Forged in the Dark One Shot?

Hello!
I am pretty much brand new to this site (though not to Play by Post games in general) and was wondering if there might be interest in a Forged/Blades in the Dark One-shot.
Immediate caveat: I've never played Blades in the Dark, but it looks cool, and the website spells out the basic rules pretty well, so I figure that a One Shot as a testing/learning experience might be perfect for a new player like myself. I haven't worked out all the details (though I have a general idea in mind) but as I've recently been replaying Bethesda's Dishonored, I figure the general aesthetic of BitD is fresh on the mind.
After the one-shot - who knows? My own availability for posting can be a little erratic, largely skewed towards weekends, and since I'm new to this particular system we probably won't start for a few weeks, but I'd love to get a sense of who's around.
If surviving the trials and travails of a gritty, Steampunk-Victorian, Lovecraft-inspired Cityscape is appealing to you (for whatever odd reason), leave a comment, or don't, if you'd rather.
Art is yoinked from pinterest

I've never played this game but I like 19th century history and Lovecraftian stuff so I might be interested. Not promesing anything at this point, but I'm a bit interested.

Perhaps we can learn it together!

CustodianMallard wrote:

Perhaps we can learn it together!

I don't think we would have much choice if we're going to play it.

Well, what kind of game, using the forged in the dark engine, might you be interested in? 19th century could be a lot of things - from early 19th century Napoleonic wars to the gradual buildup of tensions heading towards WW1. The system implies a heavy dose of magic - in that lovely sort of Lovecraftian, otherworldly sense, so we'd be exploring that too. Thoughts?

I'm thinking perhaps closer to the Napoleonic period than the final stages before the Great War and to make us not have to read up on subjects into becoming proper scholars, we might focus a bit on the Anglophone world.

I am myself not a native English-speaker but due to accessability of such pop culture, and accessable English authors, references to the Anglophone world might make such easier to start with than for example the French Empire(s), Tsarist Russia or Meiji Japan.

Wether we go for a version of the UK or the US is of less importance to me.

So, no one else has shown up yet.

Should we go forward with character creation and such? We'll have to start with a solo game I suppose but I'm still interested and maybe we can get people to join after we've got the project off the ground?

Whew - so glad January is nearly done. Busy month for this one.
I'd be down to try and run things solo for a bit - might even simplify some stuff, and it would give me time to do a bit more incremental/episodic worldbuilding as we go.
Sure, let's do some character creation. I guess you have a few options to choose from.
For starters, there aren't really classes, so far as I can tell, but there are seven playbooks to choose from. Here's a site I found with form-fillable PDFs of the character sheets: http://ad1066.com/bens-character-sheets/blades-in-the-dark-playbooks
Does one of the playbooks look good to you? I don't think we'll be using their Duskwall setting (because it is very involved, and I'd rather build things out as we go, to a certain degree).
Just to do a bit of a test run, let's do a setting that is a sort of prison break-out from a high security prison located on a small island, circa 1860 for tech/aesthetic purposes. We'll be in a reimagined Northwest Europe, probably mostly focusing on the British Isles as an overall map, but with different names and histories for things.

Below, I've copied a summary list of the things to do for character creation. No need to do #6 and #2 just yet - Heritage (national/regional background) and friends/rivals - as that won't really apply until, if we decide to continue, you'd be out of the prison. This is just a test run, of sorts, so that I can get used to the GM's job in a Forged in the Dark system and so that you can take a look at some of the Character Creation and early game mechanics.

1 Choose a playbook. Your playbook represents your character’s reputation, their special abilities, and how they advance.

2 Choose a heritage. Detail your choice with a note about your family life. For example, Ore miners, now war refugees.

3 Choose a background. Detail your choice with your specific history. For example, Labor: Hunter, mutineer.

4 Assign four action dots. No action may begin with a rating higher than 2 during character creation. (After creation, action ratings may advance up to 3. When you unlock the Mastery advance for your crew, you can advance actions up to rating 4.)

5 Choose a special ability. They’re in the gray column in the middle of the character sheet. If you can’t decide, choose the first ability on the list. It’s placed there as a good first option.

6 Choose a close friend and a rival. Mark the one who is a close friend, long-time ally, family relation, or lover (the upward-pointing triangle). Mark one who is a rival, enemy, scorned lover, betrayed partner, etc. (the downward-pointing triangle).

7 Choose your vice. Pick your preferred type of vice, detail it with a short description and indicate the name and location of your vice purveyor.

8 Record your name, alias, and look. Choose a name, an alias (if you use one), and jot down a few words to describe your look. Examples are provided on the preceding page.


How does that sound?

That sounds good. I've got something I need to fix today but come evening I should be able to start looking things over and have something about my character to post back tomorrow or so.

Something came up so it might take a bit more time before I've got a character done. But I'm still committed to this.

Ok, these are my choices for my (first) character and we'll see how it goes.

1. Cutter playbook

2 -

3. Military (soldier) background

4. I put my Action Points in Survey (1), Finess (1), Wreck (1) and Sway (1)

5. I picked "Battleborn" as I'm unfamiliar with this system, so I followed the advice to pick the first one

6. My friend is "Marlane the Pugilist" annd my rival is "Chael the Vicious Thug"

7. The vice is "Pleasure in martial contests with my character getting this from a Fight Club he frequents)

8. Name is Edward Corwyn and looks are, in short, "Tall and marked by hard weather and violence"

Sweet! The Cutter looks awesome!
Let's do some of the "Free Play" style stuff in this chat for a minute - this is a rules-light segment of regular play in which there aren't usually many rolls, but where we can move the story forward in some way or other.
Sounds like you have a pretty rugged and tough character, an ex-soldier who seems to be of the roughly British analogue in this world which we'll call Alba (home of the Albans) for now. Maybe you had found a few friends and a few enemies in the lively fighting-rings of this part of the world, popular with the lower classes and not a few nobles who wish to see a little more blood than is commonly spilt at balls or games of chance.
Perhaps you and a business partner, the retired Pugilist "Profane Marlane" were at one point in recent history very near to a championship title or some other achievement in local prominence when an underhanded move by a foreign fighter and particularly vicious thug named Chael, along with his Emras (a nearby island with a history of tension against Alban hegemony) cronies, caused your nascent operation to get hit by the Wardens (police). Marlane may have escaped - you don't know. Certainly several of your old contacts are dead, or deep underground. Now you rot in a cell - you've heard of this place. A tiny, frostbitten speck of an island, surrounded by deep channels with vicious currents just a few miles off the shores of Alba. Even in just the last few weeks, you've already seen a score of other prisoners disappear, likely for their executions, though nothing's been said openly. You've got to get out.

Thoughts? Would that work as a starting premise?

Sounds cool and good to me. I'm ready to see if Edward can get himself out of this prison.

Over a week since the last post. Did the game die already?

I don't think so? I was waiting on an admin to set up a new game thread for us - I had contacted Iron and Metal about it. Thanks for your patience!

Sounds good! I'll keep my eye open for that game thread.

Apologies! I will get it up soon. Stupid work.

Our game forum is up and running! I'm awaiting the GM to start the game threads and we can start to post in there.

Ok, I think I've made the initial Game topic!

Cheers! I'm heading over there now.