More Firebrands thoughts today, a thread of reflections and miscellaneous thoughts
Since the last time I posted about it, I've played one "fine but shallow" one-shot, wrapped a 4-session game that I loved, and am about to wrap another few-shot I adore
Some of the advice I've gotten for playing Firebrands:
- It works better if you lean into self-indulgence and the tropes you want to see
- Treat it like the middle chapter or random episode of a story
I've heard that the way the Bakers play it is very tight, mostly just exchanging the prompts as written. That certainly makes sense for the "hour per player" guideline from the book; I don't know how I'd ever fit in that time the way I play it
Instead I prefer time to explore scenes, add color, get into the daily details of the world, and dig into characters
In a single session, it's hard to know who your character is beyond their faction alliance. Why do they care about characters outside their faction? What's the in-faction tension?
I had been trying to improve my ability to play Firebrands as a one-shot. I want to bottle the lightning and be able to uncork it at a moment's notice! And also not have to schedule multiple sessions
But I'm starting to think the magic of it—for me—comes from the multi-session nature of my games
Even the time between sessions is valuable for letting me and my fellow players daydream about our characters
We return to the table filled with scenes we want to see: "I was thinking, what if they're long-lost twins? What if they encounter each other for the first time at A Dance?"
Not that I've never had a good one-shot of Firebrands! The first time I played was a great one-shot!
but also I came away wanting more from it. I wonder what depth it could have had as even just a 2-shot
@konahart this is how I feel about Blades. I know many folks who play it as a oneshot, and more power to them, but I just don't get how you can figure out who the pcs are and what their relationships to the factions are in a single session.
@blackcoat omg noooooo, whyyyyy (I mean, I get why, but still)
@konahart I think that a lot of folk view BitD (evidence to support this are the large number of FitD games that fit this mold) as rules for quickstart heists.
like, if Fiasco is the ability to play a Cohen bros movie with no prep, they view BitD as how to play a Ritchie movie (or a Lynch novel) with no prep, and they do this by ignoring what is (to me) 2 of the 3 pillars of the game. 1) What are you willing to destroy of yourself to achieve your goals and 2) who are you outside of this heist?
@blackcoat yeah, I think it does *work* for that, if your focus is heist story over character focus. For Firebrands it feels like there's no there there because it doesn't tell a complete story in itself. Character focus is all there is (unless you're just doing all battles all the time, I guess?)
I'm 1000% here for your 2 pillars, though. Oh man I can't wait to run Royal Blood for you