The cool parts of Blades in the Dark [review?] and more on Fire Elixir

I could post the logo of the game but I feels this one explains better the mood of the game. This is a mood blog after all.

I respect John Harper a lot as a designer. It's not that I love everything he makes, but I do find that he is among the rare people who knows what he wants to achieve in a game, dares to go beyond certain assumed borders, and aims to make it make sense through all of it. I just read Blades in the Dark because I believed it could help me finishing the other half of this rules. Turned out it was a great idea.

This is going to be a long post. 

You might remember that previously in this blog I divided game rules into two: Core Rules (those that deal with guiding the game pace correcly, creating game loops and generating content) and Resolution Rules (those that arbiter how well the PCs perform); from which the former are the ones that really carry the game and the latter, while they can be good or bad, are lesser in importance.

Well, BITD resolution is nothing new: Some sort of the classic "roll Xd6, highest result determines outcome, partial successes abound", with a freaking amount of Attributes and Skills (called "actions") and Moves. Too much for my taste. 

On the other hand, and this is one of Harper's strengths, the game's Core Rules look very very fine. That alone makes this game very valuable: apart from OSR games, its very hard to find games that have Core Rules at all. And if in D&D those rules are:

You must level up > XP is taken from treasure mostly > there is this dungeon stocking procedures that generate both monsters and treasure, get in the dungeon > level up so you can get into deeper dungeons;

in Blades in the Dark we find another consistent game-driven loop:

make heist/achieve turf  > get (or lose) REPutation > increase band's tier, alongside a lot of debris and side-effects which generate more possible heists, or alternativelly expand your gang into more districts to get rep, resources and powerups. 

I had attempted to do the "Gang Character Sheet" before in my games, as in making a sheet for the gang itself with its own stats and stuff, but never really found a way to use it that made sense. I think that this is also the second big success for this game. Your gang sheet decides which cohorts (NPC armies) you can use and how powerful are they; how likely you are to get hold or produce certain resources, influence or fight other gangs, how many Vice Dens you have and how much Coin they apport, which communal skills does the gang bestow on its members (for example, I liked that a gang of assassins can develop a feat so their members increase their Insight or Prowess beyond human scope, so it explains how to do ninja related stuff, etc)

I think that the game would benefit a lot from cutting off the character creation options (which tend a little towards the "snowflake" PC) in favor of making them faceless pawns with one or two distinctive traits and putting them under the mantle of their gang's benefits (which, starting at Tier 0 would be very small). The bulk of the advancement should go to the gang, while giving the characters little advancement its OK: This is first and foremost good for the game: You are more disposed to put your character in risk if your investments are really more on the gang itself than in the PC. It is also good for the fiction, as the gang life is dangerous and PCs getting plot armor works better on epic types of fiction, but not so much in the noir. 

More things I love: On my homebrews I always like to implement quantum elements: That is: when you leave things undecided in a quantum state, and you decide during the game what has happened in the past. For example, I like that new PC Wizards can decide the spells they learn during the game, so they dont pick void options, and until then its a "nameless level 1 spell". When they choose magic missile, the fiction decides it was always a magic missile, and they keep that spell from now on. Or the (now classic for me) quantum pocket: You have an ability to produce an object that you were always carrying, but you decide it at that very moment. Normally that object must pertain to a family of objects (a doctor can produce a specific medicine, or a commoner can produce anything that can be bought in a small shop). BITD takes this towards the extreme edge, and i LOVE IT:

PCs are thrown into the score, with no preparation beyond their initial approach to the mission. They have a given load number: up from there, they can produce as much items as they want during the heist, but each time they do it, the item is now tracked. But there is more: the flashback mechanism allows you to do your heist preparation completelly in retrospective: Basically when you find some obstacle (let's say you find a guarding dog while sneaking through the garden) you spend some strain (one of the game's economy points) to say how did you prepare against it (maybe you spend a fucking month befriending that dog so it wouldn't attack you?) and if the outcome is uncertain you roll to see how well you did your preparation (on a bad roll, the dog was just pretending to be your friend so he could fuck you up tonight, dude. Who cons the conman?)

Those are, of course, mere simplifications of a more complex ruleset. Too complex for my tastes, actually. The game is an authentic leviathan of 300+ pages in small letter, and to my rules light mind, it could be surely be purged from half of it. Its not about the page count, but I think that it has a lot of layers of metacurrencies running around (reputation, coin, trauma, clocks, strain, tiers, skills, actions, moves, approaches, etc). Really, this might seem like heresy, but as I was reading I was like: "nah, I will ignore strain altogether. Spending strain to flashback? nahh just allow 1 flashback per character and maybe some more if they get a critical or have a relevant skill". But I don't want to say the game is bad for that. It's just part of my personality to modify and simplify according to my taste. I am a practical man. And I love that the game is as it is, because that means I can use it to work out my own version.

Have you heard of this gang of shadows?

To finish up, I'd like to talk a little about the setting. Doskvol is a victorian mix of Venice, London and Prague, where the sun is dim and there are evil ghosts all around. The city is protected from the horrors that lurk outside by a electrical barrier that runs on leviathan oil (leviathans themselves are horrors that must be fished like whales by crazy ppl) and everybody accepts the existance of ghosts around in their everyday life. I'm not sure if I could use a setting like that, I am so fucking bad at victorian stuff. I just don't get the mood. But an obsession is again growing on me: Could this setting be ported into some more familiar to me, like the A-HISTORICAL ROMAN EMPIRE? 

Check further entries.

Fire Elixir Forever

I ran a long cyberpunk-themed campaign years ago, based on the adventures of a street gang (the PCs) versus another gangs of diverse levels; the most powerful one being a mix of the Yakuza and the OCP from Robocop. The rest of the setting was a wild mixture from Battle Angel Alita, Grand Thief Auto, The Warriors, Streets of Rage, Gungrave, Daredevil and Akira. The game stopped eventually due to two of my friends stopped talking to each other for unrelated reasons.

I used a very simple ruleset I came up with (Very similar to Lasers and Feelings, with "fiction first" style HPs and freeform skills) which had its pros and its cons, but it was very narrative and I didn't like it drove the game towards the players "negotiating" with the GM out of character; and made combats rely on my personal judgement and whims more than in tight rules. This made combats seem unfair on victories (it always felt like I had "given" them the combat) and even more unfair when they lost. I am maybe being so hard with myself: everyone involved were thrilled and we all remembet the campaign very fondly; pieces of it still appear on our day to day conversations and have changed the way we look at our hometown forever (the game was set on an alternate version of it)

Recently I "unwillingly" came up with some rules that I think that would have worked very good, and I want to write them here just in case I need them again. I don't think I will reunite the old gang or continue that campaign where we left it, but some of them are back in town and who knows if I can pull out some sort of spiritual "reboot".

Character Creation: Roll 4d6, then arrange them from highest to lowest. In that order they give you:

1) your age (add 11 to it. If your character is not part of a young gang for some reason, ignore this result)

2) # of starting items. You roll them on a separate table: some of them are actually traits and are inherent to you, while others are physical objects and can be given or traded to other PCs before the game starts.

3) Your starting hit points. Your gang's vest gives you an extra +1 as long as you wear it. 

4) Your # of skills

Skills: 

Kung-fu: This covers all melee or shuriken-based combat, from fists to katanas. 

Gun-fu: guns, guns, guns. I don't think the genre needs more differentiation in combat skills.

Ninjutsu: This is for when you dodge, sneak, jump more than one would thought, etc. It is possible for non-combatants to be skilled in this arts, specially for animals and kids.

Hacking: From John Connor stuff getting easy money to programming the Matrix

Mechanics: Engineering and repair of vehicles, cyberparts, the physical part of robots, etc.

Medicine: From first aid to acupunture to surgery to the implantation of cyberparts. Ido from GUNNM is an example of somebody who knows both medicine and mechanics

Driving: Useful for biker gangs who do a lot of road mayhem.

Charisma: This is not something that magically bends people to your will, but will come up when an NPC makes a reaction roll, when you try to influence a crowd or when you make a proposal to an NPC that is at least feasible to be accepted. This is Harry McDowell from Gungrave or Cyrus from the Warriors.

Notice that there are no void skills like cooking or lore: history. These nine are those that shape the genre I am trying to emulate. However I don't want to limitate the game to them. You can make up any skill you want as long as it doesnt step on the toes of all those listed above. Any kind of specific lore, an incredibly useless profession or hobby, etc. If you want optimization you can do it, if you want to be a flute player you can do it too. We had this rule for years, it worked perfecly and I loved it

Resolution:

You roll 1d6 if its something everyone can attempt. + 1d6 for skill; +1d6 for skill mastery, +1d6for situational bonus (This is called the Special die), up to 4d6

5-6 is a success. 4 is a partial success, and 1-3 is a failure

Combat:

Highest Hp goes first, unless duels and stuff where everyone rolls at the same time. 

You roll 1d6, + 1d6 for skill; +1d6 for skill mastery, +1d6for situational bonus (Special die), up to 4d6

The results are read like this:

1-3: miss

For each 4, you deal 1 damage.

For each 5 or 6, you deal 2 damage if using fists, 3 if using a street weapon and 4 if using a proper weapon.

Armor is rare, and normally pieces of combat cloth, such like a superhero's suit, provide some work as an extra amount of HP.

Real armor is more likely to happen when one has a metal exoskeleton, or a piece of cloth designed to stop a specific weapon (a kevlar vest for example). This kind of armor negates your best result when rolling against it, instead or in addition to HP increase.

Starting Items/Traits: not the definitive version, I am improvising it, but it looks something like this. There are also examples ingrained on how to deal with bonuses and mechanical parts on a system like this. Probably would benefit greatly from improving the table to a 1d36 one.

3 Minor Psychic Powers. Choose 1, the others may be granted to you sometimes at GM's discrection: Telekinesis, Psychometry, Telepathy, Clairvoyance. You can get better at this by investing in a secret skill: Eerieness.

4 1d6 grenades. They deal 1d6 damage on a hit. On a 4, you can but your enemy gets a free move against you. On a miss, you lose turn cant launch them yet.

5. Toolbox. Allows you to repair and custom vehicles, cyborgs and other stuff. Advanced surgery needs you to work in a lab (improve your homebase until you have one). 

6. Bionic implants, choose 1: Hacking Port (counts as a computer), Adamantium bones (+2 HP), Hidden street weapon; Bionic Eye capable of Thermal Vision. 

7. Aesthetic portable computer: Allows for hacking shit. Taking your effort to set multiple computers allows you to roll, and then re-roll the special dice that many number of times.

8. Tiger Kick: When using street or no weapons, you can add the situational die to combat rolls whenever you can use your legs. Once you miss a roll, your attack becomes predictable and you lose this bonus.

9. First Aid Kit. Use a turn & a medicine roll to cure 3 HP on a 5-6. On a 4, the kit is exhausted. On a miss, you also fail to heal anything.

10. Knife, Chain, Nunchucks or Spiked club (street weapons)

11. Apple, Chicken, Soda or Cigarettes. Those kind of shit gives you back 2 HP when consumed.

12. A couple of walkie-talkies

13. You get a light motorbike that allows for 2 passengers. Roll 1d6 to see its max speed (1:low, 6:very high)

14. Gun or Katana (mean weapons)

15. 1d6 doses of your favorite drug. Choose its effect: Hypnotic, Trippy, Stimulant, Chill, Knock-Out...

16. 1d6 Flashbombs and 1d6 shurikens.

17. Panzer Kunst. This martial art helps you to fight enemies twice as high as you or higher. Every time you score a 6 in melee combat, you can roll the "special" dice and add it.

18. Bionic Body specifically adapted to a single skill (+1 special dice per scene/combat)

Leveling up was achieved by surviving X game sessions, and every now and then you earned a new skill or improved an existing one. Now you also get +1 HP. We didn't use HP back then, but a status box (healthy - wounded - dead). In practice didn't work so good.

Lethality. The game is meant to be quite lethal for PCs once you start combating outside the "unarmed" range. You are expendable troops after all, but there are ways to cheat death. 0 or even -1 HP is just incapacitation/dying depending on what caused it; and can still be treated with a medicine kit or similar. But, if you have read enough Battle Angel Alita, you'll know that -2 HP characters that have their head or brain preserved can still come back if a good cyborg mechanic puts them on a new body.

You are also meant to improve your homebase through the game (specific rules to be written another day), and doing so allows you to have new characters start at level 2 or 3, which makes character death a little less painful.

Balance: I don't care shit about balance. You are a gang. All gangs have tough guys and weaklings, skilled and dumb members, who help each other. This is OK. If you get less skills or HP or shitty gear, you can still hang around and interact with the game world. You are not expected to get into mandatory mortal kombat, nor there are pre-planned solutions: attempt things that your character could do. Think how to buy, steal or borrow a solution. Ask NPCs to help you. Whatever. You are not meant to grind the whole setting. There is also a kind of balance in having toughest members fighting while the weak run or do their thing. Ajax and Swan make most of the beatings in The Warriors for a reason. Still, with time you may level up get better at something eventually.

Gameplay procedures: Will expand on this on another entry. I'm taking a lot of time to write this one and I am fucking eager to click publish, so I can chill and take my time with the rest. For now I'm proud with what I got.