In and Out

Last week saw our band of thieves pull off a successful job, as such we went on to advance our characters. Interestingly enough Blades in the Dark does not use a standard experience system that most gamers are used to. Instead, each group of skills gains an advancement bar, which, when full, allows the player to gain a point in one of the relevant skills. These bars are gained by either using your skills during the game of spending downtime training them.

Unfortunately, we didn't have time for the final stage of the session: DOWNTIME... which we addressed at the start of this one.

Downtime represents time our characters go through between jobs. We relax, reducing our stress levels, and make progress on our personal projects. Although there are other options, like reducing our gang's Heat rating, we all went with personal projects. My character was busy creating a false persona to infiltrate the Bluecoats, which as I understand is a gang that acts as the local police force, while the Lurk worked on getting into their treasury. The Whisper decided to research the existence of angels, which involved casual pillow talk with a succubus. Mercer, the Cutter, started to look for an appropriate site for a temple (to the Forgotten Gods).

After the downtime, it was time for actual play. Which in our case means: breaking, entering and thieving. This time we weren't offered a job by one of the more well-renowned gangs in the area. Instead, our Whisper was approached by a contact with a favour. Mainly, to break into a competitors warehouse and disable some security measures thus giving him an economic advantage in the current marketplace... or some such... thieving was involved, other details seemed less important!

Our initial reconnaissance showed minimal security. A few guards patrolling the outside area in a predictable pattern and one inside an office. Fortunately, the Lurk managed to locate an appropriate entry point on the roof so it all seemed like an easy job.

We got in without too much of an issue (that hole was a bit tight though). The first obstacle we faced came in the form of three guards. Whilst we were setting up an ambush, me character and Mercer had an argument over the appropriate measures of murdering people, with my character explaining to Mercer he can't possibly perform a stealth kill.

Surely enough, after all was said and done, Mercer, alongside half the group, liked to remind my character that he killed two guards with a single swing of his axe while I was still struggling to stab one guard. My annoyance with the situation resulted in an inappropriate amount of dead body stabbing.

After this short scuffle, we nearly got caught unaware by an electroplasmic fence acting as a further security measure. The Whisper disabled it and we moved on to the safe.

The final obstacle was the aforementioned office guard. I had to suffer a constant string of comments directed at my murder skills. Naturally, I was annoyed enough that I needed to prove my worth. I took out a pistol, aimed through the window and, despite wounds suffered earlier, I shot the guard through the skull, the bullet ricocheted, revealing the safe, and went through the guard's heart... for good measure.

The Lur opened the safe, we took as much as we could carry and went off... all in all, a very simple job resulting in a boost to our income.