I'll have to try it out! Was the meet n greet for a new game with new people? Or is it players you already knew?

Commenting to push this back up---still got some slots open!

Last chance to sign up! We’ve got room for more, feel free to join us

I've been meaning to try or at least read it for the longest time, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Is it suited for shorter games or one shots? I really don't know much about it at all haha

@Shawn Gustafson oooo ok I'll have to check it out!

I've used a renamed Lord Vetinari in almost every game I've run haha, Discworld is a GREAT source of NPCs. I'm always sitting on some city watch characters too, especially for goofier games. Have you listened to the audiobooks? I get a lot of great NPC voice ideas from there

My fav Matt Colville quote: a GM is only as good as the obscurity of the stuff they steal from. My personal go-tos are Discworld, Wheel of Time, and Monster Hunter. None of these are very obscure, but my friends have never read or played any of them so I can steal all I like and they'll never know

@James Willetts Thank you so much! I'm really glad to hear it. And great points on the XP, I'm leaning towards a decree for an example, then use the honor system, just to move stuff along, throwing in some extra exploration and engagement for good measure and the potential for more if it was a quick session. I really love pretty much any system with XP questions---I'm not sure if there's a more elegant and direct way to reward certain roleplaying behaviors---so it's probably just a matter of keeping it relatively straightforward

Session 3! The small but mighty group consisted of only @James Willetts and @Eric Person, but we had a great time staking out a claim on some important clients. Big takeaways are the Keepers of the Flame are really pissed off, Vond (head of the rivals from last session) has been framed for attacking them, and a giant magic fire blew up an apothecary. For a quick summary... We decided to seize some turf this session! Since the crew is made up of shadows, the group decided it would make sense (and be cool) if the "turf" was a list of important contacts and clients instead of land or buildings. In this case, the turf was held by an NPC contact of James' character named Stazia, who runs an apothecary front. Stazia mostly works for the Dimmer Sisters, who run the district's crime and serve as a ward boss for the crew, so this was a delicate operation to avoid pissing them off. Complicating the situation, the Keepers of Flame (a custom cult faction from Session -1) were also important clients of Stazia, and were present when the score kicked off. The dynamic duo decided to sneak through the back door, but a rough engagement roll saw them starting off in a Desperate position (a mechanic in Blades to represent how dangerous a situation is). They ran into a group of five cultists led by the nefarious priest from the Keepers of the Flame. His name escapes me at the moment and I'm away from my notes, but the crew ran into him briefly in our first session. There was a nasty scuffle and the priest escaped while his muscle fought with the crew. They beat the cronies and split up, with Eric's Lurk Ink going after the priest and James' Leech Dok going after their main goal. Ink got a few nasty hits, but knocked out the priest using some nearby alchemical components and wrote "Vond" in blood next to him. Dok found their goal, but just couldn't resist the siren call of the extra goodies lying around and lost some precvious time digging through them. This allowed the bluecoat detective hot on the trail of the party (now dubbed Vince "Icebox" Buck) to break in and start digging around. Some quick thinking and a hidden room allowed the party to escape, but they stumbled upon a ritual from the cult and disrupted it, with Ink tipping over a brazier filled with supernatural flames and Dok attempting to scoop some of it up to keep it for later. Both took a Trauma in the process, and Dok took Level 3 Harm, so our score ended with the two scoundrels desperately scurrying away with their ill-gotten goods. As they fled on gondola, the detective Icebox dragged the still sleeping priest out of the building, while the flames began to burn into the Ghost Field itself...