I agreed to run a game of Blades in the Dark starting in Feb. I’ve not run or played it before, but I have plenty of GMing experience. The plan is to do a limited game, once or twice a month for about six months (so somewhere around nine to twelve sessions in total).
It seems like the most important thing will be getting as much of the lore in my head as I can between now and then so that I can respond to the evolving gameplay, rather than plan out any kind of storyline.
If anyone is interested in sharing their dos and don’t, or other experience, my player will appreciate it.
While I never GMed Blades in the dark I have some forged in the dark XP and GM an old game about thieves a while ago, so I may have some pointer
Mechanics
forged in the dark is IMO at the sweet spot between rule light and rule heavy, while the core rule are simple, the stress mechanic, the position/effect, and the special playbook action adds a certain layer of complexity, do not advertised it as a rule light game it’s not.
Another important thing, ask the player to roll the f… dices. As a GM, I tend to skip roll for “common action” that the player would be able to do no matter what. In Forged in the dark, “everyting is a clock” that you fill with failure/success. So rolling the dice is what make the games move forward (and the whole partial failure means that the dice result matters). In general I keep a large macro clock the plot thicken/alarm level when I’m getting rid of short term idea to materialise time lost letting NPC move in the background
While I am less happy with the downtime phase, it’s a key part of the game, depending on your game style it may evolve to the main game, but I use it as a fancy purchase/XP/Heal phase
Urban Thieve campaign
Remember, as the player are stuck in the city, their action matter, treat it like a political game, they’ll quickly need to find allies
Thanks, seems like good advice. I have two players who will be brand new to this, setting expectation will be important.
I’m planning on setting a “game clock” since the goal is to have an ending for this particular game due to scheduling.
I’m assuming downtime is where a lot of character roleplay will occur with this group so I’ll do what I can to provide some interesting opportunities around that.
Good point