Blades in the Dark (2017)

Overview

Blades in the Dark is a heist-themed tabletop roleplaying game system about a crew of daring misfits  on the streets of an industrial fantasy city. Published by Evil Hat Productions in 2017 and designed by John Harper, it introduced the highly influential
Forged in the Dark https://groupfinder.eu/library/forged-in-the-dark-2017
rules engine. BitD revolutionized the heist genre in tabletop gaming by pushing players straight into the act, eliminating the "planning phase". The system it loosely evolved from is
Apocalypse World
Description In Blades in the Dark, players are part of a criminal organization in Doskvol, a grim Victorian era city. The city is protected by a wall of lightning, to keep any threat on the outside. Players create their characters as either smugglers, thieves, assassins or cultists and explore the criminal underworld, perform dangerous heists, manage gang warfare and grow their criminal organization. The game focuses heavily on narrative momentum and failing forward. Characters are competent but flawed, constantly accumulating stress, trauma, and heat from the law as their gang rises to power. System Overview & Key Features
Action Roll (d6 Dice Pool) The core mechanic uses a pool of six-sided dice(d6) based on a character's action rating. The highest die result will determine the outcome of the action. 6 is considered a full success, 4-5 is a partial success with a consequence, and 1-3 is a failure. Rolling multiple full successes is considered a critical success.
Position and Effect Before every roll, the Game Master explicitly states the character's Position (Controlled, Risky, or Desperate) and Effect (Limited, Standard, or Great). This transparently communicates the exact stakes and potential fallout of the action before the dice hit the table.
Stress and Resistance Characters have a Stress track. Players can spend Stress to give themselves for extra dice when rolling. They can also use it to assist an ally, or fuel their special abilities. Players can also spend Stress when facing any situation or consequence the GM throws at them, this makes the characters very skilled, but forces them to consider when to spend it.
The Flashback Mechanic Instead of spending hours planning a heist, the crew simply chooses a target, picks a detail, and jumps right into the action. Later, they can use Stress, to envoke a flashback moment, where they explain how they had already planned for such a situation, or had "solved" it beforehand.
Progress Clocks The game uses circular progress tracks called Clocks to visually represent approaching danger or the progress of a complex task. A clock might represent the alert level of the city watch, the structural integrity of a safe vault, or the patience of a rival gang leader.
The Crew as a Character The criminal organization the players run has its own character sheet. The organization gains experience, levels up, claims territory, and unlocks special abilities, ensuring that the gang's rise to power is just as mechanically significant as the characters'
Additional links evilhat.com https://evilhat.com - Official Evil Hat Productions website bladesinthedark.com https://bladesinthedark.com - Official System Reference Document and rules database

Active games and players

BitD
Blades in the Dark
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Campaign
GOBLIN TOWN: Build your own town of goblins!
Players
1/5
GM
1/1
Blades in the Dark
en English

GOBLIN TOWN: Build your own town of goblins!

Roleplay focused
Conversation, character and story take up most of the table time.
Newbie friendly
New players are welcome, and nobody expects you to know the rules beforehand.
GOBLIN TOWN: Build and run your own town of goblins! Gather a hoard, cause mayhem, cast dark rituals, discover things deep in the earth, slay heroes, and work towards your master plan! [Story-Focused] [Roleplay-Heavy] [18:00 CET] [17:00 GMT] [12:00 EST] If you're interested, fill out the survey here: https://forms.gle/uKDg8hrzdiNeHm7K6 f you're selected, the next step will be a 15 minute Discord call. # A Court of Goblins: Goblins are deeply flawed creatures, driven by base desires. There are those, however, who are able to keep their baser impulses in check, rally others to their cause, and focus on a grander scheme. You play a group of them that, in understanding there is strength in numbers, have banded together to use your ill-gotten gains build a great goblin town deep in the Feywild. You gather a hoard, cause mayhem, cast dark rituals, and discover long forgotten things deep in the earth, all while working towards accomplishing your master plan. This is a game about goblins using ill-gotten gains to build a town. You build traps and other defenses to keep the hoard you gather out of the hands of the greedy adventurers coming to steal it away. Find out just how long you can survive against the inevitable onslaught of heroism your deeds bring. Find out why goblins need to hoard all that gold, who builds all those traps, and how much fun killing adventurers is. However, you’re not just monsters randomly causing chaos and mayhem. Goblins come and go, but the town outlives them, binds them together, and gives them a purpose. You map it out in detail as it’s built, then breathe life into it through play with events like revelry after a victorious raid, calamity striking as a tunnel collapses on your minions, or facing off against adventurers who dare enter your land. Your town is the main character of this story. # Town Themes Every town is built around a theme, determined by its central building, chosen together as a group before the town is built. The theme gives you a set of buildings that you can build within it. The theme keeps players all on the same page thematically, allowing you to design characters that fit in well with the theme or fill a unique niche, as well as choosing steps in your master plan that go along with the theme. The choice of town theme is a statement about what kind of things the players want to do in the game. You can choose from the following central buildings, which determine your theme: **Enclave:** Tapping Into the Arcane. Choose this if you want your town to be **mystical** from top to bottom. Its core feature is its twisted landscape, corrupting the area surrounding your town. An Enclave lets you build the following: academy, crucible, greenery, library, potion lab, scrying pool, and spawning chamber. **Forge:** The Power of Industry. Choose this if you want a town full of **monstrous inventions** and steampunk tech. Its core feature is its power source, boosting the productivity and defenses of your town. A Forge lets you build the following: alchemist lab, guild hall, factory, mineshaft, testing chamber, vehicle bay, and workshop. **Hideout:** Keeping Your Head Low. Choose this if you want to work as a cohesive unit and **manipulate** the other factions of the region. Its core feature is agents of chaos, allowing you to strongly influence other factions. A Hideout lets you build the following: dojo, gambling den, gear locker, obstacle course, planning room, roost, and tavern. **Stronghold:** Through Strength of Arms. Choose this if you want to face challenges with pure **military might**. Its core feature is warband, giving you a powerful minion that can raid the region. A Stronghold lets you build the following: barracks, bestiary, fighting pit, funeral pyre, smithy, war drums, and war room. **Temple:** Serving a Greater Power. Choose this if you want to focus on a certain **god and their domains**. Its core feature is divine intervention, which you can use to cast a powerful spell from your god. A Temple lets you build the following: altar, antechamber, augury circle, dormitory, reliquary, penance chamber, scriptorium. # The Details **Age:** In general, we're looking for people between 21 and 9000. **Content Warnings:** This campaign contains dark drug use, grim humor, minor horror, strong language, violence, and lawyers. **Day:** We'll be playing on Sundays, though we'll occasionally host optional sessions on other days based on player interest. **Frequency:** We'll usually have 2 sessions per month, though we may have 3 if it's one of those strange months with 5 Sundays. **The GM:** I'm originally from Atlanta, but I move around a lot for work. I like snowboarding, stage acting, novels, and tabletop games. I've been GMing for a few years, but I'm new to playing online. I'm male and gay in real life, though I play all sorts of characters in games. **Length:** We generally average around 4-5 hours per session. **Location:** We'll be playing online using Discord and Owlbear Rodeo. We're new to OR, so if you have experience with that, we'll be asking you a lot of questions. **Start Date:** September 27 or October 4th, 2026  **System:** The game we're playing is called *Wicked Ones*, which is a simple, story-focused system. You don't need to be familiar with this system as we'll be teaching as we play. **Size:** Our plan is to have 5 total players. **Time:** We'll be playing at 18:00 CET / 17:00 GMT / 12:00 EST / Whatever time that is where you live. **What We're Looking For:** This is a roleplay heavy, story focused campaign for players looking to get in character, give their character a unique voice, explore their character's motivations, and give their character an arc. If you're interested, fill out the survey here: https://forms.gle/uKDg8hrzdiNeHm7K6 f you're selected, the next step will be a 15 minute Discord call.

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Savage Worlds
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Marlon
Hello, fellow gamers. My name is Marlon, but everyone calls me Jay-long story there that I won’t get into. Anyways, I’m the forever DM in my family, and I run weekly podcast games for my wife. We’ve designed a tabletop RPG called Prosperon: A Bio‑Cyberpunk RPG, and we’re actively looking for more playtesters. If that interests you, shoot me a message and we’ll make it happen. With that being said, I’m also an active player in several games. I’m currently in a Blades in the Dark campaign every Thursday, which is absolutely amazing, and I have a few open biweekly days where I can commit to another game-as long as it’s the right game, the right crew, and the right day and time. That’s all for now. Take care, and don’t forget-have fun at your table.
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VtM
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Rhiannon Miller
I have been playing TTRPGs since 2009 and have played a great many games over the past 17 years. I am a Transgender Woman, and I tend to enjoy adventure-focused scenarios where the cozy elements are contextual rather than every session being focused on the mundane. I enjoy combat occasionally, but it's not my favorite. By far, I think I enjoy GMing more than playing, but I am happy to join and play the part in your group if you want me.
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DH
Daggerheart
PATH1E
Pathfinder 1
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JamesCORP
Hi, I'm James from the UK. I've been playing and GMing tabletop RPGs for a long time, and I enjoy trying different systems rather than sticking with one game. As you can probably tell from my system list, my tastes are pretty broad! I've played or run everything from Savage Worlds and Dragonbane to Alien, The One Ring, Star Wars, PbtA games, Blades in the Dark and plenty of others. I'm especially interested in Outgunned right now. I enjoy games where the players actually roleplay with each other rather than everything going through the GM. I like character interaction, collaborative storytelling and giving everyone their chance in the spotlight. Combat is great too, especially when it's exciting and has some narrative weight behind it. As a GM, I'm not interested in trying to beat the players. I want to give them situations to interact with, see what they come up with and make their characters look cool while still giving them meaningful challenges. As a player, I bring the same attitude: work with the group, support other people's moments, and help move things forward. I'm UK-based and mainly play online using Foundry VTT and Discord. My availability varies depending on the game, but I'm generally looking for UK/European evening times. I'm also happy playing with people who are completely new to a system. I don't expect everyone to know every rule before we start, especially considering half the fun for me is discovering games I haven't played before.
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RogueTrader
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Lodi
AJ
Name: AJ Age: 32 Prounouns: She/Her/Hers Transgender lesbian, recently relocated from San Francisco to the Central Valley. 10+ years of RPG experience, Forever GM. Looking to take a break from running game to acutally play, and preferrably something that's not 5th Ed (it's not off the table, just not my first choice). Like my games with a fairly even balance between RP and combat, canted more toward RP, push-come-to-shove. Most interested right now in "New" World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness 1st Ed (Promethean: The Created is a personal favorite), but open to most anything if the campaign premise sounds good. Have a car, willing to travel up to 40 miles if necessary. Zero tolerance for tranphobia, homophobia, racism, ableism, or any other form of bigotry.
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Dungeons & Dragons 5.5E (2024)
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Hannover
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Frau_Elster
Hi there! I'm Frau Elster, 34, located in Hanover, Germany.  I have been playing TTRPGs for roughly a year now. It became quite a hyperfixation and thanks to a local open club I've gotten the chance to test some systems and get an idea of what I enjoy in this game. At the moment I really enjoy Daggerheart but I am open to other systems. Ideally, of course, the group vibes and gets along. That's a wish of mine but of course can't be forced. I tend to enjoy smaller groups up to 4, sometimes 5, on a bi-weekly schedule in the evening. I love creating complex characters with a few defining moments already having happened to them to help flesh them out. It didn't happen yet but I'd love to experience what it's like to have a ongoing campaign that weaves in the characters' backgrounds. Usually I have a concept in mind before I create a character and then read through _a lot_ of materials and sources to find the build and world-related backgrounds that fit. For example: My last character (for dagger heart) was a werewolf ranger who became a guerrila fighter because she feels like a advocat on agency and freedom of choice. For DnD, I am in the midst of creating a tabaxi stardruid whose base idea was that she looks like a black jaguar and has the constellations map right there in the spots of her fur. Or I knew I wanted a gnome raised by ice giants who draws her magic from the aurora and can hit really hard and now I have several tabs open haha I enjoy good atmospheric horror and am actually thinking about hosting The Magnus Archive TTRPG. But that's a project for the future.  Coming from a theatre background I love roleplay and the chaotic rule of cool being applied more than dungeon crawling, rule crunching and min/max-ing. Social encounters and exploration are big to me. Do you know that one friend who needs to check every question mark in a video game? Yeah that's me (and is also a reason why I love Breath of the Wild. Exploring was very much rewarded in this game.) As a GM I love putting in puzzles but that is always a hit or miss with me as a player.  In general I would say I am a bit of a chaotic player who enjoys discussing concepts, impulsive decision making and creative brainstorming with the others. It would be important to me that the players share the spotlight and know how to communicate constructively and mindfully.
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