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First, thanks to anyone who reads and takes the time to respond. I know time is a precious commodity, so thanks for yours. Now on to the ask.

As an adult, I feel like I just do not pick up on games as easy as I did as a child, and I thought I'd reach out to the community to see what ways you use to help solidify a new system in your mind - especially if you will be running it.

The game is less important, but for "gee wiz" info, I'm looking at deciding between Call of Cthulhu, Traveler 2E (Mongoose), and Hunter: The Vigil. My hope, though, is that I can crack this code and just find a way to "do better", maybe I can try on a few.

A few knowns on my end and/or insights from my perspective, so that we are all on the same page:

1) Read the book(s) cover to cover. I get this. It is a given. But that alone is just not doing it for me as it did in my youth. Maybe it's the grind of life that I didn't worry about then. Who knows?

2) There is no right or wrong way. I get this. I'm not looking to cause a debate about how I should or shouldn't do things. I understand there are many methods. My hope in this post is to maybe learn from many of your methods out there, try on a few for size, etc..

3) I don't think digital is my go-to way to learn. I think I can leverage digital tools (OneNote, for example) and it may be a part of the process, but if I were to step into my time machine of learning in my youth, there were lots of note-taking and pencil & paper activities (in schooling and probably gaming) that formed my foundations.

And there we have it. Again, I appreciate each of you who ponder on this for a moment. I will be grateful for any information you provide. At the end of the day, we are all gamers and that's a pretty cool crowd to find a home in.

Cheers!

Mantic Games is making a Ghost in the Shell RPG.

You can check out a teaser on drivethrurpg: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/567117/the-ghost-in-the-shell-tabletop-roleplaying-game-rulebook-teaser

To be clear, it's fine if there is a starting general base of a character or similar, after all, I know many people would prefer if their stories didn't have any sort of continuity error. Another clarification is the difference between character creation, and development, some people might confuse but it's easier to understand when we look at how most systems handle character creation:

The information you put down in your sheet during character creation is a development of your character that happened before the campaign or story starts.

Development is when your character changes in the middle of the story.

The closest example I know of this is flashbacks in Blades in the Dark.

I'm trying to do such a thing and it would help to have inspirations. I already did many small variants of that idea but I'm not quite happy with it yet I guess.

Earlier, I ran the starter adventure of Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades for two players.

The system explicitly says that it is not trying to be balanced, but, well, that is an understatement.

There are huge gaps in effectiveness between a "built for cool concept" character and a "built for powergaming" character: even right at 1st level. I have personally witnessed a "built for cool concept" character get killed in two hits during the first round of combat, and a "built for powergaming" character stay untouchable and single-handedly demolish two consecutive fights meant for a full party.

This is to say nothing of the "just be a Playboy/Young Master with Landed Gentry and bankroll a squad of magnificent bodyguards to fight for you" strat, also possible at 1st level.

The starter adventure was really not enjoyable, and it ended in a manner that was frustrating for everyone.

Below is my full review of the system.

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To Start With...

I am not unfamiliar with the wǔxiá genre.

I have previously played and GMed Legends of the Wulin (2012), a high-powered, heroic, rules-heavy game. Legends is the sort of game wherein starting PCs can easily wipe out vast swaths of lesser opponents (thanks to the Mob mechanics), the rules specifically encourage in-depth buildcrafting right from the very beginning, and characters have plenty of mechanical options and resource management on any given turn. Legends has two fan-made expansions and balance patches, the Half-Burnt Manual and Legends of the Wulin 1.5.2. I happen to have homebrewed two styles for Legends. Also, I am GMing Legends starting in a few days.

Earlier, someone asked me to run Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades (2020). Despite being in the same genre as Legends, it is the exact opposite in every other regard: gritty, lethal, rules-lite. Starting PCs find it hard to carve through weaker opponents unless built in a very specific way, builds are very simplistic, and most characters will simply spam their single best attack on each of their turn. It is a very "rulings over rules" game, with plenty of ambiguous mechanics. This is not to my preferences, but I ultimately decided to entertain the request and run Righteous regardless. I used the core rulebook's premade adventure, "The Obsidian Bat."

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Core Mechanics

Righteous is a d10-based dice pool game, with roughly symmetrical rules for PCs and NPCs. On any given check, a character rolls a number of d10s, takes the single highest result, and compares it to the target number. If the highest result meets or exceeds the TN, then the check is a success. If there is at least one 10, then the check is a total success (i.e. critical).

Sometimes, two characters make opposed rolls. They each roll their pool and each take the highest result. Whoever gets the higher result wins. Unfortunately, there is no guideline whatsoever on what happens in the event of a tie, apart from initiative ties, which are specifically rerolled.

Most of the time, a character's base pool will be a number of d10s equal to their skill rating: anywhere from 0 to 3. Rolling 0d10 means rolling 2d10 and taking the lower result. For example, if a character has Detect 3, and they have to make a Detect check at TN 6, then the character rolls 3d10. If the highest result is a 6 or higher, they succeed, while if the highest result is a 10, then the Detect check is a total success (i.e. critical).

Three skills are special: Evade, Hardiness, and Wits. These are Defense skills, and they are never rolled. Instead, characters have defense values equal to 5 + their defense skill rating. For example, a character with Evade 3 actually has a defense value of Evade 8. There are many ways to push defenses above 8.

Other combat-crucial skills are External Martial Arts or Internal Martial Arts (either can be used to attack; it is mechanically unclear as to whether or not Lightness Martial Arts can be used to attack by default), Speed (initiative, movement rate, and damage with more finesseful weapons), and Muscle (damage with most weapons and unarmed attacks). Optimization-wise, virtually every PC wants 3 ranks in a Martial Art (just one will do; no need for others); Speed 3 no matter what; and, if using a Muscle-powered weapon or unarmed attacks, Muscle 3.

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Core Combat Mechanics

Short of an ambush or one side wrathfully leaping into battle, combat starts with a talking and analysis phase. Here, each combatant can choose to Psych Out (rolling Command or Persuade vs. Wits to gain "impose a −1d10 penalty against the enemy for the first round of combat," though what the penalty applies to is never stated...), Gain a Bonus (rolling Detect, Empathy, or Reasoning vs. Wits for an offensive bonus), or Learn About Signature Ability or Counter (rolling Detect or Empathy vs. Evade to discern abilities). While very cool in concept, the mechanics behind all this are on the murky side, and they constantly puzzled the players and me.

At the start of each round (not just at the start of combat), initiative is rolled, using Speed. This is the one and only time the book gives a rule for ties: roll off again.

Past this, combat is simple. On a character's turn, they get movement based on their Speed (yes, it really is a god-skill), and a single skill action, most often an attack. To attack, roll External or Internal Martial Arts (or maybe Lightness Martial Arts; it is unclear whether or not it can be used to attack by default) + any weapon bonus vs. Evade. If you meet or exceed Evade, you hit. On a total success, you gain +1d10 to your damage roll.

Your damage roll is usually Muscle or Speed + any weapon bonus vs. Hardiness. You roll your pool. On a success, you deal 1 Wound. On a total success, you deal Wounds equal to the number of 10s you rolled + 1.

For example, suppose you have Internal Martial Arts 3, Muscle 3, and a mundane sword. A sword gives +1d10 attack and +1d10 damage, so your attack and damage pools are both 4d10. Your target has Evade 8 and Hardiness 7. You roll 8, 3, 2, 1 vs. Evade, hitting. You roll 10, 10, 2, 1 vs. Hardiness, dealing 3 Wounds.

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This is a 9-level game. 1st- to 3rd-level characters have only 3 Wounds. If a character drops to 0 Wounds, they are incapacitated and start dying, and very little can save them. There are no rules for stabilizing people. Thus, combat is deadly, and a low-level character can be killed in one or two good hits. It is also possible to declare a nonlethal finisher, and the game supplies explicit rules for maiming and permanently crippling a victim (which, while gruesome and edgy, is in-genre).

Another option is to grapple. This is a roll-off of External or Internal Martial Arts vs. External or Internal Martial Arts (and it is unclear as to whether the target's skill roll must match the skill the grappler is using). A successfully grappled target has 3 lower Evade, and cannot move more than 5 feet from the grappler. The duration of a grapple is... unclear ("The restrain lasts that entire round. Make one opposed roll every round on the restrainer’s turn until the restrain is broken").

There are other bits and pieces of combat minutiae, such as particularly deadly weapons that deal "open damage," inflicting Wounds based on number of successful dice against Hardiness. And of course, signature abilities and counters can be real game-changers. But for the most part, this is how fighting works in the system. It is simple, gritty, and lethal, for good or for ill.

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Character Creation

First, we pick a signature ability. This is an active ability that usually does something on our turn.

Second, we pick a counter. This is a defensive special ability.

Third, we choose a special resource out of Landed Gentry, Prosperous Business, Manor, Wardrobe, Boat, Illict Business, Devoted Ex-Lovers, Loyal Servants, Loyal Bodyguards, Loyal Friend, Official Title, Protector, Social Network, or a Rare Weapon.

Fourth, we pick skills, with a minimum of 0 ranks and a cap of 3 ranks in any given skill.

We have 5 points to distribute across Evade, Hardiness, and Wits (i.e. the three Defenses); 4 points across External Martial Arts, and Lightness Martial Arts; 6 points across Medicine and Alchemy, Meditation, Survival, Talent (i.e. art), and Trade (i.e. craft); 6 points across Disguise, Drinking, Gambling, Magical Arts (actual effects at GM's discretion), and Theft; 6 points across Command, Detect, Empathy, Persuade, and Reasoning; 6 points across Athletics (somewhat pointless due to Lightness Martial Arts' superhuman athletics...), Endurance, Muscle, Ride, and Speed; and 6 points across Institutions, Jianghu, People and Places, Religion, and Scholarly Arts.

If we want, we can "gut" any of our 6-point categories to gain 3 more points in any one of the other 6-point categories.

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Fifth, we pick an Eccentricity, a roleplaying quirk. We can also choose a Deep Eccentricity, something bigger. As per the author on the Osprey Discord server, a character can have both a regular Eccentricity and a Deep Eccentricity. The reward for a Deep Eccentricty is earning a Unique Weapon at character creation. In other words, yes, a player can take a big roleplaying quirk in exchange for raw mechanical power.

Sixth, we choose an occupation, whether a poor job like Buddhist Monk/Nun or Servant, or a wealthy one like Playboy/Young Master. The wealth differences here are tremendous; more on this later. "These provide circumstantial bonuses (for instance, +1d10 to a skill roll) when the character is doing something directly related to their occupation," and "[o]ccupations are tools strictly for PCs, NPCs need not abide by them."

Aside from backstory and miscellaneous sheet numbers, we are done. Oh, and the book tells us to create a backup character, because this game is gritty and lethal. It is explicit that our backup PC comes in at the same level as the dead character.

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Character Advancement

As previously mentioned, this is a 9-level game. The NPC chapter has one specific 10th-level superboss with special rules, but for the most part, the cap is 9th for PCs and NPCs alike.

Leveling up is based on either session-based milestones or XP, depending on the GM's preferences.

Either way, to actually gain the level up, a character needs to meditate for a number of days equal to their new level, and succeed on a Meditation roll (whose TN is left completely unstated). After either succeeding, or failing thrice in a row, the character levels up. However, failing thrice in a row forces a character to roll on the Fire Deviation table, representing a nasty, often debilitating mutation that "can be eliminated with a great deal of effort, but the methods are always unique to the circumstances of your Fire Deviation, take a long time, and are determined by the GM."

Some levels are more important than others. For example, 2nd and 8th level are basically nothing, simply increasing a skill by 1 rank (and the cap is still 3). The only upgrade at 6th level is the ability to conceal one's own Killing Aura, a visible indicator of how many deaths a character has directly contributed to.

At 4th and 7th level, Max Wounds increase to 4 and 5 respectively.

At 4th, 7th, and 9th level, the character gains Resist 1, 2, or 3 respectively. This is very important. Resist is straight-up damage soak from all lower-level sources. For example, a 4th-level character who would take 1 Wound from a 3rd-level character takes 0 Wounds instead. However, if an attacker is within 3 levels of their target, the attacker ignores Resist on a total success. For example, a 5th-level character is horrifically helpless against a 9th-level character, but a 6th-level character can try to fish for a 10 on an attack roll to ignore that daunting Resist 3.

Resist makes higher-level opponents hard to hurt, for good or for ill. For those curious, the 10th-level superboss has Resist 4.

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The Good

Character creation is fast and simple in this game. For those who like gritty, lethal combat, the system provides such in spades. The GMing chapters contain a plethora of locations, factions, and NPCs (each with fully fleshed-out statistics blocks) to work with, making it easy to run the setting and bring in NPCs with ease. Everyone from the restaurant owner Succubus Yang (Scarred, rather than Beautiful) to the legendary 10th-level superboss Li Qiang (who uses the Iron Teeth rare weapon despite lacking the Iron Tooth Style necessary for proficiency in such...) has a statistics block.

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The Bad, Part #1

The rules are vague on many points. There is no rule on ties on opposed rolls, apart from initiative. The Psych Out option imposes "a −1d10 penalty against the enemy for the first round of combat," but never says what the penalty applies to. It is unclear as to whether or not movement can be broken up with an attack, and whether or not Lightness Martial Arts can be used to attack by default. The Meditation skill (necessary to level up!) and Peacock Armor roll against unknown TNs. Various signature abilities and counters are worded improperly or impossibly, like Needle and Thread Expert mentioning "a Wound that does 3d10 damage" (which is not how Wounds work).

These are just a few examples of many ambiguities.

The book itself says, "the abilities in the game were not made to be perfectly equal in all circumstances. Some abilities are better at killing than others, just like how, in the movies, some kung fu styles are more of a threat than others," and also, "Because of the vast assortment of weapons and abilities, it is possible for players to create incredibly powerful combinations that might catch the GM by surprise." This is very much an understatement. Some signature abilities, counters, and weapons are only marginally useful, while others are wildly powerful at the exact same opportunity cost.

There are mechanically weak PC options. For instance, the Iron Tooth Style signature ability requires spending a resource to obtain a rare weapon, Iron Teeth, and is often worse than a conventional weapon. As another example, Iron Head Striking Style's headbutts are worse than other unarmed styles. Maiming Strike Style helps you... better maim an enemy you have already defeated, so is there really a point? Acupoint Defense is a counter that works against only attacks that strike meridians, while the Clouding Star Defense counter works against only ranged Internal Martial Arts attacks; both are rather niche, and neither comes with any extra benefits.

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Others are superb. Double Axe Style is a follow-up attack after a successful attack. Life-Chasing Sword I targets three enemies per level whenever attacking with a sword. Characters normally heal 1 Wound per week, or 2 per week given successful Medicine and Alchemy rolls, but Healing Hands of the Mercy Goddess is at-will Wound removal outside of combat for allies, and does not require Medicine and Alchemy. Some counters just no-sell any melee attack or any ranged attack, with extra benefits; Thirst of the Hungry Corpse negates melee and deals a Wound, while Veneer of Vulnerability also negates melee and has unfairly good probability math.

One great build at 1st- and 2nd-level, effective against both melee and ranged, has Swift Silver Spear Style as a signature ability and Water Torrent as a counter. Contrary to the name, Swift Silver Spear works with any melee weapon, not just a spear; you roll twice and take higher on all attack rolls and gain +2 Evade against shorter melee weapons. Water Torrent is a counter that negates any attack, flat-out, with no melee or ranged restriction, and gives a +1d10 bonus to the next attack roll against the attacker. Water Torrent is locked into rolling Lightness Martial Arts, but that is no problem, because Swift Silver Spear Style lets us attack with Lightness Martial Arts.

The Jade Kicks signature ability is a curious one. Kicks are inaccurate and have a low chance of dealing damage, but Jade Kicks makes it such that your kicks that do hit and do deal damage are completely devastating. Your kicks from "extremely close range" deal a bare minimum of 3+ Wounds, and the author has mentioned in the Osprey Discord server that being in "extremely close range" simply requires the player declaring such. This is a game wherein all 1st- through 3rd-level combatants have 3 Max Wounds, and levels span from 1st through 9th, so Jade Kicks is likely one-tapping any lower-level combatant and badly Wounding mid- to high-level targets.

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The Bad, Part #2

I do not like how there are blatantly "correct" skill picks during chargen. As previously mentioned, optimization-wise, virtually every PC wants 3 ranks in a Martial Art (just one will do; no need for others); Speed 3 no matter what; and, if using a Muscle-powered weapon or unarmed attacks, Muscle 3. Why bother with Athletics when it covers only mundane athletic feats, and there is no cost to using Lightness Martial Arts for superhuman athletic feats? Other good investments include Detect 3 for the talking and analysis phase and for general noncombat perception, and Jianghu 3 to actually know who is who and what is what in the martial world.

I am not a fan of how some Eccentricities are actual downsides (e.g. Absent-Minded forces you to succeed on Endurance against TN 7 or else auto-fail any task that requires concentration or takes more than a few minutes, Disgraced makes you so poorly regarded that "[e]ven bandits and murderers hold you in contempt," Mute prevents you from speaking, Ugly makes you "hideous to look upon"), while others are teensy quirks with only incidental downsides (e.g. Beautiful makes you "one of the top beauties of the martial world" in exchange for also "attract[ing] unwanted attention," Greedy makes you money-minded but not if it would involve theft or gambling).

Deep Eccentricities likewise range from the genuinely troublesome (e.g. Dim-Witted is −2 Wits, −1d10 Detect, −1d10 Empathy, −1d10 all Knowledge skills; Inept Martial Artist is −1d10 all Martial Arts skills; Unlucky is −2d10 on all "crucial roll[s]") to standard PC behavior (e.g. Righteous compels you to intervene against injustices, Vengeance Seeker makes you seek revenge against someone meaningful). The reward for picking a Deep Eccentricity is gaining a Unique Weapon, a mechanically powerful weapon, armor, or miscellaneous tool. As per the author on the Osprey Discord server, a character can have both a regular Eccentricity and a Deep Eccentricity.

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Neither regular Eccentricities nor Deep Eccentricities come with rewards or incentives to choose the more debilitating ones. While one PC might be [Absent-Minded, Disgraced, Mute, Ugly, etc.] + [Dim-Witted, Inept Martial Artist, Unlucky, etc.], another might be Beautiful + Vengeance Seeker and get off much easier.

Money actually matters in this game. For example, hiring a loyal bodyguard costs 25 coins per day, while a magnificent bodyguard (about as strong as a 1st-level PC with below-average optimization) costs 100 coins per day. The Buddhist Monk/Nun occupation starts with 0 coins and has a monthly income of 0 coins. A Servant starts with 20 coins and has a monthly income of 10 coins. A Playboy/Young Master starts with 40,000 coins and has a monthly income of 20,000 coins, although it requires the Hedonist Eccentricity and either Landed Gentry or Loyal Servants. So suffice it to say, a Playboy/Young Master has a vast and overwhelming financial advantage.

Yes, it is fully possible to play a PC whose game plan is to simply bankroll a squad of magnificent bodyguards. With a monthly income of 20,000 coins as a Playboy/Young Master, plus an additional 10,000 coins per month for being Landed Gentry, it should be feasible to pay a squad of ten magnificent bodyguards a total of 30,000 coins for 30 days of service.

All in all, the PC option balance in this game is just not that good. Yes, the game explicitly says that it is not even trying to be mechanically balanced, but it does not sit right to me. I do not like it when naïve players fall into trap options. There are huge gaps in effectiveness between a "built for cool concept" character and a "built for powergaming" character: even right at 1st level! I have personally witnessed a "built for cool concept" character get killed in two hits during the first round of combat, and a "built for powergaming" character stay untouchable and single-handedly demolish two consecutive fights meant for a full party.

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Actual Play, Part #1

I elected to run the starter adventure in the book, "The Obsidian Bat." There is technically a second adventure, "Pleasures of the Harbor," but it is just a single page telling the reader to go to the Osprey Publishing website and download it.

I had two players. One made a "built for cool concept" character; they took an anti-ranged-weapon counter, which I advised against, and which they still insisted on regardless. The other creatd a "built for powergaming" character, with Double Axe Style and Veneer of Vulnerability. That said, the latter did not, in fact, lean into the "super-rich guy hiring out a squad of magnificent bodyguards" angle, instead simply intending to use Veneer to never get hit in melee. Normally, a counter is an opposed roll and thus has trouble countering an attack roll of 10, but Veneer is probably Persuade 3d10 vs. Wits, thus leading to unfairly good dice math.

The adventure starts off with an ominous disclaimer:

Although intended for a party of level-1 characters, we intentionally pit them against a level-7 foe: Sword Goddess, also known as Liu Xiuling [210]. At low levels, a total party kill is unlikely, as it would be a huge loss of face for Sword Goddess to fight and kill people so much weaker than her. That said, a total-party maiming remains possible.

Worrying.

Throughout the entire adventure, there is a long-running subplot about Sword Goddess Liu Xiuling (a martial legend) disguising herself as Heartless Dagger Xie Lijuan (another martial legend) and framing the latter for the massacre of dozens of Handan Escort Company employees. While in disguise, Sword Goddess Liu Xiuling also... places an order to have the Handan Escort Company deliver a healing artifact, the Obsidian Bat, to the residence of Sword Goddess (i.e. herself). The way the adventure presents this scheme is deeply convoluted and hard to parse, and it ultimately does not matter in the end, so all the subplot did was befuddle the players and me.

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Actual Play, Part #2

Chief Ban Fei of the Handan Escort Company hires the PCs to deliver the Obsidian Bat to Sword Goddess's mansion. He pays the PC 5 silver taels (500 coins) each. The adventure mentions that he can be talked into increasing the pay to 10 silver taels (1,000 coins) each, and that further wheedling convinces him to cough up 25 silver taels (2,500 coins) each, an incredibly quintupling of pay. No checks or TNs are mentioned for this negotiation. Here, my two players do not think to haggle, so they accept the base pay rate.

Chief Ban Fei is infuriated by the recent massacre of Handan Escort Company employees, and indeed, lost both legs in the attack. He has correctly deduced that the attacker was Sword Goddess Liu Xiuling merely disguising herself as Heartless Dagger Xie Lijuan, and never mentions this to the PCs. Nor does Ban Fei mention that he has swapped out the Obsidian Bat for an explosive device packed with poison.

Anyone familiar with the real Obsidian Bat can discern the forgery on a Detect roll against TN 8. Anyone without such familiarity can discern the forgery on a Jianghu roll at TN 10.

According to the author via the Osprey Discord server, one way to establish prior familiarity with the Obsidian Bat is for the character to succeeed on a Jianghu roll at TN 9. All in all, identifying the Obsidian Bat as a fake is really, really hard. Right off the gate, the two players' PCs failed to identify the forgery.

Chief Ban Fei also sends his second-in-command, Wan Lang, to accompany the PCs. Unbeknownst to Ban Fei, Wan Lang is working with the bandit chief Iron-Toothed Bat King to filch the Obsidian Bat.

The two PCs and Wan Lang set off south, towards Sword Goddess's residence, Immortal Sword Manor. The journey is to take a few days.

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Actual Play, Part #3

During the first night, Wan Lang attempts to steal the Obsidian Bat while the PCs are sleeping. The adventure supplies no mechanics for resolving such. There is no Stealth skill in this game, and Wan Lang has 0 ranks in Theft. In the Osprey Discord server, the author suggests one way to handle it: have Wan Lang roll Theft with a +1d10 bonus (because the PCs are sleeping) against the PCs' Wits.

Here, Wan Lang fails miserably, so the PCs catch him red-handed. However, he grabs the Obsidian Bat and runs off. A chase ensues. "Chases and races can be resolved by opposed Speed rolls, or Lightness Martial Arts rolls depending on the situation. As a general rule, when someone gets two wins in a row (i.e., rolls higher than their opponent twice in a row), that person gets away or catches the target." This is clear enough when a chase is 1v1, but murkier when multiple PCs are chasing one guy. After some awkward fumbling with the chase rules, Wan Lang ultimately gets away.

The adventure tells us that Survival at TN 6 can track him down. The PCs earn a total success here, so I give them +1d10 attack and initiative during the upcoming battle.

The two PCs square off against Wan Lang, the bandit chief Iron-Toothed Bat King, and the three so-called Iron-Headed Badger bandits. None of these enemies are all that optimized; indeed, the latter two use weak signature abilities, Iron Tooth Style and Iron Head Striking Style.

Due to some unlucky rolls for the two PCs and some above-average rolls for the five enemies, the "optimized for cool concept" PC is unceremoniously two-shotted and killed during the first round. Fortunately, the "optimized for powergaming" PC proves practically invincible with Veneer of Vulnerability and kills all of the bad guys.

We come to our next encounter: four martial artists (with a staggering Hardiness 9 against melee) harassing a (contaminated) food stand. The surviving PC solos them with Veneer of Vulnerability, taking no Wounds.

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Actual Play, Part #4

The other player's backup PC finally joins: right in time for one of the adventure's four "random" encounters. In "The Obsidian Bat," players can "randomly" encounter up to four notable NPCs of the martial world. Of these four, three can be recruited to help the PCs on their reverse fetch quest.

Here, the PCs "randomly" encounter Tree Frog Gao, Queen of Beggars. The adventure says:

Tree Frog Gao [235] is sweeping in one of the towns the players pass through and uses the opportunity to pick their pockets. She’ll take the Obsidian Bat if it isn’t well guarded. The pickpocketing can be resolved with an opposed roll between her Theft skill and the target’s Detect skill. If the players catch her, it could result in a chase. She might toy with the party, rather than seek to harm them in a conversation, and might be persuaded to work with them if they can appeal to her sensibilities.

If Gao successfully filches the Obsidian Bats, then the PCs are screwed, since Gao has Lightness Martial Arts 3d10 to get away. Even if the PCs somehow catch up to her, Gao is a 7th-level PC; sure, she is not particularly optimized, but Resist 2 means Gao can shred apart the 1st-level PCs with her mundane whip.

Here, the PCs catch Gao in the middle of stealing the Obsidian Bat. To prevent a repeat of the Wan Lang incident, I elect to have Gao simply tag along with the PCs as a babysitter.

The next non-"random" encounter is with one Qing Yun, the maidservant of Heartless Dagger Xie Lijuan. Qing Yun is all aggrieved by the frame job against her mistress. The adventure says, "For her purposes, the players are potential allies at this point, and she will only initiate a fight if someone insults Xie Lijuan," so she winds up tagging along, too. Qing Yun is 5th-level, but not particularly optimized, either.

Neither the new PC, Tree Frog Gao, nor Qing Yun land the rolls necessary to identify that the Obsidian Bat is a counterfeit filled with explosives and poison.

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Actual Play, Part #5

Finally, the PCs arrive at Immortal Sword Manor, the abode of Sword Goddess Liu Xiuling. In addition to the 7th-level swordmaster herself, the mansion is also home to two 4th-level top apprentices called the Twin Divinities, and 115 miscellaneous disciples each equivalent to a middlingly optimized 1st-level PC. For some reason, none of these NPCs have a no-nonsense, unconditional counter against melee attacks in general, thus making all of them fairly vulnerable to getting whacked with swords or axes. The adventure spends five pages mapping out and detailing Immortal Sword Manor as though it were a dungeon crawl, which seems deeply unnecessary.

The two PCs, Tree Frog Gao, Qing Yun, Sword Goddess Liu Xiuling, and the two Twin Divinities are now in a courtyard where 30 other disciples are training. Sword Goddess Liu Xiuling also fails to identify that the Obsidian Bat is a fake.

Sword Goddess will respond favourably if they directly offer her the bat. If they suggest an alliance or offer to tell her about Chief Ban Fei’s plans, she will be impressed and reward them with a boat.

If they fail to bring the bat because of having lost it, she will scold them and have her disciples chase them away. If they detonate the fake Obsidian Bat in her presence (intentionally or unintentionally), she will maim them and have them dumped at the side of the road some distance away from the manor. If Sword Goddess or her disciples detonate the Obsidian Bat in the party’s presence, a fight will break out immediately. If she detonates it after they depart or while they are in another area of the manor, she will likely blame them and demand an explanation.

Well, the PCs are simply screwed, then.

One player has their PC suggest that Sword Goddess Liu Xiuling test out the Obsidian Bat's healing qualities by activating it. Sword Goddess Liu Xiuling agrees.

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Actual Play, Part #6

We follow the adventure's rules on how to resolve the detonation and the poison. Very nasty. One Twin Divinity dies outright. The two PCs, Tree Frog Gao, Qing Yun, and the other Twin Divinity are badly Wounded and poisoned. This poison is rather nasty; among its effects are stripping away all Resist! Through dumb dice luck, Sword Goddess Liu Xiuling is unscathed.

Combat breaks out. Sword Goddess bumbles a lot of rolls, but Tree Frog Gao and Qing Yun get lucky. To make a long story short, Gao instantly gibs the surviving Twin Divinity, Sword Goddess Liu Xiuling nonlethally incapacitates and maims the PC who was relying on Veneer of Vulnerability (the Persuade roll finally flubbed at the worst possible time...) and kills Qing Yun, and then Gao gets very lucky and kills Sword Goddess.

The remaining 115 disciples, incensed by the death of their mistress, bum-rush Gao (who is poisoned and stripped of Resist) and the other PC (who is also poisoned) and kill both.

Suffice it to say, the players and I thought this was quite the shaggy dog story. Sword Goddess Liu Xiuling's plan to frame Heartless Dagger Xie Lijuan and order the Obsidian Bat is nonsensical, various important moments have no listed mechanics, the PCs wind up accumulating GMPCs who are far more powerful than them, and if the MacGuffin has not been identified by the end, the party is doomed to a TPK (or, as the adventure says, "a total-party maiming").

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Final Thoughts

Character creation is fast and simple in this game. The mechanics promote gritty, lethal, rules-lite wǔxiá: the opposite of Legends of the Wulin. The GMing chapters contain a plethora of locations, factions, and NPCs (each with fully fleshed-out statistics blocks) to work with, making it easy to run the setting and bring in NPCs with ease.

If all of this sounds appealing to you, and you do not mind ambiguous mechanics and questionable character option balance, then give Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades a try.

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Addendum

• Q: Do you really have only one signature ability and one counter to start with?

• A: Yes, in this 9-level game, 1st- and 2nd-level characters have only one signature ability and one counter. The majority of signature abilities are passive buffs, so early-game characters simply spam their best attack. Frankly, I am not sure how much better it gets by the mid-levels.

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• Q: Does Wound regeneration of merely 1 Wound per week, or 2 with successful Medicine and Alchemy rolls, screw PCs?

• A: Yes, seeing how 1st- through 3rd-level characters have only 3 Wounds before dying. Of course, this is less of an issue if someone in the party has Healing Hands of the Mercy Goddess, which is practically mandatory in a long-term campaign.

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• Q: What did the PCs actually accomplish during the final battle?

• A: Absolutely nothing, due to Sword Goddess Liu Xiuling's Resist 2. It was only due to the higher-level NPC allies that Sword Goddess died, and even then, there was nothing that could be done against the horde of 115 other disciples.

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• Q: Are critical successes common in this game?

• A: When even a single 10 on any of the d10s in the dice pool makes the roll count a critical success, yes, very much so.

The temptation is to build and adventure or campaign after a very recent movie/event ("I want to run a K-pop Demon Hunters inspired game!").

The trick is that seems a little too recent, the party will see almost immediately what you're doing. So, should you never do this? Absolutely not.

What you should do is ask "What was inspiring 15 or 25 years ago? Maybe longer." and choose something that the current memory has largely faded.

For example, remember the "small group or team going from town to town on behalf of a large benevolent organization where every town has a threat they need to stop?" that was big in TV shows in the 80's? A-Team, Knight Rider, The Equalizer, Highway to Heaven, Quantum Leap (the previous two were this concept just with a sci fi or supernatural twist).

Those shows are out of vogue now, the memory has faded, which means you can mine outlines, plots, villains from them almost whole cloth without your party catching the reference. And there are literally HUNDREDS of episodes to pull things from.

Try this out.

(I stole my most recent Necropolis 2350 plot from the film Where Eagles Dare, not a single player noticed and they loved it. I also google plot summaries from MASH episodes and I just exchange viet cong for undead when I need a quick plot).

Hi everyone!

I discovered solo roleplaying through SunlessWood, playing it with OSE, and it genuinely surprised me. I had a great time with it, and now I'm reading more solo RPG material to take the next step.

I'd love for my boyfriend to give solo roleplaying a try too, because I think he'd really enjoy it. The problem is that fantasy doesn't do much for him. The games we usually play together are things like the ones I mentioned above.

He doesn't enjoy gamebooks, and he's a bit reluctant to try solo roleplaying because he already has some preconceived ideas about it, I think. He also isn't interested in reading Mythic or TREY. That's why I think a sci-fi adventure that teaches him how to play while he's actually playing would be the perfect introduction.

I've searched around but haven't found anything quite like that. Maybe this kind of adventure has a specific name that I don't know?

In any case, if you know of any other tools, games, or resources that could help someone learn and try solo roleplaying—especially sci-fi or cyberpunk solo RPGs—I'd love to hear about them.

If possible, I'd prefer something fairly light and approachable, since I'd like to give it to him as a gift. A physical book would be ideal, though PDFs are fine too.

Thanks very much for any suggestions!

When playing combat focused games, it's fairly common and a good GM pratice to ask the players to describe their finishing blows on powerful enemies. However, the way that this is typically prompted ie. "How do you want to do this," "How do you kill [villain name]," "go aheaf and describe what it looks like as you kill this guy," etc. tends to encourage players to come up with the most brutal and over the top gory descriptions that they can.

Which is fine, there's nothing wrong with that, but I am curious if anyone has had success with other ways to prompt players for final blow descriptions that lean into other elements aside from over the top gore.

Been getting into Blades in the Dark recently, and have been having some trouble figuring out how to display clocks so that they’re readable to my whole in-person table and me at the same time. Sticky notes are fine, dice are a little clumsy as I often have to fumble with them to find the right number more than I’d like (plus they are not super easy to see unless you are sitting next to the GM), and over all, I’d rather have something with a little more drama or tactile feel.

What do you use at your table for countdowns/clocks? Any tricks you swear by?

I’m GMing a homebrew game with my two friends it’s been going on for a few sessions now and about 4 NPCs have joined their party. In-story, they’re in the party because they have the same goal as the players. I have them available for my players to talk to and they assist in combat if they’re in the area and willing to fight.

This is my first campaign I’ve ever written, so I was wondering if this was a normal thing? Or if it’s better to avoid this party structure?

I don’t want them to be blatant extensions of myself as the GM, guiding or ‘dragging’ the players along to where they ‘need’ to go. And because there’s so many of them, I do worry it’ll feel like they’re drowning out the players and make their choices or interactions more difficult and if it were just my players together and that’s it.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to avoid potential problems with this party structure? Whether it’s stuff I’ve mentioned or something else I may not have even thought of yet.

I’d also gladly take suggestions on improvements to make for my party NPCs so my players can have more fun interacting with them as the story progresses and things (I hope) become more dynamic. In the end, I want to build up a couple of these NPCs to end up betraying the rest of the party and I want that to be really impactful for my players. Rather than them just being indifferent and not really noticing their disappearance after it’s done.

Looking for a module

I want to run a ttrpg game for my husband and his friend. I want it to have the feel of those old buddy cop movies or the one Pixar movie of those brothers on a road trip to see their dad again. I dont have the time to homebrew a short campaign for this summer, so please drop your favorite modules/systems that are good for 2 players and can foster that bro feeling.

Thank you!