Blades in the Dark - Deep Cuts

Blades in the Dark is probably my favorite RPG game of all time. And for all that, I’ve never actually run it correctly, always preferring to eyeball downtime rather than follow the flowchart properly. Deep Cuts is something between an expansion and a second edition, and I think a lot of the changes are worthwhile.

The new Harm system is a great improvement over the old one, where Harm penalties (decreased effect, -1d on everything) were incredibly brutal. Now Harm only penalizes when invoked, and gives XP when that happens. Advancement is linked to clocks, with different classes of advancement taking different numbers of full advance clocks, rather than the many XP tracks of the older system. Load is now discrete/conspicuous, and certain bulky items like armor and big weapons can only be taken before the mission at heavy load. Downtime is streamlined, and the new heat/rep/entanglements system looks a lot more usable.

Perhaps the most controversial change is dropping the Action roll for a new Threat system. Scoundrels always succeed, and the job of the GM is to come up with the awful things that happen if they succeed less than perfectly. It seems weird, but I think it might work better in practice. The art of BitD is in pacing and consequences, and the Threat system makes both of those a little more controlled.

I’m less keen on the setting additions. The new industrial revolution items are cool, as well as the extended backgrounds, but Harper adds a new mystery in the form of the Strangers, human visitors from an undefined alternate reality. The fact is that Duskvol is already a criminal and political tinderbox haunted by unquiet ghosts and running on demon blood. There’s so much weird shit going on that a mere human threat, particularly one not connected to a major faction, is just noise. I would have greatly preferred advice on how to make the game more crimey or ghostly. But hey, if you like blades, you’ll want this book.