# Trouble running Blades in the Dark? Turn Up the Heat! tags: #thoughts #game/rpg/blades-in-the-dark ![[Blades in the Dark (cover).jpg]] We're going to dip back into Reddit because, you know, sometimes you find the most obvious things and people pass over the most obvious answers. --- > Half vent, half looking for advice. > > TLDR - Blades as a system slaps, but I struggle with making factions be mean and petty enough to ramp up the drama, and my players are still relentlessly trad-pilled and stuck in 'survival mode'. > > I have a long history of trad games, but I dabbled with PbtA years ago, with Rhapsody of Blood (it's castlevania as a mapless megadungeon crawler - it's cool but a little threadbare), and became enamoured with the design space. Then I fumbled my way into Blades in the Dark, which screamed "THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME". And… it totally is! > > BUUUUUUT I have a *me issue*, one that maybe you guys might be able to advise on but I fear that it may remain a me-issue regardless. > > See, BitD is great for its propulsive story-generation. PCs do something stupid or reckless or ballsy, and it creates plot hooks. Or at least, it should. > > However, I struggle at making the factions be petty or mean or opportunistic enough. I just couldn't logic it into place to go "yeah, these guys see the crew as a threat/opportunity" and then force things. I also struggled to find pressure points on my PCs to lean on to get them to do dirty work or start fights or whatever. I was very prone to softballing a lot of consequences, too. > > Furthermore, my players are still relentlessly traditional players. They tried, don't get me wrong, but it was hard for them to separate from the typical D&D survival mode brainspace. This meant they didn't take a lot of risks and didn't rack up a lot of stress. And they're not the greatest of self-starters either - the sandboxy nature of BitD was hard for them to get into (they tried, at least). And they didn't really connect with any NPCs (but that's partially my fault - I'm really bad at NPCs). > > Now, it's entirely possible that BitD itself is a bad fit for me and my group. I get it, but it's a bummer, because I do honestly like the system at lot, and so do my players. But the execution of it all is hard for me. Not mechanically, but creatively and logistically. > > My other thought is that Blades in the Dark / Blades 68 (which was what I ran this past time) is a bit rougher to work with, but other games might be a little easier on creating the drama and ramping up the stakes. > > For now, I'm going to take a break from BitD/68, and give it another go down the line. But I wanted to express my feelings a bit and maybe see if there's advice on how to adjust my mindset (and help my players) to make it work better for me and my group - we really liked it, and I very much want to make it *sing* for us. > > --- https://www.reddit.com/r/bladesinthedark/comments/1twp57f/bitd_i_love_blades_as_system_but_i_struggle_to/ In *[[Blades in the Dark|Blades]]*, there's a really straightforward solution to passive players who are stuck in the survival mode mindset and want to probe every two meter square with a 30-foot pole. **The GM has to drive the world like he wants to burn it down.** No ifs, ands, buts, or hesitation. The advice to **"drive it like you stole it"** does not just apply to players. It absolutely and positively must apply to the GM as well because if you don't, then it just doesn't work. Every gang has to be out for themselves and want something they can't have right now, and they're pissed off about it. Every gang needs to look at the players as either pawns that they can use to get what they want, or obstacles in the way of getting what they want. Sometimes simultaneously. The factions have to be willing to go to the mat all the time, everywhere, and not just in a physical violence way, though that too. They have to be willing to do dirty deeds, subvert and undercut everyone around them, and generally be on the verge of detonation 24/7. Into that, drop players with characters who want things they can't have and are willing to do nasty, unpleasant things to get their hands on them. Yes, this absolutely holds true, even if what they want are good, pleasant, wonderful, upstanding, safe things. Because there's nothing good, wonderful, upstanding, or safe in Duskvol. This really is the responsibility of the GM. They have to demonstrate the nature of the world and indicate that nobody anywhere is kicking back and playing it safe because doing that means that the sharks eat you. If you've got players who've made characters who don't answer the three essential questions, then get rid of them. Either the players or the characters, whichever: - *What do you want?* - *Why can't you have it?* - *What are you going to do about that?* Those are the front and center questions for everybody at the table. You absolutely, positively, without question, cannot let any of those questions lie fallow. There have to be things that everybody wants. There have to be reasons they can't have them, and they all have to have a plan to get it. If you aren't doing that, you can't play *Blades*. It's that simple. ## Grim Tokens Addenda I'm just going to go a little bit beyond the framework of my response here because I see a lot of this problem popping up in TTRPGs everywhere, at least in terms of discussion around them. People asking for permission, failing to actually have characters who want things and are willing to do things, settings which fall flat because the GM or players are just too cowed to actually get out there and do something with them. I have to admit, I have an emotional, visceral response every time it comes up. That response is **disgust**, a sort of bowel-deep unpleasantness, like putting your foot in something squishy. Why, you might ask, do I have that response? It's because it reflects a deeper terror of actually engaging with life, to the point that even a fantasy becomes threatening. You need to be told how to use your own brain, be told to let it go, be told to experiment, be told to take risks, even when those risks are purely and utterly notional and don't affect anyone in any long-term way. I see this happening everywhere in the hobby, not just in the super soft, cozy games where you would expect that, you know, like D&D has turned into. It's not like you can say that *Blades in the Dark* or *Blades '68* isn't really hardcore upfront about telling you that players and GMs absolutely, without question, have to put it on the table and drive like a bat out of hell. It's there on damn near every page of the book. I am so tired of seeing people talk about how they can't take a risk in any context, push an idea, etc. that it's finally reached a breaking point. This is my moment to talk about it. You know where you don't see this sort of behavior? In wargames. The whole point is to get out there and do something. By the end of the session, if you haven't gotten out there and done something, you haven't been playing the game. Once upon a time, this is how people approached the RPG hobby as well, but increasingly that's not the case, and it pains me. Here's what I want you to do: stop asking permission. Stop worrying about **"playing it right."** Stop engaging with this underlying premise that permission is better than action. Just do something, even if it's wrong, especially if it's wrong. Get out there and play the game, whatever the game is.