09/13/2023 9:38 AM

I finished reading Blades in the Dark last night. I like it. It's tough for me not to compare the mechanics to Ironsworn/Starforged - probably because of how player-facing the game is, but it compares favorably. The position and effort mechanics are really good. I expect those are something that most GMs consider when setting roll targets, even if not consciously, but making it explicit brings out interesting strategies. The flashback system ties in really well to that. In solo play, I find I'm constantly tweaking the narrative history to fit or explain the current rolls better, but and I know it's not supposed to, but it always feels like I'm fudging things. BitD completely eliminates that - the character really is that awesome and totally thought of something in advance that adjusts the position or effort for the next roll, you just need to pay for it with the stress meta-currency. The whole game is based around this - jump straight to the action with a target and entry point, then figure out the planning that the characters already did on the fly, using flashbacks. It's clever, but anybody who has strong feelings about linear cause and effect is going to run screaming. And everything is basically a point-crawl because of that. No map exploration here. Definitely in the to-play pile - maybe one of the other settings/hacks, but I like what I see in the FitD mechanics.

It feels like there is a lot of kinship with the Cypher system, but that may be because they are both strongly narrative, and I was prepping my Old Gods of Appalachia (Cypher) character while reading BitD. As I said, I see a lot of similarities (and differences with IS/SF). Those are supposedly based off of PbtA, with a lot of changes to the mechanics. I'll have to find a PbtA game that interests me to read.