What are /r/bladesinthedark's favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

I literally did the maths for you. The only way things could be different is if the dice were weighted. You say you gave an "outside source" to support your claim. Well, here's a dice calculator.

Are you honestly claiming that the odds of rolling a 6 on one die is the same as rolling a single 6 on four dice, or 1,000 dice? If that was the case, why would any game use dice pools? You might as well just roll a single die for every stat. Do you really think that all of these games designers and players have fallen for a simple fallacy?

Something that might be good is to get a copy of "How to be a Victorian" which is an excellent and fun to read overview of Victorian life. Its $3.00 on Kindle and I highly recommend it to get some ideas for some verisimilitude in BitD.

It was made by Calum Grace. You can find a link to it here: https://twitter.com/thysane/status/1190724490738765824?s=19

He also made a fabulous dark sci fi FitD called a Nocturne, which you should absolutely buy here: https://itch.io/devlog/107963/a-nocturne-v10-release.amp?__twitter_impression=true

Someone (LA cidiana from community.bladesinthedark.com) kindly created a database with this info and much more: https://airtable.com/invite/l?inviteId=invNgzZy0ChnacGt0&inviteToken=44cddc1d38f662b8de151dc285a125861b521eb3af92f269ce4b76ec31538bc2&utm_source=email

I just finished the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. The setting is different, but the story focuses on a thieving crew that gets very ambitious just like a Blades game. It's a great read.

I've used Makerbook.net, but it seems to be down. Here is a Lifehacker article about same, if it ever comes back up.

Another solution: Buy a compass! They’re not that expensive and they fit the Doskvol atmosphere great.

E.g.: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Professional-Diameter-ISKM-Geometry-Drafting/dp/B07MCVMS9D/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?c=ts&keywords=Drafting+Compasses&qid=1659848009&s=officeproduct&sr=1-3&ts_id=9469058031

Googlesheets are an amazing tool. I started tracking factions that way also. Eventually they didn't quite have what I needed so I moved to airtable. And then someone from community.bladesinthedark.com improved on the database, loaded all Canon Factions and npcs into it https://airtable.com/shrf1NItIsAtyAdZJ/tblWBPpsOZeFWhKFg/viwrmWqoKuCucb4oG

And if you've purchased the book/PDF, then feel free to access this homemade database listing all the different types of claims. Makes it easy to search for claims from other crews you might want to import to yours. https://airtable.com/apppJcgbDEUnYWFpH/tbllC5oDN2fhu96vk/viwRs63DXpsbFD49H?blocks=hide

This is awesome! And I'm glad folks are getting use out of that spreadsheet. I'm confused by a few things, probably due to the fact that I'm not familiar with notion. But I do like the clean interface.

Why is the friend/foe grid not symmetrical? If the Billhooks are checkmark with the Brigade, why isn't the opposite true?

Hey there! Today's the day. It's available now on iTunes (Leviathan in the Harbor by Architelos), but will have a timed release tonight on Spotify and Amazon.

The Wandering Inn is a web novel that's probably the heaviest hitter in the genre atm, clocking in at over 8 million words and at least a few hundred patreon supporters. It's pulpy, rough, and it took a few months from me before I was able to put it down.

Pendulum Heroes is a pretty solid novel from a few years ago. Beamon is a very good short story writer - this book has a lot of self-published debut novel energy, but it's still fun and well constructed. Worth the read, and also apparently on sale today.

We use roamresearch.com for most of our off-roll20 needs. We have a calendar page with links to our session notes for each game and a beer high level Summary on the calendar. As for time, we play it by ear based on the fiction. Some episodes are two months apart. Some on consecutive days. We tried the cannon calendar, but it was too much for us so we reverted.

Example : https://roamresearch.com/#/app/duckietie/page/ZKSsjappo

For creating NPC headshots, I find Artbreeder can be quite helpful.

It's AI-driven merging of images and it allows you to tweak headshots and merge them with others so you can transplant an expression onto another face and then alter the hair colour etc.

I'm just going to leave this right here...

https://artbreeder.com/browse

It's a great tool for generating people who don't exist.

EDIT: careful though, it's a timesuck!

I have not laid out anything like this but I hear that Affinity Publisher is the new hotness -- it's free while it's in beta. https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/publisher/

While I can’t help you find that specific article, I can suggest a book that might help. If you really want to learn how to improv, I HIGHLY recommend you get the UCB Improv Manual. While it is focused on real long- and short-form improv, it will teach you all of the components of good improv and what you can do and think of to get better. It is all agnostic from “humor” or how to make things funny as you might expect from an improv manual, so you can apply everything you read to games.

As for coming up with consequences, it’s really hard to give advice that will help you without some examples of where you struggled. My advice would be to follow the fiction and choose what is most obvious, not what you think is coolest or most original. If nothing in the scene jumps out as being an obvious consequence, think off screen and see if one of the factions involved might have an opportunity to get involved.

And lastly, this might be a controversial take, but IMO improv requires everyone buying in and putting in the work. I see a lot of people in other TTRPG-related subs thinking that they the GM need to try harder to make improv work at their table, but not acknowledging that their players may or may not be interested in/knowledgeable about improv. I think there is SO much value in running a few improv games or exercises as warm ups before sessions, and if your table is willing expanding on those games with a tiny bit of improv theory that you have gleaned. Nobody wants a lecture for a game, but if you keep it short and to the point -and most importantly - relevant, in my experience nobody will bat an eye. Do what you can to get everyone feeling free, loose, and un-judgmental before you kick off and you might be surprised how easy ideas flow, for all of you.

(Sorry for the delay. I'm not a frequent Reddit user and just realized people had asked questions.)

1. You can choose the Chosen and Broken in any way that makes you comfortable! But I usually talk with the table about the themes we want to see and then select an appropriate Broken and Chosen. Where there are clear preferences, I defer. Where there are not, I select what makes me interested.
2. Cool. :)
3. These might work! https://www.amazon.com/Ultra-Photo-Page-25ct-Album/dp/B01N2WO7HY/ref=sr_1_13_sspa?keywords=3-ring+page+protectors+photos+3x5&qid=1550261718&s=furniture&sr=1-13-spons&psc=1

Lots of other questions! Let's see...

a) I didn't really find the rules confusing, or we would've changed them. The full text should clear up some intentions around those rules, but if there's something that you see, let us know!

b) The transition from mission to campaign is pretty structured. Do xp, do bookkeeping, do the back at camp scene. Just be clear with players about where you are in that process and you'll be fine.

c) In my most recent game I've had a Lorekeeper, and the Back at Camp scene was really great. But in other games, I've done. I find the best result is when you can reincorporate the results of the mission into a camp scene. Build on the story so far. That sort of thing. :)

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Hope you're enjoying!

Got some free wall space near where you play?

Having a giant wall of clocks looming behind the GM where the players can all see it would be a wonderful source of tension, I would think.