Contents

Intro 1 Payoff............................................. 33
Why Forged in the Dark? .....................2 Heat and Entanglements .................. 35
How to Use This Thing ........................2 Downtime Actions ........................... 38
How Deep Does Your Hack Go? ............3 The Faction Game ............................ 44
If It Doesn’t Belong, Take It Out ...........3 Advancement .................................. 45
Setting 4 Turf and Claims ............................... 49
Characters & Crew 4 Rep and Tier .................................... 49
Zero to Hero ......................................4 Crafting and Acquiring Assets ........... 50
Playbooks .........................................5 Rituals.............................................51
Character Details ...............................5 Non-Player Characters ..................... 52
Contacts ...........................................6 Resolution Systems 54
Actions and Attributes ........................7 Rolling the Dice ............................... 54
Special Abilities ................................11 Action Roll ...................................... 56
Advanced Abilities ............................17 Position and Effect ........................... 65
Equipment and Load .........................17 Consequences ................................. 68
Other Playbook Things...................... 19 Resistance ...................................... 74
The Crew ........................................ 21 Armor ............................................ 78
Cycle of Play 23 Fortune Roll ....................................80
Game Phases ................................... 23 Progress Clocks ...............................80
Free Play ......................................... 24 Gathering Information ..................... 81
The Score ........................................ 24 Teamwork....................................... 82
Engagement Roll ............................. 25 PC vs. PC ........................................ 86
Flashbacks ...................................... 26 It’s Your Game 87
Stress ............................................. 27 Resources 87
Trauma .......................................... 28 Games and Supplements................... 87
Coin ............................................... 30 Other Resources .............................. 88
Stash .............................................. 32 Credits 88
Downtime ...................................... 32

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 Intro
Forged in the Dark (FitD) is a rules engine for making tabletop roleplaying
games. It was introduced in Blades in the Dark by John Harper in 2017 and
has since been used as the basis for many other games.
If you are not already familiar with FitD games, this guide will not make
much sense to you. You can find the system reference document (SRD)
for FitD (and other resources) at bladesinthedark.com. There are links to
other FitD games (some free) on page 87.
In this guide, I’ll discuss various options for modifying the FitD engine to fit
different settings, play styles, and preferences. I can’t and won’t attempt to
cover every possible way to hack FitD, but I will try to take you through all
the pieces the system, talk about what they are for, give some examples of
possible hacks, and give some guidance on when and how you might change
each of them to suit your own purposes.

Deep Cuts
Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts is a supplement to the standard Blades in the
Dark ruleset by John Harper, author the original game. Aside from
expanding upon setting information, Deep Cuts (DC) also presents a set of
optional rules modules which can be incorporated into Blades in the Dark.
DC is under copyright, so in a commercial product you can use these rules if
you rewrite them, but you can’t use directly quoted text without permission.
This version of Thoughts on Forging in the Dark includes discussion of the 1.1
(March 2025) version of the Deep Cuts alternate rules in boxed text like this.
If you are not interested in that supplement, you can comfortably ignore the
boxed commentary.
N.B.: It is entirely coincidental that the cover designs of Thoughts on Forging
in the Dark and Deep Cuts are thematically similar (the first edition of this
document was published years before DC).

1
Why Forged in the Dark?
FitD supports a fiction-first, narrative-driven play style with strong player
agency. With deep and elegant mechanics, the system drives a continuous
interactive conversation among all the players. The multiple levels of success
and consequential failure built into the dice mechanics create dramatic
situations almost automatically, allowing low-prep play.

Be Aware
There are lots of RPG game engines that are designed to be generic and
easily adapted to many different kinds of settings and styles of play: Fate,
GURPS, Savage Worlds, Cypher System, Genesys, and many others.
Forged in the Dark is not one of those.
The FitD System Reference Document ruleset is optimized for the specific
setting and style of play of the original Blades in the Dark game. Which is
to say:
1. A gang of scoundrels who have banded together to commit crimes;
2. In a corrupt, ghost-ridden, early industrial city.
If you’re going to hack FitD, you’ll find that the more your game deviates
from the assumptions the system makes, the more you’ll need to change
things. Be realistic about the scope of whatever project you have in mind. If
your game is radically different from the original setting, you’ll be doing
some significant system hacking if you really want to get the flavor right.

How to Use This Thing

This is a fairly long and comprehensive document (longer than I realized it
would be when I started—and it’s gotten longer with each update). If you are
all in on designing FitD games, then go ahead and read the whole thing.
But you can also use it as a reference. If there is a part of the FitD system you
are thinking about or unsatisfied with, find that section and see if it’s helpful
to you. Each piece of this guide is written to be mostly independent of the
rest, so you can just check out the bits you’re interested in.

2
How Deep Does Your Hack Go?
You can approach a hack of FitD at various levels, from changing a playbook
to designing a new game only distantly related to the base system. I’ll
organize hacking FitD (somewhat arbitrarily) into several layers.

Layers of Forged in the Dark Hacking

Setting Doskvol, ghost field, history, NPCs, factions, maps, lore
Characters Actions and attributes, playbooks, special abilities, contacts,
and crew crew sheets
Claims, cohorts, coin, crafting, downtime, entanglements,
Cycle of
faction game, free play, heat, retirement, rituals, score,
play
stash, trauma, vice
Dice system, stress, resistance, clocks, position & effect,
Resolution
consequences, harm, fortune rolls, progress clocks,
mechanics
gathering information, armor, stress, resistance
I’ll try to give you some guidance on various levels of hacking, from minor
adjustments to rethinking the core systems of the game.
The Deep Cuts alternate rules are structured into separate modules (harm,
trauma, load, advancement, downtime, action) that can be used separately
or all together. You can decide which pieces of Deep Cuts (if any) to introduce
into Blades in the Dark or any other Forged in the Dark game.

If It Doesn’t Belong, Take It Out

A common mistake for someone first messing with FitD (including me) is
thinking that all the pieces of the game need to be shoehorned into yours.
They really don’t.
If there are subsystems that do not reflect what your game is about, don’t
spend energy trying to re-skin them into something that sort of fits. Just
remove all the bits that do not belong. Your game will be better without left-
over, ill-fitting complexity. Then create any new systems you need for
your game. As I go through the different parts of FitD, I’ll comment on which
are likely to belong in most games, which are most readily removed, and
what kinds of interdependencies you might need to take into account as you
make changes.

3
 Setting
Here are some things you might do with setting.
◆ Play a published FitD game, but with some house-rule adjustments to fit
your preferences. You can take ideas from this document or from other
FitD hacks.
◆ Expand the setting of Blades in the Dark or some other FitD game. You
might make a new playbook, crew sheet, etc. There plenty of resources
available. I won’t be commenting on them.
Note that the setting of Blades in the Dark is proprietary and not part of
the free-for-use SRD. Don’t use it commercially without permission.
◆ Adapt a FitD game to a different setting. Maybe you want to play Blades
in the Dark, but using a city in a different world with different kinds of
magic (or without any kind of magic). You can make just a few changes
here and there to accomplish this.

Characters & Crew

Zero to Hero
How do you want progression to work in your game? In standard FitD,
characters start fairly competent (7 dots distributed among 12 actions, a max
of 2 dots in any action, one special ability). Over the course of a campaign,
they can become very powerful as they get 3 and 4 dots in their strongest
actions, 2–4 dice on most resistance rolls, several special abilities, and coin
to spend on healing and extra downtime actions as needed. End state
characters can be quite powerful and able to challenge most opposition the
GM can throw at them?
In thinking about your game, consider whether the FitD model (moderately
capable starting characters, steady progression to being able to handle most
challenges) fits your game. How competent should starting characters be?
Do you expect each player to have multiple characters? How many sessions
of play do you think a typical campaign to run? How do characters begin and
progress over that span? How hard should it be to challenge veteran PCs?

4
Playbooks
An obvious place to start when hacking FitD is to create new playbooks. You
can download the standard Blades in the Dark playbooks for free from
bladesinthedark.com to use as an example of what FitD playbooks contain
and how they can be organized.

Are Playbooks Required?

Nope. You could design a game in which characters are differentiated from
each other in other ways than playbooks or “character classes.” There would,
in effect, be only one playbook. This could work if you want your game to
have characters with similar backgrounds and starting roles, for example, or
contrariwise if you want to provide so many customization options that
playbooks are too limiting.

Character Details
Standard FitD uses Heritage and Background as quick ways to establish the
character’s origin and culture. You can modify or rename these to fit your
setting. They act as xp triggers, so players are motivated to incorporate them
in large or small ways.
If you wish, you can provide other mechanisms for the player to flesh out the
character. Be aware that too much extra stuff can feel like a burden for
players who don’t have a clear sense of character at creation or just want to
play without having to do homework. But here are some options:
◆ Replace (or add to) heritage and background. Use other structured
character details, such as drive, beliefs, dread, destiny, occupation
(either what the character does for a living now or did before being
thrust into the plot of the game), family connections, etc.
◆ Deep Cuts includes an expanded list of heritages and backgrounds for
Blades in the Dark, each of which has three suggestion actions that would
be appropriate.
◆ Each PC could start the game with one trauma condition already
marked. This would create some level of pathos at game start. If so, you
might set retirement at 5 trauma instead of 4. See the discussion of
trauma on page 28.

5
◆ Create a system for bonds with other PCs. These can be used as xp
triggers or given additional mechanical weight. For example, maybe you
can only assist a PC you share a bond with (or get free assists if you do
share a bond). PCs might have a specific number of bonds or do some
action to establish or maintain them. Instead of restoring stress by
indulging vice as in the standard game, you could create a mechanism
whereby PCs recover stress by roleplaying a scene with another PC with
whom they share a bond.
◆ Add a structured system for generating character history or life path.
You could ask the player to come up with two or three significant events
from the character’s life, or roll for them on a random table. For example,
you could generate one critical event from the character’s childhood or
adolescence and one more recent event that drove the PC to join the
crew. Each event could potentially involve one or more other PCs if you
want the group to have a history together.

Contacts
The contact list on a playbook provides both the player and the GM with
hooks to NPCs that are specific to that sheet. Standard FitD gives five con-
tacts to each playbook, with a name and a few words of description. That
adapts well to many kinds of settings where the PCs are likely to have access
to people they already know. If appropriate, you could divide those into
categories (such as family and non-family or professional and personal) or
let the player define one or more contacts.
The assumption is that these contacts will be available to come frequently
into play. That fits the standard FitD setting, in which the PCs are likely to
engage with the underworld and other social strata of a single city over the
course of a short or long campaign. If you expect the PCs to travel far and
wide, contacts can be left behind and become less relevant. Consider
whether the format of contacts fits your game, or if you want to integrate the
PCs with specific NPCs in some other way. For example, PCs could have
relationships with identified factions rather than with individual persons,
or they could have other kinds of game world connections.

6
Contact Overlap
If two players use the same playbook, they will get the same contacts. That
might work fine in a game where the PCs run in the same social circles. You
could also provide alternate contacts for each playbook, just in case.
◆ In Vergence, family and faction connections are crucial to the setting. I
wanted to provide players with more engagement and control than just
presenting standard contacts with each playbook. Instead, players pick
NPC contacts from several lists that depend on the character’s family
background.

Actions and Attributes

Anything challenging that a PC might do is structured into a list of actions.
By default, the action list consists of 12 verbs: Attune, Command, Consort,
and so on. Actions are evenly grouped among three attributes: Insight,
Prowess, and Resolve.
You can mess with this structure in all sorts of ways.

Change the Action Words

You can change any or all of the words used to describe actions. Maybe attune
doesn’t really have the feel of how magic works in your setting, so you change
it to cast, channel, or invoke. You can change one or two of the words, or all
of them.
Your action list should evoke the genre of your game and expectations for
what the PCs will be doing. If the game is supposed to be about daring
expeditions into unknown space, choose words like scan and pilot. If it’s
about swords and sorcery, choose words like cleave and enthrall. (A good
thesaurus is invaluable for this. I like wordhippo.com.)
It’s probably a good idea for all of your actions to be the same class of word.
The standard game uses verbs (hunt), but you could change them all to
adjectives (quickly) or adverbs (swift) instead.
You should give a description of what kinds of activities fall most clearly
under each word. FitD also gives examples of activities that kind of fit, but
not that well (another action might be better, depending on the

7
circumstances). That establishes what that action rating does uniquely and
also areas where it might overlap with other actions.
◆ Band of Blades gives one unique action rating to each playbook. That
action is available only to characters with that specialization. Each dot in
one of these ratings lets the PC perform a particular action once
per mission.
◆ Actions could differ in meaning from one character to another. For
example, in a game about a galactic civilization, you could have a species
action rating. The higher that rating, the better that PC is at doing things
specific to their particular species. You could do the same thing with any
other important differentiator. Players could choose from a predefined
list or make up their own.

Attributes
Attributes (Insight, Prowess, Resolve) in FitD are used for resistance rolls.
The lowest attribute is also used to see how much stress is restored when
indulging a character’s vice.
The way attributes work encourages breadth of choice in actions. Having one
dot in many actions across each attribute makes resistance and vice rolls
more effective—easing the economy of taking and restoring stress. If you
change those systems, consider whether you want to find other ways to pro-
vide incentives for action rating breadth.
Just as with actions, you can change the names for attributes to better fit
your game. Brother Bear, Sister Wolf uses Mind, Body, and Soul; Wicked Ones
uses Brains, Muscles and Guts; and Blades Against Darkness uses Thews,
Wits, and Charm.
You could also change the number of attributes. Bladebreaker uses four, for
example. Each has two associated actions.

Number of Actions
Instead of twelve, you can use a different number of actions. You can
decrease below 12 if you think that number is a lot to keep track of. Every
time a player makes an action roll, a short discussion can ensue about which
actions might fit what the player describes doing. Fewer actions mean less
complexity in remembering which options are available.
8
 Assuming you use the regular FitD system of determining resistance
using three attributes, a different number of action ratings also changes
the cap on attribute ratings and how many dice can be rolled to resist a
consequence. If there are 9 actions and 3 attributes, then each attribute
can only go as high as 3 instead of 4.
If you reduce the number of actions, each one will have to carry more weight,
since they establish what PCs do in your game. Make sure that your list is
broad enough to cover the things likely to happen in the game. You don’t
want to have players describe what they are doing and not be able to figure
out which action could reasonably apply. You also don’t want two actions to
overlap so much that the distinction between them isn’t very meaningful
in play.
◆ After many hours of testing Vergence, I realized that no one ever really
used the Engineer action. So I changed it to Craft and adjusted the
definition and related special abilities to fit how play actually works
instead of how I originally envisioned it.Subsequent playtesting showed
that players make use of Craft much more often.
You could also have more than 12 actions. If so, the action list becomes more
of a skill list. You could change the names or structure to fit a skill system
instead of an action system.
If you do change the number of actions, consider how many dots a character
gets at game start. The default for FitD is three pre-chosen dots for the
playbook, plus four that the player assigns. If you change the number of
actions without changing how many dots they get, then the PCs begin with
somewhat broader or narrower capabilities.

9
 The Attune problem: If you make a game using the 12 actions in FitD, 11
of them fit many kinds of settings without modification, but Attune is
used to connect to the ghost field of Blades in the Dark. A game with
magic can reskin Attune, perhaps changing the name and definition to
another kind of arcane action. If you don’t have magic, you’re stuck with
needing to find an action to fit into the empty slot under Resolve
alongside to Command, Consort, and Sway. That can be kind of hard if
there is no obvious extra action that fits the theme of your game. If you
can’t, and you need an even number of actions to split among three
attributes, you could consider cutting the total number of actions to,
say, nine.

Max Action Rating

By default, action ratings can start as high as 2 and can eventually go up as
high as 4 (after an expensive crew upgrade). When making a roll, a player can
push or take a Devil’s Bargain for +1d, get assistance for another +1d, and
might sometimes get +1d from a special ability. So when the character gets
up to a base rating of 4, you’re looking at 6 or possibly 7 dice being rolled on
actions the players are willing to invest in.
With six dice, the chance of a critical is 26%, success 40%, partial 32%, and
failure only 2%. It is challenging (not impossible) for the GM to establish
meaningful opposition when players are rolling that many dice, because the
standard rules never take dice away (other than for harm) no matter how
difficult the situation.
For that reason, you should consider how capable of success you want PCs to
be at game start and how high you want that to go with advancement, along
with how many bonus dice are potentially available. In Scum and Villainy, for
example, the highest an action rating can be is 3 (but the players have an
extra source of bonus dice via gambits).

Other Ways For Ratings to Work

The system used in standard FitD is not the only way to generate a numerical
rating for action roll dice pools. Assuming you use the standard dice
mechanic, it’s probably reasonable to aim for typical dice pool numbers that
range between 0 and 3 or 4.

10
There are many inventive ways to come up with that, including:
◆ In Blades Against Darkness, the players have two points to distribute
among three attributes. Each point gives one die for any of the actions
encompassed by that attribute. The player can also underline three
actions. An underlined action gets +1d.
◆ In Moth-Light, you can mark a number of ratings. The total number of
marked ratings under an attribute is the dice pool for any rating that is
marked under that attribute.
◆ In Brother Bear, Sister Wolf, you mark two attributes. Each action within
a marked attribute gets 1d. You also mark three actions. A marked action
gets an additional die.
◆ In Microblades, you assign three points among four attributes and then
mark two actions. You use the attribute as the dice pool for any action
under that attribute. Instead of adding to the dice pool, marked actions
have 2 effect while unmarked actions have 1 effect.
◆ You could establish two different scales, each running 0 to 2. One scale
could be a list of skills while the other could represent other resources
like luck, magical power, physical and mental talents, or other
characteristics. When it’s time to perform an action, choose one from
the first scale and one from the other and add the two together to form
the dice pool.
◆ The PC could have descriptive tags that represent abilities, resources,
items, allies, etc. On each action roll, the player gets one die for each
applicable tag. You might need to set a limit on how many tags can apply
on any single roll, with special abilities or advances perhaps increasing
that maximum in certain circumstances.

Special Abilities
Special abilities customize each PC by providing cool and useful capabilities
or tricks—they are essentially individual exceptions to the normal
constraints of play. Each playbook in standard FitD has seven abilities listed
(except, weirdly, the Cutter, which gets eight).
In your game, how many special abilities should a PC have at game start? Just
the one as in standard FitD? If the game concept involves more capable PCs,

11
give them more abilities at start. If the PCs are absolute beginners, they
might start with no special abilities.
◆ In Scum and Villainy, each playbook has a signature ability that the
character has by default. The player chooses one additional ability at
game start.
◆ In Vergence, the PCs have broad cosmic powers. They start with one
default playbook ability that allows them to travel the multiverse and
three other abilities chosen by the player.
Deep Cuts includes a modified set of special abilities for Blades in the Dark,
since the standard abilities refer to rules that have changed. You’ll need to
adjust the abilities in your game to the rules you are using. If you adopt the
DC rules, you won’t be able to copy abilities straight from the SRD without
checking to see if they still fit. DC is copyrighted, so you cannot directly copy
the text of the DC abilities in a commercial product.

Veteran Abilities
Each playbook has space for “veteran abilities.” It’s not well explained in the
text, but the intent (based on statements made by the designer) is that the
player can take any special ability from any other standard playbook. Don’t
be confused by the three dots in that category on the playbook: special
abilities don’t cost more than regular abilities and you are allowed to take
more than three.
The rules say you should take your first ability (at creation) from your
playbook. After that, you can take any ability from any standard playbook.
The ones on the character sheet are just suggestions. Over the course of
advancement, you can take as many veteran abilities as you want.
However, even if a GM makes sure to point that out to players during
advancement, many players will focus mainly on the abilities that are right
there on the sheet. In choosing which abilities go on the playbook, create
ones that fit the theme of that character type. At the same time, think about
how characters with other playbooks might use each ability on any of them.
Sometimes, an ability is a weird fit for other character types. For example, an
ability might assume availability of special items from a playbook (e.g., the
Leech’s alchemical abilities in Blades in the Dark). If the character doesn’t

12
have those items, a special ability may not make sense. Consider this when
designing abilities and add any necessary special rules, such as marking
some as not available to other playbooks or requiring fictional justification.
Blades in the Dark also has some supernatural playbooks (Ghost, Hull, Vam-
pire). It doesn’t say you can’t take veteran abilities from those playbooks, but
if players do, it can produce some strange outcomes because those playbooks
are created with different rules and assumptions. If you have extra
playbooks, specify whether players can take abilities from them.

Messing With Special Abilities

It’s fine to take the standard abilities and distribute them among re-skinned
playbooks. Maybe you want to do a more traditional fantasy game, so you
make a Fighter playbook and start with most of the Cutter abilities (except,
perhaps, the one for dealing with ghosts).
As you continue to refine character types, you’ll probably find yourself
making completely new abilities. In doing that, don’t worry too much about
“game balance” in the formal sense. What you want is for every player to be
able to do uniquely awesome things fairly often, but not dominate the game
to the detriment of other players’ fun. From a design perspective, it’s great if
there are so many good choices that there is never any one best ability to
take. That’s as close to balance as you need.
Since PCs can take abilities from other playbooks, you’ll figure out in
playtesting if you’ve made an ability too good to not pick or so peripheral
that almost no one would ever want it.
Special abilities interact with the rules and the fiction in four basic ways:
◆ Abilities that give a fictional benefit with a fictional trigger (“you always
know when someone is lying to you”). These have no mechanical effect in
the game rules, they just require that the GM treat the character
differently from others in specific circumstances.
◆ Abilities that give a fictional benefit with a mechanical trigger (“when
you spend 2 stress to push yourself you learn a secret an NPC wants to
keep hidden”). This provides a benefit in the fiction, but triggered
mechanically.

13
 ◆ Abilities that give a mechanical benefit with a fictional trigger (“you get
+1d when you are aiding an ally”). The player must establish a fictional
basis to receive a mechanical benefit.
◆ Abilities that give a mechanical benefit with a mechanical trigger (“you
can take +1d on a desperate action if you also accept -1d to your
resistance roll”). These abilities stay fully within the mechanics of
the rules.
All of these fit the structure of a special ability; none of them are correct or
incorrect. You may want to have a mix of all of these available, perhaps on
each playbook, to support different ways of interacting with the game.
Here are the kinds of things the standard set of special abilities allows:
◆ Give narrative permission to do something that might otherwise be
difficult or impossible.
◆ Give a bonus (+1d, +1 effect, potency) when performing a specific kind of
activity (a subset of an action’s usage).
◆ Increase load limits.
◆ Allow the player to choose a benefit in exchange for a penalty (such as +1d
on desperate rolls while accepting -1d to resistance rolls).
◆ Allow the player to mark the special armor box to resist a certain kind of
consequence, get a free push for a specific purpose, or other single-
use benefit.
◆ Allow the player to do something extra when pushing. Note that the
character also gets the regular benefit of pushing at the same time. Many
standard special abilities give a couple of different possible benefits
when pushing, such as making an attack at long range without penalty
-or- unleashing a barrage of suppressing fire.
In Deep Cuts, if a special ability requires a push for activation, the push only
activates the SA, nothing else.
◆ Reduce how much harm is taken in specific circumstances.
◆ Reduce penalties from harm by one level.
◆ Permanently fill one segment of the character’s healing clock.
◆ Give the character an extra downtime action that can be used for a spe-
cific purpose.

14
 ◆ Give the character a bonus to a certain type of downtime activity.
◆ Give the character an extra xp trigger.
◆ Give the character enhanced access to crafting, alchemy, rituals, or other
system that can be used to create new capabilities.
◆ Improve 1–3 results to 4/5 in specific circumstances (making partial
success the worst possible result).
◆ Gain +1 stress box.
◆ Get extra ticks on a clock for certain activities.
◆ Improve the capabilities of cohorts when instructing or acting
alongside them.
◆ For playbooks that have a companion in their equipment list (such as the
Hound’s hunting pet), a special ability can give the companion an extra
ability, such as a psychic connection to the character. The ability
description can offer several different choices, of which the player picks
one. The ability can be chosen again to add another option.
◆ Reduce the cost of flashbacks for specific purposes (never less than zero)
or give bonuses to actions performed during flashbacks.
◆ Mitigate the cost of leading a group action (e.g., a group action using a
specified action rating can’t cost you more than 1 stress).
◆ Give a bonus to your roll when leading a group action.
Some special abilities do one powerful thing (you always know when some-
one is lying) and others provide more than one benefit (+1 effect when
scouting a target -and- +1d to avoid detection when concealed in shadows).

Creating Special Abilities

When making a playbook in FitD format, much of your time is likely to
involve creating a coherent set of special abilities. You’ll want a range of
abilities that fit the theme of the playbook and help the player embody what
that kind of character can do. They should be engaging and likely to get a
player excited to try them out.
You’ll also want to avoid the easy mistake of having the same or similar
abilities on two different playbooks—that’s pointless, since PCs can take
veteran abilities from other sheets. Remember that in default FitD, you’re
really designing one big list of abilities that all the players have access to.

15
You could choose to impose some kind of pattern to every playbook’s special
abilities. In standard FitD, the first listed ability on each playbook is
presented as a good default starting ability if the player isn’t sure which to
choose. You might make sure that every playbook has one ability that is
useful for downtime actions. At least one could give narrative permission to
do interesting things rather than manipulating game mechanics. One could
provide a special armor box that can be checked for a free to resist under
specified circumstances (or used for some other purpose, if you wish).
◆ In Blades in the Dark, every playbook has an ability that interacts with
ghosts. If your game needs it, you could have other patterns that occur
in every playbook’s list of abilities.

Changing the Special Ability Format

The special abilities in your game do not have to follow the structure of those
in the standard game. The FitD abilities tend to give one specific advantage.
That makes sense in a heist game in which every unusual capability is
significant. It also fits many other kinds of RPG genres.
But your game might require characters with a broader set of abilities. If the
genre is any variant on super-powered or much larger than life characters,
the standard ability format may not reflect that. You can design special
abilities in many other ways, including:
◆ Use the same basic format for special abilities as FitD, but expand to
allow some abilities to do other things. You could create a special ability
that provides a personal vehicle or magical familiar, for example. You
could specify what that asset can do, perhaps allowing the player to
chose some number of customized advantages from a list.
◆ Make each special ability a thematically-related combination of
advantages rather than just one. This will tend to make characters more
broadly capable. Since their abilities can do more, players will use them
more than in the standard game (but will also need to keep track).
◆ Give a list of sub-powers within a special ability and let the player pick
one, two, or three of them.

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 ◆ Define special abilities more in the form of broad permissions. “Super
strength” could just define the character as being vastly stronger than a
regular person and let the effects of that be defined by what seems
reasonable to the group during play (and, of course, affect position
and effect).
◆ Devise a more crunchy system of building abilities from constituent
pieces. Many other games have gone this route, but it adds a lot
of complexity.
◆ Have special abilities structured in levels. The more dots you put into an
ability, the more it can do.
◆ Set up special ability advancement in a tree structure, with those lower
down being prerequisites for more powerful abilities higher up in
the tree.
◆ If you don’t need advancement to be such a big part of your game, you
can have PCs start with some number of character-defining special
abilities, but then have a set of smaller perks that they can gain during
play. That would fit a genre (such as 19th and early 20th century
adventure fiction) in which characters start out very capable but don’t
really change significantly from one story to the next.

Advanced Abilities
Blades in the Dark includes several sets of additional abilities that are not
available at game start. The requirements to obtain access are not defined in
the rules, but are established fictionally during play. These include a set of
special martial arts techniques (Iruvian sword arts), commitment to ancient
and terrible gods, and binding to a pact with a demon.
You could include similar kinds of advancement paths appropriate to
your setting.

Equipment and Load

Each playbook in standard FitD has a list of regular items everyone can have
and another list of items specific to that playbook. Special equipment is one
of the ways to make each playbook unique and interesting. The character
doesn’t need to put in any extra effort to get access to an item on their list,

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unlike others who might be able to get it via a long term project or other
action to justify having something unusual.
In the standard system, each playbook gets six special items. Generally, they
are a mix of things with a mechanical effect (a fine weapon) and those that
give narrative permission (blueprints). Some take up no equipment slots
and can be declared for “free,” while others use one or more slots and are
declared just like any other item in the inventory.

Items
“Items” are ways to manipulate the fiction to gain advantage. They do not
necessarily have to represent physical objects. A playbook item could give the
character an extra skill or capability, such as “fine martial arts technique.”
While special abilities are available as “veteran” choices to all other character
types, items are specific to a playbook and not readily available for others to
pick from (without some kind of special action in the fiction, such as a long-
term project).

What Load Represents

Load can represent things other than just carrying stuff—it can essentially
function as a limiter on uses per score, just like the special armor box (but
more than one, and more flexible). A wizard character might check off load
slots when using magical spells (which, interestingly, would naturally tend
to support the traditional RPG trope of magic users not tending to wear
armor or carry a lot of stuff), a hacker could check a load box for use of intru-
sion software, and so on.
If you want to be more detailed with load, you could incorporate a system in
which players declare which items they have ready to hand and which are
stored away and would take longer to get to in an emergency.

Load Levels
In standard FitD, load levels run 3 light, 5 normal, 6 heavy, apparently (?) to
correspond with the die roll progression of 1–3. 4/5, 6—even though the
rules never call for a die roll directly related to load. That means the differ-
ence between normal and heavy is only one slot, which seems like not much
benefit for being narratively much more encumbered and conspicuous.

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Change this to a different progression if you like, such as 3/5/8 (as Scum and
Villainy does in the rules text, although the S&V character sheets confusingly
don’t reflect this).
Deep Cuts has just two levels of load: Conspicuous (6 slots) and Discreet
(4 slots -and- you must declare at the start of the score heavy items that take
up more than one slot). It also addresses picking things up during a score.
I like this change a lot. Most GMs do not seem to consider the encumbrance
factor of load when setting up action rolls, so the simpler differentiation
between conspicuous and discreet is likely to be more meaningful in
actual play.
You can also get rid of the equipment and load system entirely if it’s not
important to your game. You could have a list of things the PCs would be
expected to have and allow flashbacks to establish possession of special or
unusual equipment.
◆ In Vergence, there is no formal system for items or load. There are no item
lists. The game isn’t really about resource management or wealth, so
players can declare any equipment they could reasonably be carrying.
They can carry any fictionally appropriate amount of stuff. If a character
got loaded down, the GM could reflect that via position, effect, etc., but
there is no system for it.

Other Playbook Things

Any number of other items could be added to playbooks to fit the setting and
tone of your game. Do you need to track the progression of a character’s
Doom, Social Credit, or Corruption? Add whatever trackers you need to the
sheet and develop systems for making them meaningful. Structure your
playbooks to represent the things that are important in your game.

Gather Information Questions

Although not in the actual rulebook, each printable Blades in the Dark
playbook has a unique list of Gather Information questions. These are not
the only questions a character of that type is allowed to ask, but suggestions
that appear intended to focus the player on their character type’s role.

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 I myself don’t find these especially useful. As far as I can tell, most
groups don’t seem to use them much (although maybe your group does).
I would speculate (without evidence) that they might a holdover from
earlier drafts of Blades in the Dark, which evolved away from its original
roots as a Powered by the Apocalypse game with moves that allow specific
questions to be asked. The playbook questions seem to fit that kind of
game, but there is no mechanical support for them in the existing
FitD engine.
If you like these kinds of Gather Information prompts, you can include them
on playbook forms.
It would be possible to give them more structure in the rules, such as a
special ability that gives +1d or +1 effect level when gathering information
while asking a question from the list on their sheet (interestingly, if you put
that ability on just one playbook, other character types taking it as a veteran
ability would be limited to the questions on their own playsheets, so it would
automatically customize itself to whoever takes it).
The official Deep Cuts playbooks do not have gather information questions.

Ancestries
In some games, players will choose an ancestry (species, kin, race, kind,
nationality, culture, etc.). That could be mainly a detail with no mechanical
effect in the game rules (or perhaps an xp trigger). You could also give some
kind of ability to each PC species.
◆ In Scum and Villainy, any PC can choose the “xeno” special ability (instead
of a playbook ability) when created, making that character non-human.
This ability is described narratively for each character. Then, whenever
the player wants to use it, the GM assesses a cost in stress from 0–2,
depending on how much it allows the character to do more than
“normal.” This xeno method from S&V could work in almost any game
with divergent species or types. If, for example, the characters are
different kinds of intelligent animal, a Bear’s special ability could let her
be strong and fierce, a Mouse could fit through tiny spaces and be
elusive, etc. The GM would assess a stress cost when those abilities have
a significant effect on the game.

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◆ In Band of Blades, each character is from one of four heritages. Each
heritage has a list of traits which give minor advantages that also act as
xp triggers. The player picks two heritage traits for the character. Players
and GMs can create additional heritages for characters from places less
common to the lands where the campaign is set.

The Crew
The crew is a means of binding a group of PCs together for a common
purpose. The specific kind of crew tells us, generally, what the PCs will
specialize in and how they will advance themselves. If the game has high PC
lethality or retirement, the crew also becomes the thing that the story is
about. You might end a campaign with none of the original PCs, but their
legacy remains.
If your game is about something other than a gang of criminals, you could
change this structure (or eliminate it entirely).
◆ In Scum and Villainy, the crew is replaced by a ship (with a literal crew);
different types of ships suit different kinds of activities that the crew
engages in.
◆ In Band of Blades, the crew is replaced by membership in a legion of
mercenaries beset by magical foes. In that game there is only one type of
“crew” because it is about a single kind of story.
◆ In Vergence, the players choose an interdimensional challenge to face and
form an alliance against it.
◆ In Moth-Light, the players choose a pact which will determine the kind of
goals and obstacles the PCs will engage with.
◆ You could design a longer term intergenerational game in which you
only play one or two scores per decade, with the PCs retiring and being
replaced by the next generation (who could be their children).
If you don’t have a system analogous to a crew, you may need some other
mechanism for giving the characters a reason to work together toward
common goals.

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Crew Sheets
A crew sheet functions as an additional shared playbook, giving extra
bonuses and opportunities for advancement.

Crew Special Abilities

Crews have their own special abilities, which apply to everyone in the crew.
These abilities work similarly to those on playbooks, providing collective
advantages such as:
◆ Increase the maximum allowed action rating.
◆ Give some special skill or capability to everyone in the crew.
◆ Allow each PC to add one dot to an action rating. These are divided up by
attribute, so that if you take the Prowess crew special ability, anyone can
choose to add one dot to an attribute within Prowess.
◆ Decrease a cost or increase a benefit.
◆ Give +1d to the engagement roll for a specific type of plan.
When you create a crew sheet according to the standard FitD format, you’ll
create a set of special abilities that fit the setting and the tone of that type of
crew. The standard game gives seven abilities per sheet. Many repeat from
one sheet to another (sometimes mechanically the same but with
different names).
Crew abilities have the same kind of veteran advance system as character
playbooks (see page 45), so there is really only one big list of abilities for all
the crew types.

Crew Upgrades
Upgrades mostly create or improve crew resources: the crew’s lair, cohorts,
equipment, etc. They can also provide more xp to crew members when they
train a specific trait.

Crew Contacts
In addition to individual PC contacts, the crew also has a contact list, with
one friend and one rival. These are professional connections for the group as
a whole. Keep this if the group’s contacts should be important to the game.

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Do You Need Crews?
No. Crew sheets focus the game on different types of play. If your game is
really about one kind of thing, then you can eliminate crew sheets or replace
them with tracking forms for managing group resources (as Band of
Blades does).

Cycle of Play
Like the rest of FitD, the various subsystems that comprise the cycle of play
are optimized for the original setting and style of the game. Depending on
your hack, you might need to remove, tweak, or completely revise some or all
of these systems.

Game Phases
FitD is built around a continuous cycle of free play, score, downtime. The
assumption is that the GM and players collaborate to establish score
opportunities—and the players are motivated to participate in scores
because that’s where most of the game resources they need come from.
If the premise of your game is that the PCs commit a series of crimes (or
something like crimes), you can use this structure exactly. If not, you might
need to make changes.
One option is to change the cycle itself. A forced sequence of free play, score,
and downtime reflects the constrained nature of criminals struggling to
advance within a city, but not necessarily the open ended nature of heroic
fiction, for example.

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 ◆ In Vergence, the PCs are very powerful and can travel freely within an
infinite multiverse. Constraining them into a limited phase structure
doesn’t fit the setting and genre. Instead, much of the game is intended
to happen in free play. Play can move into a more detailed operation
phase if an engagement roll is needed. If they need to restore stress, the
players can take a rest phase (which restores 4 stress and resets abilities).
Or, if they want to take larger scale actions, they can take a longer
scheming phase. A scheming phase allows the GM to check off a greater
number of segments on opposition clocks than a rest phase. There is no
constrained phase sequence: the players can choose to move freely from
one phase to another as they wish.

Free Play
FitD calls out free play as a phase of the game between other, more formally
defined phases. Since it doesn’t have specific game rules associated with it,
you could mess with other game phases and leave free play alone (although
you might change some of the systems that are used within free play).
Free play can also happen in the middle of downtime, or during a flashback,
or any other time the GM and players are just engaging in conversation
about the fiction without applying rules.

The Score
Scores establish a default episodic structure: most game sessions are likely
to involve a score. Some sessions might have multiple scores, while longer
scores can take multiple sessions. However, the game deliberately imposes
an inherent limit to how much can reasonably happen in a score. That limit
is stress, which is a precious resource that cannot in any reliable way be
recovered during the score itself. As the PCs take stress and start to run low,
they need to end the score and get to downtime so they can remove their
stress—even if means the score is not successful. Harm is different limit—a
group of PCs who have taken harm are much less capable, so they might
need to end a score. One way to remove all stress is to take trauma, but that
has its own limits and briefly removes the character from play.
You could keep the basic structure of a score while just renaming it to fit your
game. Explorers of ancient ruins could run an expedition or delve instead of a

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score. Commandos could conduct an operation. Psychic children could fall
into a shared nightmare.
Renaming might be all you need to do, or you might adjust some of the
systems that are used to define a score. For example, if you want to allow for
somewhat longer scores, you could provide some mechanism for recovering
some amount of stress.
◆ In Raiders in the Dark, the crew can find a safe location and rest for a few
hours. During a rest, PCs restore stress up to half their maximum, or 1
stress if they are at more than half. They also reset their armor boxes and
clear any short term harm.
Not all game genres fit the episodic nature of scores. If necessary, you can
change the game structure to build the action around other kinds of events,
such as encounters, scenes, missions, or rests. Just make sure you take into
account the economy of stress and stress recovery so that the PCs have
resources to work with during play (but still have constraints). If you change
the system significantly you’ll probably need to playtest and make
adjustments so that stress is precious and limited, but not to the degree that
the players are afraid to use it.

Engagement Roll
The engagement roll is designed to focus the players on the action instead of
planning and prepping. It works well in games that are set up to abstract the
planning part of PC actions.
◆ In a game that is more about resource management and planning, you
could create a more formal structure for prepping before a score, such as
a planning montage, scouting, building super-science creations in the
laboratory, etc. This could be used to establish facts about what is about
to happen, give extra dice to the engagement roll, affect what items can
be included in load, etc.

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◆ Another change could be to make engagement rolls optional. The
purpose of an engagement roll is to determine the starting position
when the action starts. Depending on the narrative structure of your
game, free play might often merge right into a score, so the starting
position is already clear. In that case, you could provide the GM with the
option to skip the engagement roll and just declare that the action
has begun.
◆ In Wicked Ones, the GM can use an engagement roll at the start of any
scene in which the starting circumstances are unclear. The engagement
rolls is not tied to any particular game phase. Because the roll is intended
to be quicker, the GM does a quick assessment and rolls 1d, 2d, or 3d.
You might could consider whether your game should have a mechanism for
disengagement.
Deep Cuts makes no changes to the engagement roll, despite changing Con-
trolled position so that no threat roll is needed. That means that on an
engagement roll of 6, the PCs will be able to address the first obstacles of a
score just by paying a minor cost, such as adding ticks to a clock.
If you adopt this change to Controlled position, consider what that means
for the engagement roll in your game.

Flashbacks
Flashbacks work hand in hand with the engagement roll to encourage
players to skip tedious preparation for a score. They can always flash back to
the work they have already done to prepare for the situation at hand. They
can do that as needed rather than making the players attempt to plan for
every foreseeable contingency.
Blades in the Dark puts the rules for flashbacks in the chapter on Scores.
This generates the natural question about whether they are allowed in
other game phases. You might want to clarify.
Flashbacks fit many kinds of fiction, but not all. In a horror game, for
example, you might eliminate or adjust flashbacks so that PCs are less
proactive and have less control. To limit flashbacks, you could increase the
cost, so that they always require at least 1 stress (but if you do that, the
players will tend to do more planning and be more hesitant).

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◆ In Idiot Teenagers With a Death Wish, flashbacks have been removed as a
default option. However, there is a Flashback special ability available to
the Strategist playbook. All flashbacks cost 2 stress, further limiting
their use to only times when they would have a dramatic effect.
Some play groups lean into flashbacks and use them often to flip back
and forth between present time and prep. Other groups (sometimes
with experience playing other games) use flashbacks rarely or even think
of them as “cheating.” Consider the types of people who might play your
game and how they might respond to a flashback mechanic. If you are
likely to get a lot of traditional RPG players and include flashbacks, you
could consider ways to ease them into using that narrative structure.

Stress
Stress is the core currency of PC activity in FitD. For players, it is useful
and precious. You can change how stress works in a few ways:
◆ If the word “stress” doesn’t fit your game, you can rename this resource
to a different word, such as moxie, power, grit, élan, vigor, vitality,
doom, or heart.
◆ The standard game gives players a max stress of 9, with a couple of more
boxes available via crew upgrades. If that’s too much or too little, change
the number.
◆ A crew that is connected psychically could have a shared pool of stress.
Each PC could have a few personal stress points and then a stress track
for the crew that they can all draw from.
◆ In standard FitD, you usually “take” stress, but sometimes you “spend”
stress. Will you use consistent terminology? Over time, does the stress
track fill up, or empty? Mathematically those are the same, but which
terminology has the right feel? Or do you not care?
◆ Stress could use one or more clocks instead of a track. If the character
had, say, three stress clocks, the effect of filling the first could be
different than filling the second or third.

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 ◆ In Charge, there is a resource called momentum. It is spent very much
like stress in standard FitD, but each player starts a session with only
2 momentum. When making action rolls, they gain more momentum
(0 on a fail, 1 on a partial success, 2 on a full success, 3 on a critical). This
means that players need to get into trouble and make action rolls in
order to acquire momentum, which provides a different set of incentives
than standard FitD.

Trauma
PCs who check off their last stress box suffer trauma. Trauma takes the PC
temporarily out of the game (some interpret this as the rest of the score, but
the game does not require that). Trauma is a dramatic event that some
players enjoy. But it also keeps the player from playing for some (not quite
defined) period of time, which can feel intrusive and not so fun.
Because resistance rolls cost a variable amount of stress, it’s very possible to
go into trauma unexpectedly (two very bad resistance rolls will do it). This
system is designed to reflect the desperate and unpredictable nature of a
criminal gang on the bottom of the social hierarchy. It might or might not fit
your game.
◆ You could also more clearly define what it means to gain trauma. For
example, for the rest of that score it could limit the actions the character
can take by themselves or otherwise place constraints on action.
◆ A character taking trauma might play through a flashback scene to
address some element of the trauma condition the player has chosen—
potentially gaining some advantage (such as a setup action) that applies
to the current fiction.
◆ You could have some system for a player whose character is taken out via
trauma to temporarily take some specific role while not playing the
character. That could be playing one or more NPCs, flashing back to a
time when the character provided guidance or assistance to the PCs who
are still in the scene, choosing the next big narrative beat, or any other
role that fits the theme of the game.

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◆ In FitD, trauma is permanent. If that doesn’t fit the setting, you can pro-
vide a mechanism for removing trauma—using advanced technology,
magic, a boon from the gods, or any other method that aligns with the
fiction. Removing trauma should probably be a significant undertaking
that takes time (perhaps via downtime actions) or some other player
resource.
◆ In Deathwish, there is no trauma. When you get to zero stress, you are
exhausted. You can keep playing the character when exhausted, but you
can’t do things that require spending stress. Some abilities let you
mitigate exhaustion in certain ways or gain a bonus when exhausted.
When a character returns to play after taking trauma, all stress is restored
(and vice requirements have been satisfied for the next downtime). This
could be a big help during an especially challenging score, leading players to
sometimes go into trauma on purpose if they think the character will return
soon. Consider whether that provides the feeling and incentive structure
you want in your game and change it if needed.

Forced Retirement
In the standard game, PCs who mark a fourth trauma condition cannot con-
tinue as playable characters. They must retire or take a fall and become
incarcerated. This reflects the standard setting (desperate scoundrels) and
encourages campaigns in which players may have multiple characters. It
also gives players reason to avoid trauma.
You could change this in a few ways:
◆ In a game like Deathwish, without trauma, there is no automatic
retirement except for the ending of the campaign.
◆ You could lean even harder into this mechanic so that the fourth trauma
condition means going out in a blaze of glory. The PC could get some
temporary bonus, such as being able to ignore harm penalties and a fully
restored stress track, but will not survive past the current score or scene.
◆ Make retirement fit the theme of your game. If it’s about adolescents
who have a way to travel from our mundane world to a magical realm,
then exceeding the trauma limit (or equivalent) could mean that the
character has become a grownup and is no longer able to cross over.

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◆ Instead of retirement, taking on too much trauma could mean some
kind of transformation. Perhaps the character transcends from being a
mortal into some altered state of existence, which doesn’t require
retirement but does involve changing to a new playbook with new
abilities and limitations.

Trauma in Deep Cuts

Deep Cuts makes several significant changes to how trauma works.
◆ In standard FitD, when you mark your last stress box, you suffer trauma.
In Deep Cuts, when you need to mark stress and all your boxes are
marked, you suffer trauma. In effect, that means you have one extra
stress box, because you can afford to go to zero without penalty.
◆ A character who suffers trauma is not removed from play. Instead, the
player decides how the new trauma manifests.
◆ Instead of assessing trauma xp at end of session, the player can invoke
each trauma condition once per session for one xp each time. The player
explains how trauma is affecting the PC. This gives the player incentive
to make trauma conditions meaningful during play (vs. via post-session
xp awards).
◆ A PC can recover from trauma via a long-term project or other method
agreeable to the GM. This means that it is less dire for the character to
repeatedly take trauma. Players have the option of pushing doomed
characters to the end; or alternately playing out redemption arcs. That
provides a somewhat more hopeful tone than default FitD, even in
campaigns short enough that forced retirement is unlikely.
Overall, trauma in DC is a little more forgiving than in standard BitD.

Coin
The coin mechanic provides a way to abstract wealth and reward, avoiding
tedious accounting of small units of currency or a cycle of petty theft and
fencing of stolen items. This system is fairly easily adapted to any game that
is about PCs scrabbling for wealth: cyberpunk, sword & sorcery, gangsters in
1920s Shanghai, etc. If appropriate, you can rename coin to whatever fits
better, such as cash, gold, stacks, benjamins, chits, cred, etc.

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Each unit of coin represents a relatively large amount of money that cannot
be broken up into fractional chunks. That means the game forces the players
(and GM) to elide minor uses of money such as bribing a bluecoat, buying a
drink, or getting a new pair of boots. Actions that are routine and necessary
in “looter shooter/murder hobo” type games, such as searching every desk
drawer and corpse for money and valuables, are also abstracted and have no
mechanical reward (though you can certainly imagine that being part of
what happens in the fiction to generate payoff). Instead, the overall score is
what generates coin. The game gives the players no reason to constantly loot.
This can be confusing for players used to some kinds of tabletop and video
roleplaying games who expect to be constantly searching for valuables.

Wealth and Stuff

◆ If you want to give players an incentive to peruse equipment lists, haggle
over prices, search bodies for valuables, and keep track of every pfennig
and farthing, you can establish a less abstract and more granular
tracking of money and items.
◆ One way to make equipment important is to give it tags. A weapon with
Reach, for example, can strike at longer range than a weapon without it.
An Arcane gadget can affect ghosts. The game can have a list of each
tag’s meaning or leave those freeform.
◆ If wealth is not a driving factor in your game, you could choose to
remove it. For example, in a game about intrepid galactic explorers from
an advanced post-scarcity culture, wealth is largely irrelevant to what
the PCs are doing. You might need some other mechanism for
determining how PCs get equipment, establish hierarchy, and
influence others.
◆ Both Raiders in the Dark and Wicked Ones use a random system for
generating loot acquired during a Delve (Raiders) or Raid (WO). The PCs
are assumed to be acquiring whatever looks worthwhile during the
action, but they won’t know exactly how valuable the stuff they got is
until they get back home and have a chance to asses it.

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Stash
Stash represents banked or invested coin. Once banked, converting stash
back to coin is penalized by 50%. Despite this, the game provides players
with a few incentives to convert coin to stash:
◆ There are hard limits on how much coin a character can carry and how
much the crew can keep available. Any more must be spent or converted
to stash.
◆ Stash reflects the quality of the character’s lifestyle. When the player
wants to do something reflective of wealth, the GM can use stash, or a
fortune roll based on stash, to determine how it turns out. This might or
might not come up often in any particular game, so a pauper’s lifestyle is
felt by the character much more than the player.
◆ Stash determines what happens after the character retires. While the
character may have excellent reasons to desire a prosperous retirement,
the player will never see that benefit because it happens after the
character is no longer in play. Some players will role-play a great desire
for stash, while others will prefer to spend the money now. You could
consider ways to more closely align player incentives with character
retirement goals.

Downtime
This game phase is more abstract than free play or score. We zoom out to a
larger (undefined) amount of time in which we assess the effects of the
previous score and give each crew member the opportunity to conduct
personal business.
Does your game need downtime? If it’s oriented toward playing through
shorter stories to be resolved in one or two sessions, probably not. If it’s
intended for longer campaign play, you probably need something like a
downtime phase, although it might or might not need to be as detailed or
extensive as it is in standard FitD.
A minimum viable downtime phase would quickly deal with fallout from
prior action and let the crew reset stress, harm, and other limited resources.
A more in-depth downtime phase can include whatever tropes fit the genre
of your game, such as investigation or training montages, travel to new

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destinations, or interacting with broader threats or factions. One criticism
sometimes levied at FitD is that downtime can feel too much like a board
game, which is to say it seems too distantly abstracted from the actual things
the PCs are doing. In actual practice that depends on the style of a play
group, but you can consider what effect the choices you make in devising
downtime (or removing it) are likely to have on play.

Downtime Sequence
Downtime is resolved in a specific sequence: payoff, heat, entanglements,
downtime activities. One consequence of this sequence is that the PCs have
to cope with the effects of heat on the crew before they can do anything
about it using downtime activities. If you use this sequence, consider what
effect it will have on outcomes and incentives.

Downtime Sequence in Deep Cuts

In Deep Cuts, the downtime sequence is this: crew phase (payoff, fallout,
entanglements, development) then scoundrel phase (vice, activities). This is
a bit more complex but also more clear. The PCs can reduce heat before
entanglements are determined.The remaining downtime activities have
been condensed into acquire, recover, train, and work. Because indulging
vice no longer uses up an activity, players get what is overall more downtime
activities to do.
You could adopt this sequence (or something like it) without switching to a
diceless downtime system, if you wish.

Payoff
The standard game assumes that successful scores generate coin fairly
reliably. The larger the score, the greater the payout, but otherwise the GM is
directed to just give the crew a consistent reward for completing a score.
If your game doesn’t use coin or some other currency equivalent, you will
need to consider some other game structure to motivate the players to take
game-relevant action.
Assuming you do use coin, be aware that the standard game, by making
payoff regular and reliable, removes certain trope of criminal fiction. You
could put those back in: an erstwhile ally takes off with the loot, a fence cons

33
the crew into thinking the loot isn’t worth much, or the crew gains access to
a huge payout that belongs to someone powerful (who wants it back). If you
want your game to explore betrayal and greed, you could add these kinds of
events back in, perhaps through an expanded entanglement system. This
will create moments of “unfairness” that are very dramatic and also perhaps
upsetting to some players. If so, consider how that will affect both short-
term and longer-term campaigns.
You could also change the mechanics for payout, making the benefit from
scores less predictable or adding in other kinds of renumeration besides
abstract coin.
◆ Raiders in the Dark is about venturing into ancient crypts and acquiring
loot. During a delve, the PCs can acquire loot dice to represent various
items they’re picking up that they think will be valuable. Each loot die
takes up one load, so they must make choices about what to carry. There
are two kinds of loot dice: red and blue. One red is more valuable than
one blue, but two blue are more valuable than one red. They can combine
two blues into a red (representing sorting and keeping only the most
valuable stuff). When they get back to their base and have the
opportunity to convert their loot to coin, they roll on a payout table to
learn what coin or special items they have acquired.

Payout Roll
Each 5 or 6: 1 coin.
Roll your blue loot dice
Three blue sixes: special item.
Each 4, 5, or 6: 1 coin.
Roll your red loot dice
Two red sixes: special item.

The Coin Economy

Although PCs become significantly more capable over a long campaign, the
monetary economy of play is oriented toward steady state. Scores pay out
according to the type of job, not the tier of the target. That means the game
presents no large increase in earnings per score from tier 0 to tier 5—
certainly not a logarithmic progression as a typical dungeon smash ‘n grab
game might assume. Nor is there a big increase in cost pressure as tier
increases. Paying off a boss does cost tier + 1 per score. Increasing tier costs

34
new tier × 8, but that can be delayed and is offset by the benefit of having a
high crew tier.
If you want a game in which starting characters are poor, but very advanced
characters are rich enough to buy themselves their own duchy (or
equivalent). you will need to adjust the expected progression of earnings
over the course of a short/medium/ long campaign.
Deep Cuts provides higher levels of post-score payout than standard FitD.
There is also an explicit system for picking up extra coin during a score. To
balance higher payouts, the system puts more pressure on the players to
spend coin.
DC also has larger vaults to hold all the extra loot and rules for keeping coin
in a bank. This makes coin slightly less abstract and more like, well, money.

Tithe
The GM has the option to say that there is a crime boss running the crew’s
district who requires a cut of every score equal to crew tier +1. If your game
is about criminal gangs, it’s reasonable to have some system of “paying up”
to higher level gangs. You could expand this to have a system in which the
crew eventually becomes the big gang to whom other gangs must pay.
In Deep Cuts, a crew of tier 2 or lower pays 25% (1 of every 4 coin earned) to
the local boss. Once at tier 3 they are presumably too strong to be forced
to pay. If unable to pay, they can go into debt.

Debt in Deep Cuts

A PC or the crew can go into debt if they can find a provider. There is a system
for accruing interest using clocks and for the debtor to decide to collect.
You can add a system like this if it fits the theme of your game.

Heat and Entanglements

This system is a way to give mechanical weight to troublesome attention
from the powers that be. If your game is about acting illicitly within a
corrupt power structure, the heat system in FitD might not need any
significant changes aside from creating entanglements that fit the setting.

35
However, if your game is about proactive heroes instead of scoundrels
coping with unprincipled power, you might want to just remove this whole
system. In that case, factional issues could substitute for heat
and entanglements.
In Deep Cuts, after a score, the GM assesses Fallout by adjusting the crew’s
status with factions affected by the score. This is something I think many
Blades in the Dark GMs were doing already, because it really doesn’t make
sense for the crew to affect factions without changes in status.
If you have a faction system similar to standard FitD, consider adopting this.

Heat
The heat mechanic includes a whole subsystem involving wanted level,
incarceration, prison claims, and entanglements. This reflects dealing with
power and those who control it. It may be overkill for games in which that
kind of action belongs more in the background.
Deep Cuts has a different method for calculating heat after a score. If you use
heat, take a look at both and adopt the approach that achieves your desired
feel and player experience.

Incarceration
A formal mechanical system for sending PCs to prison and then giving them
the means to stake prison claims fits some genres of RPG. Note that incar-
ceration can split the crew, with some in prison and others out of it. That
could be disruptive to the game flow (unless players are willing to create new
characters, some in prison and some out). One change you can make is to
not have one PC do a stint in the hoosegow, but the whole crew instead.
In many game settings, a structured incarceration system is not a good fit.
If that’s not what your game is about, you can take it out while keeping heat
and entanglements.
Without incarceration, you may need another mechanism for the crew to
reduce their wanted level, such as doing favors for powerful factions, paying
large bribes, moving to a different territory where they are less notorious, or
setting up others to take the blame for their actions.

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 ◆ In Scum and Villainy, heat is tracked separately in each star system the
crew operates in. The crew can avoid places where they have become
notorious by going elsewhere.
◆ In Asphalt & Trouble, the crew builds up heat in a specific region and can
get rid of it by moving on to some other location. But if they do so, they
lose whatever local assets they have acquired or improved, such as a base
of operations.

Entanglements
If you use entanglements, you may need to create a new set of events. If
giant monsters are a thing in your setting, then include events with giant
monsters as entanglements. If there is a secret society pulling all the strings,
then an entanglement could be contact with a peripheral (or not so periph-
eral) part of the Illuminati.
Many entanglement results can be bought off by expending resources (coin,
rep, etc.). This gives the players control of whether they play through an
entanglement plot or not, but if a group just routinely pays up so they can get
to the next score, the entanglement system is just a resource tax, not an
engaging part of the story.
◆ Entanglements could happen less often, but be a bigger deal when they
come up. For example, if 1–3 on the table is that there is no significant
entanglement, then the other results you put on the table will be less
common.
◆ If you need entanglements to be major plot elements, then remove the
option to buy them off. The players will just have to deal with them in
play. The potential problem with that is that they can derail the plot that
the GM and players are interested in and force them onto a
different track.
◆ In Asphalt & Trouble, entanglement rolls are made just before the score.
The results are a sort of extra consequence that will have to be dealt with
during the action.
Entanglements could trigger a more free form consequence discussed
among the players and decided upon by the GM. If so, the game would give
a list of examples to pick from. Triggering an entanglement could mean that

37
some genre-relevant event happens such as interference from an
established NPC rival or faction.
If you don’t like the standard entanglements table, you could use something
like this:

Entanglements
Roll dice equal to Critical: Disastrous entanglement
wanted level. 6: Major entanglement
4/5: Minor entanglement
1–3: No entanglement
For each level of entanglement, give the GM a list of options to pick from.
Instead of rolling entanglements, in Deep Cuts an entanglement happens at
the end of any score in which heat is 6+ or the fiction calls for it. There is a list
of entanglements that the GM picks from. This seems more story-driven
than the automatic and sometimes repetitive entanglements system in
standard Blades in the Dark.

Downtime Actions
Downtime actions create a mini game within FitD that is oriented toward
longer term activities. If your game incorporates downtime, you can make
these activities a big deal, with detailed rules for accomplishing longer-term
activities, or just a brief pit stop in between more important things (either
way, the people who play the game will do it the way they want).
In Deep Cuts, downtime actions are now called the Scoundrel Phase. All of the
actions are diceless.

Acquire Asset
This is discussed with crafting on page 50.

Acquire in Deep Cuts

Acquire now gives you a basic asset of Quality based on crew tier (or a PC’s
Lifestyle). A better asset can be gotten by spending coin—or a really rare
item might involve taking heat or having to do a score.
This is a simple diceless (therefore reliable) system for gaining an asset. Is
that the effect you want in your game?
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Supply Clocks
Asset usage in DC is now built around making a 4-segment supply clock,
which is ticked when the asset is used. A significant expenditure can require
multiple ticks. When the clock runs out, the asset is depleted. The game calls
out the idea of also using supply clocks for other things, such as provisions
in the deathlands or favors from an ally.
You can incorporate this mechanic whenever limited supply is interesting in
your game, such as torches in the underworld, water when crossing a desert,
or the Queen’s patience wearing thin.

Indulge Vice
In a game about criminals, it makes sense that indulging in vice is the mech-
anism for recovering stress.
◆ If you want to use the same basic system but make it feel less seedy, you
can rename vice to something different, such as solace or
decompressing. Providers of stress recovery could be family members
and friends rather than drug dealers and bookies.
The vice mechanic for recovering stress includes an element of risk, since
PCs who recover more than their maximum stress overindulge. The lower
you are on stress, the lower the chance of overindulgence (it’s impossible if
you have more than 5 stress to recover). Players in longer campaigns with a
lot of dice to roll might prefer to roll fewer than they are entitled to—is this
allowed in your game?
If you want to dissociate the likelihood of overindulgence from the PC’s
current stress level, you could use a table like this:

Indulge Vice
Roll worst Critical: Recover all stress
Attribute 6: Recover 5 stress -or- recover all stress and overindulge
rating 4/5: Recover 3 stress -or- recover all stress and overindulge
1–3: Recover 1 stress -or- recover 3 stress and overindulge

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 ◆ Bladebreaker lets the player choose whether to recover a small amount of
stress (lifestyle +1) or overindulge to recover all stress. Overindulging
means the GM rolls to determine some extra problem the
character suffers.
◆ A simpler and more forgiving system is to have PCs recover all stress at
each downtime. This could fit a game about larger than life action
heroes, for example. That could be a “free” reset, require a downtime
action but no roll, or it could require a downtime action and a roll such
as this:

Indulge Vice
Recover all Critical: Gain extra information, a new contact, or other
stress and advantage
roll worst 6: No problems
Attribute 4/5: +1 heat or minor narrative complication
rating 1–3: +2 heat or major narrative complication

◆ The PCs automatically recover some set amount of stress, such as 4, each
downtime. They could then choose to indulge vice (or some other
mechanic, such as giving up a downtime action) if they wish to recover
more than that.
◆ Create some other restoration method, such as roleplaying through a
small recovery scene with another PC or an important NPC.

Indulging Vice in Deep Cuts

Indulging vice costs 1 coin and clears all stress. Overindulgence happens
automatically if the character had 6+ stress, requiring a roll on a table to see
what kind of problem arises (or choose to play a different character for at
least a session). As far as I can tell this is the only die roll in the new diceless
(well, mostly diceless) downtime activity system.
This method forces more spending of coin (balanced by higher payouts in
Deep Cuts). PCs who indulge will always start each score with no stress,
which is much more forgiving than standard FitD.
It also avoids the awkward rules artifact in standard FitD that having a
higher rating in your lowest attribute means you have to worry more about
overindulgence.

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Long-Term Project
This simple, abstract, and versatile system is functional as written. Unless
you have a reason to change long-term projects, they fit well into most types
of FitD game.
◆ In Vergence, a project can be basic (completed in one action without a
roll), simple (requires only a fortune roll to see how successful it is), or
complex (requires a clock). A Vergence campaign does not usually involve
as many downtime actions as would occur in a Blades in the Dark
campaign of the same length, so this lets players resolve less involved
activities more easily.
Deep Cuts addresses long-term projects via the Work activity, below.

Recovery
Recovery from harm in FitD can be punishing. Especially in the early stages
of the game, when PCs may not have access to healers or the coin to spend on
extra downtime actions, a PC who goes into downtime severely wounded
might be just as hurt at the beginning of the next score. This reflects the
desperate nature of the criminal gang setting of default FitD. It also encour-
ages a game with more than one PC per player. When one PC is too hurt to
go on a score, another one can sub in.
If your game doesn’t fit that model, you can make healing easier. Here are
some ways to do that.
◆ You could just let PCs clear all harm in between scores. If, in the fiction,
the crew would normally be able to wait until everyone is healed (or if
magical or high tech healing is easily obtained) then letting PCs heal
completely between scores is nice and simple.
◆ Level 1 harm is cleared automatically at the start of downtime (this is
how it works in Scum and Villainy).
◆ All harm drops by one level automatically each downtime. A PC can take
a recovery action to heal more quickly than that.
◆ Provide a more forgiving recovery system, such as this one (which
doesn’t use a clock and generates some kind of healing with each
recover action):

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 Recover
Roll PC action rating or NPC tier Critical: Clear all harm
6: Clear two levels of harm
Add +1d for assistance 4/5: Clear one level of harm
Get +1 effect level per coin spent 1-3: Clear all level 1 harm

◆ Taking more downtime actions for healing doesn’t cost coin, it only
means the GM has justification to advance troublesome clocks.
◆ Magical or high tech rapid healing is available at a cost in coin. If the PCs
have the right connections (which could be a crew upgrade), they get
some amount of healing for free, without using a downtime action.

Recovery in Deep Cuts

In Deep Cuts, level 1 harm is automatically cleared at the start of downtime
and anyone in a safe place puts one tick on their recovery clock. A character
who uses a downtime activity to recover adds tier+1 ticks to the recovery
clock. In addition, if you get a physicker to work on you, they remove
1 instance of harm equal to their quality (which, by default, is 2). Or, you can
go to a private hospital to heal all of your harm and pay either 3 coin or take
1 heat and pay 2 coin.
This system is much more forgiving and predictable than the one in
standard FitD. A PC who wants to be healed can always achieve that, and
healing in general will go faster.

Reduce Heat
This can be managed mechanically, just making a die roll with a simple ratio-
nale. Some groups might play out a scene or move into free play for
this purpose.
In Deep Cuts, heat reduction is not a downtime activity. Instead, in the crew
phase of downtime, the crew can spend coin or rep to reduce heat. They also
reduce heat for each faction they are at +2 status with who are tier 3 or
higher. The characters can also reduce heat via in-game actions, such as
silencing a witness.

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Train
This is a simple way to get 1 xp. Each type of crew can take an upgrade that
lets them get 2 xp when training a particular track.
Training is perhaps the most mechanical and routine downtime activity.
There is value in having an activity the player can choose when they can’t
think of something else to do with a downtime activity. If you have this in
your game, consider whether you want to keep it like this (simple and easy)
or make it more complex and engaging. Should you suggest or require some
kind of role play scene to earn xp?

Train in Deep Cuts

In Deep Cuts, training is not for earning xp, it’s for spending xp to purchase
advances. Training requires the right kind of instructor and a training
montage scene.
To get a third dot, you need a quality 3 instructor, while the fourth requires
quality 4. You need upgrades to get access these higher quality instructors.
Each crew starts with one or more quality 3 instructors (a prowess instructor
and a resolve instructor, for example) and can spend coin to acquire more.
Quality 4 instructors are very expensive.
The instructor limitation fits the rules but imposes some oddities on the
fiction. What exactly is an insight instructor? Is that a profession?This could
sometimes be hard to readily fit to the fiction. Special ability instruction is
needed on a case by case basis, depending on the ability, which leaves a lot
up to judgment. Players might start selecting special abilities based on
whether they think the GM will hassle them over needing an instructor,
which might not be your preferred outcome.
Consider whether you want to use training as the limiting factor on
advancement in your game, or use some other mechanism.

Work in Deep Cuts

This downtime activity allows the PC to do one of several things:
◆ Work a side job to earn 1 coin. There is a note suggesting this be allowed
only once per downtime so that PCs are motivated to do scores to earn
coin, not work normal jobs.

43
 ◆ Complete a simple project that is basic enough to not require a clock.
◆ Work on a long-term project. DC says that this always an 8-segment
clock, unlike standard FitD which has project clocks of different sizes
depending on complexity. More elaborate projects require two or more
clocks to be filled in order to complete.

The Faction Game

If there are factions in your game, you can use the standard FitD faction
mechanics, integrating your own set of factions.
Here are some other ways to make factions work:
◆ A simpler system would be to just use roleplaying and faction clocks.
When the PCs interact positively with a faction, establish a clock to fill
toward gaining their confidence or earning a significant favor. When the
PCs interact negatively, then a negative faction clock and, when it fills,
have the faction take some kind of reprisal.
◆ If factions don’t go to war in your game, change the effects of being at -3
status—or remove or redesign the faction status level system entirely.
◆ In Vergence, most factions are led by a single strong individual, so
factions are presented as a list of NPCs and what they are in charge of.
The group can earn a game currency called favor with individual
factions, which can be spent for extra dice and other bonuses.
◆ In Deathwish, there is a formal system for establishing different levels of
alliance. The stronger the alliance, the more resources are available for
loan to the crew.
In Deep Cuts, the crew can just buy an increase in status with a faction (up to
+2) by spending coin. Should money have that effect on factions in
your game?

War
When your crew is at -3 status with another faction, you are at war. That has
some mechanical effects, such as each PC getting only one action per
downtime instead of two.
However, the game doesn’t have explicit rules for attacks from other
factions. Where in the cycle of play does that fit? It’s not a score if the PCs are

44
not initiating the action. Usually, the GM fits it into free play or makes it
approximate a score, but the game provides no mechanism for it (except to
say how many Bluecoats would participate in a raid).
If you need to, you can provide more elaborate guidance on situations in
which the PCs must defend against attacks. For example, you could call for a
defensive engagement roll to determine how surprised or overwhelmed the
PCs are when they suffer an attack. You could set up rules for different kinds
of enemy action, such as raids, ambushes, divide and conquer, reputational
attacks, theft, kidnapping, turf invasion, and so on.
Similarly, if there is a larger scale war that the PCs get caught up in (such as
a revolutionary uprising among downtrodden migrants in a ghost-infested
city), you could establish rules for how to participate or try to survive.

Advancement
FitD has advancement systems for both PCs and the crew, with xp triggers
that are marked at the end of each game session. The game explicitly says
that players, not the GM, have final say on xp triggers.

XP Sources
For PCs, xp can come from several sources:
◆ Action roll at desperate position. Every desperate roll provides 1 xp on
the relevant attribute track. It gives players an incentive to get into more
trouble and trade position for effect on risky action rolls. Players who
like to push their luck will get this more often.
◆ Playbook trigger. This rewards the player for leaning into the role
presented by the playbook.
◆ Expressed identity. In Blades in the Dark, the standard identify factors
are beliefs, drives, heritage, and background. Only two of these are
mechanical parts of the game, while the other two are abstracted.
◆ Struggled with personal problems. These are vice and trauma. If you
add harm to this list, players get a small compensation for the problems
it causes.

45
 ◆ Special ability. Some special abilities provide an additional xp trigger,
letting the character advance faster if the player leans into it during play.
If you like this idea, you could provide one for each playbook.
◆ Training. The player can use a downtime action to add 1 xp to a track (or
2 xp if the crew has a relevant upgrade.
You can add other sources, or switch them out. Potential additional
sources include:
◆ Make a roll with an action you have zero dots in.
◆ Hit a specific character beat, such as “get in a fight,” “expose a vulnera-
bility to your rival,” or, “make and serve soup for the weary.” Beats can be
listed on a playbook, chosen from a list, or agreed between the player
and GM.
◆ Support the play group via a short character diary, illustration, or other
contribution to the campaign.
◆ Take a desperate consequence and choose to not resist (this would be
instead of getting xp for all desperate rolls).
The crew sheet has its own xp track with these triggers:
◆ Crew type, challenge level, reputation. These different triggers reward
players for playing their crew type, running scores on higher tier targets,
and enhancing their public reputation.
◆ Identity. Earn xp for playing to the goals, drives, inner conflict, or
essential nature of the crew. This is a relatively undefined xp trigger for
playing up how the crew interact internally.
If you use a crew sheet, what kinds of actions should be rewarded with
xp in your game?

Changing Advancement
If you like the basic FitD xp system, keep it, perhaps reconsidering which xp
triggers fit your game and how fast characters and crews should advance.
◆ Is your game designed for one-shots or just a few sessions you could
have a very simple advancement system (or none at all).

46
 ◆ Is it designed for a range of different game lengths? If so, how will it
work for just one or two sessions? 10 sessions? 20? 40? Is the game still
playable once the PCs have earned many upgrades or does it become
uninteresting because they’ve become too powerful and don’t have much
else to strive for?
Most players like advancement, so it can be a good idea to make sure the first
advances happen quickly. Even during a one-shot, you could allow for
advancement halfway through. On the other hand, during a long campaign,
it’s important to make sure players don’t get all the shiny things very quickly
and then have less motivation to continue.
A common concern raised about Blades in the Dark and some other FitD
systems is that in a long campaign, PCs become powerful enough that the
GM has great difficulty figuring out how to challenge them. With expected
advancement, PCs are likely to have 4 dots in the actions they use frequently,
so they often roll 5–6 dice on important actions, which means a very low
chance of outright failure. Position and effect become less relevant with
large dice pools.
Advanced PCs also often also have 3 or 4 dots in their lowest attribute, so they
roll a lot of dice when resisting. That means resistance costs little (and they
can easily manage their indulge vice rolls to recover stress they lose between
scores). They have plenty of coin to pay for extra downtime actions when
healing is needed. Because the game provides few tools for a GM to provide
serious challenges to characters who have earned a lot of xp, the end of a
campaign can fall rather flat.
Some possible changes have been proposed elsewhere in this document to
address this issue (such as limiting each action to 3 dots instead of 4), but we
can also consider it in thinking about how advancement works.
Here are some possibilities:
◆ Scale the cost of advancement. For example, you could make the first dot
in an action cost 4 xp, the second 7, the third 9, and the 4th 11. Special
abilities and crew advancement could scale in a similar manner. This
would let players advanced quickly at the start, but slow it down
over time.

47
 ◆ Deathwish has no xp system. The crew just gets one advance after
completion of each score. Advances provide relatively small benefits.
◆ Vergence also has no xp. Each type of crew (alliance) has milestones that
are specific to the threat they are facing. When enough milestones are
met, the entire group earns upgrade points they can spend communally
for group advancement. They get upgrade points faster during the first
few sessions and slower after that.
◆ Place a cap on xp for making rolls at desperate position, or remove this
xp trigger. Alternately, remove some or other xp triggers and make
advancement all about desperate actions.

Advancement and xp In Deep Cuts

In Deep Cuts, there is only one xp track in the form of a series of 6-segment
clocks. You advance by spending one or more clocks. Overall, I like this
change. The clocks on the character sheet are easier for the players to grasp
than figuring out four different tracks. The use of clocks make it simple to
understand advancement costs. Advancement is intended to move a little
more slowly in DC than in standard FitD. It also encourages breadth of
action dot advancement, since higher ratings cost progressively more.
You could reasonably incorporate this advancement system into any FitD
game if you like it better.

Crew Advancement
The crew is essentially a shared character in FitD, so the crew also gets xp.
Unlike PCs, the crew has a single xp track. Filling the track grants one special
ability or two upgrades.
◆ Getting upgrades two at a time seems counterintuitive. You could have a
short track for upgrades and a longer track for abilities. Or a different
cost for each.
◆ You could introduce a plot milestone system and have the crew advance
upon achieving milestones. Or simplify it to an advance after a set
number of sessions.

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Crew advancement in Deep Cuts uses clocks, just like PC playbooks. Unlike
PCs, the crew doesn’t have to use a downtime activity to advance.
◆ Advancement is for special abilities and cohorts.
◆ Upgrades cost coin, with different upgrades having different costs.

Turf and Claims

Turf and claims are another mechanic that fits a game about criminals
establishing control of territory in a corrupt city. If your game isn’t like that,
it’s fine to just take out this whole system.
If you do keep it, you’ll want to establish a modified claim map for each crew
type, with mechanical effects of taking over each kind of claim. Your claim
map could represent parts of a decrepit space habitat, nodes in cyberspace,
control of an ancient teleportation system, secret passages within a magical
school, or any other contested “territory.”
In Deep Cuts, acquiring turf is required for the crew to advance in tier.

Rep and Tier

Crews “level up” by advancing their tier. They do this by accruing rep and
spending coin. Tier is a measure of how much strength the crew has
acquired vs. other gangs within the corrupt underworld. Tier is used for dice
pools when crafting or acquiring assets and when using the crew’s
influence. It also determines quality of equipment and the size of the gangs
the crew controls.
This system can be adapted to any other way of scaling the crew vs.
opposition they might struggle against.
◆ Band of Blades uses threat instead of quality or tier. PCs with standard
equipment are threat level 1 and fine equipment increases their threat to
2. Enemies also have a threat level, sometimes much higher than 2. This
is considered in assessing position and effect.
In Deep Cuts, in order to advance tier, the crew must meet multiple criteria:
◆ Fill the rep tracker (minus turf claims, if the crew has them).
◆ The crew has strong hold (which requires a number of turf claims equal
to tier).

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 ◆ The crew has the required number of upgrades and cohorts (increasing
with tier).
This system forces the crew to acquire turf, which is often ignored in
standard FitD games. It also makes them build a larger gang, which
similarly doesn’t always happen in standard FitD.

Crafting and Acquiring Assets

Crafting is a subsystem to allow PCs to create special assets for themselves.
Acquire asset is another system to allow PCs to get temporary access to
special assets (items, experts, cohorts) from other people or factions.
These systems can produce results that are not “balanced,” but that
might be OK, especially in a short-term game. It’s fun to make and
invent cool stuff, and if the PCs get cool advantages over NPCs, then the
GM has tools to correct that if it’s necessary for the story. If your game
emphasizes this kind of thing, you could include a discussion of the
implications and what can be done to keep the game both fun and
challenging.
The crafting and acquire asset systems are fairly flexible, in that what is
possible can be established by consensus among the group. If you have
crafting in your game, you’ll probably want to come up with a list of sample
craft-able items to fit the setting.
However, if you use Blades in the Dark as your model for special items, you
will notice some apparent inconsistencies. The crew starts at tier 0, which
means their equipment is normally tier 0 (or tier 1 if it is of fine quality). The
base tier of crafted items is also 0. But the special abilities they can access at
game start say they can have items of up to tier 4.
Does taking a special ability give them access to those higher tier items? Do
the PCs have to do anything to replenish their supply, or does that just
happen off screen? In Blades in the Dark, the Leech bandolier equipment
description says, “During downtime, you automatically refill your bandoliers, so
long as you have reasonable access to a supplier or workshop.” Does that mean you
ignore tier and quality for the alchemicals and items on the special list?
If you use this model in your game, you might want to address how tier and
quality interact with any free stuff provided on a standard equipment list.

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Crafting in Deep Cuts
The crafting system is unchanged in Deep Cuts, but that leaves questions.
Normally, crafting is by rolling with Tinker during downtime, but in DC the
work activity is supposed to be diceless. So do you treat crafting like any
other work activity, or do you roll? If the former, then having dots in Tinker
becomes less useful. If the latter, it is an exception to the otherwise diceless
nature of downtime activities.
If you use a similar system, you should clarify.

Rituals
This is another system that can be adapted to fit your setting, by establishing
what the “rules” of magical rituals are. What kinds of things can be
accomplished, what are their limits, and what do they cost? If your setting
has magic and this system fits your conception of how it works, then use this
system. Develop those rules and provide some examples of rituals.

Magnitude
If you use the FitD ritual system, you’ll need something like this as well.
Some abilities might also depend on it. If the scale is not right for your
setting, you can adjust what each of the numbers means.
Magnitude can also be used as a formal measure of other kinds of scale, such
as effect level of magical spells or size of huge kaiju monsters.
◆ You could use the magnitude tables (or some version of them) to set the
cost of spells, superpowers, or other effects. For example, in a fan-made
Wizard playbook for Blades in the Dark, the PC creates a supply of a
resource called Flow by making risky action rolls using the Attune
action. Spells are cast by spending Flow, with the cost determined using
the magnitude tables.
The game provides magnitude numbers, but the GM must decide which
apply and whether they add together or are combined in some other way.
There is no formal system of magnitude math.

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 ◆ Wicked Ones uses a combined system for three kinds of “dark arts::”
monster science, spell magic, and ritual magic. Each can create effects
rated from tier 0 to tier 3. Monster science creates items and edges,
concoctions, and contraptions that can be made to sound scientifically
plausible. Spell magic creates immediate magical effects under certain
constraints and limitations, with tier 0 spells creating trial effects, up to
tier 3 achieving effects much greater than normal actions at -2d to the
roll Ritual magic takes longer (using downtime actions) and can have
stronger effects, but higher tier rituals or magic item crafting must meet
more requirements in casting.

Non-Player Characters
In many RPGs, there is PC-NPC rules symmetry. That is, PCs and NPCs are
created and act according to the same rules, although NPC statistics are
often abbreviated for simplicity.
In FitD, that’s not the case. The PCs have a formal action resolution system,
but NPC actions are handled mainly in terms of PC action roll results. If a PC
is trying to convince a hotel concierge to tell her which room Lord Acton is
staying in, there may be all sorts of rhetorical flourishes happening in the
conversation, but if dice are rolled to determine the outcome it’s the
mechanically the same as if she were trying to pick a lock to get into his
room. There is no special set of rules for combat or social interaction as there
are in many RPGs. Fighting, if it happens, is treated as another series of
events in the fiction that the PCs interact with.
This approach has great elegance and simplicity. In other games, GMs often
have to spend lots of time prepping before each game session to lay out all
the statistics that define the NPCs the players might (or might not)
encounter. By contrast, FitD games can involve little or no prep other than
just thinking about the fiction, which removes a lot of drudgery from the
GM’s role. The game can also more easily go in any direction, because the GM
has no investment in having planned out encounters and scenes.
But there is a trade-off. During play, the GM has to keep track of the fictional
status of all the NPCs in a scene without much help from the game system
(or a grid with miniatures). Often, that’s fairly simple, but when a scene
includes multiple named and important NPCs, or when an NPC should

52
fictionally be able to bring a broad range of abilities to bear, the GM has a lot
to remember.
This is a reasonable approach in the core Blades in the Dark game because
NPCs mostly have mundane abilities and are pretty simple to keep track of.
But if your game might include lots of NPCs who are powerful mages,
mystical martial artists, cyber-enhanced netrunners, powerful super-
villains, alien mech warriors, or other NPCs with complex capabilities,
consider whether the GM needs more help with managing those
“boss” opponents.
The game suggests using clocks to track the defensive abilities of
well-protected opponents. This provides a pacing mechanism when a scene
requires that a conflict not be resolved in one roll. That may be all that
is required.
You could add others, such as:
◆ A list of abilities for NPCs, with guidance for the GM on how they can be
managed. These do not have to be as narrow or clearly defined as PC
special abilities, but they can provide suggestions about how those
abilities will affect game play.
◆ Examples of what the most complex and capable opponents might be
like and how to manage them.
◆ Enemies in Band of Blades are more mechanically defined than in
standard FitD. They have a threat level and various powers they can use
against the PCs.

Dangerous NPCs
While NPCs don’t get formal stats in this system, the game does recognize
that an NPC could be especially dangerous. There are two levels of
dangerousness:
◆ When an NPC is skilled, the GM can say what they are about to do and
ask the player for a reaction. This does not disrupt player primacy in
taking action, but does force the player to respond to the NPC.

53
 ◆ When an NPC is a master, the GM can tell the player what they have
done and require the player to decide whether to resist. This inflicts a
consequence outside of the regular action roll structure. Technically, the
GM could inflict resistable consequences at any time, but giving an NPC
mastery status sticks that capacity to a specific kind of threat.
You could set up a more formal system of actions that dangerous NPCs can
take. For example, player actions can trigger NPC responses, or an NPC
could have danger levels associated with controlled, risky, and desperate
positions. You could also allow unexpected threats more generally (not just
enemies) to inflict consequences without an action roll.
Alternately, you can provide the GM with explicit permission to inflict
consequences whenever that fits the fiction, not just in response to skilled or
masterful NPCs.

Resolution Systems
Deep in the core of the game are the systems for resolving various activities.
You can do all kinds of things with FitD without ever touching this part. But
if you are dissatisfied with how FitD resolves action (or just like to mess
around with game rules) you can make major or minor changes to
these systems.

Rolling the Dice

The basic FitD dice mechanic is simple: roll a pool of six sided dice and count
the single highest number. 1–3 is a fail (bad outcome), 4/5 is a partial success,
6 a full success, two or more sixes is a critical success.
This resolution system is easy to teach and plays quickly at the table. It is
universal to almost all of the dice mechanics in the game.

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 Dice Critical Success Partial Fail
0 0% 3% 22% 75%
1 0% 17% 33% 50%
2 3% 28% 44% 25%
3 7% 35% 45% 13%
4 13% 39% 42% 6%
5 20% 40% 37% 3%
6 26% 40% 32% 2%

As you can see from the table of probabilities, rolls start to lose suspense as
we go above three or four dice. Once we get to five dice, the chance of a full
success or critical is 60% and outright failures will be very rare—although
partial success will still be common.
That’s not very dramatic, so in general you may want to have a system in
which most rolls involve 1–3 dice, with 4 or more dice reserved for special
circumstances or extra expenditure of player resources. That’s something to
keep in mind when devising the mechanics for figuring out a base dice pool
and for gaining extra dice by pushing, assisting, using special abilities, etc.
Another consideration is how bonuses work. FitD does not really allow small
granular advantages or disadvantages. An extra die makes a big difference.
If you allow two or three kinds of bonus to stack together, you can
inadvertently make success almost guaranteed. Make sure you understand
the economy in your game of how players can optimize their rolls for best
results, considering what incentives you want in play.
Most FitD games keep this dice resolution system. Deviating from it makes
a game “feel” less like it fits into the FitD family.
But it is possible to tweak the system. For example:
◆ Limit the number of bonus dice that can be applied to a roll. If the limit
is 2 dice from any source, for example, players can’t “stack” bonuses
as much.

55
 ◆ Your game doesn’t have to use six-sided dice. If you wanted to change the
range of results, you could use d8s, d10s or some other kind of die
instead of d6s. That might be helpful in adjusting the probability of
different results, such as if you want to use dice pools that involve more
dice being rolled or if you want more kinds of results than fail, partial
success, full success, and critical. A bigger size of dice could fit with a
system in which the player gets a plus or minus adjustment to the high-
est number rolled. You could also use different sizes of dice for different
purposes or probability ranges.
◆ You don’t have to use dice at all. Crash Cart uses a deck of regular playing
cards. Instead of a dice pool, you draw a number of cards equal to your
rating. Different combinations of cards determine whether the result is
a success, partial success, etc. By controlling where cards go after
drawing them, the game can change odds over the course of a session:
lots of success early on means failure is more likely later, while early fail-
ure is balanced with more face cards remaining in the deck, so success is
more likely later on.
◆ You can easily add a critical failure system by saying that any roll in
which the highest result is a 1 is a catastrophe. (When rolling 0d, you get
that if either die is 1.) The more dice you roll, the lower your chance of a
critical fail. A system like this could work in a game intended to treat the
PCs comedically or to emphasize that they are overwhelmed by a
terrible situation.

Action Roll
The action roll in FitD uses the standard dice mechanic to resolve any risky
or troublesome action a PC is likely to do. This is a useful system that is easy
to design around.
The action roll is a “fail forward” system. Every roll produces a change in
the fiction; there is no such thing as nothing happening when a player
decides to take action.

Explaining the Action Roll

The standard FitD rules have a long, detailed, step-by-step explanation of
how the action roll conversation happens. Many game authors have found

56
that they can describe it in a lot fewer words. This has the advantage of being
less overwhelming, but it also means that your fewer words have to explain
it very well, because there is no redundancy to help with clarification.
Consider how much wording, and in what format, will best allow people
likely to play your game to learn it.
If your game is intended for people already familiar with FitD, you can
reduce explanation of the action roll to a minimum.

Action Economy, or Lack Thereof

FitD does not have a formally defined action economy as many other role
playing games do. Neither PCs nor NPCs take turns in any kind of
predefined sequence. This can be challenging for those who are used to some
other games.
◆ Players may be confused if they don’t know when they are allowed to act.
◆ It can be challenging for the GM to manage a complex action scene
without rules for how to do that.
◆ Because NPCs don’t roll and there is no turn order, a GM can find that
NPCs seem to just passively react to the actions of the PCs, without ever
really taking initiative. This can be overridden when NPCs are des-
ignated as dangerous (page 53) but it can be hard for a less experienced
GM to figure out how to manage that, since the game doesn’t provide
much structure.
For these reasons, in can be important to provide advice and examples of
how the game is intended to play. The GM needs to understand how to
manage action, move the spotlight, and represent both passive and active
NPCs. And the players need to understand how to work with the GM to
frame their choices and decide what each action roll should
reasonably accomplish.
Alternately, you change the game to incorporate turn taking or some other
formal action economy system that standard FitD does not have.

Bonuses and Penalties

In the standard system, the chance of success is solely a function of how
many dice are being rolled, which does not depend on the difficulty of the

57
task. You have the same chance of getting a full success on your roll regard-
less of whether you’re trying to do something that is just a bit challenging or
something that seems close to impossible.
FitD instead reflects task difficulty several ways, some of which are not
obvious to someone first looking at the system:
◆ You only roll if the action is dangerous or troublesome, so if you want to
punch a blustering fool who is no challenge for your character, the GM
might not bother calling for a roll and just narrate how the buffoon got
taken out.
◆ Although the difficulty of the roll does not affect the dice pool, it does
establish the stakes of that action (via position and effect). Getting a
success against a mook might take him out immediately, or even take
down a whole gang, while a success against a boss might just stagger
her. And a consequence received while tangling with a mook could be
much less severe than if you are in a final battle with the big bad. If you’re
used to other games in which you might, for example, roll against
difficulty rating, this method takes some getting used to.
◆ FitD descends from Powered by the Apocalypse (PBtA) games (a different,
but related, game engine). Like those games, FitD does apply difficulty-
based dice modifiers to action rolls (“moves”). Compared to PBtA, FitD is
highly engaged with action difficulty. Compared to many other games,
however, FitD abstracts difficulty in a way that can be hard, initially, to
grok. How much help will the people picking up your game need
with that?
You could change the system to include dice modifiers for harder or easier
situations. You might do this instead of position and effect, or as part of a
combined system. When the GM determines that the situation is especially
good or bad for the PC, that roll could be made with various kinds of
advantages or disadvantages.
Here are some ways that having an advantage could work:
◆ Set the worst result at partial success, so any 1–3 result is upgraded
one level.
◆ Upgrade every result by one level, so 1–3 is partial success, 4/5 is a full
success, etc.

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◆ Give one or more bonus dice.
◆ Allow the player to select one benefit from a list (which might vary
depending on the situation or the action rating used).
And here are some ways to impose disadvantage:
◆ Make 4–6 partial success and critical a full success.
◆ Downgrade every result by one level, so 1–5 is fail, 6 is partial success,
critical is success.
◆ Remove one die. If that drops the pool below 0 dice, the action is an auto-
matic failure.
◆ After the dice are rolled, take away the highest die before determining
the result.
◆ Allow the GM to select one additional consequence from a list (which
might vary depending on the situation or the action rating used).
If you do use some kind of advantage and disadvantage, you should probably
also eliminate or simplify position and effect. Otherwise, the discussion
required before rolling dice becomes redundant and tedious.

Options by Position
When there is a failure or partial success on an action roll, the options
available to the player vary depending on the position.
◆ 4/5 Controlled: Choose to either fail without a consequence or succeed
with a (minor) consequence.
◆ 4/5 Risky or desperate: Succeed with a consequence.
◆ 1–3 Controlled: Choose to make a new roll at risky position (requiring
new decisions about pushing, Devil’s Bargains, assistance, etc.) or fail
with a consequence.
◆ 1–3 Risky or desperate: Fail with a consequence.
The player has more options at controlled position than the others.
Some groups seem to naturally (perhaps without thinking about it) just
simplify the options by taking away those extra decisions at controlled
position. If you do that, instead of the full page outcome table printed in
the Blades in the Dark rules it could use the following table.

59
 Action Roll Results
Crit Succeed with no consequence and +1 effect.
6 Succeed with no consequence.
4/5 Succeed, but suffer a consequence.
1–3 Fail and suffer a consequence.

That’s a lot easier to memorize, but it loses the special options for controlled
position that are in the standard game.
When position is controlled in Deep Cuts, there isn’t any roll, so there’s not
need for special options in that case.

The Threat Roll in Deep Cuts

Deep Cuts introduces a new and different mechanic for resolving actions: the
threat roll. In this system, the GM presents a threat and the player rolls to
avoid or mitigate it. By default, PCs are assumed to succeed in what they’re
trying to accomplish—the threat roll only determines whether they
suffer consequences.
In effect, the threat roll is a kind of resistance roll. The GM tells the player
that something bad will happen (sometimes, but not always, triggered by the
PC trying to accomplish something) and the player rolls to try to avoid
(resist) it.
After the threat roll, a player who still faces consequences can choose to
make a second resistance (push) roll.
◆ The first resistance roll (threat roll) is initiated by the GM. It uses a dice
pool based on an action chosen by the player. It might or might not work
to avoid or mitigate the consequence.
◆ The second resistance roll (pushing yourself) is optionally initiated by the
player. It uses a dice pool based on the attribute the GM thinks is most
relevant. It costs stress (unless the roll is a critical success), but it always
reduces the consequence.
◆ The GM can present multiple threats. The player assigns each die from
the threat roll to a different threat.

60
 ◆ Instead of pushing for a die, the player can suggest an additional threat
to get +1d. That means the player has an extra die to divide up among
multiple threats. Especially when presented with a really dire threat
(such as when position is desperate), the player can suggest a less severe
threat for an extra die to maximize the chance of having a higher die to
assign to the worse threat.
Should you use action rolls or threat rolls? That’s a matter of preference. Both
can work well. Try them both and see which best fits your game.

Failure and the Threat Roll

A standard threat roll does not try to resolve success or failure of a PC’s
actions, just whether a PC is hit by a consequence. PCs always, by default,
succeed at anything they could reasonably do.
However, it is possible for the threat to be that the PC fails to accomplish an
action. This can be the sole threat the GM presents (“you might not be able to
open the safe”), an additional threat the GM presents (“he might take you
down, and you might not even hurt him back”), or an additional threat
added while the player bargains for an extra die.
There is a note suggesting that, to make threat rolls more like standard FitD
action rolls, you can add the threat of failure routinely.

Edge in Deep Cuts

A critical result on a threat roll gives the player an edge. An edge can be spent
for immediate +1 effect or saved for later. A saved edge can be spent for +1d
or given to another player for +1d on their roll. Edges are lost at the start of
downtime, providing incentive to spend them instead of hoarding.
Edge provides a kind of momentum currency that is more flexible for the
player than just a flat +1 effect on a critical success.

Pushing
Pushing yourself is a simple mechanic that gives +1d or increased effect by
taking two stress. It works well in play. Unless you change the core dice and
stress mechanic, pushing should probably stay in your game.

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Can you push for effect after a roll? Despite the order of decision making
presented in the rules, Blades in the Dark has an example of play in which the
GM explicitly suggests and allows it (page 40).*
Obviously, the designer knows the intent of the game system, but there is
potentially a problem with doing it that way. If you allow the player to wait
until after the roll and then decide to push for effect, it becomes foolish to
ever do it before rolling the dice—if you push for effect and then roll 1–3, you
failed and took 2 stress for nothing. If allowed, a player with any degree of
system mastery will always wait until after the roll to decide whether to push
for effect. Is that the intent in your game? You might consider either
explicitly require all pushes to happen before the roll, or add an extra step at
the end for post-roll pushing for effect.
(Or let the GM allow post-roll pushing sometimes, arbitrarily—but even
then it might be worth a discussion in your text of when to do it.)
Presumably you can’t trade position for effect after a roll, but the game
doesn’t make that any more clear than a rule about when you can push
for effect.
Deep Cuts uses “push yourself” to mean something different from
standard FitD.
◆ You can push for +1 effect level on a threat roll.
◆ You can push to resist a consequence (reduce or avoid it).
◆ If the PC has a special ability activated by pushing, that requires
separate push roll before the threat roll. Unlike standard FitD, you get no
additional benefit from pushing, it just activates the ability.
Pushing now means taking 1–3 stress (or 0 on a crit), so the worst outcome
is not as costly. However, when pushing for effect or to activate an SA, the
player can choose to take 2 stress instead of rolling.You could simplify
pushing by not having special abilities that are activated by pushing.

* In that example, the GM waits until after the dice are rolled to specify effect
level and then (surprise!) tell the player that even getting a critical success
won’t be enough to achieve the goal. Consider, when writing an example
intended to present best practices, showing the GM telling the player what a
success will achieve before the dice are thrown.
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Devil’s Bargain
The Devil’s Bargain gives the player a way to get an extra +1d in exchange for
a negotiated consequence that will happen no matter how the action roll
turns out.
Can you resist a Devil’s Bargain? I do not think that should be possible,
but the rules don’t explicitly say that. You might want to clarify
this point.
Here are some ways you could change Devil’s Bargains:
◆ The Devil’s Bargain can slow down the conversation and delay rolling the
dice and getting a result. It may not fit a game that’s intended to play
quickly or that gives players other ways to complicate the narrative. You
can remove it from your game without breaking anything.
◆ Change the name of Devil’s Bargain to something that fits better: twist,
glitch, snafu, taking grief, etc. It could be something very specific to the
lore of your setting.
◆ Have two levels of bargain. The standard Devil’s Bargain could be as
written in the game, while a “Demon’s Bargain” is a greater gain (such as
+2d or automatic success) that also creates a very serious problem for
the PC, equivalent to a consequence at desperate position.
◆ Instead of a Devil’s Bargain, the player can accept a devil’s die, which is
a different color from the others. If the devil’s die comes up 1–3, then
(regardless of the result of the overall action roll) a problematic twist in
the fiction ensues, which the player can’t resist.
◆ Special abilities can interact with Devil’s Bargains. For example, the PC
could get +1d -and- increased effect on a Devil’s Bargain, be able to resist
the DB consequence, or on full success take an action to try to redirect
the Devil’s Bargain consequence onto someone else.

More Devil’s Bargains

If you like Devil’s Bargains, you can use them for more than just +1d. For
example, allow a bargain to:
◆ Get +1 effect.
◆ Say that the minimum result of the roll will be a mixed success (a 1–3 is
the same as 4/5).

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 ◆ Tick a clock.
◆ Roll an extra die after an unsatisfactory result.
◆ Get +1d to a resistance, fortune, or engagement roll.
◆ Get a one-time use of a special ability you don’t have.
◆ Ignore penalties from harm.
◆ Call for a flashback without paying stress.
◆ Achieve any agreed change in the fiction.
◆ Get an automatic partial success without rolling dice.
◆ Take a Devil’s Bargain after a roll in order to re-roll the dice.
If the benefit the player is looking for is especially strong, the bargain might
have to be more severe to compensate. This could be a matter of negotiation.

Devil’s Bargains in Deep Cuts

Deep Cuts goes all-in on Devil’s Bargains. In standard FitD, a bargain has a
defined benefit (+1d on an action roll) for an undefined cost that is
negotiated and subject to GM approval. In DC, by contrast, a bargain is
made by choosing from a list of eight possible costs (mark 1 stress, spend
coin, lose item, lose rep, tick a clock, suffer harm, take heat, lose faction
status) for an undefined benefit negotiated with the GM.
Exception: The other kind of bargain happens during a threat roll by
accepting an additional threat in exchange for +1d on the roll. That type of
bargain has a specified benefit at the cost of an added a threat (the nature of
which is negotiated with the GM).
For other (non-threat) bargains, every DB requires a separate discussion and
ruling about both cost and benefit. Some play groups will like that the game
removes formal mechanics in favor of free form negotiation. Others will
likely come up with their own forma or informal list of standard DB costs
and conventions.
When I tried it out, the players found the looser universal DB system so
vague that it’s wasn’t fun to engage with—they preferred to skip DBs rather
than slow the game down with a negotiation each time. Another group
would likely respond differently, but consider the cognitive burden imposed
by whatever variation of DBs you put in your game.

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Position and Effect
Position and effect set the stakes for an action roll. On 4–6, effect tells us
what has been achieved. On 1–5, position tells us how severe the
consequence is. These overlap on 4 and 5, so partial success mixes success
and failure. Because the discussion to establish and clarify position and
effect happens before the dice are rolled, everyone knows the stakes before
committing to an action.
This is a different flow of conversation and resolution from many other
RPGs. Most players adapt to it with little trouble. Others, however, find it
awkward and wordy (there isn’t really more talking about dice and
mechanics than in most other roleplaying games, but I have found that a few
perceive the sequence of conversation before die rolls as cumbersome).

Wording of “Position” and “Effect”

Some people find the word “position” to be a counterintuitive term for how
much danger the character is in. I’ve even talked to people who were soured
on the whole game system largely by that word sounding so nonsensical to
them. If you expect your game to be played by people unfamiliar with FitD
games, you should either make it clear how the word “position” applies and
how to make sense of it (as positioning within the fiction), or change the
word: danger, threat, peril, price, hazard, etc.
You could change “position” to “risk,” but remember that there’s also a
level of position called “risky.” That means you will get conversations at
the table in the form of, “your risk is risky,” or “you are at risky risk,”
which sound really awkward.* If you use “risk” instead of “position,”
consider also coming up with a different word for that middle level, such
as “dire” or “daring.”
“Effect” is a less confusing term, but if you want you could change it to some-
thing like reward, benefit, progress, success, outcome, or result.

* You might think that no one would talk like that, but I can assure you that
if I were playing your game, and there was a level of risk called risky, I would
say the words, “risky risk” at every possible opportunity.
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Wording of “Partial Success”
A partial success in FitD isn’t really partial. It’s not like other three-levels-of-
outcome systems like Powered by the Apocalypse in which you can get weak
hits and strong hits. The success is full in FitD;* it just comes with a
consequence. Consider whether “mixed success” or some other term would
be better.

Changing Position and Effect

I’m a fan of the position and effect system and would find it hard to imagine
designing in the FitD space without them. But that doesn’t mean you can’t
change it—others have done so successfully.
The usual objection is that the position and effect require a brief conversa-
tion before every die roll, which some find tedious. If you want your game to
play really fast or be easy to explain to players for a single session game,
position and effect might not be a good fit.
Here are some ways to change position and effect:
◆ It’s possible to just get rid of position and effect entirely. Success is just
whatever seems like this action could reasonably achieve. There is no
formally stated position: the GM applies whatever consequences seem
reasonable in the current situation. Unless some other system replaces
it, position and effect become implied elements of GM assessment
rather than formal elements of the rules.
◆ In Blades Against Darkness, an action roll is trivial, daring, or
insurmountable. That sets both how much you will be able to accomplish
and what kind of consequence you may face if the roll is not fully
successful. This combines position and effect into a single assessment of
how challenging the action is.
◆ In Wicked Ones, default position and default effect are explicitly unstated
except when there is a reason to change them. This is intended to
smooth the conversation as much as possible, allowing rolls to proceed
without detailed discussion except when necessary.

* Unless the GM explicitly chooses less effect as the consequence.

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◆ Slugblaster uses a simplified system in which an action roll is risky except
when the PC is trying to “look cool,” in which case it’s desperate. This
streamlines play in a game intended to be quick and casual.
◆ In Sig: City of Blades, the GM assesses effect (no position). It is then
increased by one level for each of these: the roll was 6, the roll was
multiple 6s, outnumbering or outclassing the opposition, having quality
equipment, and being in a controlled (low risk) situation.
◆ Deathwish gives more mechanical weight to effect. Significant
opponents have a threat level that is compared to the capability of the
PCs. For each level difference, the effect level of action rolls are adjusted
upward or downward. When the PCs are facing very powerful
opposition, they often begin at zero effect and must use various
mechanical and fictional manipulations to achieve significant results
(pushing for effect, setup actions, etc.).
◆ As noted earlier, you could replace position and effect with bonuses and
penalties to the action roll.

The Implied Additional Position

In FitD, harm goes from level 1 to level 4, but position only goes from con-
trolled (level 1) to desperate (level 3). That leaves an implied position more
perilous than desperate, which could be called “deadly.”
◆ In Deathwish, there is an additional position level—eponimously called
“deathwish.” At deathwish position, the consequence you risk is dying.
This fits a game that is explicitly designed for high lethality and multiple
PCs per player.
◆ In Wicked Ones, position goes from Dominant to Default to Dire to
Deadly. As in Deathwish, Deadly position means death is on the line.
This extra position could also be used for extremely severe threats other
than harm.

Position in Deep Cuts

Deep Cuts streamlines the threat roll process by very strongly making Risky
the default position. The game doesn’t want you to have to have a discussion
about position except in special cases.

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 ◆ Desperate position means that the threat roll dice outcomes change.
There is no partial mitigation of the threat—anything but a 6 means that
the threat fully manifests.
◆ Controlled position means that there is no threat roll because the stakes
are not high enough. The GM can impose a small cost, which basically
means that there is a Devil’s Bargain instead of a roll.
Even if you use standard action rolls instead of threat rolls in your game, you
could decide to remove die rolls from controlled position in order to speed
play when the stakes are not that interesting.

Consequences
The game assumes that most action rolls come up 4/5, which means a
consequence. Consequences also happen on 1–3 (failure). The GM decides on
the specific consequence: some troublesome event (reduced effect,
complication, lost opportunity, worse position, or harm). The worse the
position, the more vexatious the consequence is supposed to be.
◆ You could structure consequences in various ways. For example, you
could devise a set of condition cards such as “confused,” “stymied,” or
“equipment malfunction.” Each condition would apply until the
character takes action to clear it. The cards could be assigned semi-
randomly (perhaps in categories) or chosen by the GM.
◆ The reduced effect consequence can negate all or most of the success
achieved on a 4/5 roll. That can make sense in the fiction, but it turns a
partial success into a non-success, which is kind of a drag. You could
choose to eliminate this kind of consequence or provide advice to the
GM on when it is appropriate and when it’s not.

Effects and Consequences in Deep Cuts

Deep Cuts introduces a combined scale for both effect and consequences:
limited, standard, greater, extreme. The scale shows level of effect and
severity of consequences, with a table of examples.

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Because consequences are based on three levels of position, the
correspondence to a 4-item scale is not exact and is not thoroughly explained
in DC. The way it seems intended to work is that a really bad threat at
desperate position could generate an extreme consequence. That further
bolsters the idea of an implied additional position discussed on page 67.
Despite the misalignment between a 3-item scale and a 4-item scale, this
combined approach can potentially simplify decision making, but you
should probably clarify how an extreme consequence might occur.

Harm
Online forums discussing Blades in the Dark and other FitD games are full of
advice for GMs that they should minimize how often they hand out harm
consequences because it’s the “most boring” consequence—even though the
game itself doesn’t say or imply that. Other consequences create problems to
deal with, but harm reduces PC capacity to address problems.
Getting hurt makes sense as a thing that can happen in the game (for many
settings and genres), but you may want to change how it works. FitD
presents harm as if it exists on the same scale of severity as other kinds of
consequences, but I don’t think that’s true.
In theory, all consequences at a given position are equally troublesome. But
in practice, harm is likely to be more of a problem, over a greater period of
time, than any other kind of consequence that can result from that same
position. For example, level 1 harm theoretically comes when position is con-
trolled, but instead of a minor problem the PC suffers -1 effect on all affected
actions, potentially over multiple scores. When a consequence is called for,
and the GM chooses to impose harm, that’s an escalation. I’ve listened to
actual play podcasts of Blades in the Dark in which the GM says the position
is desperate, but then gives level 1 harm as the only consequence because
that seems like a pretty desperate outcome regardless of what the game
text says.
(This issue is mitigated to some degree by the availability of armor, which
can provide a “free” resist against most kinds of physical harm—but that
costs a lot of load, works once, and not all harm is physical.)
It’s not necessarily bad that the game is so rough. It’s built so that it encour-
ages players to avoid that kind of danger and have alternate characters to
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play while injured characters heal up. Once the crew acquires the resources
to allow extra downtime actions for healing (and more dice on healing rolls),
harm becomes less of a long-term problem. But in the early stages of a
campaign (or if the crew is at war and can take only one downtime activity
per PC), players might need to either have multiple characters or accept that
they will often have to go do scores while severely constrained by harm.
(Unless the GM follows forum advice and knows to fudge the action system
by avoiding harm, even when it is a reasonable fictional consequence.)
If an ensemble crew structure doesn’t fit your game, then you might need to
take another look at how harm works.
One practical issue with harm is that people (GM and players) may often
tend to forget to apply the penalties the character would normally suffer.
That’s because it’s an extra thing to remember and the penalties are
severe enough that they make the character less fun to play.

One way to slightly mitigate this effect could be to design your character
sheets so that the harm section is right next to the action ratings, so
when players are thinking about an action roll they are more likely to
look at both.
There are various schemes for changing how harm works. These include:
◆ If your game is not really about people getting seriously hurt or dying,
you can get rid of harm. For example, Slugblaster is about adolescents
doing cool things on high tech skateboards. PCs can get “slams.” but they
can’t get really hurt or die.
◆ FitD harm can be both long term damage (cracked ribs) and short term
physical or psychological problems (drunk, freaked out). As the standard
rules are written, clearing all kinds of harm are handled the same way.
In effect, that means it could take weeks of fictional game time to recover
from being panicked, lustful, or tired, which doesn’t make a lot of sense
(and in practice, most GMs won’t actually follow the rules in this way). In
Band of Blades, the GM can identify harm as temporary. It still takes up a
slot in the harm tracker, but it disappears when that makes sense in the
fiction rather than requiring downtime actions to clear.

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◆ Harm could be series of 4-segment clocks. When the first is filled, take
-1 effect, when the second is filled, take -1d, etc. This has some similarity
to hit points (hit protection, health points, etc.) in other games.
◆ You could have multiple harm tracks: physical harm, emotional harm,
corruption, etc. For example, in Band of Blades, corruption is on a
different track than harm. When you fill your corruption track, you take
a permanent blight condition, which causes physical change and
advances the character toward becoming unplayable.
◆ In Scum and Villainy, you automatically clear level 1 harm by taking the
recover action. Additional harm is addressed via a healing clock.
◆ In Blades Against Darkness, harm can be designated as magically tainted,
which cannot be healed by normal means. The PC will need to seek out
some source of special healing to recover from that kind of injury. This
makes trained harm even more penalizing than regular harm.
◆ In Vergence, level 1 harm imposes no mechanical penalty (“it hurts but
you’re OK”). This gives players a bit more of an action hero vibe in that
harm is a problem but less of an impediment to doing things (if both
level 1 harm boxes are full, then the next level 1 harm goes to level 2, so
there is still an effect of taking level 1 harm). At level 2 harm, the player
chooses to spend 1 stress or take -1 effect on actions. At level 3, they just
take ‐1 effect.
◆ In Brother Bear, Sister Wolf, there is no level 1 harm. A controlled
consequence just can’t result in harm. Level 2 harm is -1 effect level on
affected actions, level 3 harm is -1d, and level 4 harm is dying.
◆ In Bladebreaker, there are four attributes: Blood, Blame, Rot, and Scorn,
each associated with two actions. An instance of harm applies to one of
the attributes. For example, harm to Blame could involve arrest,
investigation, or evidence.
◆ Band of Blades has a broader range of levels of harm. Level 4 is a fatal
wound (dying), while level 7 harm is “blown to bits” or equivalent.

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◆ Ruralpunk (a game by Cass K. that used to exist as a web site but,
unfortunately, appears to have been taken down) replaces harm with a
set of predefined conditions (hurt, angry, etc.), each of which is matched
to one of four attributes. If you have suffered a condition and you take an
action under the matched attribute, that roll is made with an extra
condition die. Depending on the result of that die, the action may
generate extra problems (but on a 6 you overcome the problem and the
condition is helpful).
◆ Wicked Ones has a category of consequence called Shock to represent
temporary physical or mental conditions. These are shaken off quickly.
Shock applies to a specific attribute (Brains, Muscles, or Guts) and
imposes a -1d penalty to actions and resistance rolls using that attribute
until cleared. Another, more serious kind of consequence is Bloodied,
which applies Shock to all three attributes and remains until all Shock is
cleared. A second Bloodied consequence means death.
◆ You could eliminate harm as a separate category of consequence. If a PC
has a cut on the arm, blinding headache, or broken nose, that’s just a
complication like any other. Any complication, including being hurt, will
affect the position or effect and can require player actions to deal with
(including, potentially, a long-term project to heal a serious injury).

Harm in Deep Cuts

Deep Cuts makes significant changes to harm:
◆ All level 1 harm is temporary. It can clear during a score or free play if
that fits the fictional situation. For example, a PC who is Winded could
clear that level 1 harm by stopping to catch their breath. Remaining level
1 harm is automatically cleared at the start of downtime. This resolves
the problem in standard FitD in which a character could be inebriated or
scared for weeks of fictional game time.
◆ Harm has no automatic penalties. Instead, the GM can invoke a PC’s
harm at any time to give the PC a problem in exchange for 1 xp. Presum-
ably, invoking level 3 harm might be worse than level 1 harm, but the
rules don’t specify that. This makes harm less of a fun killer by providing
a benefit when it intrudes into the fiction. It also give the player a reason
to remind the GM of harm instead of hoping the GM forgets about it.

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Death
In standard FitD, a character can die in two ways:
1. The character takes level 4 harm (without resisting) and dies. The game
doesn’t actually have an explicit mechanism for level 4 harm, since harm
at desperate position is normally level 3. Presumably, the GM could
assess a super-desperate position and inflict level 4 harm, or a Devil’s
Bargain might be struck.
2. If the character needs to mark level 3 harm, but that box is already filled,
they suffer a “catastrophic consequence” which could be either death or
some severe permanent damage (potentially forcing retirement).
Case 1 can really happen only if the player doesn’t resist (though resisting
could transfer the situation to case 2 if resistance drops the consequence by
one level and the level 3 box is full). Also, if the character is low on stress and
has three trauma conditions already, the choice is between character death
and likely forced retirement.
In Blades in the Dark, a character who dies might be gone or might transfer
to a supernatural playbook (ghost, vampire, hull). Any game with undeath
could have a similar option.
In your game, do you want characters to be able to die? If so, when should
that happen? Should characters feel fragile and in deadly peril during high-
danger scenes, or should death happen only when the player has chosen to
keep going even after running out of the last vestige of resources?
◆ To make death impossible within the rules, just remove it. If the genre of
the game is supposed to be light and fun, that could well be the right
choice. Perhaps a character is either unhurt, hindered, or temporarily
out of play, with no worse outcome available.
◆ To make death possible but less likely, make it a player choice upon
receiving level 4 harm: the character dies or takes a “scar” for example. A
scar might have long-term effects, such as rearranging action dots or
abilities to reflect that the character is different now.
◆ To make it easier for characters to die, consider a Deadly position option
(page 67) or a rule that a character with level 3 harm will die unless
promptly treated and stabilized.

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 ◆ To make death more narrative, remove it from the harm system. The
character dies when the fictional situation requires it, generally by
agreement between the GM and player. You might have a rule about who
has final say over that.
In Deep Cuts, fatal harm that isn’t instantly lethal can be stabilized by some-
one else. The character doesn’t die, but does acquire a permanent scar such
as a disfigurement or limp. Scars can be invoked in the same manner as
harm. This fits many kinds of fiction and also makes it harder for characters
to die.

Resistance
Resistance is a core component of FitD. It allows players a limited capacity to
say “nope” to whatever consequences they don’t like. This provides a high
level of player agency compared to most other traditional RPGs, in which a
PC just has to accept whatever mechanical or narrative outcomes come up.
But the GM still has a lot of control. The player can resist, but the GM
determines the position that sets up the severity of the consequence and to
what degree resistance mitigates a consequence. When presenting skilled
enemies, GM can inflict consequences without any roll at all and so could
overwhelm a player with too many consequences to resist. Ultimately, the
resistance mechanic can’t protect players from a harsh GM.
Resistance is also a gamble, since it has a variable cost. With an unlucky roll,
it can fill more than half your starting stress boxes. Thus, when the situation
is dire or the PCs are making a lot of action rolls, the players must accept
most consequences. They can resist the ones that seem especially egregious.
That fits the “desperate criminals” default FitD setting quite well. Since the
range of possible results of a resist roll goes from restoring 1 stress to taking
5 stress, it’s a very swingy gamble, especially when rolling 1d or 0d. Any time
PCs have 5 or fewer free stress boxes they are risking the possibility of a
resistance roll pushing them into trauma.

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You can reasonably leave resistance as-is in almost any FitD game. But there
are many possible resistance tweaks, such as:
◆ Make the stress cost of resistance less extreme, using a table such as
this one:
Resistance Roll
1d for each Attribute Critical: Recover 1 stress
rating 6: Take 1 stress
4/5: Take 2 stress
1–3: Take 3 stress

Deep Cuts uses this progression for pushing yourself (which in DC is used for
resisting, among other things), except that a critical means 0 stress, not
+1 stress.
◆ In Blades Against Darkness, PCs don’t resist by rolling an attribute.
Instead, there is a track indicating increasing levels of distress, starting
at Fresh. When you resist at Fresh, you roll with 4d to find out the stress
cost and cross off that box. The next resist is also at 4d, but crosses off the
next box. Then the next resist is with 3d and crosses off the Tired box. As
the boxes are crossed off, the PC has fewer dice to resist with, eventually
landing at 0d.
◆ In Deathwish, you can avoid level 1 harm by taking 1 stress. You can do
that after resisting, if you want.
◆ You could let the player choose how much to mitigate a consequence
(from level 2 to level 1 harm, for example). Then roll on a table like this:
Resistance Roll
Decide how many Critical: Recover 1 stress
levels of consequence 6: Take 0 stress + levels of reduction
reduction. Roll 1d for 4/5: Take 1 stress + levels of reduction
each Attribute rating. 1–3: Take 3 stress + levels of reduction

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◆ The player pays a set cost in stress and then rolls to see if it works. For
example, take 1 stress per level of consequence (controlled 1, risky 2,
desperate 3), and roll on this table:
Resistance Roll
Take 1 stress per level Critical: Completely avoid the consequence and
of consequence, then recover the stress you took
roll 1d for each 6: Completely avoid the consequence
Attribute rating 4/5: Reduce the consequence by 1 level
1–3: No luck

◆ No roll. It costs a flat 2 stress per level of mitigation to resist. To drop a

level 2 (risky) consequence to level 1 (controlled), for example, take 2
stress. To eliminate a level 2 consequence, take 4 stress.
◆ The player chooses the stress cost and then rolls that many dice to see
whether the consequence is reduced or avoided. The attribute limits the
maximum stress expenditure.
Resistance Roll
Roll dice equal to the Critical: Avoid the consequence and recover the
stress you spend, stress you spent
limited by the 6: Completely avoid the consequence
attribute the GM 4/5: Reduce the consequence by 1 level
decides on for that 1–3: No luck
consequence.
◆ You could standardize how much a resistance roll reduces the
consequence. Instead of having it be GM fiat, for example, you might
specify that resistance is two levels. That would make resistance a bit
more effective and reliable.
◆ The Changing the Game chapter of Blades in the Dark has an alternate
way of managing resistance. The cost of resisting a consequence
generated by an action roll is equal to the lowest die result of an action
roll (so if you rolled 3d and got 5, 2, 1, you’d get a partial success and
resisting would cost 1 stress). It doesn’t say how you resist a consequence
not generated by a roll. In that case, you could do a standard resist roll,
or (if you have take out attributes) roll an action rating with the cost in
stress equal to the lowest die (or 0 if you roll a 6).

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In Deep Cuts, to resist you make a roll to push yourself. The stress cost runs
from 0–3 instead of +1 to -5, so it’s much less swingy and risky to resist.

Who Does the Resisting?

The FitD rules as written require no fictional justification for a resistance
roll. The game doesn’t ask the player to describe any PC action in order to
resist. Yet resistance depends on PC attributes and costs PC stress.
So who resists, the character or the player? The game doesn’t actually care.
Frequently, it’s easy to explain resistance in terms of the PC doing some-
thing. If the PC slips and falls, we could narrate the character starting to slip,
but using willpower to stay upright instead.
But what if a group of drunken bravos unexpectedly wanders around the
corner and stumbles toward the crew? If the player decides to resist bad luck,
it’s harder to rationalize the character doing something to avoid it. It’s more
like the player choosing to exert authorial control of the story, independent
of the character.
In practice, many groups mix these modes depending on what seems to
make sense in the moment. But you could change how your game
views resistance.
◆ Resistance could be made into an explicit PC move. Resistance would
require justification and narration of something the PC does in the
fiction (in the present or via flashback). That would mean that some
consequences could not be resisted.
◆ Alternately, resistance could be a player move. It is a matter of luck or
fate: something that happens to the PC but is not done by the PC. You
could lean into that by personifying the fates, gods, AIs, or other beings
intervening on behalf of the PCs. There could be a currency separate
from stress, such as divine favor, that the player uses to resist.

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◆ In Wicked Ones, resistance is explicitly something the character does in
the fiction. You can only resist when it would be reasonably possible. You
choose an action to resist with, which must be different from the action
that generated the consequence. When you make a resistance roll, a 1–3
is partial resistance at a cost of taking 3 stress, 4/5 is partial resistance
costing 2 stress, 6 is full resistance costing 1 stress, and a critical is full
resistance clearing 1 stress.

Armor
Armor provides “free” resistance at no cost in stress. The term “armor” in
FitD refers to both physical protective gear, as well as “special armor” that
may protect against other sorts of undesirable events.
Any use of armor requires a box to be checked off, which refreshes at the next
downtime. Since even physical armor works once per score (though the
character is fictionally wearing it the whole time) it functions as a kind of
plot armor rather than trying to simulate the benefit that wearing armor
could provide against one or many blows.
There are other ways to handle some or all kinds of armor. These could
interact with special abilities where appropriate.
◆ Checking an armor box could allow the player to convert harm to some
other kind of consequence of equal (or lesser) level of severity.
◆ Checking an armor box could improve position (and reduce the
consequence) by one level. Alternately, being armed with shield could
improve position or give +1d to resist, while armor works as per
standard FitD.
◆ In Sig: City of Blades, if you have a kind of armor that applies to a
consequence you suffer, you can pay 1 stress to resist instead of making
a roll. You can also resist to reduce the consequence further.
◆ Checking an armor box could add +1d or +2d to a resistance roll instead
of providing an automatic resist.
◆ Armor could give a +1d to relevant resistance rolls throughout a score
(not just once).

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 ◆ Armor could set a max cost on resistance. For example, if you are
wearing armor, then resisting relevant attacks might cost no more than
2 stress no matter the resistance roll.
◆ Vergence doesn’t have an armor mechanic, but certain special abilities
provide defense. If you have an applicable defense, a resistance roll of 1–
3 counts as 4/5. Because of how resistance works in that game, this
means that a roll that would otherwise cost 4 stress costs 2 instead.
◆ In Wicked Ones, an item, potion, magic item, or ability can provide
defense against a specified kind of consequence, such as being detected
or being physically injured. Each defense can be used once
between recoveries.
If you make armor less useful, you could provide more armor boxes
to compensate.
If you are using DC threat rolls, armor could be a Devil’s Bargain, gaining
+1d with the additional threat that the armor becomes damaged.
Note, also, that you might want to specify whether you can both resist -and-
use armor on the same consequence. It’s implied in the rules that you can,
but it’s not clearly stated.

Special Armor
Each playbook in the standard game has at least one ability that gives access
to special armor. When the special armor box is checked, it gives a free resist
against some category of consequence, such as being surprised or being
magically attacked.
This system can fit many kinds of games, but it isn’t required. If you do other
things with resistance you can cut special armor and nothing will break.
Some special abilities do other things than resistance when the special
armor box is checked. It essentially provides a “once per score” box.

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 It can be counterintuitive that the game uses the word “armor” to refer
to both physical armor you wear on your body and also an intangible
game resource that lets you do a thing once per score (sometimes
resisting, sometimes some other ability). You could rename special
armor to something else if that bothers you or if there is a name that
better fits the theme of your game: special box, limit break, extra box,
power up, finishing move, my jam, ace in the hole, etc.

Fortune Roll
The fortune roll is a simple way for the GM to allow a decision to be made
randomly rather than by fiat. GMs have been using the equivalent of fortune
rolls for decades, but FitD provides a neat system for resolving questions not
addressed by other mechanics.
It depends on ratings in the game all being on the same (usually 0–4) scale to
use the standard FitD dice mechanic. It’s one of the few times in the game
that the GM might roll the dice instead of the players. This generally works
well enough that there isn’t much hacking that needs to be done.
New players can get confused by the difference between action rolls (peril)
and fortune rolls (no danger to PCs). Make sure your game clarifies that to
the degree it needs to.

Progress Clocks
Clocks are a simple concept that can be easily adapted to
tracking many kinds of progressive events in the game (or other games,
which seems to be more and more common). It’s reasonable to retain clocks
in some form, although you could simplify your text by removing the long
description in the SRD of the many different uses for clocks. You could also
use a track or other visual indicator, instead of a clock, if that better fits the
theme of your game.
If your game has a specific use for a progressive event, such as a “doom
clock” leading to some sort of big plot twist, you can build that special kind
of clock into your system.

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Gathering Information
Gathering information is a way to formalize the regular systems in the game
as they apply to getting clues and other useful info. It is possible to cut this
section out and, by implication, the PCs will still be able to make action rolls
that let them find things out. Nevertheless, if your game will involve
investigation (and what RPG doesn’t?), it can be useful to include it.
I think standard FitD is a little confusing about how gather information rolls
are supposed to work (the text implies it’s a fortune roll but the table says it
could also be an action roll). In writing Vergence, I clarified that there are
three kinds of gather information rolls:
◆ Gather information action roll. This roll is made when the act of
information gathering could be dangerous or troublesome. Position is
handled normally, determined by how much risk is involved in getting
the information. Effect determines the detail of the information
acquired.
◆ Gather information fortune roll. This roll is made when there isn’t any
risk to gathering information but the GM wants there to be a random
factor involved. The result of the roll determines the detail of the
information acquired.
◆ Gather information long term project. When research will involve
multiple activities that will take significant time, the GM sets up a
project clock and the PC can use downtime actions to fill it.
Critical Information: Depending on the kind of game, you might take an
idea from the (non- FitD) Gumshoe system and declare that the GM never
calls for roll to see whether the PCs get the basic information they need
to make sure the game doesn’t stall. They always get those important
clues that will keep the plot moving, no matter what. The GM can still call
for action rolls or fortune rolls to see if the players acquire additional
detail or extra clues.
Another point about which FitD is a little unclear is when, exactly, players
can formally gather information. The cycle of play diagram puts gathering
information in free play and suggests that it is mainly for finding out about
potential scores. Presumably, it’s not limited to that usage. Clearly, players
can ask questions during a score and use action rolls to acquire knowledge

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of their situation (even the act of discussing position and effect provides lot
of information about a situation), but do they get to make formal gather
information rolls during a score?
You might clarify these points. For example, maybe each PC gets one GI roll
before each score (or equivalent), in order to focus play and avoid dithering.
The kinds of info that can be acquired might depend on which playbook the
player is using. In that case, you’d have clear rules for that and, perhaps,
special abilities that allow those rules to be broken in specified ways. Or you
could explicitly say that GI rolls are not limited to particular phases of play
and can be used any way the players like.

Gathering Information in Deep Cuts

Deep Cuts says that gathering info uses the regular game rules instead of
having a separate system. I would argue that this is also basically the case in
standard FitD, but DC makes that explicit and explains how information is
acquired a bit differently than standard FitD.
If you’re creating a FitD hack, you can make your explanation of information
gathering more like the standard rules or more like DC without any serious
effect on how the game is actually played.

Teamwork
The four teamwork maneuvers in FitD (Assist, Lead a Group Action, Protect,
and Set Up) give the PCs ways to work together and share game resources. In
a game that is not built around success through system mastery, teamwork
is designed so that the best path to success is usually through collaboration.

Assist
Assisting, by taking 1 stress, is half as costly as pushing for a die, which costs
2 stress. It is much more stress-efficient for the group to routinely
collaborate than to push (of course, it is also possible to do both on an
important roll).
◆ You could limit assists to only actions that the assisting character has
one dot in.
◆ You could allow the assist to happen after the action roll, adding +1d
afterward rather than before. This could be a special ability.

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 ◆ You can allow a higher level of assistance, such as +2d if the assisting
character pays 1 stress and also takes a separate Devil’s Bargain.
◆ In Sig: City of Blades, a character can spend 1 stress to give another
character +1d to a resistance roll.
◆ You could make the cost of assisting be a Devil’s Bargain instead
of stress.
◆ A special ability could allow assistance to provide +1d or +1 effect. Or
spend 2 stress to get both.
Players and GMs sometimes get messed up by the rule that only one PC can
assist another on an action roll. The reason for that is to avoid too much
stacking to make important rolls almost impossible to fail. However, in the
fiction, it can be hard to rationalize why that is the case. The alternative, of
course, is a group action rather than an assist, but this places the stress
burden on the player making the action roll rather than those helping.
◆ You could allow the first assist to cost 1 stress and the second 2 stress.
This can work well if the max number of total bonus dice is limited to, for
example, 2.
◆ A special ability could allow for a second character to assist.
In Deep Cuts, assist is a type of Devil’s Bargain using teamwork. See page 86.

Group Action
I am not the biggest fan of how group actions work because, if several PCs
participate in a group action the chance of no one getting any kind of success
becomes fairly small. Thus, it can take away the tension as group rolls
become a very likely successes. (However, in that rare circumstance that a
failure does happen, it can be costly to the leader.)
It can also seem strange that five people sneaking past a guard have a much
better chance of success than one person does.
◆ Deathwish eliminates group actions. The game runs fine without them.
◆ In Vergence, group actions are limited when they make sense, such as
three people throwing their weight against a door. The GM considers
position and effect based on whether having a group do the action is a
help or hindrance, then the lead PC makes a single roll for the group. The
participants share any consequences, but there is no special stress cost.

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Group Actions in Deep Cuts
Group actions take two forms in DC: when the group faces the same threat
and all roll the same action and when they face multiple threats and roll with
different actions.
Either way, there are two advantages to declaring a group action:
◆ If the GM agrees that it makes sense, the group can get more effect or
better position because they are operating at a higher scale. This could
certainly apply when fighting a squad of enemies, but perhaps not when
the actions of a group would provide no benefit vs. acting separately.
◆ The declared leader of the action can resist any consequence faced by any
team member. However, take a look at the teamwork rules, which lets
anyone do this if the GM agrees. So, in effect, all this does is prevent the
GM from saying no if the leader wants to push to protect another PC
from a consequence.
Group actions in DC avoid the standard FitD problem of rolling together and
almost always getting a success, even when that doesn’t fit the fiction.
However, they produce different results for different PCs, which kind of
makes it hard to judge the outcome of a “group action.” Also, if the question
is whether the group as a whole succeeds, how does the GM interpret some
PCs succeeding and some not? If one failed, one got a partial, and one
succeeded, did they bash the door down together or not?
On balance I consider the group action rules in FitD to be among the weakest
parts of the system in both standard FitD and DC (for different reasons). If
I’m hacking FitD, this is one of the things I will pretty much always change.

Protect
This maneuver lets players accept consequences for others fairly freely (as
long as it can be fictionally justified). It encourages cooperation and sharing
of problems.
If you want to focus the use of protecting, you could limit it so that you can
only protect a character if you assisted on that roll. Or if you use some kind
of bond system (page 6), you can only protect a character with whom you
share a bond (or you get +1d to resist when you protect a bond-mate).

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If a consequence doesn’t directly affect the PC who made the roll, can you
“protect” them from it? Let’s say several PCs are involved in an infiltration
score. One gets a consequence, which ticks the “guards alerted” clock. Can
another player protect the first player from it (presumably for the purpose of
resisting)? Does that require some fictional justification? If this kind of
thing is likely to come up in your game you can address it.
Protect is a type of teamwork in Deep Cuts.

Set Up
A set up action changes the fiction to improve the stakes of later actions. You
could technically eliminate this from the rules and it could still happen
according to the regular action roll system (because actions, of course, affect
what happens later). But it does make it more clear that you can do it by call-
ing it out as a specific thing.
The standard rules state that a setup action provides either +1 effect level or
improved position. What that means, as the rules are written, is that a setup
action roll can basically have only one possible effect level. For that reason,
it’s unclear what would happen if the player made a setup roll at any effect
level other than standard (though, of course, GMs manage to figure this out
using rulings at the table).
If you want to encourage more teamwork, you could leave the benefits less
defined, so that the GM and player set the stakes for a setup action like they
do for other actions, with higher effect level producing better results. For
example, perhaps if the PC succeeded on a setup roll at greater effect, that
might generate both improved position and effect for a subsequent roll. Or
the benefit might last longer. This could be negotiated as part of the stakes of
the setup action roll and how the fiction plays out.
Set up is (you guessed it) incorporated into teamwork in Deep Cuts.

Other Kinds of Teamwork

You could establish other teamwork maneuvers. For example, if your game
is about sailing across a sea of dead souls, you could have a kind of group
action for the PC piloting the ship to bring the crew over a portion of the
journey. If your game is about harnessing the power of friendship to

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combine into a super-powered magical robot, there could be a teamwork
action for that. Create teamwork actions that reflect what the PCs will do
together within the scope of the game.

Teamwork in Deep Cuts

As with other things in Deep Cuts, teamwork is presented as a Devil’s
Bargain. This mechanic replaces protect, set up, and assist with a more
flexible set of options.
◆ Teamwork has six possible benefits: improved effect or position, cover for a
teammate (they don’t face a threat), protect them so a consequence they
face is reduced, +1d to a roll, extra detail on gathering information, add
ticks to a clock.
◆ Teamwork has six possible costs: no cost, face a threat, suffer harm, take
1 stress, push yourself, 1 or more ticks added to a clock.
Cohorts and pets can participate in teamwork, but can’t take stress or push
themselves, so they have to pay one of the other costs.
The player negotiates the benefit and cost with the GM. This system is more
flexible than the teamwork maneuvers in standard FitD (protect, set up,
assist), but because the options are not defined they can require more
negotiation to resolve.

PC vs. PC
The basic action roll resolution system treats PCs as the center of all
activities and NPCs as abstractions that sometimes present obstacles. This
means there is no inherent mechanism within the action roll system for
players to act against each other. That’s an interesting design choice in a
game about underworld scoundrels.
The game does have a system for PCs to oppose each other, however. It wisely
requires player buy-in.
◆ If your game should not ever be about PCs opposing each other, you can
take it out or place constraints on it.

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 ◆ On the other hand, the theme of your game requires a more detailed
system for PC vs. PC, you might need to expand on the relatively light
resolution system in standard FitD, such as duels, individual control of
factions, battles, etc.

It’s Your Game

Any experienced FitD designer will find many points of disagreement with
what I’ve written here. There is no single way to look at hacking a game as
deep as FitD. You might use this guide mainly to help you identify all the
ways you think I don’t know what I’m talking about and thereby clarify your
own thoughts.
In writing this I’ve chosen to stay mostly within the FitD design space. That
means I’ve discussed changes that are consistent with what is already in
the system. But you don’t have to! Scratch the paint, take out the windows,
yank out the back seat, stick in a bunch of aftermarket parts, add racing
stripes, and make it completely yours. Your game can have as much or as
little FitD in it as you wish.
Have fun and make a great game.

Resources
Games and Supplements
There are so many excellent and innovative Forged in the Dark games that I
cannot begin to list them all. John Harper maintains a list at itch.io and
there is also a partial list at the official Blades in the Dark site.
Here are the games and game supplements mentioned in this text:
◆ Asphalt & Trouble by Jacob Segal
◆ Blades Against Darkness by Dylan Green
◆ Bladebreaker by Skelpie Limmer
◆ Blades in the Dark, Scum and Villainy, and Band of Blades and are
published by Evil Hat Productions

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◆ Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts by John Harper
◆ Brother Bear, Sister Wolf by Small Cool Games
◆ Charge SRD by Fari RPGs
◆ Crash Cart by Galen Pejeau
◆ Deathwish by Ian Hart
◆ Idiot Teenagers With a Death Wish, by D. Lincoln.
◆ Microblades by Vandel Arden
◆ Moth-Light by Justin Ford
◆ Raiders in the Dark by Small Cool Games
◆ Sig: City of Blades by Jason Pitre
◆ Slugblaster by Mikey Hamm
◆ Vergence by Small Cool Games
◆ Wicked Ones by Ben Nelson and Victor Costa
◆ Wizard playbook by Chaos Badger Pub.

Other Resources
◆ An Amateur's Guide to Hacking Blades in the Dark, by Michael Elliot
◆ Austin Ramsay’s FitD Tech for #TechJam by Austin Ramsay
◆ The official Blades in the Dark web site: bladesinthedark.com
◆ The Blades in the Dark Discord server: discord.gg/JWJYp7RH
◆ The Reddit Blades in the Dark and Forged in the Dark channels: reddit.
com/r/bladesinthedark and reddit.com/r/forgedinthedark
◆ Commentary on Blades in the Dark rules by Sidney Icarus on the Wax
Wings blog

Credits
◆ Writing and layout by David Rourke
◇ Game stuff: smallcoolgames.itch.io
◇ X: x.com/SmallCoolGames1
◇ Bluesky: smallcoolgames.bsky.social
◇ Email: smallcoolgames@gmail.com
◆ Blades in the Dark and Forged in the Dark are by John Harper
◆ Cover image by Hush Nadoo

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◆ Typeface: Alegreya by Juan Pablo del Peral
◆ Software: Affinity Publisher and Affinity Photo
◆ Thanks to all the participants at the Blades in the Dark Discord hack talk
channels
◆

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