Stress, Trauma and Harm

• Stress is the secret sauce that PCs have to defy woe and thumb their nose at death. They're the local version of Fate Points, but we wrap that meta-mechanical idea with a fig leaf of fictional meaning.
  • Stress is reduced by spending downtime on that. It resets to zero when it maxes out and forms a Trauma. (It does not overflow.)
• Trauma is how constant stress can crack a hero's will to fight.
• Harm is what slows you down, blurs your vision, and lets the wolves cut you from the pack and kill you.

Stress

Player characters in Blades in the Dark have a special reserve called stress. When they suffer a consequence that they don't want to accept, they can take stress instead. The result of the resistance roll determines how much stress it costs to avoid a bad outcome.

During a knife fight, Daniel's character, Cross, gets stabbed in the chest. Daniel rolls his Prowess rating to resist, and gets a 2. It costs 6 stress, minus 2 (the result of the resistance roll) to resist the consequences. Daniel marks off 4 stress and describes how Cross survives.

The GM rules that the harm is reduced by the resistance roll, but not avoided entirely. Cross suffers level 2 harm ("Chest Wound") instead of level 3 harm ("Punctured Lung").

Stress Relief

Your characters are a special lot. They defy the powers-that-be and dare to prey on those who are considered to be their betters. They push themselves further than ordinary people are willing to go. But this comes at a cost. Their life is one of constant stress. Inevitably, each turns to the seduction of a vice in order to cope.

A character's vice is their obsession. But with this indulgence comes relief from stress and the ability to once again face the overwhelming challenge of their daring life.

Harm

This consequence represents a long-lasting debility (or death). When you suffer harm, record the specific injury on your character sheet equal to the level of harm you suffer. If you suffer lesser harm, record it in the bottom row. If you suffer moderate harm, write it in the middle row. If you suffer severe harm, record it in the top row.

3	one slot	need assist or to push
2	two slots	-1d
1	two slots	less effect

Your character suffers the penalty indicated at the end of the row if any or all harm recorded in that row applies to the situation at hand, but each row only applies once to a roll. So, if you have "Drained" and "Battered" harm in the bottom row, you'll suffer reduced effect when you try to run away from the constables. When you're impaired by harm in the top row (severe harm, level 3), your character is incapacitated and can't do anything unless you have help from someone else or push yourself to perform the action.

If you need to mark a harm level, but the row is already filled, the harm moves up to the next row above. So, if you suffered standard harm (level 2) but had no empty spaces in the second row, you'd have to record severe harm (level 3), instead. If you run out of spaces on the top row and need to mark harm there, your character suffers a catastrophic, permanent consequence (loss of a limb, sudden death, etc., depending on the circumstances).

@TODO Table from p27

Healing Harm

see the Recover downtime action.

Harm examples

Fatal (4): Electrocuted, Drowned, Stabbed in the Heart.

Severe (3): Impaled, Broken Leg, Shot in Chest, Badly Burned, Terrified.

Moderate (2): Exhausted, Deep Cut to Arm, Concussion, Panicked, Seduced.

Lesser (1): Battered, Drained, Distracted, Scared, Confused.

Harm like "Drained" or "Exhausted" can be a good fallback consequence if there's nothing else threatening a PC (like when they spend all night Studying those old books, looking for any clues to their enemy's weaknesses before he strikes).

Death

There are a couple ways for a PC to die:

• If they suffer level 4 fatal harm and they don't resist it, they die. Sometimes this is a choice a player wants to make, because they feel like it wouldn't make sense for the character to survive or it seems right for their character to die here.
• If they need to record harm at level 3 and it's already filled, they suffer a catastrophic consequence, which might mean sudden death (depending on the circumstances).

When your character dies, you have options:

• You can create a new scoundrel to play. Maybe you "promote" one of the NPC gang members to a PC, or create a brand new character who joins the crew.

Trauma

• Roleplaying your trauma conditions is an optional source of XP; you can also ignore it other than the following limits:

• When a PC marks their last stress box, they suffer a level of trauma:

  • circle one of your trauma conditions like Cold, Reckless, Unstable, etc.
  • You're taken out of action. You're "left for dead" or otherwise dropped out of the current conflict, only to come back later, shaken and drained.
  • When you return, you have zero stress and your vice has been indulged for the next downtime.
  • Each downtime: if you don't indulge your vice with at least one downtime action, take stress equal to the number of Traumas you have.
  • Trauma conditions are permanent. Your character acquires the new personality quirk indicated by the condition, and can earn xp by using it to cause trouble. When you mark your fourth trauma condition, your character cannot continue as a daring scoundrel. You must retire them to a different life or send them to prison to take the fall for the crew's wanted level.

• Cold: You're not moved by emotional appeals or social bonds.

• Haunted: You're often lost in reverie, reliving past horrors, seeing things.

• Obsessed: You're enthralled by one thing: an activity, a person, an ideology.

• Paranoid: You imagine danger everywhere; you can't trust others.

• Reckless: You have little regard for your own safety or best interests.

• Soft: You lose your edge; you become sentimental, passive, gentle.

• Unstable: Your emotional state is volatile. You can instantly rage, or fall into despair, act impulsively, or freeze up.

• Vicious: You seek out opportunities to hurt people, even for no good reason.