The Long Shadow (Inactive)

Game Master Kiradia

Alright! Changes have been made to the character sheets, I will need to know where everyone wants their Everyone Steals dot to go but I'm going to lock in the Crew now.

Time to deal with factions.

Hunting Grounds: Nightmarket - Burglary.

You guys have claimed an area of Nightmarket owned by The Hive and need to decide how you acquired your territory. You have 3 options:

* Pay them off. Give them 1 coin in exchange for giving you room to work.
* Pay The Hive 2 coin as a show of respect and gain 1+ status with them.
* Keep your money and take -1 status with The Hive.

Crew Upgrades: Underground map & passkeys and Thief's Rigging.

* The Dimmer Sisters gave your crew the map & passkeys, probably as part of some payment Ophelia earned after working with the Dimmer Sisters. You get +1 status with the Sisters and may spend 1 coin to take +2 status with them instead.

* The Wraiths were screwed over when you stole their Thief's Rigging gear for your own use. You are at -2 status with them and may spend 1 coin to mollify them, bringing them down to -1 status instead.

Your Contact: Amancio, a deal broker has also influenced your status among other groups.
*You have +1 status with the Gray Cloaks.
* You have -1 status with the Bluecoats.

Let me know what you guys want to do with your faction choices then we can get this game started!

Well, my proposal to the group is that we use our 2 coin to both pay our tithe to The Hive and give the consolation prize to The Wraiths to bump our status up. We're Professionals, after all. Nothing personal, just business.

(and also we can't go to war with anyone this soon. We're not equipped to handle a war; but more importantly, all my previous reassurances that we don't have to worry about being attacked this early would make me look really dumb in retrospect.)

The Hive are pretty strong, we should definitely pay them.

Since we are going with Professional it makes sense to pay off the Wraiths too.

Fog will spend his Everone Steals point to get 3 in Prowl. Sneakysneak.

Also, for Sinjin:
Creations are listed with quality level followed by their number of uses (1-3).

Alcahest: 3/1 A fluid that stops the effects of any other alchemical

Binding Oil:3/1 Permanently fuses 2 surfaces until dissolved in alcahest or electroplasm

Drift Oil: 3/1 Creates a boyancy when poured over an object, causing it to float for 1 hour.

Drown Powder: 3/2 Fine dust that incapacitates by giving the sensation of drowning.

Eyeblind Poison: 3/3 Causes blindness for a moment.

Fire Oil: 3/3 erupts into flame upon contact with the air.

Grenade: 3/2, small explosive charge with a short fuse that detonates into metal shrapnel

Quicksilver: 4/1 Toxic metallic fluid. Opens the mind to ghost field. Take +1d to Attune but suffer level 2 harm "Zoned out"

Skullfire Poison: 3/1 Toxic fumes from heated leviathan blood. Causes incapacitating migraines.

Smoke Bomb: 2/2 creates a cloud of smoke that is difficult to breathe and stings the eyes.

Spark (Drug): 1/3, measure of raw electroplasm. user feels empowered and emits mild electrical energy.

Standstill poison: 4/1, powder that causes temorary paralysis

Trance Powder: 1/3 Induces a pleasant, hypnotic trance when inhaled.

I am for giving the Hive a coin, just to make sure we're nice and even with one another. I think it'd be neat to have the Dimmer Sisters as good friends, seeing as they're kind of the boogey men of Crow's Foot. I also like having a group actively dislike us, The Wraiths can suck it.

I'm thinking, at the end, to have 1 coin go to the Hive, 1 coin to go to the Dimmer Sisters, the Wraiths can suck it, and I'm fine with our relations with the Blue Coats and the Gray Cloaks. Unless we really want the former to be our enemy and the latter (which also claim Six Towers as theirs) as a good friend and increase it to -2/+2 respectively.

Thank you Fog, I was a bit busy tonight running game. Got a group of Bravos with no Cutter and I think one person has a point in Command. It's going to be amazing.

I am for giving the Hive a coin, just to make sure we're nice and even with one another. I think it'd be neat to have the Dimmer Sisters as good friends, seeing as they're kind of the boogey men of Crow's Foot. I also like having a group actively dislike us, The Wraiths can suck it.

I'm thinking, at the end, to have 1 coin go to the Hive, 1 coin to go to the Dimmer Sisters, the Wraiths can suck it, and I'm fine with our relations with the Blue Coats and the Gray Cloaks. Unless we really want the former to be our enemy and the latter (which also claim Six Towers as theirs) as a good friend and increase it to -2/+2 respectively.

Thank you Fog, I was a bit busy tonight running game. Got a group of Bravos with no Cutter and I think one person has a point in Command. It's going to be amazing.

Well...I suppose they could try to pull off using Wreck for breaking all the things and Prowl for sneak attacks?

Thanks, Fog, I appreciate it.

I'm thinking, at the end, to have 1 coin go to the Hive, 1 coin to go to the Dimmer Sisters, the Wraiths can suck it, and I'm fine with our relations with the Blue Coats and the Gray Cloaks.

This is what I was thinking. Having one faction at +2 and one at -2 sounds good to me.

Kiradia, Saint's extra point goes into Tinker, giving him a total of 3 dice. I'm not quite sure where he learned to pick locks and crack safes, but he's pretty good at it.

His Prowl is 0, though- how much of a problem might that be?

Tossing my missed dot into Wreck, and Everybody Steals into Finesse.

I'm inclined to think we should only give the Hive one coin, and give one to the Dimmer Sisters. It might be useful early on to have some kind of an ally, and I'm not sure if the Hive would ever really be that.

I also say screw the Wraiths, but giving them one coin may be seen as more "professional" than stealing from them was...

His Prowl is 0, though- how much of a problem might that be?

Well, with 0 dice, you roll 2 dice and take the lowest. You can push yourself and take 2 stress (or take a Devil's Bargain) to gain a die. You can also get help from someone and gain a die and they take 1 stress. So it is pretty easy to go from no dice and a low chance of success to about 75% chance of success.

There is also other things that can help your chance of success; things like setup actions and group actions.

I see the Wraiths as our first real "professional rivals". We're both thieves, we're both spies, and we both do jobs in Nightmarket. That will bring us head to head with each other.

That and I like the juicy drama oh so much! :D

Oh, and I'm putting my Everyone Steals point into Tinker. Having 3 dots in finesse is really tempting, but if I'm gonna be making social rolls, I need all the Insight resistance I can get.

Also, if everyone wants to piss The Wraiths off further, sure, but that means we can't piss them off any more or we'll be at war with them. While I don't doubt the prowess of this group, there's at least a dozen of them, and five of us. Plus they have superior weapons and equipment. If they find our lair, they'll take it. If we're lucky enough for them to not want to kill any of us, we'll be a step back from square one.

Could we get out of it, sure. But it would be extremely difficult. We'd have to get our hands really dirty and tarnish or reputation, but it's possible. Or, we could avoid the situation altogether by giving them recompense and increase our status with the Weird factions afterwards by doing jobs for them.

Just so I know everyone is aware, -3 is the lowest possible status you can have with someone. When that happens, we are automatically at war with one another. When at war, your Hold temporarily lowers by 1, so we'd go from strong hold at tier 0 to weak hold at tier 0. Mechanically, this would only matter if it made us drop a tier, or if we were trying to go up a tier- which, luckily, we don't have to worry about yet. But, we'd get +1 Heat per score which is bad, and we only get one downtime action per phase instead of two. And to top all that off, our enemy will, and I'm quoting from the book, "go out of their way to harm us, even if it isn't in their best interest to do so." The only way to end a war is to kill them all or settle the dispute somehow.

Just wanted to put that out there as to why negative status is bad. We'll make enemies, for sure, but this early in the game, I feel like actively seeking hatred from bigger, badder gangs is a bad idea.

... And I won't even get into how unprofessional stealing from a competing gang and telling them they can suck it is.

If they were more professional, they wouldn't have been so easy to catch and take their stuff then. I can't help it that we're just better thieves than them.

My thing is more from the whole "embracing danger" and the scoundrel's life. They hit us hard, take our lair? We figure out their identities and tell them to back off before we reveal them to their enemies. They ruin one of our jobs, I break their cat-burglar's kneecap. There is a lot that can possibly happen, a lot of good things and a lot of bad things. Worrying about the potential however, will take forever when we do plans and we set things up and it will limit us indulging in the fun part. I really like the idea of a rival thieves, I really do.

3 votes toward +2 to Hive and -2 to Wraiths, 2 votes for +1 to Hive -1 to Wraiths.

Looks like the wraiths can suck it and Dusky can be grumpy to the others about it later! Fog will just shrug if/when Dusky gets to say "I told you so" and mumble something about not having that strong of an opinion but figuring Dusky was right.

What else do we need to figure out?

OT, but in case anyone hadn't heard of it, Taboo on FX with Tom Hardy haa a feel very much like the Blades in the Dark setting. It's not about thieves, per se, but it does involve the pre-Victorian underworld- thugs, whores, urchins- and there is a strong supernatural element. It's dark and dirty and spot on for the feel of the game.

And there is a heist and a super-shady chemist in episode 4. It's good stuff.

Honestly? I cannot think of anything else. I think we're good to go. Correct me if I'm wrong though. <3

So! I do like this dynamic that is developing where Dusky is the worrier who's convinced everything is about to go wrong (and to be honest, everyone is about to go wrong!) and everyone else is just ready to get to the mean streets and prove how much meaner you guys are. Should be exciting!

There's 3 votes to give 1 coin to the Hive, squaring you guys up, and giving 1 coin to the Dimmer Sisters to make them +2 status. Which is quite interesting. There's a lot of rumors about the Dimmer Sisters and what they are after and no one is really sure if they are friend or foe but you guys have had a good working relationship with them so far. With that, our crew is ready to go. I'll be making the gameplay post as soon as I can.

Random, but, after what we've been talking about it seems like the following..how does all this sound?

Fog and Dusky either together or one or the other decided to try getting a crew together. They likely have done several jobs together before and decided it was about time they stopped being loners. As a face (Dusky) and a pair of hands (Fog), they just needed a good right hook (Guts), someone to keep them intact (Saint), and someone to deal with the creepy stuff (Ophelia).

Fog knew of Guts from a past job they'd done. The initial connection occurred via Celes and Sawtooth's association. It may or may not be that Guts introduced Fog to Eckard (or to Saint and then Eckard) thus leading to Fog's current vice purveyor, Oran Fischer.

Guts is likely the one who brought Sinjin on. Everyone needs a good stitcher and while Sawtooth and Celes are helpful, they both have their own businesses to attend to.

The last step was to find someone to deal with the creepy stuff. Saint was helpful and volunteered some information. He kind of knew Ophelia and knew her monetary issues. She'd recently seen him doing some sneaky work and he'd sent her in the direction of similar criminal activities. He proposed the idea of a long term association and she jumped at the opportunity.

Out of the crew, I think either Dusky or Guts would have been the one to know Amacio. Either one dropped a few hints his way and are hoping a few jobs might start coming down that line.

Oddly, I think the best person to know of our "lair" is Ophelia. She'd propose that it was a relatively abandoned place with a good view, little foot traffic. Dusky, being the one who likes safe situations, would probably push the strongest for that and Fog likes towers so he'd be cool with it.

I'd imagine Dusky is the one who brought the maps and passkeys to the table, or at least laid out the idea. Possibly it ws the group's first heist (off-screen) as an entire group.

The Thief's Rigging would have been Fog or Guts' idea, I think. Possibly Guts picked out the Wraiths as the target. Maybe we didn't tell dusky who we were f&##ing over when we did the heist. Or maybe he wasn't even involved. I imagine an argument would have ensued over it back at the Tower. Fog would side with Dusky and propose paying the Wraiths back. Guts and Saint would argue back, I imagine Saint being the one to propose a vote. Ophelia doesn't want to waste all their money (I'd imagine as she's having money problems she wouldn't want to throw it away), she sides with them. Fog shrugs and accepts it without issue. Dusky's grumpy.

That leaves us...here.

EDIT: Oh. Right. The hive and Dimmer Sisters.

I imagine Guts, Fog, Dusky, and probably even Saint would know of the Hive. They're big fish. No one wants to piss them off. We tread carefully.

Ophelia, as the crew's creepy one, is equally wary of the Dimmer Sisters.

No one cares about those weak reputation Wraiths. F*!& 'em.

I like it Fog, I am good for that!

Gameplay post is up! So excited to finally get started!

So I absolutely love theme songs so I had to find one that fits who Guts is at the moment. It isn't correct for the genre but I adore Firewater too much I hope you all like it.

Oh my god I haven't heard Firewater in about 10 years and now I need to go listen to their everything.

It was a struggle between Another Perfect Catastrophe, Car Crash Collaborator, or Three-Legged Dog for my song for Guts. I have to thank Pandora or else I'd never had heard of them.

I feel like Guts and Fog are used to working alone and just sort of trust the rest of the crew to get stuff done.

..So they're obviously going to be the first to get themselves (and the crew) in trouble.

Dusky, on the other hand, will be scrambling to catch up, cursing their lack of forethought and planning, and pulling on his mustache. Hopefully he can keep us all alive!

By the way, Kiradia, where did you find those google character sheets? From the G+ group or did you put them together?

@Kiradia - I too am on the West Coast, so I know how that can be sometimes. No worries though, we'll get through this nice and slowly :D

@Fog - To some degree, definitely. Guts knows what he is good at and he trusts the others to do what they're good at. They may not like his results but he gets things done. I'm enjoying it so far!

Should we roll another gather information check to see if there's a wife whom we might want to check out first or at this point do we leap straight into the burglary?

Perhaps a group-survey roll to stake out the place, maybe a consort to talk with guards or neighbors to see if there is anything "weird" about it.

I definitely think it is an infiltration, we just need to pick the point of infiltration is all.

Let's start with that then and take votes? Infiltration and our "detail" point of entry is..Survey to find out?

Edit: Actually, I get teh feeling a part of Blades is to focus on being specific and not passively rolling dice to have the GM tell you what's what. So...

Let's go skulk around the house. Someone can look into person, the rest can look into the place. If Guts wants to look for a good entry point like a window or back door, Fog will assist.

I'm all for this plan. I can distract towards the front of the house while someone else sneaks in through the back. Or...wherever.

I wouldn't classify it as Deception or anything, since the crux of the plan revolves around quietly stealing something, so definitely Infiltration.

And it sounds like he might live in one of the nicer districts of the city. Everyone put on their Requiem-day best.

I think then that the distraction part with Dusky would be a Setup maneuver for the Engagement roll. Then he can settle in disguised as someone else to help us move in quietly through the man's place.

I like this idea, once we get some details for the house, we can pick the point of infiltration then.

Ok, you guys will need to decide on what detail sets off your score. At this point, you have about all the details you are going to get, trying to gather more information on the house is would be risky at this point. Nothing you guys have found in all your exceptional information gathering points to a wife or paramour so your crew can safely say that there isn't much chance of that event occurring. So, discuss the detail for your Stealth engagement roll, set the point of infiltration and then I'll make the engagement roll and get this score in motion.

As an aside, I've really enjoyed how this is progressing so far but once we get into the score this is going to be a bit of a test run. There's usually a huge amount of back and forth on actual rolls once position & effect start to matter and I'm not sure how to streamline that for PBP yet. So I'm gonna run this first score by the book so we can all get our feet wet. I'm asking for your guys patience while we do this. :)

Fog: I found the sheets on the G+ group, I've also found another set of sheets that I like quite a lot better. I'm working on converting those over in between other things.

Setup maneuver for infiltration engagement via alleyway?

Yes, Dusky's deception will setup the engagement roll. Depending on what he rolls will determine how it affects the engagement roll.

So far, the roll is amazing. I am for the Infiltration plan via the alley and the latched gate.

I wasn't sure if I was making a fortune roll or an action roll or what, and whether that meant I could resist it or not.

Cause if I can resist it, I most definitely will.

I think you were rolling a Setup action (page 135) to give us a boost to our engagement. If your action has the intended result, we get +1 effect level or improved position for any member of the team that follows through on the maneuver.

So..maybe it either gives a +1d to our engagement roll or we do engagement roll first and your action starts us out to give us all a +1 effect or position to our Prowl action to get around and in?

Also, we need to pick our Load for the mission. Cassim is going with 3 load (light) + the 2 free from thief's rigging.

Sorry I didn't get the engagement roll up, was running an in person game tonight and had to do prep for Fridays game too, I'll get things going later today. :)

I am going with a Load of 6 with the rigging. Guts isn't going to be very social tonight, he definitely looks like a burglar.

So, we've failed at distracting the owner of the house, we've failed at sneaking around it, and now we have people who definitely look like burglars in the second most (if not the most) heavily patrolled, highly secured district in Duskwall.

No, no, it's great. I love it. Great success. And you people balk at me for always expecting everything to go wrong.

Well, with leading a team action we can see what Guts, Ophelia, and Saint roll. We take the best roll out of all of us.

Ghosts and dogs. Why's it always got to be children and ferals? Ophelia help us!

I have some ideas as to what's going on with this ghost girl, and I don't like it one bit. I won't discuss and ruin Kiradia's fun. (And also so I can keep them in the wings as Devil's Bargains.)

It looks like the forum's no longer properly showing new messages..so if people don't post, that may be a cause.

Yup, I hadn't seen any updates for a couple of days.

Amateurs, arguing in the middle of the house they broke into.

I assumed everyone was whispering. If the conflict escalates any further it's gonna be like that funeral fight from The Other Guys.

Oh, so did Abram. Just they're arguing in a house with ghosts. By the gods, they're arguing -right now- :P

I'll make a post later today if Ophelia has not made one by the time I wake up. Been a busy Wednesday for me all day/night so I didn't have time to make a post yesterday. Sorry for the lack of activity.

Xp time too!
Desperate actions: I don't believe any of these were rolled.
Addressed a challenge with stealth or evasion I'd say Fog did this with both the dog and avoiding attention when they went up the stairs, so +1 Xp!

As an important question that I couldn't figure out in running my own Blades, do you think this applies per instance of challenge or just once per heist/downtime phase?

Expressed your beliefs, drives, heritage, or background The ghost was a particular issue in this heist and led to a bit of an argument, I'd say that was Fog strongly expressing his beliefs and drives. So +1 Xp!
You struggled with issues from your vice or traumas No traumas and even though there was sort of opportunity for the vice to come up, it didn't so nothing here.

+2 Xp, both applied to his Resolve.

--Crew XP--
We have:
Execute a successful espionage, sabotage, or theft operation: Applies to the burglary.

Express the goals, drives, inner conflict, or essential nature of the crew: The issue with the ghost was a significant conflict within the group.

The heist took place in Charterhall which is a high tier location so maybe "Contend with Challenges above your current station" applies?

Then we have "bolster your crew's reputation or develop a new one" we did get in and out without anyone knowing we were there (other than the girl?). I suppose that could qualify as professional?

So..maybe 3 Xp? 1 for acting professional, 1 for conflict, and 1 for success?

Downtime
Between scores each PC has time for 2 downtime activities. For those without the book the activities are.. (There are rules for each of these, but this is a brief description.)

Acquire Asset - Gain temporary use of an asset such as a special item or set of common items, a cohort, a vehicle, or a service (transportation, legal representation, use of a warehouse, etc).

Long-Term project - Start a project clock for a long term project. An example would be investigating the Hallow's tattoo, finding a way around the tattoo, or something else.

Recover You recover from wounds. You go to a healer and they roll, marking a number of segments (1-3) on your healing clock. When you fill your healing clock, you reduce each instance of harm on your sheet by one level. So injury 2 becomes 1 and injury 1 goes away. Your healing clock has 4 segments.

Reduce Heat - Reduce your heat somehow, possibly by consorting with a friend who is a Bluecoat.

Train You can spend time in training and mark xp on the xp track for an attribute. If you have the appropriate crew traijning upgrade, you instead gain +2 xp.

Indulge Vice You indulge in your vice and relieve stress. you roll dice equal to your lowest attribute (prowess, etc) rating and clear stress equal to your highest die result.

Downtime Summary

Fog:

The rulebook is distinctly vague about the value of individual actions in determining XP gain. The way I've watched John Harper do this stuff is basically to say "Do you as a player feel as if you've done enough to warrant 2 XP instead of one." Which immediately opens itself up to the "Don't be a weasel" conflicts of the system so I prefer something a bit more structured. When it comes to the addressing a challenge portion of a score, I think it should come down to using both of the descriptors to determine how much XP you got. So, for Fog, you did address a challenge involving stealth when you got everyone into the house and did evade the possible challenge of being caught by Mahu as he went to check the backyard. So 2 XP there.

Expressing beliefs, drives, heritage, or background is even more vague because the book says that the players are allowed to set beliefs and drives as they choose from session to session. I like to record drives and beliefs my characters develop as we play if I am going to claim XP for them and they should be able to influence future actions in the game otherwise its all down to just saying "my drive was to complete the job" and we completed the job so at least 1 xp for that. I do agree that Fog strongly expressed his apathy for the dead so 1 XP for that but is his apathy something that drives him? If it is, I'd allow 2 XP for that and expect it to come up in other ways as we play more.

Struggling with vice and trauma is much easier to decide on and doesn't need as much arbitration but it is worth mentioning that struggling with your vice can come up in a score, not just during downtime.

Crew XP

You guys did make a successful burglary but it wasn't overly difficult so 1xp.

The inner conflict between the crew about the ghost definitely applies, I'd also say that if the group wants to make the crew's drive to be seen as people who get the job done that would be another +1XP. It wouldn't exactly mean you got a new reputation, like being Professional, but all of you do have a drive as a crew to prove yourselves on the streets, which might create conflict between your desire to be Professional and your desire to get the job done.

Charterhall is definitely a risky place for a crew like yours, so I'd give 2 XP for that.

So... in total, at least 4, maybe 5 if you guys want to accept that crew drive. A good start for the campaign. :)

I'll need to look over the sheet to figure out what XP Saint might have gained. He didn't do a whole lot, so I don't think it will be a high number.