I made a little visual aid for Blades in the Dark.

I made a little visual aid for Blades in the Dark.

I made a little visual aid for Blades in the Dark. It’s a bar chart showing the result/success chances depending on the dice pool rolled. I know Blades is fundamentally a narrative game but in my experience players will try to game any system so it’s good to “disclose” this kind of information as transparently as possible. In the end the least statistically savvy players will benefit the most I think.

OK that’s enough apologetics. I hope someone finds this useful.

8 thoughts on “I made a little visual aid for Blades in the Dark.”

  2. Thanks. My main concern was that this could “break” the charm where you try to get the next die regardless of it not being useful. But in the end I figured it’s still a gamble so the players should play as intelligently as possible.

  5. I’ve done this breakdown for when I run Blades and it’s useful for both the GM and the players to be aware of this progression.

    From the GM-side, to not feel like you need to ask for the moon for an extra die if something really juicy hasn’t occurred to you or anyone else at the table. A little extra heat? Irritating an enemy that isn’t all that powerful? Sure….

    And from player-side, the knowledge that grubbing for that fifth or sixth die isn’t all that game-changing, so don’t rack your brain.

    Part of the magic of Blades and similar die-pool resolution games is that the complications worth adding/grubbing for come most frequently at the beginning when the characters are first setting out. It’s then they’re most wanted. In the case of Blades going for that third or fourth die.

    Later, when the characters are more proficient and you’ve got plenty of complications and color in play, it backs off for even the most statistically minded-player.

    It’s world-creation/invention from mother necessity.

    Thanks for this, Andrej Poljak. I’ll be printing this out.

  6. This is a really helpful visual for something I’ve stressed to my players: you only need 2d to get a 75% chance at some level of success. It may be “success with a consequence”, but that’s the most frequent success in dramatic / adventure fiction anyway – our heroes make some headway, but they’re not out of the woods yet.

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