How to play Blades in the Dark

How to play

The crew and playbooks: Together, choose a crew type: Assassins, Bravos, Cult, Hawkers, Shadows or Smugglers. It sets the kind of jobs you pull and your crew's special abilities. Then each player picks a playbook: Cutter, Hound, Leech, Lurk, Slide, Spider or Whisper. Choose a heritage and background, add four action dots to the three your playbook starts with (no action above 2 at the start), then pick a special ability, a close friend, a rival and a vice.

Action ratings and rolls: You have 12 actions under three attributes: Insight (Hunt, Study, Survey, Tinker), Prowess (Finesse, Prowl, Skirmish, Wreck) and Resolve (Attune, Command, Consort, Sway). When you do something dangerous, say your goal and name the action you are performing. Roll a d6 for each dot and read the highest die: 6 means you do it, 4 or 5 means you do it with a consequence, and 1 to 3 means things go badly. Two or more 6s is a critical success. With a rating of 0, roll two dice and keep the lower. A teammate can take 1 stress to give you +1d, and you can take 2 stress to push yourself, or accept a Devil's Bargain, for another +1d.

Position and effect: Before you roll, the GM sets your position (controlled, risky or desperate; risky is the default), which decides how bad the consequences can be, and your effect (limited, standard or great), which decides how much you achieve. You can offer to trade one for the other.

Stress and trauma: If you don't like a consequence, resist it by rolling Insight, Prowess or Resolve. It is reduced or avoided, and you take 6 stress minus your highest die. When you mark your last stress box you take a trauma, a permanent trait such as Cold or Reckless, and your fourth trauma retires your scoundrel.

The Score: Pick a target, choose one of six plans (Assault, Deception, Stealth, Occult, Social or Transport) and supply its one missing detail, such as the point of attack. An engagement roll decides how things start, and the GM cuts straight to the first obstacle. When you need to have prepared something, call a flashback; the GM charges stress for it, from none for something ordinary to more for something elaborate.

Clocks: A clock is a circle split into segments: 4 for a complex obstacle, 6 for a more complicated one, 8 for a daunting one. The GM ticks segments as trouble builds or progress is made, and when the clock fills, the thing happens.

Downtime: After the score comes payoff (rep and coin), heat from the law and entanglements. Then each character gets two downtime activities: acquire an asset, work on a long-term project, recover from harm, reduce heat, train, or indulge a vice to clear stress.

Strategy

Blades rewards players who commit boldly and live with the consequences rather than trying to solve every obstacle safely. Commit and accept consequences: A 4 or 5 is a success with a cost, not a failure. Complications create the next problem to solve, which is where the game's energy comes from. Players who back off at the first sign of trouble miss the fun. Know your position and effect: Ask for them before you roll. A desperate roll may be worth it for great effect; a controlled roll with limited effect may call for a different approach. Improve the odds in the fiction first: a teammate's setup action can give you better position or +1 effect, and fine gear or pushing yourself can raise your effect. Treat stress as a resource: Assisting costs 1 stress, pushing yourself costs 2, and resisting costs 6 minus your highest die. Spend it on the rolls that matter, and clear it by indulging your vice in downtime: roll your lowest attribute and clear stress equal to the highest die (clear more than you had marked and you overindulge). Avoid marking your last box mid-score, because trauma takes you out of the action. Let flashbacks do the planning: Choose a plan and its detail, then go. When the job needs a bribed guard or a stashed disguise, flash back to it. Ordinary preparations cost no stress; elaborate ones cost more. Work as a crew: Anyone can lead a group action, where everyone rolls the same action and the best result counts, but the leader takes 1 stress for each teammate who rolls 1 to 3. Pick a leader who can afford it. Play the long game: Scores earn rep and coin, and rep plus coin raises your crew's Tier. Heat from loud or bloody jobs builds toward a wanted level at 9 heat, so mix in quiet jobs and use downtime to reduce heat. The GM also ticks faction clocks in downtime, so rival gangs and nobles move whether or not you deal with them. Desperate rolls mark xp in that action's attribute, so bold play also advances your scoundrel.

Tips

- Don't plan the heist at the table: choose a plan, give the detail, and use flashbacks for anything you would have prepared. - A 4 or 5 is a success with a consequence, not a failure; lean into the complication. - Pushing yourself costs 2 stress and helping a teammate costs 1; clear stress by indulging your vice in downtime. - Ask for your position and effect before you roll, and offer a trade when great effect is worth the extra risk. - Every desperate roll marks xp in that action's attribute. - Trauma is permanent but not the end: your scoundrel only retires at the fourth. - Loud, bloody scores add heat and heat 9 means a wanted level, so balance big jobs with quiet ones and downtime to reduce heat. - Read every special ability in your playbook before choosing; if you can't decide, the first one on the list is the suggested default.

Players and time

One GM and a small group of players. The rules compare a session to an episode of a TV show, with one or two main events, and put its length anywhere from two to six hours. A score usually fits in one session, and campaign play builds the crew's reputation, turf and Tier over many sessions.

Forged in the Dark family

Blades' rules are published as a Creative Commons SRD, and many games build on them: Scum and Villainy (space opera), Band of Blades (dark military fantasy), Beam Saber (mech pilots), Girl by Moonlight (magical girls), A Fistful of Darkness (Weird West), Court of Blades (Renaissance court intrigue) and Slugblaster (teenagers, giant bugs and trying to be cool). For Blades itself, John Harper's Deep Cuts adds optional rules and setting material, and Blades '68 jumps Doskvol a century forward into the 1960s.

Doskvol setting

Doskvol is an industrial-fantasy city full of interlocking factions: criminal gangs, noble houses, the Bluecoats of the city watch and supernatural powers. Since the cataclysm the sky is dark, the sea has turned black as ink and vengeful ghosts plague the land, so lightning barriers wall the city off from the Death Lands beyond. The tone is crime fiction meets gothic horror.

Common GM mistake

Treating Blades like a traditional RPG: placing guards, planning encounters and expecting the players to solve them. The rules say the GM isn't in charge of the story and doesn't need to plan events ahead. Blades works when the GM presents opportunities, sets position and effect honestly, and follows the chain of actions and consequences, ticking clocks in response to what the players do.