Blades in the Dark is a game in which you play as a band of outlaws in the gothic manapunk metropolis of Doskvol.
The metropolis is encapsulated in everlasting night, plagued by ghosts, and bordered by monster-infested wastelands. The city is oppressively stratified, and for many, a life of crime is the only way to advance and survive.
Blades in the Dark is a modern RPG game that bears all of its rules in a single volume, keeping it simple (for now).
The steampunk industrial Doskvol is crawling with gangs that are using supernatural and magical forces to fight for dominance.
The game most reminds me of the world of the Dishonored video game, the Peaky Blinders TV show, and the movie Gangs of New York. If you like these titles as much as I do, you will have an amazing time playing this game.
The Blades in the Dark Setting
Starting off as a crew of scoundrels, you and your friends will go on an array of missions like heists, smuggling, sabotaging, spying, poisoning, or trading with numerous contraband.
Your missions will have their own character sheet and the success/fail rate of your crew will influence if you gain or lose territory or how good or bad your reputation is.
However, don’t forget that there will be other clans in the game that will try to do the same so you will be in a pretty competitive environment.
Blades in the Dark classes are defined as “playbooks,” and they should be considered as areas of focus and preference rather than a distinct skill set.
You choose your character’s initial action ratings and unique skills, but you don’t define their unchangeable essence or genuine nature. Your character will evolve and alter over time, which is part of the excitement of the game.
The gameplay
As a modern RPG, it invites you to design the world and your experiences as a narrative partnership rather than a competing challenge. Having this kind of setting in place reduces the need for GM’s preparations, although they will still need to be adaptable to improvisations.
Blades in the Dark sessions can last as little as two hours, and it achieves this by breaking things down to three main phases:
Free play
During the “Free play” phase, you and your crew discuss what the goals of your band are, what kind of operations you want to do, which target you will strike and how, etc. Since you all advance by successful operation or a “score,” as it’s called, make sure to choose a target and a plan carefully.
After this phase is completed, you roll d6 to see whether your characters get a rough or an easy start.
Score
You use your skills, abilities, and tools with dice throws to play out the mission and see how successful you were in overcoming the obstacles in front of you.
Unlike in DnD gameplay, here you won’t play through the preparations before the mission (gathering information, detailed planning, etc.)
Instead, you will choose one of six pre-made plans of advancement:
- Assault – violently attack a target
- Deception – Manipulate, trick, or lure a target.
- Stealth – Unseen movement and sneaking around the target.
- Occult – Use supernatural powers to achieve your goal.
- Social – Negotiate, bargain, or persuade targets.
- Transport – Carry someone or something through danger.
I should point out that this game revolves a lot around stealthy/rogue gameplay, which is amazing for anyone who wishes to avoid Rambo-style storylines.
Numerous opportunities for bribery, sneaking, and hiding will awaken the inner rogue in you that you didn’t even know you had!
The absence of the preparation phase doesn’t mean a lack of preparation, though. Every player can perform what is called a “flashback” and travel back in time to do something that would benefit them during the mission.
For example, if you aren’t allowed to enter a particular area, you can go back in time to bribe the guard, who will then turn a blind eye once the time is right and let you in.
This kind of versatility Blades in the Dark has will see you make and break a lot of plans, unlike DnD where you will carefully strategize your moves and actions.
Downtime
At the end of the Score, you go into the Downtime phase, where you and your fellowship of scoundrels take a look at the fruit of your labor. How big was the payoff, have you attracted heat and if so, how much. These are just some of the questions you will be dealing with after a mission
Remember, every action in this game has consequences, and other gangs are intertwined in a peculiar way so that each time you attack or befriend someone, you will unwillingly piss off a certain third party.
If you don’t get in a war with some other gang, be sure that the eye of the law is all-seeing and will be on your back the more you expose yourself with criminal deeds. However, you won’t feel all the consequences immediately. Some will show later in the game, and by Murphy’s law, they always come for me in the worst possible moment.
Die system
Every choice is determined by the roll of a standard six-sided die. This eliminates armor classes, hit points, and all the other frills that less streamlined games employ that pull you out of the experience.
The better a player is at an activity, such as skirmishing, pickpocketing, or communicating with the dead, the more dice they can roll and the more likely they are to succeed since they can use the single highest result.
Different numbers on d6 symbolize different outcomes of your actions:
- 6 – complete success: You’ve managed to complete the action in the way you planned
- 5,4 – partial success: You completed the action but some minor thing went wrong. For example, you unlocked the door, but your lockpick broke.
- 3,2,1 –a bad outcome for you
Generally, you and your GM can discuss what each die result means in a given situation.
Conclusion
In the end, your players’ decisions are significantly more important than you may realize at first. Making friends with one gang may irritate another, causing them to come hunting for you and bringing the conflict to your front door. Much is done in the background, providing GMs the freedom to create the environment around their players. Surprisingly, the admin is part of the fun, and you’ll be left envisioning the numerous ripple effects of your players’ choices after each session.
It’s like a butterfly effect game. Both players and GM can swing their butterfly wings at one point in the game, only to see the “tsunami” effect come for them later on. This is at the heart of Blades in the Dark, and that’s what makes it so exciting!
