Blades In The Dark Tabletop Roleplaying Game, 156 months to 9600 months

One of the finest RPGs on the market today, and the inspiration for a whole host of "Forged in the Dark" games.Blades in the Dark is laser-focused on heist and caper play, set against the backdrop of an evocative dark fantasy city. You can play light-hearted capers that use the setting as a contrast or gritty crime drama that embraces its darkest elements, but you're always going to be playing a band of thieves.There's a lot to love in the tight, focused mechanics of each Playbook and the various phases of play. I particularly like how your Crew (party) has a collective, mechanical identity that grows and changes alongside your characters.Today you may be able to do better for your specific needs by picking up one of this game's many and excellent descendants, but you can hardly go wrong with this brilliant original.The physical book is well-made, with high quality illustrations and a nice feel to the paper. It's held up well so far despite regular use.

This system is everything I've ever wanted out of a TTRPG. No roll is ever boring, as everything has the potential for consequences arising. There's no such thing as "We all want to make perception checks" for 20 minutes in this system, and the pace is greatly elevated as a result. In fact, that example sticks closely to the entire core concept for Blades in the Dark, which is "Cut to the action."The game supports you along this journey with an interesting and fleshed out city to explore. One city may sound small, but for your players (a lowly gang of criminals) it becomes a true playground. Balancing between trying not to get caught but getting away with the most coin possible in each session becomes a tightrope act, and not every character is going to make it. The city is lethal, and even those who survive may find themselves taking on permanent changes to their character as trauma builds up.As doom and gloom as it sounds, the game in action is actually a blast of energy that easily allows a group of players to all have their moment in the spotlight in a single session. Because the system doesn't get bogged down in numbers bloat, the dice are easily readable at any level, and the flow of the game doesn't get broken by everyone having to crack open the corebook again to understand the rules. Once Blades clicks (and it does so fairly quickly), it's hard to go back to other TTRPG's.If you're new to the hobby, this is honestly the best start you could have. If you've been playing for years, you owe it to yourself to see the ideas on display here. Buy a copy just to read, and maybe you'll get just as excited as I did about running a game yourself.

I shrugged at Blades in the Dark when it first came out because at the time I wasn't fond of games that had built-in settings. A friend of mine picked it up which put it on my radar. I decided to give it a go and I think it's probably the greatest system I've ever read. I tried reading through Apocalypse World and Dungeon World, but I felt like they were missing...something. Blades managed to fill that void. It brought in all of the right tools, and for the first time, I see the beauty of fiction-first games.First and foremost, literally *everything* is on theme. The art evokes the setting wonderfully because (I think) it's all done by the game's creator. The font choice and page layout are so clear and concise that I feel as if it's meant to represent the clear-cut streets of Doskvol (the game's setting). The writing feels like the game's creator has taken you under his wing and is trying to train you to become a master. After each new subsystem is introduced, the author stops for a moment and gives you questions to ask yourself. He's not just teaching you his game, he's teaching you how to teach yourself.Next, the game's setting was built alongside the mechanics, so everything the setting has to offer is useable and exists for a clear purpose. There are factions to befriend/anger, landmarks to get more familiar with the city, and plenty of places to score. The window dressing such as the fact that the city is haunted by spirits and that the sun went out a thousand years ago are welcome additions as well, as they make the game world feel all the grittier.Finally, the mechanics have a symbiotic relationship with the game's overall tone and themes. It's a game about heists in a dark world, and there are ticking clocks, nonstop action, and complications galore. Every roll the players make can very easily cascade into more complications and problems which makes the world feel more real and successful scores feel more earned.If you love tabletop RPGs, buy this book because it will undoubtedly inspire the next generation of game designers. Buy it, read it, play it, hack it, and see where it takes you. If you read it and don't like it, you might need to just read/play more games and up your taste. I was (and still am) a hardcore old-school gamer and I never thought a narrative game would sway me over to the genre. Blades in the Dark is a masterpiece so teeming with flavor that it makes all of those settingless catch-all games feel less complete.