[RPG] Does Blades in the Dark need any adjustments to work as a one-shot

blades-in-the-darkforged-in-the-darkone-shot

I love John Harper's Blades in the Dark, and some friends and I are going to be running some one-shot games at an upcoming convention.

But, a lot of the things that make Blades so cool is how nicely it ties in long-term consequences and developments. You can start long-term projects; you have ongoing relationships with different factions; you have complications and entanglements from earlier events catching up with you now…

Even the most basic mechanic, Stress, isn't a big deal if you start out with zero Stress, and aren't likely to reach Trauma in the space of a single session.

I'm fine with having loose ends, or doing a "Previously on Blades!" schtick where I fill in some imaginary backstory and some existing complications.

Are there any adjustments that I should make, in order to give the full "feel" of the game, and its panache for long-term consequences, in the space of a single session?

Best Answer

Yes, it needs modification, if you want the players to have the best experience possible.

I played in a one-shot of Blades at Chupacbracon this year and it didn't go over great with all the players. The main issue was starting with no Stress, which coupled with Blades' economy of dice-rolling and no long-term consequences, essentially allowed every encounter to simply press the "win button". I didn't love that but liked the game overall, but a couple of the players were extremely put off by that dynamic. There's "daring scoundrels" and then there's "we automatically succeed at everything in the whole session." If I were to do it, I'd start with higher Stress levels already.

Also, Blades has a lot of rules. We spent at least an hour trying to figure out how it all worked and do chargen, leaving us time for about 2 jobs. I'd provide full pregens instead of just starting with the templates.

Of course a lot of the more ongoing, crew-development aspects won't be showcased, and that is where the game is actually different from other random DW-type games, so I'd be tempted to really think through a one-shot that maybe hits fast-forward and simulates a couple cycles by using an even higher level of abstraction - maybe one job with a randomized "and you lost 3 stress doing that" so you could highlight the more unique aspects of the system.

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