A couple weeks ago I saw someone posting something about hit points, and I thought it might be good to write about my Lifeline concept. And I'm just now getting around to it. So, here goes:

A Premise, A Problem

Around when Blades in the Dark first released, I GMed a whole lot of it. I think at one point I was running three different groups. In general, I'm a big fan of the game, but as I racked up the hours in the GM chair, a few things started to bug me. Among them was the game's narrative injury system.

For the uninitiated, rather than a numeric amount of hit points, Blades in the Dark characters can take up to 5 injuries of increasing severity before they're killed; Two minor injuries (1 Harm), two moderate injuries (2 Harm), and one severe injury (3 Harm). Each level of injury having an associated mechanical detriment.

The issue I ran into is: those mechanical detriments very often got overlooked. And reflecting back on sessions, I'm not sure anyone's experience would have been improved by remembering them. And, once I got the opportunity to sit on the other side of the table, I felt like the penalties were frustrating in unproductive ways. Especially with how difficult they are to get rid of. At one point, I spent down all my stash and took something like five downtime actions in one session just to clear away all my wounds (and I think I maybe still had one minor injury still lingering). It's bad game feels, especially if you're playing a more violence-oriented character or crew playbook.

Potential Solutions

The most obvious solution is to keep the narrative injury categories and just sweep away the penalties. The ultimate consequence (character death) remains in play. I don't hate it, and it's basically how I'd been running the game by accident. But something about taking the penalties off the injury boxes feels empty.

Moving to pure, numeric hit points is another option. But it feels kind of cheap, doesn't it?

The Lifeline

I will admit that combining the injury system with Blades' existing Stress track did not immediately occur to me. The idea was filtered through at least two unrelated projects. But I think it works pretty well!

What I've ended up with is the Lifeline detailed above. A single track, about 1/3 longer than the vanilla Stress track, that gets marked or used in two ways:

• Accrue Stress by marking from the left of the track with "/" to add +1D to rolls, assist companions, and other stuff BitD characters do with Stress.

• Gain Wounds by marking from the right of the track with "X" when your character receives injuries.

This keeps some penalties for getting hurt: Wounds are harder to get rid of and impact how much Stress you can spend without knocking yourself out of a scene. It's also not a penalty you can forget about. It incorporates directly with the game mechanisms in a way that doesn't really require you to remember it.

I've been futzing around with the Lifeline for a bit. It's in something like four different unreleased projects. But I haven't managed to get it to the table yet for pandemic reasons. Hopefully soon.