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| 3-6 | 13+ | 2-6 hours | $30 |
Blades in the Dark is a tabletop role-playing game about a crew of daring scoundrels seeking their fortunes on the haunted streets of an industrial-fantasy city. There are heists, chases, occult mysteries, dangerous bargains, bloody skirmishes, and, above all, riches to be had — if you’re bold enough to seize them.
You and your fledgling crew must thrive amidst the threats of rival gangs, powerful noble families, vengeful ghosts, the Bluecoats of the city watch, and the siren song of your scoundrel’s own vices. Will you rise to power in the criminal underworld? What are you willing to do to get to the top?
In this stand-alone game, you’ll find:
- Rules to create your scoundrel using the following character archetypes: the Cutter, the Hound, the Leech, the Lurk, the Slide, the Spider, or the Whisper.
- Rules to create your crew, built from types like Assassins, Bravos, a Cult, Hawkers, Shadows, or Smugglers.
- A robust core mechanic which puts the fiction first—the strength of a character’s position (desperate, risky, or controlled) matters just as much as the character’s ability scores.
- A lightning-fast mechanic for planning criminal operations to cut through the usual slog of planning at the game table.
- Rules for alchemical experiments, gadget tinkering, and weird occult powers—including rules for playing Ghosts and other strange beings.
- A setting guide to the haunted city of Doskvol, with all the maps, factions, NPCs, schemes, and opportunities you need to run an exciting sandbox game.
GAME INFORMATION
Number of players: 3-6
Age of players: 13+
Length: 2-6 hours
Type of Game: Roleplaying Game
Languages Available: English
Product Number: EHP0030
ISBN: 978-1-61317-132-5
Page Count: 336
Format: Hardcover black and white interior and Digital formats.
Availability: Check here
Game Designer: John Harper
If we get the pre-order (Standard or Special Edition) through the buy now link at the top (backerkit) which kickstarter bonuses, if any, would it come with?
As in, would it include full sized city map, the additional city map (fire & bronze), the stretch goals, etc? I understand things above the $50 tier are an obvious no.
If not, is there any way to get those things at this point?
Hi DC,
The digital downloads (map, most stretch goal playsets, and sheets) will all be available on the bladesinthedark.com website once it’s up. Pre-ordering will get the physical book (standard or special edition) and the respective PDF.
So, does that mean preordering the special edition now through backerkit will not include access to the PDFs of the Kickstarter stretch goals?
Hi Wesley,
Yes, the preorder though backed kit includes the PDF and the physical book. The other Kickstarter rewards will (for the most part) be available on the Blades website once it launches and once the works are completed. Some of the Kickstarter rewards (like the Hacker level source files) will only be available to the original backers.
When preordering the hard cover, does the provided PDF include the extra 20 or so pages or is that exclusive domain of the book?
Well I feel foolish, I just read above that you get the “respective PDF” but I see no way to delete my comments. In any case, great work
No worries Tony. Thanks for asking. Yep, if you preorder now, the PDF comes with it!
Is there no way, currently, to pre-order the hardcover book? The backerkit page says pre-orders are disabled.
We’re sorting out what happens from here, since the preorder window was originally February-only. Stay tuned.
Hi Arseny, Yep, we closed down the pre-order to get the final numbers over to the printer but because we realized that we didn’t announce it on all platforms, we’re re-opening the pre-order for one more day. You can head over to https://bladesinthedark.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders to order it now!
Well dang it I missed this comment and didn’t preorder yesterday either! Ah well.
Hi Arseny, I just followed up on email. I’m going to see if we can help you out.
Hi,
I saw above that Sean Nittner said that the manjority of the stretch goals will be available on the website – will those be free for anyone to download? I bought the pdf off of drivethrurpg because I missed the kickstarter. I’m hoping I can access all the stretch goals – that’d be awesome.
Question: I preordered as a gift for a friend. Using Backerkit, I put in their shipping address and email, but couldn’t find anywhere to put in my billing address. Is there any way to correct that?
Hi Darren, looking at the back end I don’t see a seperate place for billing and shipping address either. I’m going to check with BackerKit though to make sure there won’t be any issues with having the shipping address different than that of the card on file, and I’ll get back to you.
Hi Chris, there will be links on the blades website as the content is available, however the cost (if any) of the stretch goal content will be determined by the creators. Some (like mine) is free.
Is there anyway to track when deliveries for pre-orders will be made? I have the email from backerkit but have seen nothing physical.
Hi Mark, here’s the update as per John’s Kickstarter update:
Printing and Backerkit Stuff We expect them to be ready for shipping around April 25th. If you bought any add-ons via Backerkit, your cards will charged on April 11th. Specials Editions will start shipping out around 5/12. If you ordered both editions they’ll be shipped out together starting on 5/12. Unfortunately we can’t do split shipments. But the special edition is worth the wait!
Proofing has been done and the books are being printed!
Sean,
Thanks, I guess I was just getting ahead of myself – having heard John actually talking about the books, I thought it was all imminent.
BTW, if you are keeping count at all, my purchase decision traces directly back to having watched your game with John, Adam and Stras.
Yeah, it’s been a long process but we’re so close now (books being printed as I type).
And that is wonderful to hear, I hope you enjoy the heck out of blades. I certainty have! (recording my 78th actual play report now 🙂 )
Heya!
Just learned about your game from another Kickstarter, Dialect, where they ran a session of your game in their own version of thieve’s cant.
Blades in the Dark sounds amazing and I’m ready to jump in with both feet, but was wondering, as a pre-order customer will I have access to the stretch goal content? If not, is there anything I can do to purchase it?
Thanks so much,
Brian
Hi Brian,
Thanks for getting in touch. Hope you had a chance to check out Thieves’ Cant, it was a great great. The Stretch Goal material will eventually be available on bladesinthedark.com (site under construction now). The cost for each piece (if there are any) will be determined by their creators.
Hello good people,
I was late to discover this game and am hugely excited about it. I’ve listened hours of your gameplay from both the Bloodletters and The Last Word and really look forward to playing it myself.
When and where will hardcopy editions be available to folkes who missed the kickstarter window?
Hi Benny,
If you go before 4/24 you preorder the hardcover (and get the PDF immediately) over here: https://bladesinthedark.backerkit.com/
After the 24th there will be a short period where you can only by the PDF on DriveThru here: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/170689/Blades-in-the-Dark?src=hottest
Once it gets into retail (should be mid to late May) you can buy it from your FLGS or on our webstore here: http://www.evilhat.com/store/
Any chance there might be an epub version in the future? The PDF layout is great, but I’m a big fan of Evil Hat’s epub editions, especially for reading on my phone whenever I have a few minutes to spare.
Our epub editions of things have not demonstrated to us that there’s much of a market for the epub format in gaming. It’s miniscule, and as such, it’s hard to justify even the modest amount necessary to pay for someone to create such a format for us.
Ah, that’s totally fair. Appreciate the response, anyway!
Hey guy’s! I have seen some of your video’s and some other people on youtube play it too and i just have to say i live the system and the setting, now i was curious if there was a definite date where hardcover/print books for the system will be out and are there plans so far (sorry I know its early to ask) for further supplements/expansion books?
Hi Devin,
The standard edition should be in retail by mid May. We’re shipping copies to the backers now and once that’s done we’ll release it to distributors.
There are plenty of stretch goals (see the KS campaign) which will be producing additional content. A few of them (Scum and Villainy and Vigilantes) are already out. At the end of the month the Blades site will go up and more content will be listed there as it is available.
Any update on the status of bladesinthedark.com? I’m excited to find out which stretch goals I’ll have access to and at what cost (meaning how much I need to kick myself for missing the kickstarter.) I’m particularly interested in the orange playsets and the fully illustrated map
Hi DC, no updated on the bladesinthedark site yet. Of the stretch goals you can find a few of them out there:
Vigilantes
Scum and Villainy
Ryan Dunleavy’s Maps of Doskvol
Hey, late to the part, but I was introduced to Blades in the Dark by a friend recently. Suffice to say, I fell in love immediately! I was wondering, will there ever be a second print run on the special edition? I’d love to own a copy of it, if possible!
Hi Steven, yep, we have a scoundrels love for Blades as well! The special edition was a Kickstarter only version though, we’d need order from the Immortal Emperor himself to do another run.
Hi Sean,
Is there any way we could convince the Immortal Emperor himself to order you guys to do another special edition run? 😛
The extra content (U’Duasha) may be released as part of a larger setting source book (one the other cities are complete) but the Special Edition was a one time endeavor. Like that feeble purple glow in the sky reminds us, the Cataclysm only comes once.
We do have a small surplus of Special Edition copies, tho, which we’ll likely sell on our webstore once we’re confident we don’t need them for any lingering stragglers.