The 2017 dark fantasy RPG Blades In The Dark, designed by John Harper, introduced a brand-new, easy-to-hack tabletop RPG system - an open-source ruleset which creative designers could freely use for their own games as long as they included the tagline "Forged In The Dark" on the cover. A large number of other game designers have since used this "Forged In The Dark" system as the basis for their own RPGs, many of them focused around ragtag groups of renegades, refugees, and mercenaries forced to make tough choices.
The easily hacked "Forged In The Dark" ruleset is itself an extensive hack of the "Powered By The Apocalypse" system used in RPGs like Apocalypse World. Like "PBTA" games, "FitD" RPGs focus on narrative over simulation, with game mechanics assigning dice-rolling responsibilities solely to the players so Game Masters can focus on creating interesting consequences for player choices. Another point of similarity between "PBTA" and "FitD" RPGs is their use of "Playbooks," which are easy-to-fill out character sheets with abilities, starting equipment, and backstory details centered around iconic character archetypes.
One unique innovation of "Forged In The Dark" RPGs is their use of "Group Playbooks," characters sheets representing the responsibilities, collective resources, and problems of the campaign's "Adventuring Party." Another innovation of "Forged In The Dark" games is their use of Dice Pools for conflict resolution; players determine the effectiveness of character actions by rolling a handful of dice equal to one of their Action Ratings, the value of the highest die deciding if they succeed and at what cost. GMs of "Forged In The Dark" RPGs also frequently create challenges for their players through "Clocks," wheel-and-spoke diagrams used to measure the progress of PCs towards a long-term goal or count down to an imminent disaster. Beyond these common design elements, however, a "Forged In The Dark" Tabletop RPG can take all sorts of forms.
Forged In The Dark Tabletop RPG - Blades In The Dark
Blades In The Dark, the original "Forged In The Dark" game, is a dark fantasy heist RPG about bands of working-class scoundrels in the city of Doskvol, a grim gothic metropolis of social inequity, ectoplasmic ghosts, and galvanic towers fueled with demonic whale blood. The gameplay of Blades In The Dark, heavily inspired by the Dishonored and Thief video game franchises, is about players forming crews of thieves, assassins, cultists, or smugglers, pulling off high-stakes heists and dealing with the material and spiritual corruption of their hometown.
Forged In The Dark Tabletop RPG - Scum And Villainy
Scum And Villainy is a science fiction space western RPG about the ragtag crew of a dingy spaceship eking out a living in the frontier of charted space, at the rim of the Galactic Hegemony's authority. The "Crew Member" Playbooks of Scum And Villainy are inspired by characters from Star Wars, Firefly, Cowboy Bebop, and Guardians Of The Galaxy, while special "Spaceship" playbooks help Scum And Villainy players define the vehicle their characters fly between star systems.
Forged In The Dark Tabletop RPG - Beam Saber
Beam Saber is a mecha science fiction RPG about a squad of giant robot pilots trying to survive a brutal war waged in space and across various planets, in the style of military dramas like Mobile Suit Gundam or Starship Troopers.
Each character playbook lets players of Beam Saber define both their type of Pilot and the unique mechanized weapon of war they pilot, while the "Squad" playbooks describe the player's responsibilities in their theater of war, along with the forward operating base their Mechas deploy from.
Forged In The Dark Tabletop RPG - Band Of Blades
Band Of Blades is a dark fantasy military RPG published by Evil Hat Productions about a mercenary band called the Legion, fighting their way past the Cinder King's undead armies as they try to retreat to Daggerstone Keep. The gameplay of Band Of Blades, highly similar to the Black Company novels of Glen Cook and the Myth real-time tactics franchise of Bungie Studios, puts players in the shoes of the commanders, marshals, quartermasters, spymasters, lorekeepers, and chosen saints who command the Legion, challenging said players to pull off both heroic deeds and the command decisions needed to keep their army alive and fed.
Forged In The Dark Tabletop RPG - Moth-Light
Moth-Light, a "FitD" science-fiction RPG currently in beta on itch.io, is about the post-collapse descendants of humans who colonized the distant planet of Beacon, brimming with alien, insectile predators. Players of Moth-Light seek to survive the hostile flora and fauna of their adopted world, reclaim the technology of their predecessors, and work towards a better tomorrow, a narrative quantified by Playbooks describing their character roles and group Playbooks representing the Pacts they've made with each other.
Forged In The Dark Tabletop RPG - Songs For The Dusk
Songs For The Dusk is a post-apocalyptic "Forged In The Dark" RPG of hard-won optimism, set in a world recovering from the collapse of a high-tech but repressed society, a planet filled with ruins, relics, and altered laws of physics. Players of Songs For The Dusk take on the role of "Striders," explorers, scientists, and ambassadors who forms themselves into adventurous "Crews" that seek to unravel the mysteries of their world and bring its scattered communities together into something better than what came before.
Forged In The Dark Tabletop RPG - Brinkwood: The Blood Of Tyrants
Brinkwood: The Blood Of Tyrants, described as a "Castlepunk" RPG on its Kickstarter page, is about a haunted, oppressed land ruled over by bloodthirsty vampire aristocrats, cruelly exploiting their subjects with the taxes of blood and quicksilver needed to maintain their alchemical immortality.
Players of Brinkwood: The Blood Of Tyrants take on the role of desperate rebels and assassins, using cursed masks empowered by the charms of the Fae to match the strength of their oppressors and stake them through the heart.
Forged In The Dark Tabletop RPG - The Brightest Things We Know
The Brightest Things We Know is an under-development RPG by game designer Briar Sovereign. It is a game about immortal soldiers with stellar powers who protect the scattered remnants of humanity in a far-future solar system scarred by war and the departure of a alien artifact vessel called "The Visitor." The playbook abilities, mission-structures, and exotic alien threats players must confront in The Brightest Things We Know are modeled after the gameplay and backstory of Destiny 2, with a more anti-authoritarian slant on the FPS franchise's science-fantasy setting.