepare for a session of Blades if you want - thinking about locations, NPCs in a way that adds sensory detail and brings Doskvol to life, but it's all so well designed to make things happen on the fly. Talking about how the story moves forward makes the players opinions just as important at the table as the GMs. My second favourite thing about Blades is how the players rolls dictate the actions of the NPCs/adversaries. As a GM I NEVER have to roll for an NPC attack - the players do that themselves when they roll an action - or roll to resist. Yup - it certainly feels like Blades has made me a better GM and I'm hoping to find that out for sure when I next run D&D.
Yeah, the Blades system is great. Really influenced by Apocalypse World and The Principles set forth in that game for running games like this. The Blades system started out Powered by the Apocalypse and evolved from there.
It should be noted that "experiencing something the DM had prepared" is a modern aspect of DnD culture. In older days, the game was generally played in a much more sandbox-y way.
Exactly. Blades was actually inspired by the authors experience playing Stars Without Number, a game meant to be played in the old school sand box style.
Sorry, I come from the old-school way (80s) and we absolutely did not sandbox things. Stories were well-thought out and detailed. The difference is that the GMs were good enough to have many, many storylines perpared, because the world was so well built out.
@@shadomain7918 well I mean that's a tad bit different, cuz the GM didn't have to make that themselves. What the RU-vidr is talking about is when a DM makes it themselves from scratch and goes all overboard with it with indepth character arcs for the PCs and all that. Such as thinking with the mindset of "the players are here to experience and play through the GM's story". Which is much different than doing modules.
@@shadomain7918 running a module doesn’t mean your being railroaded. Look at the iconic B2 Keep in the Borderlands. It’s a homebase (the Keep) and a dungeon to explore (the caves of chaos). Players are free to engage with this environment how they wish. The DM isnt expected to create some overarching plot, that will evolve naturally by the choices of the players.
I love the Forged in the Dark engine. I'm a forever GM, but my favourite character I ever got to play was in a Blades game, I am so sad that campaign fizzled out. I never got my group to commit to a real big Blades campagin, but it is what the one game I may GM online eventually, besides the one I am designing myself.
I'm not sure how I feel about implementing flashbacks into D&D... the careful planning is part of what I like about the game. I'm sure they're great at many tables though! Probably depends on the group. And I absolutely love the idea of having "clocks" to track failure and win conditions in a way. (or at least, to track the triggers for various other rewards and punishments). Both visible to the players and some behind the scenes for just the DM.
Great video! Your passion for RPGs is evident. Subbed! A bit spooky too, since the Algorithm showed me this just after I posted about crafting custom progress clocks for the table.
Regarding GoT I'll throw my two cents in and pitch Pendragon. With rules for creating houses and the mechanics made to mix both adventuring and the courts and meeting lords and playing through seasons and lineages, it feels like a good fit.
About emulating GoT, perhaps you can give a shot to WoD Vampire : the mascarade 5e or CoD Vampire : the Requiem 2e, or any Vampire edition of the White Wolf. If you never heard of it, Vampires in WoD are politically focus, which could be close enough to the ideal game you want to run/play.
While PbtA pioneers these similar ideas, I really do need to give Blades in the Dark a try. And I'd probably even have fun with Scum and Villainy even though I'm a Star Wars hater!
In 3.5, failing a Nature check while fighting a natural monster could cause the party to use up more resources killing it, instead of using the weak spot the Nature check would have made evident to the party. There are still repercussions for failing a check in the standard D20 model.
GoT spends a lot of time with soldiers fleeing something… if you substitute mercenary legion for the losing side of any of those battles, or maybe the party bringing a ghoul back from the North? Mix in some material from court of blades, and I think you’re there. I want a golden age of piracy FitD game!
Have you tried Burning Wheel for Game of Thrones? I was lucky enough to meet John Harper at a Burning Wheel convention before Blades was a thing. He ran Agon 1e for us.
I've heard a little bit about burning wheel, and it really seemed interesting. I'll have to read more about it, but I'll admit to being a bit intimidated by it's depth.
The core of the game is actually fairly simple. The added complexity is optional, and you aren't expected to use every subsystem, just those that are relevant to the kind of game you're trying to run.
If you are into PbtA games, there's The Sword, The Crown and the Unspeakable Power that's supposed to emulate a fiction like GOT. Just be aware that it supposes the players will be playing opposing entities
WARNING if you want to use consequences on a roll in a D&D-like system. Do note that in Blades in the Dark, as in other games with conseqences such as Dungeon World, in these games the monsters do _not_ have a turn on the initiative. Instead, their damage-as-a-consequence is purely a result from a failed (or in Blades, a non-6) roll. If you want to transfer this over to D&D, I'd advise you to do one or the other. In situations in which there are no enemies (e.g. climbing a wall), or enemies are trivial or not worth setting up the tactical battlemap for, go ahead and use consequences. When rolling initiative and thinking in actions and move distances however, I'd advise you not to use the consequence system. In the end, using the consequence system is a GM tool, to be used in the right circumstance, but not in _every_ circumstance.
i try to make every roll matter, but i don't think it's especially sustainable for a game like dnd, which really assumes you're going to be doing a lot of 'nothing' rolls (intelligence checks like you mentioned, 'can i pick this lock' checks when the lock is on your workbench with no risk, etc) and so balances for a decent amount of failure. it's easy to make every roll matter in blades, where the mechanics want every roll to matter, but in dnd it just leads to burning out, and players getting annoyed at constantly being saddled with consequences when they just want to identify a flower or something
In my opinion, you just need to make every roll matter by calling for fewer rolls. If there are no consequences, just let their action happen. If there are no consequences for identifying a flower, you can just tell them what the flower is.
We are two sessions into our first 'season' and everyone is enjoying it a lot. Love the mechanics, a lot. I am not using Duskvol so can't comment on that. Our only real 'negative' so far is that it is really poorly suited for actual hard core role playing. It is AWESOME for crafting super killer awesome stories and we are having a blast doing that. But we are all a bit missing some in depth role playing.
Essentially, you don't plan out what all of the encounters are or anything ahead of time. It can be helpful to maybe have a general building layout, but even that can be abstracted. If the goal was to sneak into a vault and steal the money inside, the challenge of getting the vault open is generated on the fly by the players. As the GM, you simply act as arbiter to what they come up with. For instance, if you're in the heist and a player wants to know the schematics of a security system, they could call for a flashback that they threatened the architect for them earlier and roll for how that went. If successful, you could create and mark a section or two on a clock called "enter the vault". If they failed, you could mark sections on a clock called "alert security". None of that is planned out ahead of time by the GM.
I tried to play Blades in the Dark... and failed miserably. I couldn't come up with any ideas how my character had anticipated this situation before because for the flash back to work it needed to have another flashback and so on. I'm just not that spontaneous. No character ever made it past their first adventure. I gave up on the game after a few tries. And I don't think it was the GM's fault.
There is an official game of thrones rpg... just saying. You can have low stakes rolls in BitD, the system encourages you away from it just like the 5e dmg encourages you not to roll dice unnessicarily. Same as in d&d, you can do a roll to know something and just fail; they just give you better odds of getting what you wanted with BitD. The 5e dmg even has a partial success mechanic worked out, if you wanted to try that out.
