Character 13 - Band of Blades

 Right, so as hinted at yesterday today's game is the Forged in the Dark game Band of Blades from Off Guard Games and Evil Hat Productions. As a FitD game, it runs very similarly to yesterday's Blades in the Dark game though it has a very different setting.

In Band of Blades you're a member of The Legion, a band in retreat following a failed battle against the armies of the undead. Time is running out as more and more of your brothers in arms fall to the indomitable forces of the Cinder King. As Legionnaires, you must make it to Skydagger Keep before you're cut off or overtaken by the undead. Paying horrifying costs, you'll employ offensives, maneuvers, unwise bargains and desperate gambits as the ever-ticking clock nears its final hour.

So that sounds fun! Let's get started, shall we?

Character Creation

Band of Blades uses a simple, 5 step character creation process that will be familiar to you if you've played a Forged in the Dark game or, to a lesser degree, a Powered by the Apocalypse game before.

1. Choose a playbook.
2. Choose a playbook special ability.
3. Choose a heritage.
4. Assign four additional action ratings.
5. Review your playbook details.

So before we begin, there's a little sidebar titled "why rank doesn't matter" that I am thrilled to see. Too often in military RPGs you wind up with one character playing the sergeant to everyone else's privates or captain to their lower officers. Inevitably this leads to arguments in and then out of character. It's dumb and I'm glad Band manages to side step it.

Step 1 - Choose a playbook

So every character in Band of Blades is a soldier of one type or another, from the lowliest fresh faced recruit up to the heavy hitters and the highly ranked, there aren't any non-military types offered to players in this game. What they do to differentiate the playbooks (because there's only so many ways to differentiate "I'm the guy who holds a shield") is pretty fun and broken up into two types, the Specialists:

• The Heavy - This guy's the tank. Heavy armor, able to defend himself and others. Play a Heavy if you want to be the mighty sword swinger type.
• The Medic - What is says on the tin. This is the healer and they can always go on any type of mission, unlike some of the other Specialists, because you're always liable to get hurt.
• The Officer - This is the tactician and buffer of the group. Play an Officer if you want to command troops to victory against the undead hordes.
• The Scout - A more maneuverable type of soldier who can see what's coming before it's on top of them. 
• The Sniper - everyone can use a gun, but a sniper can hit anything they see, preferably from a long distance, before it's on top of the Legion.

And in addition to the Specialists, there are two Playbooks for the rank and file troops:

• The Rookie - A new recruit to the Legion, starts off with less experience but able to "graduate" into the other Playbooks as play continues.
• The Soldier - More a veteran than the Rookie, able to slog it out with the best of them. The bread and butter Legionnaire.

While it would be fun to play any of the Playbooks, I'm going to start simple and make a Soldier. That starts me out with one dot each in Grit, Skirmish, Maneuver and Consort. I can fight, I can drink, I can dodge and I can take a hit.

Step 2 - Choose a playbook special ability

Flipping over in the book to the Soldier playbook, I see a bunch of fun and flavorful special abilities available to the Soldier. Everything from "Loaded for Bear" which gives you more equipment in your loadout to "Eat Iron, Shit Nails" which lets you push yourself harder than most normal Legionnaires. As fun as that sounds, I'm going with the "Over the Top" special ability which gives my soldier a bonus to maneuvering when charging into a group that outnumbers or outguns him.

Step 3 - Choose a heritage

Band of Blades gives four heritages to choose from, or lets you make one up if none of the offered appeal:

• The Bartans are close-knit and devout from an agrarian culture ruled by a council.
• The Orites are cosmopolitan and influential from a technological country focused on details.
• The Panyar are from a forest touched by an ancient god, everyone who spends time there gains an animal feature.
• The Zemyati are from mountain-dwelling clans who have a complex arrangement of oaths between well, basically everyone.

So I'll pick Zemyati, they sound like they'd make for good soldiers. I get to pick a look and two heritage traits and a name! Bojana Colayovna is from the Silvertree clan, pale skinned and hearty with scars on her arms from previous battles, Bojana wears her white-blonde hair braided with gold and jewelry and tends to heavy armor. She'll take the Bold and Stubborn traits which give her bonuses to resistance rolls in certain situations. She's a toughy!

Step 4 - Assign four additional action ratings

Like in Blades, we get 4 extra points to assign to whatever actions we want so long as none start higher than 2. Bojana is going to add 1 to Grit and Marshal so she can lead the rookies and her final 2 points will go to Discipline to back up her commands.

Step 5 - Review your playbook details

So this just tells us to go over the playbook and see what actions earn us XP, for Soldiers it's heling the squad through courage or determination, and check our Specialist actions. Even though I'm not playing a specialist, Soldiers do get the ability to spend Grit points for bonuses on resistance rolls. So that's damage or horror or what have you. Soldiers are tough and Bojana is very tough. 

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any Band of Blades fillable sheets so you'll just have to take my word on it. See you all back here tomorrow for the next Character Creation Challenge!