Talkback: Blades in the Dark/Doskvol

Welcome back to the Rascal Reading Club! This is the first talkback of season two and we're responding to your responses all about the iconic Blades in the Dark by John Harper and Evil Hat.

Excerpt

Proper GMing Advice

Kieron: There's a one Paranoia adventure I've only ever ran it once as a kid, but anytime I've ran Paranoia I've used the idea, which is you stick a styrofoam cup in your mouth when giving the briefing. And so, the players have no idea what you're saying, and they're too polite to say. And of course, drools coming down my... It's utterly embarrassing. And it's such a cool throwaway idea, and it works with every single different group.

Thomas: Oh my God.

Kieron: No dignity.

Thomas: I have come back around to having no dignity. I think for a long time I was not good enough at GMing that I was like, "I will not do these funny voices", "I'll not embarrass myself", 'cause I'm trying to be good but now that I'm good, I'm like, "It's time to be bad."

Kieron: Fearless is powerful. You know what I mean? Anyway, Blades in the Dark.

Thomas: A lot of podcasting is just segueing.

Genre vs Setting in figuring out what happens next

Andrew: [...] I think a good setting should be providing all the players with context for their choices and actions. But also, I think that the setting's tone and genre do a lot more to inform players' choices a lot of the times than specific details of the setting.

I think games kind of get caught in the gravity of other media forms. You know, we lean on things that we've seen either as tropes or, we cite specific images, lines, moments, whatever, because we're making stuff up on the fly or whatever else, right? We're gonna reach for ready-made portions of fiction or whatever else.

Thomas: And next, Alexander, who I think is writing in for the first time, sent in a recording only for the response to this one. Let's listen to that.

Alexander: Something about this rings true to me, but it feels like there's something missing, and I think it might be the interaction of setting and genre because when I think of just like, you know, you can just have a setting, right? ... Well, actually, when I think about it, even when I try to describe setting, genre almost comes into it. I was about to say a fantasy world, right? And even in there, there's a recognition that this is a fantasy world, and so it's going to attempt to do certain things, relating to kind of fantasy. But I think some games can do this better than others. And Blades in the Dark, I think, is so kind of loved because Duskwall really fits into the crime caper genre that it's attempting to emulate and more so that kind of Industrial Age one as well.

Whenever I look at it, I immediately think of Dishonored. And the fact that it does that clues me into the types of decisions and choices that should be made to fit within those types of genres. So, like, the setting itself embodies the genre, and thus when you're playing, it's so much easier to make decisions or, you know, guide the players, when they're maybe a little uncertain of the decisions that they want to make.

And I think there's something about this that rings true because I've been reading Blades '68, which obviously updates the setting to better fit within the '60s genre of crime capers that it's playing into, right? And I think both are so exciting because of how well they take on those, genre elements. And, you know, I'm sure you all maybe can kind of imagine settings where, you know, it purports to be about a certain type of game, and yet there's a dissonance between the genre and the setting that then makes it difficult for you to make decisions, or the setting is so unique that it might actually feel a little alienating because you can't pin it to a genre, and it kind of makes it difficult to make the cause and effect.

Thomas: I think what I'm getting here from both of these is that, when people talk about genre in games, they are talking about the value of genre for suggesting what is a good effect a cause, right? Using genre to think through cause and effect and I guess that is my understanding of it too, but I've never put it in those words.