Blades '68—Planning Meeting—Sketching opportunities: players keep filling out entire score cards on their own
The rulebook seems to heavily imply that each player should fill out just one out of three fields on the score card. Then the whole group finalizes some of the cards, and one becomes the next score. (If you haven't read Blades '68, see the explanation below.) But in practice someone would always fill out their entire card on their own, and that often becomes the next score.
Which is ok. Obviously, we're free to play how we like etc. etc.. But BitD is no stranger to counterintuitive playstyle guidelines that are ultimately for the best, e.g. we actively prevent ourselves from planning when starting the score and such.
So I've been thinking, should we actively try to collaborate on each score card even when players are inspired to fill out entire cards? Has Tim Denee elaborated on this at some point? How does your group do score cards?
How "planning meetings" work in Blades '68
To help the crew and the GM come up with ideas for scores, Blades '68 has the following procedure.
Every player, including the GM, makes a "score card," which is a physical card with three fields: client, target, and operation type. (Operation type could be anything from "museum heist" to "stuff explodes on a zeppelin.") Each player, including the GM, fills in one field on their card. Then all cards are shared, discussed, and filled out collaboratively, and eventually the crew has several scores to choose from.
Here are the examples from the book:
>Keri is interested in getting friendly with the SCORPION Syndicate, so he puts down an opportunity where they’re the client faction.
>The GM has noticed the players haven’t engaged with the claim map yet, so they put down “Specialist Fence claim,” mostly just to remind the players that they can go for claims.
>The others have already chosen some strategic opportunities, so Olivia decides to pick something fun. She writes down “something at the fireworks factory.”
The wording throughout the chapter implies that everyone should fill out just one field on their card:
>At this stage, we’re just presenting the rough outline of an opportunity, which is why we only choose one of the above.
Although,
>It’s fine to write in more details if they already exist in the fiction (sometimes you’ll present an opportunity you heard about during personal business).
Finally,
>The players and the GM can work together to define missing details (the client, target, or operation type, as applicable—the GM has final say).