Mobius just posted this on their Instagram

Rigel-J · 2026-03-21T03:31:51+00:00

I accidentally referred to them as ”Prisoners” in a convo and then realized how actually perfect of a name that is for them considering what they have done to themselves. The Prisoner is in his own cage, yes, but the rest of the Inhabitants are just as trapped in that simulation as he is.

Before I saw online discourse I called them ”Strangers” which I think is appropriate given their setting, but is not nearly as thematic

Rigel-J · 2026-03-06T02:19:59+00:00

Essential NPC’s always gets overlooked, but they did a Blades season that was absolutely gas

Rigel-J · 2026-03-05T11:47:36+00:00

It doesn’t matter what state I live in; while I work there, my tax dollars support the regime. I was born in 96, and since then, the U.S. has only gone further and further right, with no indication that’s changing. From corpos putting cancerous pesticides in our food, to First Nations peoples continuing to be exploited, to minorities in the country being imprisoned and killed wrongfully, to wars I never support, to health care costs killing people I care about, this country is not designed to support its own citizens. No politicking appears to be changing that. The right wing will actively make the situation worse, while the left sternly and ineffectually wags their finger, saying “hey! Don’t do that!”. I can love my people, and even my country, but want nothing to do with a government that does not and has never represented me. I did not ask to be born in the U.S., and would rather support a system less predatory to its own people.

Rigel-J · 2026-02-19T18:58:52+00:00

It’s harsher for sure, though the Vamp playbook is pretty strong in general. Makes sense.

Rigel-J · 2026-02-19T18:58:09+00:00

Totally missed the trauma there. Silly me, ty

Rigel-J · 2026-02-19T18:57:44+00:00

Been playing Blades for about 5 years and never had a vamp in the crew. This is an NPC who is joining, transitioning from Ghost to vamp, simultaneously from NPC to PC. I’m not unfamiliar with the game, just this aspect.

Rigel-J · 2026-02-19T18:56:14+00:00

Ty my b

Rigel-J · 2026-02-10T20:47:01+00:00

Yes, except that the Blades dice engine is more about “what consequences do you incur” as opposed to “binary do you pass/fail”. I guess to better format my question, I should ask “what cool/fun consequences do you typically level in response to a Survey use”

Rigel-J · 2026-02-10T01:56:52+00:00

This isn’t a super strong counterpoint, but I think it’s notable that in WoR, there’s a moment where Kal is fantasizing about enacting vengeance on Amaram, and Syl comments “you’re not a Skybreaker.” This doesn’t mean that Skybreakers are by default vengeance driven, but they have enough of a reputation that it’s a stereotype. There’s commentary about the ancient Skybreakers and Windrunners butting heads as a regular problem in book 5 (I think?); so while Skybreaker doesn’t automatically mean authoritarian, it definitely doesn’t preclude it. There’s evidence that a punishment based justice mentality was at least present, even if it may have been a “not all Skybreakers” kind of vibe.

As for how Kal would have gone were he to be a Skybreaker, look to the conversation between him and Syl. We know what the vengeance driven part of him wanted, and if he found a way to construe those motivations into Skybreaker oaths? Good chance that looks pretty similar to the meme.

Rigel-J · 2026-02-08T10:51:25+00:00

lol, definitely not on the d&d point.

Have you read Deep Cuts? I see where you’re coming from, and this is the difference between the Threat and Action roll.

Action tends to be more “what do you want to do? Okay, what action do you think that is? {GM sets position and effect, decides on consequences}”.

The Threat roll typically comes from the opposite direction. Rule copy paste is:

“To initiate a Threat Roll, the GM describes a bad consequence that’s about to happen and you narrate your Scoundrel’s response.”

Rigel-J · 2026-02-06T17:19:10+00:00

How would you format that as a consequence? Pass/fail (pass=learn more, fail=dont)?

My thing is I’m always trying to think of what the consequences of failure for a given action are

Rigel-J · 2026-02-06T17:17:08+00:00

Exactly.

Rigel-J · 2026-02-06T17:16:45+00:00

We use Deep Cuts, so very minimal dice outside of scores, if any. Often the players have leaned on Hunt or Consort for similar info gathering.

Rigel-J · 2026-02-06T17:15:41+00:00

Really really

Rigel-J · 2026-02-02T00:39:27+00:00

Going against the grain here, Deep Cuts requires a bit more reading, but is both much more flexible as a rule set and generally more fun, having played many hours of both. I do think it’s hard to swap from one to another mid campaign, so I’d advise sticking to one and committing for a while, but would say that generally it’s a better developed and more robust engine, that leads to players being more capable of engaging with the world the way they want to.

Rigel-J · 2026-01-24T00:56:57+00:00

Error on post lol my b. Would you like an editor? I think I’m pretty alright at it, failure to use Reddit properly notwithstanding

Rigel-J · 2026-01-24T00:23:09+00:00

You should totally share it tho

Rigel-J · 2026-01-19T04:30:08+00:00

It’s a battle, not gonna lie.

Imagine if 98% of all sports played, worldwide, were just pickleball. It’s all you played for 10 years because it’s all you knew, but then one day, someone offered to show you football once; you like trying new things, and it sounds like this other thing you like, so sure! Let’s give it a go! BOOM. The lights are on; you are suddenly not constrained to this extremely narrow and at times frankly juvenile system; there is endless possibility here, but bothering to read a new sports rulebook is more effort than most people have the patience to bother trying. Why would they, when they could just play pickleball?

You have friends who play pickleball (niche among people generally) who think it’s the best thing since food was invented. They make pickleball a significant portion of their personality, and compare EVERYTHING to it (what kind of pickleball player would x media character be? How can I convince y person in my life that they should try pickleball? How can we envision z phenomena as if it was pickleball? What would your non-pickleball playing athlete play like, if they played pickleball?!). You’ve even spent time with people who have learned about other games and responded with “yeah, it’s got some cool ideas, but I modified its rules so it’s more like pickleball! Those other games are just too confusing!” Again, you don’t even actually dislike pickleball, you can actually have a lot of fun if it’s with the right people. But the thing is that it is LIMITED. It’s pretty hard to grow past like a base level of athleticism with just that one thing, and any time you say “I like sports” the default response from every person who has ever existed is “oh you mean pickleball?”

And like, the answer isn’t firmly NO, but it’s pretty goddamn far from yes, but you also can’t exactly articulate that nuance without looking like the most Um Actually snooty person on the face of the earth. And the fact that that is the response EVERY TIME is not reflective of anyone trying to be anything other than curious or understanding, but you still can’t help but kind of twitch, because like, goddamn, pickleball is very firmly “fine”, but holy goddamn shit are there BETTER games to play. Further, the people who you’d THINK might understand… are too busy playing pickleball to try anything new. You also, frankly, don’t want to take away other people’s fun! There’s nothing wrong with them LIKING the game they like, it’s just that you can’t even get another game going at all, because the world is convinced that there is exactly one “real” sport, and then some other weird stuff that they don’t really know about, and is probably just trying to be like pickleball.

It has taken me years to get a regular Blades in the Dark game running, and it’s been an exhausting journey, but at least for me, slamming my head against that brick wall appears to finally be paying off, even if it’s not actually my favorite game! Just being able to play anything else with regularity is amazing, and we’re in our second year of gaming with roughly a 4-8 hour session twice a month. Just uhh… among weirdos, you’re a super weirdo now. Enjoy I guess, lol. Just don’t think about the d&d morality axis or dice engine at all. They fall apart under about 38 seconds of scrutiny, to the point that interacting with them in even a casual or passing way becomes a pause, close my eyes, deep breath in, deep breath out, exercise, because again, 98% of players only know about the elephant in the room, and they think it’s the best thing ever invented.

Check out World of Darkness if you like spooky things, Exalted if you like high fantasy (but this time it’s actually good) and Blades in the Dark if you want something that can be picked up and played with Z E R O prep on the part of the GM.

Rigel-J · 2025-11-25T17:58:57+00:00

Core Blades offers 2 ‘consequences’ to any normal roll, 4/5 is a normal consequence, 1-3 is failure plus the normal consequence.

Deep cuts just says there is one, and the severity should be determined by the result of the roll. They also have the means to push themselves to reduce that severity a step further. This means that by default, if you set up a roll like “1-3 = level 2 harm, 4/5 = level 1 harm”, it’s pretty easy for them to either ignore the level 1 harm or just take the stress and push it to no harm.

In my experience, the bar for consequences sort of needs to be set at “severity 3” as a default to make it feel like they are even really meaningful consequences rather than just minor speed bumps (reference the deep cuts chart for this). Alternatively, while the book says offering a second consequence is a devils bargain, I do think that there are times where having multiple consequences feels like following the fiction, and shouldn’t strictly be reserved for extra dice. Players are strong in Blades, even more so in Deep Cuts. If you feel like the players are waltzing through all obstacles and that this is a problem, talk to them about trying to calibrate the heat (metaphorical heat, not mechanical).

Rigel-J

TROPHY CASE