Category: Blades in the Dark: Discussion

So I’ve been kicking around the best way to approach this particular piece of feedback since the Quick Start rules were released and after several fruitless days of mulling it over I don’t think I’m going to be able to compose it any better so I suppose I’ll just throw it out there and see how it goes.

One of the weaker aspects of Dungeon World, looking back on it, is the sheer proliferation of advanced moves in each playbook compared to that of Apocalypse World, many of which aren’t very interesting.  That said, I find that I have almost the exact opposite problem when considering the Blades playbooks…I feel like they have too FEW distinct moves among them.  Half of each playbook’s moves are shared across all the playbooks (some form of special armor, Daring, Experienced, and Veteran) which leaves only four unique special moves for each playbook, and many of those special moves have a tendency to boil down to some form of “add 1d when CONDITION occurs,” which are functional and useful but also a little bland at times.

I’m not the first person I know who’s seen the Quick Start to share this sentiment.  Now here’s where this feedback falls apart…I’m not personally sure how a good way to go about addressing this would be.  It’s easy to say “these could use more diverse/more interesting moves” but I’m not really sure what in the context of Blades in the Dark that would look like, precisely.  I believe John Harper’s gone on record as stating that Blades isn’t the sort of game where direct narrative control via player moves is likely to be employed and the main task resolution method is relatively streamlined without a great deal of moving parts.  Shoehorning added complexity into a game for the sake of added complexity isn’t ever really something I look to do so it’s possible that the design space may not be there to warrant trying to append extra moves to the various playbooks at the expense of clarity and ease of play.

(Also there’s the fact to consider that, as laid out, there really isn’t very much more room within each playbook’s sheet for additional moves.)

Does anyone else have some thoughts on the matter?