Yeah it honestly has so many good ideas. It really lets you get the feel of doing one of those heist movie setups without forcing the PCs to think 12 steps ahead and have a mountain of preparation like you would in D&D .
Honestly this! I learned so much playing it even though it's not my cup of tea. Clocks, setting goals, downtime management, this game is full of gems for all DMs.
This game and it’s many Forged in the Dark derivatives are top of my list to try playing. Brinkwood: The Blood of Tyrants has especially captured my attention.
I've been running Brinkwood for some friends off of the play test information! The book finally was released so we'll be starting over, but I am so excited.
I recently bought Blades in the Dark and it's space counterpart, Scum and Villainy. Since my players play Chaotic Evil in every single game they play....😆 I'm hoping they'll take to these games, as these seem like they are less time consuming to set up.
Blades in the Dark sounds amazing. Also, I recently stumbled over a Twitch livestream of That Bronze Girl, having no idea who she was. Glad to see her again so soon :D
Honestly I think the vagueness of setting details is one of the best things about Blades, since your group can make up the details themselves and really make Doskvol your own!
Blades is such a neat game. Besides all the good points said in the video, I have to gush about one thing it does so far better than most other systems I've played, and that is being a skill focused game. What I mean by that is how games focused in combat tend to break the pace for their combat rules. You play two clearly different games when handling combat resolution and any other situation, when the narrative objective of both combat and skill challenges tends to usually be the same. This is so ever present that even games with a much heavier focus in roleplay and freeplay end up falling into the same trappings of "roll initiative, your turn lasts six seconds, you have so many actions to do, etc" Blades abstracts this in a sublime way. The roll to Skirmish, isn't about making one attack and inflicting a determined amount of damage to the enemy. It is about how your impressive skills matches up with the skill of the enemy. It is flurries, parries, unexpected changes in the terrain. The roll to Prowl isn't moving up to your speed without being detected, it is the moment the camara settles in your character as a guard passed by right under them while they hang from the ceiling, holding their entire weight in a single strand of wire. Blades makes game mastering something more narrative and interesting and, in my experience, something memorable and cool, so much easier. Compared to the mental effort that it takes me to master a heavy session of DnD, Blades is refreshing and relaxing.
Combat being so quick and sometimes brutal is wonderful, especially since the Heist like nature splits the party so often. Having Conan, and Sherlock Holmes on the same team works because fighting often takes less time than investing a mystery.
I've only just heard of Blades and I've never heard of Jasmine before. This game sounds like a fantastic one shot, and I could listen to Jasmine talk about games all day. Very well articulated and a wonderful voice. I think I've found a new game to try, and a new person to follow on all the things. Well done.
So nice to see Blades featured here, I'm already playing it with my friends. In fact, it was what we all started getting into TTRPGs with, because for people who never did anything like this before it's so easy to pick up and very accessible, also for new DMs.
For me, the most enjoyable type of crew to play of DM in Blades is the Hawker, the classic vice dealers who protect and expand their turf: as the players are their own bosses, they have a lot of initiative in what score they want to do, who they want to fight, what rumor they want to investigate. They create their own agenda instead of being paid to fullfill some else's.
Blades in the Dark is the first tabletop game I ran. I do think it is much easier to run than dnd and is a great starting place. It's also great in general but I really recommend it to a new gm/dm. It also can be easier for new players with fewer stats and abilities to know but it also but more narrative weight on the players. So it can be hard for new players who are uncomfortable roleplaying or a semi-open-world style of game that tends to have.
Thank you for this video. I fairly recently discovered BitD thanks in large part to the Dicebreaker TH-cam channel and I immediately fell in love with it. The setting, tone and brilliantly-unique and evocative game systems are just full of cool potential. Someone once said of the game (paraphrasing): "Instead of trying to handle a wide range of adventure game styles and being average at all of them (D&D), Blades puts razor-focus on one *very specific* kind of style and executes it masterfully." There are so many brilliant ideas here that (as you say) can easily be lifted and used in other RPGs if desired. Clocks, Stress, Devil's Bargain, the Coin and inventory systems. The "Flashback" system is one of my very favorites, not just for how it puts some fun authorial power in the players' hands but how the game explicitly states "there is no pre-planning your heist. Use flashbacks instead", a la Ocean's 11. Incredible stuff. If you like Blades, you might also enjoy reading, discovering and playing the equally-brilliant games "Spire: The City Must Fall" and its sister game "Heart: The City Beneath".
Man I wish I got this explanation before I ran it the first time I would generally have my players decide what they want to do with 0 planning and do flashbacks to cover that. Which meant gameplay was fast. To the degree that I never felt like I had enough time to prep and had to improvise everything. We'd often do 2-3 scores in one session.
Wish I could like a video twice! I love Jasmine's style, and have wanted to play Blades for a long time. Thanks Matt for creating a series to spotlight other creators, and thanks Jasmine for bringing great energy to everything you do.
Thanks a lot for this recommendation. I love to DM, but with the higher standards I have for myself and players have, I really don't have the time to make great maps or elaborate 10-step plans for my BBEG. I hope that the more episodic nature of Blades in the dark can help me, just have fun at the table and not having to do ALL the work.
Once again, a win for this series! I have recently been watching Jasmine’s game Shikar, and she is top notch in game-mastering. Thanks again to Matt Colville and MCDM for broadening our horizons!
Great game breakdown Jasmine, thank you. Sly Flourish is just beginning a game of Blades and his Session zero and Game prep videos are well worth a watch if you think Blades might be for you.
One of the best BitD actual play is Stream of Blood's Blood & Blades, a shared universe for three criminals crews. Unfortunetly it is mainly unfinished since the stream merged with the Glass Cannon Network.
I've run this game a lot, both as a one-shot and for longer play. This overview is spot on with the strengths and weaknesses. I'm happy to answer any questions anyone else may have.
Best crossover ever! Jasmine \ ThatBronzeGirl is my favourite streamer (love MCDM too!!!) and such an inspiration for me as a creator, I highly encourage everyone to check her out!
Agree about the heritage point. From experience, it took multiple short campaigns for me to even start using the maps, faction sheet and heritage connection in any meaningful way. Tip: As part of choosing heritage, my players specify a handicap and a bonus they get due to heritage connection. Tip: I used extra crew sheets to keep track of relevant factions, and included their ethnic and background concentration as a stat that the characters can interact with. Yes, this all raises the racist flag. So, use with consideration and caution. Also, nice hinnah.
Respect to Matthew for giving spotlight to someone who actually knows what they are talking about when it comes to a non-D&D game instead of sharing his own - and he seems to be the first person to agree with me on this one - not particularly well-informed opinion on it.
This convinced me to buy the game. Most takes I hear about Blades in the Dark is either how great it is or how it too closely follows a formula. The reviewer really gave great advice on how to use the strengths of the game while warning about potential pitfalls to fun. I especially liked how she highlighted how you could use a flashback to deal with failure or making a Devil's Bargain with the DM.
Glad to see more games covered. Blades is fantastic and very Narrativly satisfying. The dice mechanic has also made its way into many other games. Highly recommend trying the game at least once.
Thanks MCDM for putting this series together! I'm running Ten Candles for the first time later this month, and am already looking forward to running Blades in the Dark after watching this video.
Great video, thank you Jasmine! There are couple of clarifications I think are important: The labour is not on the gamemaster to fill in details abut the world - it is expected that the players do so as well, and they can do so when needed rather than create everything in advance. This is intentional. I get that the broad-strokes world can still be jarring for people who have played in detailed setting like Forgotten Realms. The preparation and planning phase is not what it seems. It is fast and simple and structured, and players are actually discouraged from planning in the normal sense. Instead, preplanning and setup happens in flashbacks - so things like bribing guards the night before often happens in a flashback. Equipment works the same way - you don't choose it before the heist, but during the heist when it is needed (a kind of mini-flashback). Flashbacks as a way of bypassing over-planning by players is one of the greatest strengths of the system! Also for those people who are interested in the system but maybe not the Blades in the Dark premise, there are several other spin-off games using the same ruleset. I ran a very successful campaign of the space opera Scum and Villainy, and there is also the tragic military fantasy of Band of Blades, and others including cyberpunk and "magical girls" anime. There are tons of mini-hacks too, including one that lets you play as a pack of dogs!
I picked up a copy of the game based on this intro. Some of the mechanics will fit nicely in other games I run, but I think this might also be fun for conventions... whenever those happen again.
Just started running this as a taster for the peeps in my Discord server. It's going great so far but this really helps as it's my first time playing it!
I think Blades is a great game for when you want to play a little bit of table top with your friends, but have nothing prepared. It's really easy to bust out and play on a whim if everyone knows the rules and the GM can improv well. I think the game has a lot of weaknesses, but its affection for the spontaneous is really admirable.
It's embracement of the spontaneous is intoxicating, and has since leaked into everything else I've run. What do you feel its weaknesses are? I think it sets out to do a thing and manages to do exactly that. I can't think of any major weaknesses except some issues I have with the book layout being too scattered, and perhaps being too long in general.
@@sequoia-sugi the book layout for me is a big complaint, but also the voice that the author wrote it in. I think you could maybe cut a third of the page length, if you omitted his personal philosophies and rambles about game design and roleplay. I think as a system, the whole thing could just use a little more depth. Keep the simplicity of say, the money system, but offer more things to actually buy. It's a "something something idk" hand-wavier system than even 5e, and that can lead to some speed bumps when your players ask simple questions like "what can I buy from a shop?"
@@sassytabasco Yeah now that you mention it, aspects of it being shorter and a little more concrete would probably help it a lot. Hopefully we get a revised edition at some point.
If nothing else, Blades is a great toolbox for any GM. There are tons of mechanics in blades that can perfectly slot into the many empty spaces that D&D leaves up to the DM to fill.
Appreciate how indepth you are in your breakdown of this game. Have been looking for a D&D alternative and after I run some Forbidden Lands, I'll be running this next! Y'all keep up the good work 😊
Blades in the Dark is an excellent game and I can't recommend it enough. It's one of the games where I felt like the mechanics really supported the themes of the game.
I must say I think longevity depends a lot on style. I play weekly, we are started 10 months ago, and are still going strong. I think Jasmine's approach to the game is very different to my GM's. Ours is a complex and varied game. The characters have their own agendas that they are pursuing at any given time. The crew also has multiple agendas as well that we are pursuing. We also have lot of enemies that are after us as well as a few allies to support. We have a lot of clocks going. Mix all that together and you a ton of material to a very engaging campaign.
Wicked Ones is a pretty cool game made in the Forged in the Dark sytem, which is what Blades runs on. It lets you play as DnD style monsters in a dungeon that your group builds together, and you play in a sandbox that everyone helps to come up with factions for. Definitely check it out if that kind of thing sounds cool to you :)
It’s great to see Blades get some love. It’s one of my favourite RPGs and definitely worth checking out if you’ve not seen it before. The campaign is incredibly satisfying to go through. Brinkwood and Band of Blades are amazing alternate fantasy games using the same system. Brinkwood is ‘Robin Hood Vs Vampires’ and Band of Blades is ‘Grimdark Fire Emblem’.
Have the game book and have read it. Cool system and it is very straight forward giving some clear examples. I have however not had a chance to play it, but I have added some elements into my D&D campaign.
Love this segment! I recently bought Blades in the Dark and it's outer space counterpart, Scum and Villainy. Since my players always choose to play Chaotic Evil characters anyway, I hope to get them into them, as it would greatly reduce prep time, and I wouldn't despair when they decide to just blow stuff up rather than go through the sneaky way. Anyone have a suggestions for a cyberpunk setting that is like Blades in the Dark?
Excellent review! Literally ran my first Blade game two days ago and it went very well. None of the players had played before, a few of them also aren’t the type to adapt quickly to new rules but all got the hang of it very quickly. Doskvol is pretty much the only setting I can recall that I've run directly from the game book and used the details in the boo I don't recall ever seeing a setting that seems so designed around the idea that it exists *for the game* rather than a game trying to suit the setting. I will say regarding your criticism about the heritage, I haven’t found it an issue with a player who is a Skovlan refugee. That the history and descriptions of the rest of the world is pretty minimalist works given that Doskvol is very much the setting of the game. They explicitly mention on the first pages of the book that the design of the setting with the Void Sea, deathlands and lightning barriers the is intended to trap the players in Doskvol so they can't just leave town and lie low to escape the consequences of their actions. BUT... having a quick reread - you're right that it's a bit weird that heritage is mentioned second when designing a character, takes up most of a page but beyond Doskvol only the Skovlans have anything beyond a few sentences of info in the rest of the book. It might have worked better to have your heritage instead assume you were from Doskvol and tied it in closer with your background about what social class you’re from and what incentives this gives for CRIME. Along with perhaps the Skolvan refugee in the lower class. Then perhaps have a sentence to suggest players *could* play from the other parts of the Shattered Isles and have the character ideas tied into the brief descriptions of the other parts of the world at the very end of the book with the world map. I wonder if the rest of the setting was expected to be a bigger thing in an earlier draft. For those wanting to run it, it's a fantastic book. Although personally as a GM I do find the “success but at a cost” can sometimes be a tad daunting to work out on the fly. But it really does hammer home the good practice of “only roll for something important where failure matters”. - This is shared with Dungeon World and other Powered by the Apocalypse which John Harper (the author) mentions in the acknowledgements Likewise I really like how the game doesn’t make Action rolls easier or more difficult by modifiers to rolls but rather it frames every Action roll by Position (Controlled vs Risky vs Desperate) - how bad it goes if you only roll a fail/partial success. And Effect (limited, standard, great) - which is how well you will succeed. Getting used to exactly what consequences are for each position will take a bit of used to but I might start importing this idea into other RPGs I run as well. Devil’s Bargains are a great mechanic, but again it can be a little daunting to think of the on the fly, sometimes one springs to mind immediately but other times they just don't. I have seen that someone has made a deck of cards with suggestions on them which might be useful.
Also a very minor gripe, but when you read the rules for the first time, it's a good idea have a pdf/printed character sheet to hand. A few key numbers like how much stress a character can take before truma kicks in and the XP needed to gain an attribute/playbook advance isn't actually mentioned in the book but are on the character sheet. And there isn't actually a character sheet in the core rules. Easily resolved but given my copy is a recent PDF and Print on Demand combo that's been errata'ed it's weird it's not been added in.
I think what should happen and I think might be the intent with the "gaps" in heritage and other parts of the book are that players and gm's come up with these details. As you mentioned, it leans more story side of the spectrum and an important part of story games is the players being empowered to have greater influence on the world. Instead of the gm coming up with all the details - the gm should be asking players about filling in some of the details.
Sounds kind of weird to use maps for blades, but if it works it works! How are you using them? My "problem" with maps in games like blades is that a map tends to constraint the things that players bring to the table. It often generates a /if it's not in the map it doesn't exist/ perspective
This is my favorite system right now! (I think the Space version is not as good, but better at explaining the controlled, risky, and desperate conditions, and an easier setting to lure in players) I only just started watching this video and I am already super excited!
I have this book (and the scifi rpg, Scum & Villainy) but have yet to run it. It gave me a better idea of the system than just my read-thru. A few of the points I had from breezing thru the book were talked about here, so it was good hearing the good/bad/great features touched upon. For myself, I found the setting too 'locked in', and is something I'd prefer to adjust before trying it out. Some of the features though, clocks, flashbacks, starting in mid-scene, are things I really really want to incorporate into other games.
The thought that a partial party wipe or TPK need not end a game because the "crew" continues is very reminiscent of the original campaign style game, where players and characters could come and go and the setting continues.
Personally, I haven't played Blades In The Dark, and not being interested in heists or being the bad guys in that way, I don't think it's my thing. However, I have heard and believe that it helps train a GM in things that many might not being super great at-namely, improvisation.
Don’t forget, that while the players get to pick the what attributes they want to role, but the GM responds with stakes and effect. So if a player picks totally inappropriate attributes to roll, the GM can make it very dangerous for little or even no effect.
For those interested, there are a few RPGs out there that take the same core rules for Blades in the Dark, but tweak them in interesting ways for different (less dark settings). For a more lighthearted game, I highly recommend trying Scum & Villainy, a “Forged in the Dark” game that adapts the BitD rules into a space-opera style game. I’ve run several one-shots for S&V over the past few months and they’ve been phenomenal so far (including for many first time RPG players)! If you’re at all interested in the basic BitD rules, but don’t like the Duskvol setting, give S&Vs Procyon Sector a try!
About to run my 3rd session next week and so far it has been amazing. It is so hard to break the habit of calling for a certain skill to be rolled, but working on it.
I'm really loving this series. It's great to see people and games I otherwise might not have heard of.
It’s weird seeing you outside of Critical Role comments sections
HAIL GYMNOS!
FLANDO????
ALL PRAISE FLANDO!
Hail and well met, noble prince.
@@KBTibbs Gymnop?
I learned so much running this game, and its Clocks system is something I use all the time in pretty much any game I run.
Yeah it honestly has so many good ideas. It really lets you get the feel of doing one of those heist movie setups without forcing the PCs to think 12 steps ahead and have a mountain of preparation like you would in D&D .
Honestly this! I learned so much playing it even though it's not my cup of tea. Clocks, setting goals, downtime management, this game is full of gems for all DMs.
This "Games you might like" series is great. Please keep 'em coming!
Are there just 2? I'm not finding a playlist
@@giuseppepiuma1965 so far I believe so
@@Jasonwfd too bad
Thank you
This game and it’s many Forged in the Dark derivatives are top of my list to try playing. Brinkwood: The Blood of Tyrants has especially captured my attention.
I've been running Brinkwood for some friends off of the play test information! The book finally was released so we'll be starting over, but I am so excited.
Excellent choice
I recently bought Blades in the Dark and it's space counterpart, Scum and Villainy. Since my players play Chaotic Evil in every single game they play....😆 I'm hoping they'll take to these games, as these seem like they are less time consuming to set up.
Wicked Ones is also a superb FitD.
Blades in the Dark sounds amazing. Also, I recently stumbled over a Twitch livestream of That Bronze Girl, having no idea who she was. Glad to see her again so soon :D
Honestly I think the vagueness of setting details is one of the best things about Blades, since your group can make up the details themselves and really make Doskvol your own!
Blades is such a neat game. Besides all the good points said in the video, I have to gush about one thing it does so far better than most other systems I've played, and that is being a skill focused game.
What I mean by that is how games focused in combat tend to break the pace for their combat rules. You play two clearly different games when handling combat resolution and any other situation, when the narrative objective of both combat and skill challenges tends to usually be the same.
This is so ever present that even games with a much heavier focus in roleplay and freeplay end up falling into the same trappings of "roll initiative, your turn lasts six seconds, you have so many actions to do, etc"
Blades abstracts this in a sublime way. The roll to Skirmish, isn't about making one attack and inflicting a determined amount of damage to the enemy. It is about how your impressive skills matches up with the skill of the enemy. It is flurries, parries, unexpected changes in the terrain. The roll to Prowl isn't moving up to your speed without being detected, it is the moment the camara settles in your character as a guard passed by right under them while they hang from the ceiling, holding their entire weight in a single strand of wire.
Blades makes game mastering something more narrative and interesting and, in my experience, something memorable and cool, so much easier. Compared to the mental effort that it takes me to master a heavy session of DnD, Blades is refreshing and relaxing.
Combat being so quick and sometimes brutal is wonderful, especially since the Heist like nature splits the party so often.
Having Conan, and Sherlock Holmes on the same team works because fighting often takes less time than investing a mystery.
Yooo, wasn't expecting the Bronze cameo! What a pleasant surprise!
I've only just heard of Blades and I've never heard of Jasmine before. This game sounds like a fantastic one shot, and I could listen to Jasmine talk about games all day. Very well articulated and a wonderful voice.
I think I've found a new game to try, and a new person to follow on all the things. Well done.
Thank you!
So nice to see Blades featured here, I'm already playing it with my friends. In fact, it was what we all started getting into TTRPGs with, because for people who never did anything like this before it's so easy to pick up and very accessible, also for new DMs.
Yo I've heard this game referenced a lot, so I am super ready to hear the pitch. It seems to be really influential for offshoot game genres
There is a port by Evil Hat called Scum and Villainy that is "Bind in space" that lets you do Firefly, Mandalorian or Cowboy Bebop pretty well.
It’s got a whole like, API for altering the game, just like Powered by the Apocalypse, so it’s just designed to generate infinite offshoots.
Blades in the Dark has absolutely captured my attention as a system. Great to see it in this series!
For me, the most enjoyable type of crew to play of DM in Blades is the Hawker, the classic vice dealers who protect and expand their turf: as the players are their own bosses, they have a lot of initiative in what score they want to do, who they want to fight, what rumor they want to investigate. They create their own agenda instead of being paid to fullfill some else's.
Blades in the Dark is the first tabletop game I ran. I do think it is much easier to run than dnd and is a great starting place. It's also great in general but I really recommend it to a new gm/dm. It also can be easier for new players with fewer stats and abilities to know but it also but more narrative weight on the players. So it can be hard for new players who are uncomfortable roleplaying or a semi-open-world style of game that tends to have.
Loved Jasmine on Battle for Beyond, happy to see her here.
Thank you for this video. I fairly recently discovered BitD thanks in large part to the Dicebreaker TH-cam channel and I immediately fell in love with it. The setting, tone and brilliantly-unique and evocative game systems are just full of cool potential. Someone once said of the game (paraphrasing): "Instead of trying to handle a wide range of adventure game styles and being average at all of them (D&D), Blades puts razor-focus on one *very specific* kind of style and executes it masterfully." There are so many brilliant ideas here that (as you say) can easily be lifted and used in other RPGs if desired. Clocks, Stress, Devil's Bargain, the Coin and inventory systems. The "Flashback" system is one of my very favorites, not just for how it puts some fun authorial power in the players' hands but how the game explicitly states "there is no pre-planning your heist. Use flashbacks instead", a la Ocean's 11. Incredible stuff.
If you like Blades, you might also enjoy reading, discovering and playing the equally-brilliant games "Spire: The City Must Fall" and its sister game "Heart: The City Beneath".
I love Jasmine Bhullar!!!!! She was so epic running Battle for the Beyond!
Man I wish I got this explanation before I ran it the first time I would generally have my players decide what they want to do with 0 planning and do flashbacks to cover that. Which meant gameplay was fast. To the degree that I never felt like I had enough time to prep and had to improvise everything. We'd often do 2-3 scores in one session.
Wish I could like a video twice! I love Jasmine's style, and have wanted to play Blades for a long time. Thanks Matt for creating a series to spotlight other creators, and thanks Jasmine for bringing great energy to everything you do.
I would be so jazzed to play a campaign of this in the Six of Crows setting
That's such a good idea! A couple of my friends are into those books and it'd be a great way to trick them into playing a TTRPG with me!
Only ventured into blades in the dark recently and I love it! Another great video in the series
Holy cow a Vlad Taltos reference! Maybe I’m in the wrong circles but I never hear that series referenced and it’s one of my favorites!
Brust is underrated imo. Those books are such great inspiration for any TTRPG campaign tbh.
@@ThatBronzeGirl I love the concept of different races utilizing different magic and where that power comes from. I’ve put that in several of my games
Outstanding overview. I'll definitely give this one a shot. I've been really wanting to get a nice explanation of this game for a while now.
I love that this system got related back to D&D. And it does sound like a cool system to check out.
The first time I knew about Jasmine Bhullar / ThatBronzeGirl was in the MCU Podcast with Jesse Cox and itmeJP. She is a great co-host!
I love the mention of Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books
Thanks a lot for this recommendation. I love to DM, but with the higher standards I have for myself and players have, I really don't have the time to make great maps or elaborate 10-step plans for my BBEG.
I hope that the more episodic nature of Blades in the dark can help me, just have fun at the table and not having to do ALL the work.
Once again, a win for this series! I have recently been watching Jasmine’s game Shikar, and she is top notch in game-mastering. Thanks again to Matt Colville and MCDM for broadening our horizons!
Great game breakdown Jasmine, thank you. Sly Flourish is just beginning a game of Blades and his Session zero and Game prep videos are well worth a watch if you think Blades might be for you.
One of the best BitD actual play is Stream of Blood's Blood & Blades, a shared universe for three criminals crews. Unfortunetly it is mainly unfinished since the stream merged with the Glass Cannon Network.
Jasmine is such a good Blades player! She is a great way to introduce this game to folks!
I've run this game a lot, both as a one-shot and for longer play. This overview is spot on with the strengths and weaknesses. I'm happy to answer any questions anyone else may have.
Thank you Matt for this series, Thank you Jasmine for talking about this fun game. Steampunk heists sounds right up my alley!
Best crossover ever! Jasmine \ ThatBronzeGirl is my favourite streamer (love MCDM too!!!) and such an inspiration for me as a creator, I highly encourage everyone to check her out!
Agree about the heritage point. From experience, it took multiple short campaigns for me to even start using the maps, faction sheet and heritage connection in any meaningful way. Tip: As part of choosing heritage, my players specify a handicap and a bonus they get due to heritage connection. Tip: I used extra crew sheets to keep track of relevant factions, and included their ethnic and background concentration as a stat that the characters can interact with. Yes, this all raises the racist flag. So, use with consideration and caution. Also, nice hinnah.
Respect to Matthew for giving spotlight to someone who actually knows what they are talking about when it comes to a non-D&D game instead of sharing his own - and he seems to be the first person to agree with me on this one - not particularly well-informed opinion on it.
Literally running my first Blades game today! Its a sign from the gods!
Have fun!!!
@@ThatBronzeGirl thank you! I'm very excited to play it.
This convinced me to buy the game. Most takes I hear about Blades in the Dark is either how great it is or how it too closely follows a formula. The reviewer really gave great advice on how to use the strengths of the game while warning about potential pitfalls to fun. I especially liked how she highlighted how you could use a flashback to deal with failure or making a Devil's Bargain with the DM.
Thanks for giving it a watch!
Good series. Glad you have such great people to show us the world outside DnD Matt. Thanks
Currently using the system to play a historical 1880s English spy drama - to great success!
Glad to see more games covered. Blades is fantastic and very Narrativly satisfying. The dice mechanic has also made its way into many other games. Highly recommend trying the game at least once.
Thanks MCDM for putting this series together! I'm running Ten Candles for the first time later this month, and am already looking forward to running Blades in the Dark after watching this video.
Love BiTD! Was a lot of fun playing a Whisper. On a another note, the Henna on Jasmine's hands is really well done!
Great video! I shared it with my players before our first blades game on Sunday.
Great video, thank you Jasmine! There are couple of clarifications I think are important:
The labour is not on the gamemaster to fill in details abut the world - it is expected that the players do so as well, and they can do so when needed rather than create everything in advance. This is intentional. I get that the broad-strokes world can still be jarring for people who have played in detailed setting like Forgotten Realms.
The preparation and planning phase is not what it seems. It is fast and simple and structured, and players are actually discouraged from planning in the normal sense. Instead, preplanning and setup happens in flashbacks - so things like bribing guards the night before often happens in a flashback. Equipment works the same way - you don't choose it before the heist, but during the heist when it is needed (a kind of mini-flashback). Flashbacks as a way of bypassing over-planning by players is one of the greatest strengths of the system!
Also for those people who are interested in the system but maybe not the Blades in the Dark premise, there are several other spin-off games using the same ruleset. I ran a very successful campaign of the space opera Scum and Villainy, and there is also the tragic military fantasy of Band of Blades, and others including cyberpunk and "magical girls" anime. There are tons of mini-hacks too, including one that lets you play as a pack of dogs!
I can't put my finger on it, but something about Matt seems different to me.
He got a harcut.
New earring
He shaved
Earring
Lovely Video, you were able to cover so much in this I am genuinely surprised the video wasn’t an hour long.
Thank you so much!
“Borrowing, stealing, & cutting your way through”….. I love it!
Jasmine is so intelligently eloquent!
awesome video. I want to play blades NOW!
I picked up a copy of the game based on this intro. Some of the mechanics will fit nicely in other games I run, but I think this might also be fun for conventions... whenever those happen again.
Just started running this as a taster for the peeps in my Discord server. It's going great so far but this really helps as it's my first time playing it!
I’m back to start up the chant! Blades in the Dark! Blades in the Dark! Blades in the Dark! Who’s with me?!
I see bronze and Colville, I hit that like button
I think Blades is a great game for when you want to play a little bit of table top with your friends, but have nothing prepared. It's really easy to bust out and play on a whim if everyone knows the rules and the GM can improv well. I think the game has a lot of weaknesses, but its affection for the spontaneous is really admirable.
It's embracement of the spontaneous is intoxicating, and has since leaked into everything else I've run.
What do you feel its weaknesses are? I think it sets out to do a thing and manages to do exactly that. I can't think of any major weaknesses except some issues I have with the book layout being too scattered, and perhaps being too long in general.
@@sequoia-sugi the book layout for me is a big complaint, but also the voice that the author wrote it in. I think you could maybe cut a third of the page length, if you omitted his personal philosophies and rambles about game design and roleplay. I think as a system, the whole thing could just use a little more depth. Keep the simplicity of say, the money system, but offer more things to actually buy. It's a "something something idk" hand-wavier system than even 5e, and that can lead to some speed bumps when your players ask simple questions like "what can I buy from a shop?"
@@sassytabasco Yeah now that you mention it, aspects of it being shorter and a little more concrete would probably help it a lot. Hopefully we get a revised edition at some point.
Not just the games, but all these new people are fun to see too!
I love this series! Thanks for the video!
Coming back here after picking up a bundle of Blades In The Dark. My goodness, I didn't realize how good we had it with these videos. Thank you.
I love this series. I keep getting introduced to new systems and I love it
Heeey! It's Bronze! love to see her here
Great presentation of this game! Think I'll pick it up finally after this video
This series is perfect 🥰 more please
If nothing else, Blades is a great toolbox for any GM. There are tons of mechanics in blades that can perfectly slot into the many empty spaces that D&D leaves up to the DM to fill.
I wasn't sure if she was joking when she mentioned her Social handle. Great vid!
Appreciate how indepth you are in your breakdown of this game. Have been looking for a D&D alternative and after I run some Forbidden Lands, I'll be running this next!
Y'all keep up the good work 😊
Blades in the Dark is an excellent game and I can't recommend it enough. It's one of the games where I felt like the mechanics really supported the themes of the game.
If you watch The Crows scenes in Shadow and Bone, you get a sense of the flavor in Blades.
I’m so hyped. Please make more of these!
I must say I think longevity depends a lot on style. I play weekly, we are started 10 months ago, and are still going strong. I think Jasmine's approach to the game is very different to my GM's. Ours is a complex and varied game. The characters have their own agendas that they are pursuing at any given time. The crew also has multiple agendas as well that we are pursuing. We also have lot of enemies that are after us as well as a few allies to support. We have a lot of clocks going. Mix all that together and you a ton of material to a very engaging campaign.
Great job presenting this ^^
I could listen to her read a dictionary, Her voice is so soothing. I thought I hated blades in the dark but maybe I was wrong.
I've had this game recommended previously. Really appreciate the rundown so i know more about what it does well.
This helps a LOT! Thanks!
Wicked Ones is a pretty cool game made in the Forged in the Dark sytem, which is what Blades runs on. It lets you play as DnD style monsters in a dungeon that your group builds together, and you play in a sandbox that everyone helps to come up with factions for. Definitely check it out if that kind of thing sounds cool to you :)
It’s great to see Blades get some love. It’s one of my favourite RPGs and definitely worth checking out if you’ve not seen it before. The campaign is incredibly satisfying to go through. Brinkwood and Band of Blades are amazing alternate fantasy games using the same system. Brinkwood is ‘Robin Hood Vs Vampires’ and Band of Blades is ‘Grimdark Fire Emblem’.
I’d watch the hell out of a Blades game, GMed by Jasmine
Fantastic video! Thank you so much for talking about Blades in the Dark - I've always wanted to try it!
Totally jibes with my experience with Blades (positive and negative); great video!
FitD games are great.
Blades is a fun wake up for D&D/Pathfinder players as well. I highly recommend it for anyone trying to branch out
This sounds like a great system for running a heist in ketterdam working for the crows.
Have the game book and have read it. Cool system and it is very straight forward giving some clear examples. I have however not had a chance to play it, but I have added some elements into my D&D campaign.
Love this segment! I recently bought Blades in the Dark and it's outer space counterpart, Scum and Villainy. Since my players always choose to play Chaotic Evil characters anyway, I hope to get them into them, as it would greatly reduce prep time, and I wouldn't despair when they decide to just blow stuff up rather than go through the sneaky way. Anyone have a suggestions for a cyberpunk setting that is like Blades in the Dark?
Excellent review! Literally ran my first Blade game two days ago and it went very well.
None of the players had played before, a few of them also aren’t the type to adapt quickly to new rules but all got the hang of it very quickly.
Doskvol is pretty much the only setting I can recall that I've run directly from the game book and used the details in the boo I don't recall ever seeing a setting that seems so designed around the idea that it exists *for the game* rather than a game trying to suit the setting.
I will say regarding your criticism about the heritage, I haven’t found it an issue with a player who is a Skovlan refugee.
That the history and descriptions of the rest of the world is pretty minimalist works given that Doskvol is very much the setting of the game.
They explicitly mention on the first pages of the book that the design of the setting with the Void Sea, deathlands and lightning barriers the is intended to trap the players in Doskvol so they can't just leave town and lie low to escape the consequences of their actions.
BUT... having a quick reread - you're right that it's a bit weird that heritage is mentioned second when designing a character, takes up most of a page but beyond Doskvol only the Skovlans have anything beyond a few sentences of info in the rest of the book.
It might have worked better to have your heritage instead assume you were from Doskvol and tied it in closer with your background about what social class you’re from and what incentives this gives for CRIME. Along with perhaps the Skolvan refugee in the lower class.
Then perhaps have a sentence to suggest players *could* play from the other parts of the Shattered Isles and have the character ideas tied into the brief descriptions of the other parts of the world at the very end of the book with the world map. I wonder if the rest of the setting was expected to be a bigger thing in an earlier draft.
For those wanting to run it, it's a fantastic book.
Although personally as a GM I do find the “success but at a cost” can sometimes be a tad daunting to work out on the fly. But it really does hammer home the good practice of “only roll for something important where failure matters”.
- This is shared with Dungeon World and other Powered by the Apocalypse which John Harper (the author) mentions in the acknowledgements
Likewise I really like how the game doesn’t make Action rolls easier or more difficult by modifiers to rolls but rather it frames every Action roll by Position (Controlled vs Risky vs Desperate) - how bad it goes if you only roll a fail/partial success.
And Effect (limited, standard, great) - which is how well you will succeed.
Getting used to exactly what consequences are for each position will take a bit of used to but I might start importing this idea into other RPGs I run as well.
Devil’s Bargains are a great mechanic, but again it can be a little daunting to think of the on the fly, sometimes one springs to mind immediately but other times they just don't.
I have seen that someone has made a deck of cards with suggestions on them which might be useful.
Also a very minor gripe, but when you read the rules for the first time, it's a good idea have a pdf/printed character sheet to hand.
A few key numbers like how much stress a character can take before truma kicks in and the XP needed to gain an attribute/playbook advance isn't actually mentioned in the book but are on the character sheet. And there isn't actually a character sheet in the core rules.
Easily resolved but given my copy is a recent PDF and Print on Demand combo that's been errata'ed it's weird it's not been added in.
I think what should happen and I think might be the intent with the "gaps" in heritage and other parts of the book are that players and gm's come up with these details. As you mentioned, it leans more story side of the spectrum and an important part of story games is the players being empowered to have greater influence on the world. Instead of the gm coming up with all the details - the gm should be asking players about filling in some of the details.
Sounds kind of weird to use maps for blades, but if it works it works! How are you using them? My "problem" with maps in games like blades is that a map tends to constraint the things that players bring to the table. It often generates a /if it's not in the map it doesn't exist/ perspective
This is my favorite system right now!
(I think the Space version is not as good, but better at explaining the controlled, risky, and desperate conditions, and an easier setting to lure in players)
I only just started watching this video and I am already super excited!
This series has been awesome, I'm so excited to try out these different systems! 😁
Sounds very familiar to a Dunwall from Dishonored.
Right on the money.
I have this book (and the scifi rpg, Scum & Villainy) but have yet to run it. It gave me a better idea of the system than just my read-thru. A few of the points I had from breezing thru the book were talked about here, so it was good hearing the good/bad/great features touched upon. For myself, I found the setting too 'locked in', and is something I'd prefer to adjust before trying it out. Some of the features though, clocks, flashbacks, starting in mid-scene, are things I really really want to incorporate into other games.
The thought that a partial party wipe or TPK need not end a game because the "crew" continues is very reminiscent of the original campaign style game, where players and characters could come and go and the setting continues.
Personally, I haven't played Blades In The Dark, and not being interested in heists or being the bad guys in that way, I don't think it's my thing. However, I have heard and believe that it helps train a GM in things that many might not being super great at-namely, improvisation.
First time I heard of this game! Sounds pretty neat. Nice signal boost.
Don’t forget, that while the players get to pick the what attributes they want to role, but the GM responds with stakes and effect. So if a player picks totally inappropriate attributes to roll, the GM can make it very dangerous for little or even no effect.
Wild to see TBG here, great addition to the series.
Great presentation, thanks.
More Jasmine!
For those interested, there are a few RPGs out there that take the same core rules for Blades in the Dark, but tweak them in interesting ways for different (less dark settings).
For a more lighthearted game, I highly recommend trying Scum & Villainy, a “Forged in the Dark” game that adapts the BitD rules into a space-opera style game. I’ve run several one-shots for S&V over the past few months and they’ve been phenomenal so far (including for many first time RPG players)! If you’re at all interested in the basic BitD rules, but don’t like the Duskvol setting, give S&Vs Procyon Sector a try!
I've seen there's a Vigilante expansion on BitD, is it playable?
About to run my 3rd session next week and so far it has been amazing. It is so hard to break the habit of calling for a certain skill to be rolled, but working on it.
Great vid. Thanks!
Sounds like a very interesting system. Also makes me think a lot of Penny Dreadful in terms of the city and paranormal dangers.
I'm a simple man. I see Jasmine, I click the video.
Great game, great guest host! 👍