Dicey Fate

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

Role Playing Public Radio presents a weekly Actual Play podcast of tabletop role playing game sessions. It is run by Ross Payton, a tabletop RPG writer and podcaster.The cast rotates for different games, but our regular players include Caleb Stokes, Aaron Carsten, Tom Church, Maddy Gibbons, and Thaddeus Stoklasa. We play a wide variety of RPGs, including Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green, Blades in the Dark, Eclipse Phase, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Heart: The City Beneath, and Monster of the Week. We alternate between full campaigns and one shot adventures. Links actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com - Official website podcasts.apple.com - Apple Podcasts feed

Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition is a tactical, combat-focused tabletop roleplaying system released by Wizards of the Coast in 2008. Designed to fix the high-level math imbalances and "martial vs. caster" disparities of the 3.5E era, 4E redesigned the game's engine with a more video game adjacent approach. It is famous for its structured, grid-based combat and for standardizing class abilities into a unified system. While its dramatic departure from legacy mechanics polarized the fanbase directly paving the way for the creation of Pathfinder. 4E is widely praised today for its brilliant monster design, DM tools, and unparalleled encounter balance. The system it directly replaced is Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition (2003) Description In D&D 4E, players take on the roles of heroes who are combat-capable right from the start. The system relies of combat being carried out with the use of a battle grid. Positioning plays a big part of the combat experience. The exact location of the characters matters greatly. Unlike other editions where spellcasters are played in a separate mechanical way than martial classes, 4E unifies the progression system. Every class is boiled down to a specific combat "Role" and draws from their specialized toolkit of "Powers," making the game balanced and ensuring that every character has unique and impactful actions that they can perform on their turns. System Overview & Key Features The Power System Instead of traditional spell slots or basic attacks, every class has a list of At-Will, Encounter, Daily, and Utility powers, each with different power levels and frequency at which they can be performed. Fighters can execute epic daily maneuvers just as wizards cast daily spells, creating a better balance between martial classes and spellcasters. Combat Roles All classes are sorted by their class specialization role: Defenders (tanks who draw aggro and protect their allies), Strikers (high single-target damage), Leaders (healers and support), and Controllers (area-of-effect damage and debuffers). Static Defenses Saving throws were removed and replaced with four different defense values: Armor Class, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. When a wizard casts a fireball, they roll an attack against the targets' Reflex. Instead of both sides rolling for success and for defense - the attacker is the only one to roll dice. Healing Surges A standardized resource pool representing a character's stamina. Almost all healing in the game, whether from a cleric's spell or catching your breath, requires the target to spend a Healing Surge, which reliably heals them for exactly one-quarter of their maximum hit points. Monster Roles & Minions The Dungeon Master's toolkit was revolutionized. Monsters have explicit roles (like Brute, Artillery, or Skirmisher) that cleanly dictate their behavior. 4E also introduced "Minions". Monsters that have normal stats and deal average damage, but only have exactly 1 Hit Point, allowing heroes to cleave through cinematic hordes. Skill Challenges An unique system with 4E is Skill Challenges - a "cinematic" series of actions that turn social, environmental or escape situations into more movie-like scenes. The players must achieve a certain amount (determined by the situation) of successful skill checks, before they collect enough failed skill checks. Additional links dungeonsanddragons.com - Official Dungeons & Dragons website