#47: Surveying the Dark - Part 1

I. Dear Reader

I love Forged in the Dark games. Have I said that before? I might have let it slip once or twice or a dozen times. And its not that I think this is an unpopular opinion in the slightest - the system gets a lot of love online. For good reason. Blades in the Dark is great at making dice rolls feel awesome, telling action-packed stories, and ensuring a fun time for the player and the GM.

I really want to run a series of FitD games in the last quarter of the year but there are more games in development now than I could play in my entire life! How do I pick? So to help myself - and you potentially, I’m going to do a survey of the playing field and report back. Yup, from now till Issue 50, we’re surveying Forged in the Dark games!

This week, I’m going to start with an easy one: cyberpunk. Let’s get into it:

Crash//Cart: I’ve already gushed about this game on the newsletter - and it remains one of my favourite sessions from the year. CrashCart is a game of paramedics on nightmarish missions - to save “clients” and rush them to their for-profit hospital of choice. It works fantastically for one shots and guarantees twists before the night is over. It uses playing cards rather than dice in a way that blows me away. Since I’ve played it, I can recommend it without hesitation - except that I think you’ll need to know how to run Forged in the Dark games already to really make it sing.
Status: Final?

Neon Black: Classic, anti-capitalist cyberpunk. Built for campaign play, Neon Black is a game of smashing your corporate overlords and grabbing what you need to make the world a better place. It has a really interesting addition to Downtime where there are Scenes to pick from - each with it’s own objective and list of questions. And these can be interludes that don’t feature any of the player-characters. Like you could choose to do a scene about how the cops are throwing their weight around or one to introduce a new NPC into the community.
Status: The text looks complete and final for the moment. But no art or layout.

Hack the Planet: Designer Fraser Simons is one of the most well-read people in cyberpunk probably. He’s the force behind The Veil, a PbtA game that leans into the philosophy and the big ideas of the cyberpunk genre. Hack the Planet seems like a more straightforward take on the genre - playing to FitD’s strengths as an action-packed game. Climate collapse is a big theme so you’ll not only be facing the city and it’s drones but the world itself as it explodes around you.
Status: Final

Runners in the Shadows: If you’ve ever asked yourself, what if Shadowrun but Blades in the Dark, then Runners in the Shadows might be for you. The fantasy stuff is all optional but if you want to play a gun-toting dwarf or a magical troll, then you can definitely do that. I haven’t read this game yet so I can’t say more but it seems like solid design.
Status: Final, I think

In Which We Live And Breathe: Another take on Shadowrun - a little weirder, a little more esoteric maybe. What is there is definitely tantalizing: “There exist three levels of reality: The Spiritual, where our intentions lie, The Physical, in which we live and breathe, and The Digital, where our every action leaves a trail of artefacts.” It’s still in development but there seems to be enough to play if you’re willing to do a lot of filling in the gaps.
Status: Early Access. Text is free.

CBR+PNK: If you already know the basics of Forged in the Dark, CBR+PNK is two pamphlets (one for players, one for GMs) that boil down the game to the central mechanics and then tell you how to run a tight one-shot. It’s a game about doing that ‘one last job’. Are you going to come out of it fine? Probably not! Looks beautiful and it has a neat expansion in the form of a business card.
Status: Final

Adrenaline: A near-future game with the cyberpunk rules being optional, Adrenaline seems inspired primarily by Fast and the Furious franchise. Which is awesome. I haven’t read the game so I can’t say much more. But I really like the designer’s attempt to make decks of cards as a GM aid. Not just for NPCs, these cards are also there to come up with obstacles and missions on the fly which I think is neat.
Status: Core complete, still in development.

(Did I miss a game that fits here? Did I get something wrong? Probably! Let me know. I’ll edit and compile these sections after I’m done.)

---

Want to get the rest of the articles in the series? Or just like the newsletter?

---

II. Listen of the Week

• For their 200th episode, the Gauntlet podcast has a large cast of people on to share their best tips for players of RPGs. Lots of good advice here!

• On Daydreaming about Dragons, Judd Karlman has another episode about how to run a game where players care about lore. The episode is great, like every episode. But I’m going to take the opportunity to plug an earlier episode on the same topic from last year that is one of my favourites ever! Give it a listen if you haven’t yet.

---

III. Links of the Week

Articles

• Gender is a game: “I've played several characters to help me discover my gender identity. I took my time and used the creative space to safely explore who I am beyond what society wants me to be. I've lived with a gender identity that wasn't mine for more than 30 years, and I'm still learning what it means to really be me. I know that I'll keep exploring gender in games while I'm having fun!”

• Another week, another addition to the PbtA Q&A from Vincent Baker

• On Liber Ludorum, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Indie RPGs (& How You Can Too)

• Linda Codega continues their awesome series connecting RPGs to SFF books. This installment suggests games if you like books about AI or robots.

Reviews

• Quest Front: Issue 1 is a supplement for Ironsworn that has universal rules for adding fronts to any game.

• A review of Hard Wired Island, a cyberpunk game full of humour and flair.

Misc

• Analog Game Studies is organizing a free, online conference on tabletop games.

• The latest issue of the indie zine is out and it’s packed with stuff about POWER!

---

IV. Small Ads

This section contains sponsored links and advertisements.

• Pod of Wonder creates a world using random Wikipedia articles, then plays a game in that world. If you like throwing weird ideas around with your friends, listen to us!

• Laser Ponies, the game of adorable ponies who shoot lasers from their eyes, is on sale now! This complete all-ages RPG includes the adventure “The Mystery of the Menacing Meteorite!”

• Superhuman descendants of angels, brutal battles with demonic hordes, and so, so much loot. ANGELSPAWN is game inspired by Diablo and powered by LUMEN, and is Itchfunding right now!

These ads help keep this newsletter going and I’m very grateful for them! If you’d like to advertise with the newsletter, the submission form with all the guidelines can be found here.

---

Hello, dear readers. This newsletter is written by me, Thomas Manuel. I’m half-man, half-beast, half-journalist, half-game designer.

If you’d like to support this newsletter, share it with a friend or buy one of my games from my itch store. If you’d like to say something to me, you can reply to this email or click below!

Thanks for subscribing and take care out there!