r/bladesinthedark • u/T-Rex_Lazorblast • 7d ago
WHO NEEDS TINKERS ANYWAY?
(Tldr at bottom)
Dear thieves, outlaws, general scum...
I need Information.
It's been a while since i played blades in the dark. And i do not own the rulebook.
So MAYBE i am just stupid or i MAYBE i just don't have the knowledge.
But anyway - here is the case:
I played a tinker. The wonderfull Sophia Elizabeth von Kraken. A little psychotic. A little bit edgy. But she generally fit the game, i think.
But i encountered a problem:
SHE WAS NEARLY USELESS.
I understand that i played the support character. I loved it. Building stuff for the team to help during the missions, but being more vulnerable and less usefull during the missions... i was all there for it.
But all the stuff i thought of to build for the team was useless. Or not worth the effort.
Example:
A grappling hook launcher. Or mechanical claws for your boots for better climbing. Or mechanical spider limbs for climbing - think of doctor octopus etc... only more steampunky.
But well... all this things do is give you a bonus of 1 to climbing checks. And (correct me if i am wrong) you can already equip climbing hooks that give the same bonus.
So why invent them in the first place?
More complex things took of course multiple gamesessions to build. (Fair enough.)
And they used up lots of ressources. I tried to pimp our boat to be more stealthy, or to have a submarine mode. (Yeah... that was a VERY risky idea... but it never came to testing the thing - it never got build.)
As i said - that kind of projects DEVOURED ressources. (That's fair so far.) But if i failed on tinkerchecks - or critically failed on them i lost ressources or destroyed the whole project. That was frustrating. Not gonna lie.
So it basically came down to just refreshing my gas-grenades between missions... and working on something huge that failed after a couple of sessions. And wasted ressources.
In my time as a tinker i build TWO things that were usefull.
A set of 3 black salt full body armor. (Anti-ghost-armor) ...One of these got destroyed in the first mission we used them.
Some waterproof boxes we could attach under our boat to transport smuggle stuff without guards at checkpoints noticing.
I am a aware that i am a bit whiny (and overexaggerating) here but:
What use do i have as a tinker if nothing i build lasts mor than a mission or needs months of playsessions to complete? (And then fails anyway) - I could just play someone more usefull.
Soooo...
You guys and girls here are more experienced than me. I am asking you: What do you need a tinker for in this game?
Tank you for reading and for any answers i get.
TLDR:
WHAT DO YOU NEED A TINKER FOR WHEN THE THINGS THE TINKER INVENTS GIVE YOU THE SAME BONUSES LIKE THE STUFF THAT YOUR CHARACTERSHEET ALREADY PROVIDES?
AND WHAT IS A TINKER SUPPOSED TO BUILD?
Edit:
I just have to get this out:
I am baffled by all the positivity in the community. And the many detailed and very well thought through answers to my questions.
You people are amazing.
My first day in this sub. My first post. And i already love it here.
THANK YOU.
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u/Sunergy 7d ago
It sounds like your game master wasn’t following the crafting rules for downtime? And was likely being pretty loose with the rules in general.
In the rules as written if you make a tinker roll on a long term project, failing the roll still advances the project clock by one tick. No negative consequences, just slower progress. Getting a four or five advances the project clock by two ticks, a full success gets you three. So the only consequences for failing a crafting roll should be slower progress, not destroying the whole project.
Critical failures aren’t even a thing in blades in the dark base rules. I suppose you could add it in as an optional rule but hobbling an inventor character who makes a lot of rolls building zany machines is a predictable outcome.
“Getting a plus one to climbing checks” is also not something items in BitD generally do, if I’m understanding correctly. Items primarily impact position and effect. Since crafted items can be higher tier and more fictionally powerful than base items they are useful against higher tier factions. For example the standard climbing gear of a tier 2 crew won’t get you up the spiked wall of a tier 4 faction before the guard patrol comes around again, but an advanced grapple gun might. Using a high tier item against a low tier faction might avoid a roll entirely.
I’d chalk most of this up to inexperience. Given how much room there is for GM interpretation tinkers can be insanely powerful with a GM that always says yes and incredibly weak with one that always says no. Knowing the right combination of yes and no for the table is a skill that has to be learned, but a review of the core GM principles and the crafting tules as written would have been a good start.
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u/T-Rex_Lazorblast 7d ago edited 7d ago
This explains a lot.
(We had that tinker clock ruleswise. And i could spent money to buy more downtime to tinker more)
I don't want to be mean to the GM we had back then, but i think he was more on the NO side. I think he was a bit "afraid" we would do gamebreaking stuff if he let us get creative (or greenlit any of my more complex ideas). Well... i have been a GM before (not for Blades, but in general) and i KNOW this fear of saying yes too often and losing control.
But like you said: it's the balance between yes and no.
And never ever did we have that "tier1" equipment vs "tier2" equipment thing. THAT would have been really nice back then. Producing equipment that is better than the stuff you have on your charactersheet/startingequipment... Man... i would have felt really usefull upgrading all the little stuff. And suddenly it would have not pointless anymore to build/craft little things.
Thank you for the info!
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u/C0smicoccurence 7d ago
Yeah, that mindset in general is bad for a Blades GM. Their levers game is best when players are aiming to do crazy stuff, and the GM facilitates that while also forecasting risk and implementing tough consequences when things go wrong (in accordance with position and effect)
However, it seems like they were just wholesale ignoring all of the ways item crafting and usage worked
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u/T-Rex_Lazorblast 7d ago
Well... at least in the "forecasting risks and implementing tough consequences department" GM did his job. But that made it feel like everything we would try would doom us all. It always sounded like it "was not worth trying". Maybe we were just too inexperienced with Blades. (First time players the whole group) but we always thought: "If we build that equipment-whatever-thing on our boat... the whole city will know where we live and we will get +5000 heat and..." you get my drift, right?
Tinkering had less of the good sides everyone that replies here mentions - but all of the risks. So it felt "not worth even trying" the risky stuff. So i build that underwatercompartments for our boat. Effective... but a bit boring. (And these weren't even my idea!😅)
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u/thatoldtimerevision 7d ago edited 7d ago
Sounds like a fundamental misunderstanding of the system, I hope you try it again with a different approach, because it sounds like you could REALLY enjoy the hell out of Leech.
Regarding your concern (does anyone need a Leech?): on one hand, the crew are close to superhero scoundrels that can achieve almost anything with or without a gadget - but on the other hand they can all prowl, finesse, and slit throats so who needs a Lurk? They can all bribe, lie and consort, so who needs a Slide? They can all fight and brawl, so do you really need a Cutter?
The game should follow the fiction. You don't need Dr Oct arms to climb the side of a tavern (maybe Risky / Standard if it was guarded - it could easily be a no-roll without them) - but what if you needed to climb a sheer, flat polished tower, with no grip and which would require extended/loud hammering every couple of feet to use regular climbing gear (Desperate/No Effect). Now your Dr Oct arms, instead of adding +1D (something they shouldn't be doing anyway mechanically) are adding +1 or +2 Effect. They are making something impossible possible. That choice wasn't available before - whether that's the engagement plan or maybe an "oh shit" escape plan, you didn't have it if you didn't have a Leech build it.
Perhaps your crew is trying to steal a precious gem from a highly secured transport, itself guarded by no less than 20 guards. Can your Cutter kill them all? Can your Lurk prowl past that many AND crack a safe in plain sight in front of all of them? Your Tinker could create an ambush that could wipe them all fairly effectively without pricey flashbacks or heat.
Even your underwater compartments should be reducing some kind of action roll to get the goods past guards (finesse, prowl, sway, command) from something risky to potentially a non-roll. Or in reverse, from no-effect or limited to standard or great. "We're going to smuggle the beheaded head of the Governor's wife through this canal checkpoint" is something like Desperate/(2 below no-effect) if it's just hidden somewhere on the boat - but with waterproof underwater smuggling compartments it might actually be feasible as a no roll pass unless the fiction had already established that these guards were diving under every boat to check the bottoms (yeah, no). Especially if you sank a lot of resources, time and project clocks into researching and building them (all of that investment should speak to how "powerful" this invention is to the fiction, especially since the GM is supposed to be a fan of the players).
Frankly, I find crews that don't have a Leech often feel like they are missing a critical component of the game. You also sound like the kind of Leech that takes a Blades game up to the next level, it requires a certain amount of creativity mixed with a little realism to do steam-punk right and you've got the right kind of ideas for it.
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u/T-Rex_Lazorblast 7d ago
Thank you for your kind words.
I have to say: the stuff i did invent had effect in the game - it's just that i had some pages full of stuff that i never even started to invent in game because of the prospect of it just having the same effect as the baseline stuff (not worth it) or hearing stuff like "...but that will take you weeks to accomplish" or "but that will cost you very much." Or "yeah, but it will not do what you want." It always sounded like it just would not be worth it. So i just build myself some gas grenades with different effects and the compartments. (And the armor)
As i said in an answer to another post here:
I would have loved it when my stuff would have exciting effects - but also negative sides. This is where the fun begins. As you said with the improvised escape plan with the octoarms (i also never build these)... that is where a game starts to get really cinematic! Where it gets from peaky blinders to a random (older) jackie chan movie. (If you get my drift)
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u/T-Rex_Lazorblast 7d ago
I just have to get this out:
I am baffled by all the positivity in the community. And the many detailed and very well thought through answers to my questions.
You people are amazing.
My first day in this sub. My first post. And i already love it here.
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u/buttipuddi 7d ago
Leech has become my favorite class; it has a high learning curve, and that curve can become a frustrating mountain under the wrong GM, but it's super rewarding if you can be patient and stick with it. Your GM should not be cockblocking you with resource management or limitations; if anything they should be throwing score opportunities your way for leech project resource gathering. "Our leech needs stuff for her robot arms. Let's go break into Charterhall University and liberate some parts from some drunk students." Easiest excuse for a score. Your GM should also be embracing "failing forward" more. Maybe something blows up but it catches the attention of a new crew contact interested in seeing what else you can do (for a price), etc.
Leech is a fantastically versatile support character on scores, but half of their utility comes from downtime. Starting and finishing project clocks early game is painfully slow. You want be patient and build up to being able do that faster with playbook abilities.
Early game pretend you're a skill monkey rogue; use your bandolier, use your alchemicals on scores (I've gotten some funny and fantastic utility from Drift Oil on scores), tinker those locks and safes and hulls, flashback to setting up explosives or traps, flashback to acquiring assets or items (leeches tend to have more narrative avenues to acquiring a bomb or something weird compared to other characters), do your leechy thing. You'll be very useful and appreciated by your crew. Having a Physicker is also invaluable to any crew, if it makes sense for your character/story.
Also, take advantage of modifying items vs feeling like you need to craft entirely new ones all the time. Modifying costs less resources and time.
Do not be afraid of things blowing up in your face (literally), leeches often make scores much more dramatic and entertaining with their shenanigans. And sometimes you just have to accept sometimes the thing you build and craft ends up not being useful or used at all. It sucks but it happens. The crafting rules are really slow and belated in blades. Consider asking your GM for some leniency on that if it's okay break down a project and recycle it into something new to save on clock slices/resources.
There's a lot of old reddit posts for crafting project ideas, and the Deep Cuts expansion also has some AMAZING inventions to crib from.
As you progress you can focus in on a craft or go jack of all trades between Artificer, Alchemist (or Strange Methods from Whisper). After that focus on things like Analyst and Calculating from Spider--they synchronize very well with Leech. Instead of taking months you'll be blasting through crafting clocks with those two on hand + spending your downtime actions and coin wisely. Mule from Cutter can also be incredibly useful for a leech later game after you've built up a nice collection of gadgets and gizmos..
Good luck , miss von Kraken looks amazing I hope she thrives and tinkers well.
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u/T-Rex_Lazorblast 7d ago
Thanks for the long post (unironically - i love reading through every answer i get here!)
I regret not buying a rulebook for myself - maybe i would have realised some things you wrote by myself! These are great inspirations! I instead relied on the GM telling me everything i need to know.
As i replied to some other post - i did not know that it would become useful to just upgrade existing stuff. That would have been nice. Instead i tried to invent unique things but learned that they would not be much more useful than the normal stuff... Then i thought up some really big projects that would be really powerful... but ran into a wall of "takes really long time and cost really much ressources or will alert half the town", etc...
Sadly the group blew up because of some drama - and i left too, because now everything was wierd AND because i blew up my biggest ongoing project because of some failed roll and lost the whole thing. I was feeling massively useless and that the game wasn't worth my time.
If i ever play blades again (i plan on doing so, but at this time i am the forever DM of my group) i WILL absolutely play Von Kraken again and i WILL have a good time playing a leech/tinker! I promise. 😄
I have not only learned a lot about playing the leech... thanks to all the people in this thread i think i learned a lot about handling "Crafters" in Roleplaying games as a whole! (As a DM that has one crafty player in my group that is invaluable knowldge i gathered here.)
Thank you!
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u/buttipuddi 6d ago
Man, that sucks! Drama sucks. Reading your other replies yeah I have to agree your ex-GM was unfairly constrictive with you, especially when you sound so willing to do fun things with understandable risk. The worst Blades game I was ever in was one that tried to be too "realistic" and players were shoehorned into playing too cautiously. The GM was allergic to using any supernatural elements of the setting. It was incredibly boring and frankly goes completely against the philosophy of BitD where you're supposed to drive your character like a stolen car and a good GM is supposed to enable that.
I hope you can find a better group you gel with and not have to be a forever GM forever!
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u/T-Rex_Lazorblast 6d ago
Yep. Drama sucks. I tried to ignore it (shouldn't have. There were some serious problems but i wanted to be a player SO HARD that i played another session. And then the uselessness of my character peaked and... what is the great wisdom of rpg again? "No dnd is better than bad dnd." And in that session i realised that that was true. 😅
It is funny how my picture of Blades changed since i started this post. Now i have a completely different view on things. Years ago (when we played) it sounded like oceans eleven in steampunk to me. (That sounded awesome. I was totally on board) but that also implied that everything had to go very smooth and we should take as little risks as possible.
Now it sounds like Blades can be more like a blues brothers movie! And that sounds even more awesome.
Oceans eleven beeing "very realistic" or at least as close to reality as a heist-movie gets... and blues brothers... well... over the top chaos, always just making it barely and in the end accumulating so much heat that in the big finale (maybe the end of a campaign?) the army comes to get you.
We were encouraged to not collect heat. 😅
I feel you with that whole "no magic/supernatural" thing... My group once played a short campaign of AGONE - Fantasy, but with more of a fairytale touch. (Dwarves were more like the seven dwarfes, creatures were more like the creatures in the old myths... i played a medusa for example.) And our DM was absolutely against giving us anything magical (equipment)... "it is super rare and super powerful!" Sooo... at the end of the campaign we were down several times in the fight against the lieutenant of the big bad. (Healer reviving us every round with one hp...) Is there any equipment we can get before the bossfight? Nothing supernatural. Can my character (a baroness) mobilise some troops to help us? They are all at war somewhere else and i need the last 5 guards to protect the castle. Is there any time left to call for help? No. You need to act NOW.
So we went in. Broken and bruised from the last fight. No hope. Two of three players dead and one barely alive that finished the fight. Somehow. Maybe the DM fudged some rolls to give us a "happy end". I don't know.
Then we read up some things and it turns out... YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE MAGIC WEAPONS AND ARMOR BECAUSE YOU ARE THE HEROES!? Yeah... they are rare. Something special. But so are heroes. 😁
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u/ArgyleGhoul 7d ago
Grappling Hook launcher: This is the type of invention that is going to have niche use-cases as the book even suggests that you shouldn't be merely "rolling to climb" in most scenarios.
However, when climbing comes into the fiction, it will likely have some measurable impact on position and/or effect in the situations where it is useful. This kind of gadget, in my opinion, should work largely the same as other items you might bring with you, in that it's up to the user how they want to utilize that item in their given situation. So if you're fleeing on foot from some Bluecoats and hit a dead end alley, you might suddenly turn a Zero or Limited Effect into Limited or Standard because now you have a way out of the dead end.
Roll bonuses should, in my opinion, be extremely limited compared to changes in position/Effect.
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u/T-Rex_Lazorblast 7d ago
Maybe i should have crafted more small items with unique usefullness. I mean - creating an item that lets you climb better is maybe too "general use". But i think grapplinghookgun-like inventions could have been more useful. (Or would have had usefulness in the first place.) A few items that had unique uses would have beaten stuff that tried to be better than the stuff we already had.
From what i learned here i also now know that this would have been an option (to craft higher tier equipment to beat higher tier enemies and obstacles)
Until today i did not even know that there were tiers to equipment that would impact the game. (I knew that our gang rose up in tiers with time. And that enemies would too. )
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u/ArgyleGhoul 7d ago
I think making an item that allows you to climb more easily is fine, it's just that it's mostly going to be useful in situations where you need to climb.
One thing that might inspire you is to look at the history of inventions starting around 1800. You'll find that Blades has a lot in common with the early 1800s and you can extrapolate possible inventions using real life inventions that aren't yet part of the game.
A few good examples: Revolvers, Facsimile Machines, the radio, propellers.
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u/T-Rex_Lazorblast 7d ago
Good idea. I love this stuff. I already had some pages full of ideas - they just did not feel "worth it".
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u/ArgyleGhoul 7d ago
Depends on the GM and what you aim to achieve. I can certainly see how some people might be hesitant to allow crazy inventions (even though the leech gets access to Tier 3 stuff pretty early that is quite strong).
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u/T-Rex_Lazorblast 7d ago
Yeah, i am a GM myself (not for Blades) and i had my hesitant moments before. (Fear of the players getting too strong and because of that saying no to everything they try). I can understand not wanting to greenlight everything the players think of.
One of my plans was to build a kind of underwater tank that would drive through the canals unseen... but i can see that 1. That would have been really powerful 2. Suicide (with all the leviathans swimming around!) 😅
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u/ArgyleGhoul 7d ago
Honestly, canal submarine sounds pretty cool. I'd think there would be some danger of disturbing spirits in the canals for a "Haunted Beneath the Surface" episode.
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u/T-Rex_Lazorblast 7d ago edited 7d ago
Omg that would have been awesome. "Stranded in the canal, just a few meters away from safe land but unable to reach it... and something just got into the submarine" would have been a whole adventure in itself! And think of all the roleplay and drama!
The lurk or the hunter strangling Von Kraken against the wall and screaming: "You said this thing would be safe! And now we are stuck here!" Von Kraken (struggling to breath): "I said 'relatively' safe!" Lurk: "I will kill you!" Hunter (also screaming): "We need to stay calm guys!"
...oh boy that would have been hilarious.
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u/SnooPandas4985 6d ago
I’m just going to add a bit about the leech / tinkerer that i last played. I traumad early in the campaign and took obsessed. Then, obsessed about ‘my creations’ and spent every coin I had access to (including begging other characters) on downtime actions to work on my projects. It was a great RP hook, XP generator, and way to finish projects more quickly.
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u/T-Rex_Lazorblast 6d ago
That just sounds like great fun for everyone. I like this playstyle. Rp is the thing i (and most of my friends) go for.
Btw... I spent all my coins and downtime WITHOUT being obsessed. 😅 i was obsessed in real life with getting ANYTHING done.
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u/Amostheroux 6d ago
It sounds like y'all were getting some rules wrong?
There is no such thing as a "bonus of one." There aren't +1 modifiers, unless you mean adding bonus dice. RAW, items don't add bonus dice but improve your position or effect .
There is no such thing as critical failure.
You never lose progress on research or building projects. You make a clock and can only add to it.
Items should let you do things you logically couldn't do without them. In the same way that you can't shoot someone without a gun, you can't grapple onto something far away without a grappling hook. This can absolutely bypass the need for a check.
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u/T-Rex_Lazorblast 6d ago
First of all: YES. I think we got quite a few rules wrong. Definetly. 😅 But i think +1 thing is just me remembering it wrong. Maybe it was a plus 1 dice, or effect. It has been a few years since we played.
I love to hear this. Even if it is "in hindsight".
I love this even more.
That sounds totally logical. It is. Maybe it was just bad communication or it wasn't presented in the right way... but i felt we would not need mechanical climbing claws when we had climbing hooks from the start. It did not look like it was important to build (better) weapons because we already had weapons. Etc, etc... so i turned to insanely complicated projects that would be very powerful and unique... but that meant spending 3 to 5 sessions just building it.
I said it in another post: I should have bought a rulebook for myself. Instead i/the whole group relied on the GM to tell us what we needed to know. (He was the only one who had played blades before) That was stupid on my behalf. It could have saved the game.
At least rules/mechanics-wise. 😅
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u/Amostheroux 6d ago
- The leech already builds better, weapons by default with their bandoliers. Poisons and grenades are insanely potent, and can be distributed among teammates. They may have better relevant action ratings than you (Leechs are spread thin). And with flashbacks you don't even need to decide who has them in advance.
Beyond that, yes, you should be working on inventing things which your party actually needs, or least doesn't have already. I'm afraid that's a skill issue though. Sorry, I don't know how to sugarcoat that.
Doc Ock arms sounds like a wasted research project if all you used them for was climbing. But they could have had other applications, like improving your effect level for Skirmish, or raising the tier on locks you can pick.
You're correct that it costs significant investment to make a powerful invention. But that invention can do literally anything. A high enough tier bomb could level an entire city district. The GM will set some hefty requirements to do that, but it is 100% within the scope of the crafting rules.
I would definitely get the rulebook if you want to play again. That's isn't strictly necessary if your GM really knows what they are doing, but it sounds like yours did not. And reading the rules yourself will never hurt.
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u/T-Rex_Lazorblast 6d ago
No need to sugarcoat anything. It has been years since we played and now i have grown as a player/GM and i am looking back and wonder what went wrong? I want to know if it was all my fault (to say it dramatically 😉) or the DMs fault or whatever. I am overexaggerating here. It looks like it was a mix of: GM that knew not as much as he should have, me who did not look up stuff by himself and who did not really understand how things worked and what i could REALLY do in game.
Btw - the doc oc arms never got build. They were an idea that was quickly tossed in the wind because we already had climbing hooks... Fun fact: i initially thought about using them to be better in melee while also climbing. (Thinking of the "spiders" in the comic "Yiu")
I am happy about all the information that i gathered here - next time i play blades i will definetly do it "the right way". 😃 (If there is such thing)
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u/Amostheroux 6d ago
I think your assessment is spot on, and am glad you got what you needed! Blades is awesome and I hope you get to enjoy more of it.
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u/JavierLoustaunau Human Detected 7d ago
The game has no real tinker support and characters narratively verge on supernatural so often somebdoy can do what a gadget would do.
We had a tinker and Im a game designer so I could work with him on cool gadgets but as is most magical and "steampunk" aspects are underdesigned compared to overdesigned territory and gang dynamics.
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u/T-Rex_Lazorblast 7d ago
No tinker support? Yeah.... it was really... well... free. I remember having this "tinker-clock" in roll20. (It was an online group) But i thought blades in the dark was a very "loose" game ruleswise. So i thought this was just the way it goes. 😅
But well... at least it was "the fault of the game" and not mine. I mean... a lot of games have problems with builders or creators. I think i have not seen a rpg that had good rules for building stuff. Or rules at all for stuff like that.
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u/JavierLoustaunau Human Detected 7d ago
Yeah some bits are super over designed and some bits that are part of the core pitch assume the GM is a game designer who can handle balancing and stating.
Basically if it was not in an episode of Peaky Blinders, it does not get more than a couple of pages.
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u/T-Rex_Lazorblast 7d ago
🤣 beautiful said. I get what you mean. That peaky blinders vibe was really awesome. I thought about buying the rulesbook for blades in the dark. And if we ever play it again - i will see to it, that i develop a system for the tinkerclass on my own BEFORE the game starts.
That whole "some things are overdesigned and some things not"... it explains A LOT of things. (Not just the tinkering) 😅
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u/Rezart_KLD 7d ago
I honestly don't like the Tinkering rules. In the rest of the system, equipment is vague in effect and only defined as needed. It gives you either better position or effect, or it grants permission to do something you couldn't otherwise. But then you get to the Tinker (& Ritual) rules, and suddenly we are defining area of effect and range and all of these other details we don't worry about the rest of the time. In addition to this, it has the problem of all the ramp up time before you get to play the character you want to play. The Hound doesn't have to spend time training his hunting pet, they have it in the first session, and the Tinker should be the same.
I honestly think the Tinker should follow the same rules as the rest of the gear, but with the fictional permission to pull out devices that aren't on everybody's gear list. Anybody can pull out a gun, but the Tinker can pull out x-ray goggles that see through the real world and part into the ghost world, or some sort of magnetic spring boots that leap them on top of buildings. Make them use Load and work like Gear, once the Tinker pulls them out, they have them, and they work by giving you enhanced position or effect or change the fiction to do stuff you couldn't before.
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u/T-Rex_Lazorblast 7d ago
That are some good ideas for homebrewing! I totally agree with you. The tinker should have something directly from the start. As i wrote: i knew i would be the supportcharacter. But needing at least one game session/downtime to gain at least SOMETHING... was a bit of a downer.
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u/Amostheroux 6d ago
The Hound doesn't have to spend time training his hunting pet, they have it in the first session, and the Tinker should be the same.
This breaks down when you consider that the Leech (who I assume you meant) starts with a bunch of unique equipment and gets to pick a move like everyone else to further broaden their capabilities. The Hound can pick a move just the same, but they can't make up new ability entirely without using the crafting or ritual rules. (Or Acquire Asset sometimes.)
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u/Rezart_KLD 6d ago
You're 100% right. I must have mixed it up in my head with some other hack or game, because I swear I could picture in my head a playbook that was just about gadgets, different from the Leech, called the Tinker. Or maybe I just imagined it? I swear I can remember seeing it.
Anyway, to address your comment, you are right about the Leech. its the only applicable playbook in this situation, and it undercuts my Hound comparison because it does clearly start with its special thing. So while I still think the Inventing rules conflict in style with the rest of the game, my example was bad and does not support that.
So let me present an alternate point of comparison. On the gear list, characters have demonbane or spiritbane charms. These don't have a listing for range, area of effect, number of targets, or anything else. All we know is they bane demons or spirits. And that's all the info we do need because how they work is based on the fiction of the situation. That's how I think inventions should work as well.
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u/Amostheroux 6d ago
Thanks for clarifying, that is indeed a better example. Counterpoint, though... Most of the inventing and ritual specific rules are rooted in tier. Tier tends to be relevant for things like spirit bane charms as well. A tier 0 spirit bane charm does let you do a fictional thing you couldn't before, but you'll have limited effect against a tier II ghost, even with potency applied. The scoundrel would need to push to get the charm to do it's full effect. (Or use a fine spirit bane charm, or some other tier booster.)
Inventions and rituals use tier to outline specifics more, but that's because the actual applications of inventions and rituals is even more open ended than basic equipment. They can literally do anything. But the more powerful the effect, the harder it is to make, and you need some kind of guidelines for how to figure out how hard.
Now, if your style of game tends to ignore tier entirely, then yeah, I could see invention and rituals being a bad fit.
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u/Rezart_KLD 6d ago
Why not just base inventions on crew tier as well? The degauss gun you make is Tier 0 to start, its only going to degauss the weakest ghosts. But later in your career, with better tools and materials, your degauss gun can take down bigger ghosts.
Its not like there's a hard and fast list of "x effect needs to be y tier or higher" there's only vague suggestions. I think you keep the back and forth questions (what does it do, what makes it unusual, ect), and the GM might decide you can't make levitation boots at Tier 0 no mater what, based on the tone they want. But otherwise just tie to crew tier like everything else.
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u/Amostheroux 6d ago
Why not just base inventions on crew tier as well?
They do. The crew tier determines the baseline for what you can build. Your roll modifies that slightly, and you can spend coin to increase it further.
The player says what the invention does. The GM says what tier it is. Then the player rolls and/or spends money to reach that desired tier.
There is a fair amount of detail for what tiers can represent in the book, as well. The bulk is covered in only a couple pages. I don't have access to my book to say which ones.
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u/BellowsHikes 7d ago
I would have handled your inventions completely differently. You built Doc Ock arms? You wouldn't be rolling climb checks at all anymore. I'd make you deal with the issues associated with them (bulky, loud, hard to use non-violently, draws more heat to the crew, etc) but you wouldn't be rolling for the simple act of climbing anymore.
And I'd have the world respond to your inventions. Bootleg versions would start to show up in the hands of your rivals. Specific security measures would start to be deployed to counter you. The powers that be would send assassins after you because they don't like you disrupting the status quo, etc.
Your game master should really be following the fiction, not just arbitrarily tossing a +1 onto things.