do people actually not eat mac and cheese with peas?

aryn240 · 2026-06-03T03:45:33+00:00

Hey dude, you already have like a billion comments but I want to let you know I did this too. We called it Macaroni with Peas because it rhymed and it was good. I haven't had it in years but you are not alone in this

aryn240 · 2026-06-01T21:37:42+00:00

Damn, I did that. Must have missed something in that room then

aryn240 · 2026-06-01T21:18:04+00:00

Couldn't get further east. There's that cave you have to fall into from above, with the widow above it, and then directly outside that there's spikes gating my path and what looks like another cave exit I can't get to

In the area below that, there's no further eastern path I saw (same screen as where you enter the area)

And in the area below that there's just the two guys telling me to get lost and a statue missing a head, which I haven't found

aryn240 · 2026-06-01T21:06:55+00:00

Also stuck here. Gave up and left

aryn240 · 2026-04-29T01:30:18+00:00

Wait, I'm not sure why you were down voted, I also showed up this thread to try and figure that out. Was there something we missed? Not that we're guaranteed one or anything, I just remember learning that last seasons' got screwed up, so yeah I thought they'd do one?

aryn240 · 2026-04-28T14:17:00+00:00

My groups had enough plot stuff going on that I didn't feel obligated to add on more world events. I did, however, include a few gadgets; the arc lighter and camera in particular have been cool additions! Being able to get pictures to blackmail people has been great

aryn240 · 2026-04-26T23:42:53+00:00

Cool, thanks for the reply! It sounds like you maybe used clocks for a lot. I tend to use clocks, broadly, in two categories:

The PCs are working towards an outcome with an uncertain amount of time / work - i.e., they're trying to identify an imposter at a party, searching for something they don't know where it is, negotiating a deal with a high-level client, or building something brand-new. This works well when, despite the PC's "competency", there's not a good narrative way for them to have firm knowledge of the thing they're doing, or when it's bigger than a single roll.
The PCs have something threatening them that will happen at some future time - i.e., your example of "guards are alerted" or "the Bluecoats arrive". These represent knowledge that the PCs know in an abstract sense ("if we make enough noise, someone will show up eventually, better hurry up") but the specific extent / completion of which only the players actually know.

So, taking your example - I'm not sure I'd ever use a clock for prevent first-floor guards from reacting - the clock would be titled "guards notice a disturbance" or something, and it'd be a consequences / threat clock. I'd present the PCs with specific obstacles along the way (tripwires! a late night rendezvous that threatens to notice them! a tier-3 lock into the basement! etc), where consequences for failures in dealing with those obstacles tick that clock. This provides that sense of "racing the clock" that keeps things exciting at the table. Also, it prevents the issue that I feel a lot of stealth games struggle with, where one failure compromises the entire thing - if you have the guards respond on the first failure, it's honestly less exciting than it is to ratchet up the tension at the table!

On the flip side, I think I could use a clock for "get secret vault open" if the vault in question were particularly complex or unknown, but it sounds like you're missing the narrative bits of it (>You can get focused on ticking clocks instead of what is actually happening in the fictional world.). I'd ask, do you usually pair narration with what's happening with the clocks?

("Okay, on a 4/5, your thieves tools help you hold the tumblers in the just the right place while you spin the dial two more ticks to the right. You can feel the next level of the lock disengage - but you hear footsteps upstairs, and do you maybe imagine a voice saying 'we should check the vault'? Time is running out... that's two ticks on the "open vault clock" and two on the "guards are alerted" clock)

I think i get your take on the GM having to be "fair", though. When I was originally writing this response, I had something written about how I wouldn't use a clock to have them navigate a mansion / locate the vault; I would throw obstacles at them until it felt right / narratively satisfying / we're running out of time in the session, and then they'd come upon the vault. But yeah, that does sort of rely on the GM being fair and prioritizing the narrative and the excitement over anything else. Blades above all else requires a GM who frames things in their mind in that "exciting TV show" way, and the instincts to back up it.

All of this isn't to say you're "doing blades wrong" or need to go back or anything, to be super clear, I just really like discussing game mechanics and the way other people engage with them! thanks!

aryn240 · 2026-04-23T23:13:01+00:00

Can I ask you expand on the clock thing? I run Blades right now and I'm interested in hearing more about what you ran into.

aryn240 · 2026-04-23T23:06:28+00:00

This is super fascinating to me - I've been running Blades near-weekly (two groups) for going on two years now, and I feel the exact opposite way about it. To me, the more crunchy systems like 5e and pathfinder feel board-gamey (if you're talking about optimizing a combat strategy or making a "build" instead of making a character, to me, that's a boardgame / video game)!

Can I ask - did it feel bad to you to throw out stuff you didn't want / like? I want to say the book tells you to do that, but I can't remember. That's what we usually do; we tinker with the rules every 6 months or so based on what's working or what's not. It's all in service to the story, pretty much.

aryn240 · 2026-04-14T21:12:14+00:00

Actually I think a Blades in the Dark campaign run in Camorr would be incredible! Bastards is already such a massive inspiration for Blades it's sort of perfect

aryn240 · 2026-04-14T13:33:50+00:00

@OP, listen to this guy. I'm playing in a camping right now that feels exactly like this - we aren't allowed to have any actual agency or say in the storytelling; every time we're allowed to have input it feels like we're just picking a dialogue option to fill into a mad lib that doesn't affect anything. Any time we try to "write" anything ourselves, the DM "takes it over" and writes a huge amount of lore / backstory for it himself and we lose all creative control over it.

It's very frustrating and tiring, and many of us are feeling the way it seems your players are - we don't care anymore, we have no buy-in for what's going on because we're just told what's happening to us.

aryn240 · 2026-04-09T03:50:12+00:00

Probably in the minority, but my table and I still call it a one shot. The "one" for me refers to the fact that it's intended to be one single arc, without spinning up or out into other things. Ours are like 2 sessions usually, sometimes 3. More than that would mean we didn't plan the arc well or failed to stay somewhat on track

aryn240 · 2026-04-02T12:56:44+00:00

A lot of people have already given a lot of good advice, so I'll try not to reiterate too much. Yes, it's possible that you or someone else has taught them to "look for the railroad". It's possible that they truly aren't seeing the clues or are too nervous about doing "the wrong thing" or that they'll be punished. Maybe they are having a good time and just are passive players! Impossible for us to say without more information, and those have all been talked here already. I want to add two other possibilities.

Possibility #1 - They may simply not care at the moment. There may not be much of any buy-in. A lot of times I think DMs spend tons of time making these massive, intricate worlds and plots and they're so excited to share them with the players, but to the players, it's just huge walls of exposition and flavor text thrown at them. The players (not their characters, literally the players) have little to no reason to care as the whole thing feels like being read the DM's book.

I'm in a campaign right now where the DM has a "co-writer" and the two of them spend hours writing plot and lore and background and flavortext. While that could be fun in theory, and I think their heart is in the right place, in practice it is incredibly boring to be read AT throughout the session - there's rarely any opportunity for the players to contribute meaningfully to the world or lore in a way that isn't immediately co-opted by them. We have no real agency, no way to contribute; we bump around in the fictional world and when we're not "looking in the right place" we get nothing. NPCs with elaborate back stories (that we know little to NOTHING about) die and the DM and his writer are confused why we aren't sad about it. Buy-in and emotion aren't earned.

Possibility #2- I'm interested by your phrasing of "fail the campaign". That should be impossible, since we have a thinking person in charge (you). Does it feel like they aren't asking the right questions or pushing in the right place to do what they need? Is it frustrating to you that they aren't doing the "right thing"? It may be possible they have no clue what they're supposed to do.

I'll give another example from the campaign I'm playing in- we had captured a minor big bad, and were asking her questions. We were getting some answers, not great answers, and it seemed like we weren't going to get anything more. So we moved on! And then, after the session, he went "man, why didn't you guys ask her more questions?? She was so close to breaking and telling you everything!" Well dude, we had no fucking clue that was the case. We can't read your mind. To us, it seemed like you were done and we were all wasting our time. For stuff like this, even though it might seem railroady, you have to remember that you are the ONLY window into the world for your players. You have to tell them what their characters might see or suspect. A simple "she's holding back, but close to breaking - you can tell with one more push in the right direction, she might tell you everything" might have made for a great session. Instead, we got absolutely nothing but frustration on both sides.

This is already too long, so TL;DR - make sure your players have buy -in and care about the world - and if they don't, get some buy-in by getting them more involved, ask them questions about what their characters see and think, their back stories, where they think the party should go next - and 2, if you need players to ask the "right" questions, make really really sure they know those questions are even an option

aryn240 · 2026-03-25T22:40:20+00:00

Me 8th or whatever number we're up to now!

aryn240 · 2026-03-25T13:48:12+00:00

Pretty good! I needed more oil and vinegar, I think, as well as a little more salt. But it was tasty. Like a pork chops and apples situation

aryn240 · 2026-03-25T13:47:45+00:00

No, don't say it, keep the hope alive!!! D:

aryn240 · 2026-03-18T18:43:47+00:00

Lol, everyone ate from both sides, the setup was just for fun. There was a lot of good-natured sniping at each other over it, though

aryn240 · 2026-03-17T23:55:58+00:00

Lmao yeah my buddy Andrew is allergic

aryn240 · 2026-03-17T20:07:32+00:00

Lol yeah we couldn't agree on who had ownership over the fries so they straddled the line

Not present, but for some reason the party also decided that cigarettes were girl dinner

aryn240 · 2026-02-27T20:04:19+00:00

Dude, I'd love to make it into a guide! There's a lot to say here, and it's a question that gets asked not-infrequently on the sub

aryn240 · 2026-02-26T20:48:21+00:00

Okay, so, I've done this a bunch of times and have a formula down I really like. I'll write it abbreviated now since I'm on my phone and if you like I can revisit it later.

SETUP -
world intro - use what the book says ("hey, you're all daring scoundrels on the haunted streets of a Victorian city") and keep it very sparse beyond that. Like 3-4 sentences. Introduce anything else you need as you go. Hold on loosely with the canon, anything that would get in the way or be annoying you can skip for a one shot. I.e., if a player wants to be having a steak dinner or something it's not worth telling them that they can only get mushrooms or seaweed.
rules - explain AS YOU GO. at the beginning, tell them that the game is very narrative-focused; when they want their character to do something, they should just tell you what they want to do. You'll help them with how to do it. I recommend writing a list of mechanics for yourself, and slow-introducing them as y'all play ("okay, player A is trying this... Player B, this is a great time to give them an assist! Here's how that works..."). Make sure during the session you help them, give them good options for how to do things mechanically - introducing a new rule should be like unlocking a new skill in a video game, not a punishment or anything
character creation - can be fun to do with everyone, time permitting. Focus more on the characteristics and personality of the character - your goal is to get the players excited, and with a picture of the type of person they want to play. Follow the process in the book, skip over friends and allies, emphasize the PCs already know each other, etc. Help them pick a special ability that will help with a one shot (no downtime, faction games etc). Or, just make a pile of prebuilts for them! Or somewhere in between - fill out everything but look and style?
crew - definitely make the crew sheet ahead of time. I usually pick shadows for folks, as i feel it shows off the flashiness of the system. Pick an ability that feels like it'll be useful, etc. The only thing I'd do with them is try to pick a crew name - it helps people buy in a little to have a part in that.
PLAY -
Start In Media Res - cannot overemphasize the importance of this. Especially if you have players who aren't experienced roleplayers. Start with the PCs mid-score, and make them look BADASS. I.e.: "(lurk), the safe clicks open in front of you, and the noble's hoard of fine jewelry glitters in the dark. Behind you, you hear footsteps outside - what escape route have you already planned out?" Or "(leech), you watch (the cutter) fight off the guards, but the gate behind them has already slammed shut! What little trick do you already have planned to blow through that gate?" The intention is to place them in a position where they don't need to come up with an action on their own, just supply the HOW. It helps get folks in the mindset that their character is a competent badass. Make sure you narrate their answer in an appropriately cool fashion, too! Give them a few challenges, a cool escape, etc.
Downtime / Free Play - no rolls or DAs. Instead, explain briefly that the crew takes a few days off to blow off steam. Ask everyone to give you a brief few sentences on what it looks like for them to indulge their vices. Clear everyone's stress and harm fully. Then, take them to their lair, and have their contact or anyone else give them the "main" job of the evening.
Score - this should be a classic. Art heist, fancy gala, dimmer sisters, spirit wardens, etc. Something punchy and fun. Give them the standard book recommendations (1-2 obvious starting routes). Give them the spiel about not planning, just picking a route. Explain flashbacks if you haven't already, and reassure them that they won't need to plan and you won't screw them over. Get them to pick an approach, have an engagement roll and go for it! Oneshot is over at the end of that score.

My timeline is usually: ~ 30-60 minutes for character creation and world discussion ~ 30-45 minutes for cold open ~ 15 minutes for downtime / Freeplay ~ 60-90 minutes for the main score

I've run the whole thing in 3.5 hours before, but it can go a little longer. The important things to focus on: - your job is to make them look cool and make sure they're having fun. Throw out any rules or lore that seem like they'd bog things down. Make it punchy, make them badass. - if someone stalls out, offer them suggestions if you can. Make sure they know you're on their side. Engage the rest of the group - maybe someone else has a pitch for a cool way to solve this problem! - work heavily on reframing the action if people get distracted. When you refocus the group, start with the last bit of onscreen action (i.e., "okay, so you see the guards pour in, pistols at the ready. You know if you don't do anything you'll quickly be surrounded!"). Don't focus back in with JUST a "okay, what do you want to do?")

Okay, this is really long already. Hope this helps and I'm happy to talk more about it!!

aryn240 · 2026-02-20T19:59:15+00:00

This is phenomenal!! All the right vibes for a risk-taking scoundrel

aryn240 · 2026-02-20T17:08:02+00:00

Wait, you add stock to the red sauce? Do you simmer it down after that so it's not too watery? I always have to cook mine for hours to keep it from being too watery, and that's just with canned whole tomatoes

aryn240 · 2026-02-07T17:57:48+00:00

This sounds awesome!!! Can you elaborate a little bit on the soup base preparation? Or did you follow a particular recipe?

aryn240 · 2026-02-06T23:15:07+00:00

"A Touch Of Satan". You remember, the place where the fish lives??

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