Blades in the Dark: The System

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Inspired by DL's Pathfinder sessions I decided to run a campaign for Blades in the Dark using the Vigilante expansion as most of my players need to play good guys. For this entry I'm just going to talk about the game system itself, specifically the parts I enjoy most, which is so fast and accessible and has been used in many other "forged in the dark" type games.

First is that only D6s are used and it is all theater of mind. No figurines or battle maps here which means the limit is just your imagination. Characters have 12 or so skills with four dots against each, and these skills are definitely double duty things. "Hunt" might mean you are shooting someone, tracking something, or using binoculars on a watch tower. While you start with some dots shaded in, you shade in more as you level up. Each shaded dot represents how many D6 you get to roll if you are attempting that AND it is dangerous. The result is the highest number from the roll. If it is not dangerous, it automatically succeeds without having to roll.

If you roll a single 6, it succeeds in the way you intended. If you roll multiple 6s its a critical and goes better than planned. If you roll a 4-5 partial success but partial problem or damage and a 1-3 you failed and are about to be punished for it with either loss of gear, position or health (whatever the GM warned you about prior to your roll). As such bad guys never roll, but if they are a higher tier than you then you might lose dice to roll. If your dice pool is 0 or less, you can still attempt an action by rolling 2D6 but you will take the lower roll and are unable to crit. This makes combat go by so quickly but still be tense.

The other thing I really enjoy is that there's less book keeping inventory wise. When the crew heads out each member declares what their load is: Light is 4, Normal is 5, Heavy is 6 which might affect how fast they move and how people perceive them but everything else comes from "hammer space". You need a sword? Pull one out at the cost of 1 load. Lock pick tools? 1 load. Armor to take a single hit? 2 load. There's a great list on each character sheet which is both easily accessible and gives enough uniqueness and opportunities per player to pull out of their coat if they need it, as long as they can still pay the load cost. If you're in light and have used armor and two swords, sorry - you can't pull out anything else.

Anyway, its a really fun system and for a $20 PDF its certainly one I'm happy with. Play through posts will start soon! :)