Recently I crossed the 1st anniversary of my current campaign of Blades in the Dark, or just Blades for the rest of this article. For me, a game that goes a full year marks a very successful campaign, being able to keep the player’s interest, my interest, and remain mechanically fresh. So I thought on this auspicious occasion, I would talk about a few mechanics of Blades that really keep the game fresh for me.
Three Game Mechanics I Want
There is a lot about the mechanics of Blades that makes it a great game; it is to heists what Gumshoe is to investigations. Honestly, it was hard to pick three things I loved the most about the mechanics of this game. The way I made my decision was along the lines of “what mechanics would I steal and put into other games I run”. In doing that, I found three obvious candidates. Here are my top three:
Clocks
I love clocks! I love that Blades gives you an option for a task that is more than just one Action Roll. Sometimes, it takes some time to complete a task. This is where clocks come in. In Blades, clocks represent anything that takes more than one roll to complete. Clocks have several ticks, and as you make various checks, you fill in the ticks on the clock. When the clock is full, what it represents comes true: a safe cracked, a guard patrol finding the characters, etc.
In Blades, clocks get used everywhere, and there are several different types of clocks. Sometimes they represent things in the moment, like Cracking the safe, and other times they represent longer-term objectives like The Bluecoats Plan A Raid.
There are so many other games that lack this mechanic, and as a GM it’s frustrating, because I don’t want the safe cracked in one roll; it lacks a certain amount of tension. Also, using clocks to foretell future dangers is fantastic. A clock called The Guards Are Alerted, that is slowly ticking up, creates fantastic table tension.
Porting This Mechanic
Stealing clocks for your game is not that hard. It’s a bit more than I can write about here, but clocks need some ticks based on the complexity, a mechanism for adding ticks (an optional mechanism for removing ticks), and an understanding of what happens when a clock is full or is emptied. The trick is calibrating the number of ticks based on the action economy of your game, but tinker a bit, and you can put clocks nearly anywhere.
Phases of Play
Blades has three distinct modes of play: Free Play, The Score, and Downtime. You are expected to cycle through these modes. Have a bit of Free Play to play out various scenes in the lives of the characters, move to The Score where you do some crime, and then into Downtime, where the consequences of your crime are played out.
What I like about these phases is that they set expectations at the table. Both players and GM know the purpose of the phase and know their roles within it. Also, some of the game mechanics are tailored for each phase. So everyone knows what rules and options are available in each phase.
Phases also set the expectations for how a story in the game will go. Players know that they need to move from phase to phase, so they tend to work towards the objectives that allow them to switch phases. You need information and a loose plan before you start the Score; you have to complete the Score Clocks to get to Downtime. It creates a North Star for the players.
It also makes prep easy for the GM. You know what phases you need to prep, and you know what the players need to get from phase to phase, so that gets rolled into your prep as well.
Porting this Mechanic
This is another easy mechanic to take for your game. How it looks will have a lot to do with the game you are playing, but your phases might be something like: In Town, Delve the Dungeon, Return to Town, where each phase has specific actions that occur. You may even make some custom rules for each phase.
Fortune Roll
This is a smaller mechanic in Blades, but one I love. The Fortune Roll is a roll that the GM makes when they don’t want to make a specific decision about an event. Perhaps the Bluecoats are investigating a crime scene, and you don’t want to decide how successful they are; you then make a Fortune roll for the investigators, and based on the roll, determine how good the clues are that they find at the crime scene.
The dice used for the Fortune roll are tied to a specific attribute, but are often tied to the Organization’s Tier (how powerful they are in the city). If the Bluecoats are a Tier 3 organization, when they need to make a Fortune Roll they roll 3d6.
The Fortune roll can be used in many places within Blades, and exists anytime the GM wants to let fortune determine how successful something is. I love this mechanic, and I use it during play and during the campaign downtime, where the other factions in the game are going through their machinations.
When it comes down to it, I love being surprised by the game as much as the players, so I don’t like deciding things by fiat. It would be easy for me to say, “Oh yeah, the Bluecoats found enough clues to pick up your trail”, but for me, it is way more fun to roll and then have to play off the result. What if they do get enough clues? What will they do if they hit a dead end? Not knowing that until the Fortune dice roll creates a level of in-game excitement for me.
Porting This Mechanic
This is a somewhat more difficult mechanic to port, but not impossible. The gist of the fortune roll is that it produces a gradient of results moving from failure to partial success, full success, and critical success. Your fortune roll has to be able to emulate that range or something similar for your game. Then you just need to know how things that are advantageous and disadvantageous affect your roll, such as the Faction Tier, mentioned above.
Tools In Your Toolbox
The wonderful thing about playing a variety of games is encountering interesting mechanics. Some mechanics sit so well with you that you wish they were in every game. With a little work, they can be. For me, Blades in the Dark has some great mechanics, some that are perfect for the game and some that are universally great, and I want them in every game. And that is what I am going to do.
What about you? What mechanics from games are your “must-haves”? What are those mechanics you want in every game you play?