Allan, I really feel your pain.
Phil and I actually set up Blade for busy, adult players in mind, so that referees don’t need to do a lot of work designing and that players can really play through events during the game instead of just preparing for events. But that does of course require participants who pick up on that. Players don’t actually need to do any detail-establishing work during play (though it is fine if they do), just to tell the referee in
specific terms what they are interested in (i.e. phrase their PAs in specific as opposed to general ways) — but if they don’t do that, if they give the referee virtually nothing to work with I am pretty much at my wits’ end what to do.
Maybe this: Speak with Aaron to rephrase his PAs in more specific terms, maybe even make (several) suggestion show they could be rephrased more specifically and actively, like “Bring Low Sorcerers” instead of “Dislike Sorcery”. I’m afraid that’s the only advice I can think of at the moment.
Aside for life, this is one of the issues that have limited me from Ref-ing any games of late. Expectations to provide a world/framework/backdrop/story arcs (main and sub) and so on. I do enjoy laying out skeleton world and overarching story arc (based on the players /character interests) but Blade is not so conducive to do that. And honestly I have not had the time nor drive to start it.
My players have been conditions to expect certain hand outs in that arena — and getting them rewired to propagate their own stories is more than I can hope for currently.