Band of Blades vs Dungeons & Dragons

Compare Band of Blades and Dungeons & Dragons side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Band of Blades	Dungeons & Dragons
Genre	Fantasy, Horror	Fantasy
Tags	Fiction-First, Playbook-Driven, Grimdark, Mission-Based, Faction Play, Deadly, Survival	Tactical, Heroic, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Classic Fantasy, Vancian Casting, Ascending AC
Core Mechanic	Forged in the Dark: roll a d6 dice pool equal to your action rating and read the highest die: 6 is a full success, 4–5 is a partial success with consequences, 1–3 is a bad outcome. Position (controlled, risky, desperate) sets the stakes, and players spend stress to resist consequences. Play alternates between a mission phase (specialists and rank-and-file Legionnaires execute one primary and one secondary mission) and a campaign phase, where each player runs a permanent Legion Role (Commander, Marshal, Quartermaster, Spymaster, or Lorekeeper) making strategic decisions about routes, supply, intel, and personnel as the army retreats toward Skydagger Keep.	Make a D20 Test by rolling d20, adding relevant modifiers, and comparing the total to a target number. Ability checks, saving throws, and attack rolls use this procedure. Advantage and disadvantage use two d20s and keep the higher or lower result.
Dice	d6 dice pool	d20
Complexity	High	Medium
Accessibility	Medium	Very High
Runnability	Very High	Very High
License	Forged in the Dark	CC BY 4.0 (SRD); core books proprietary
Third-Party Publishing	Not yet researched	Commercial publishing allowed — Open license
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	$$	Free
Publisher	Evil Hat Productions / Off Guard Games	Wizards of the Coast
Year	2019	2024
Languages	English, French, Spanish, Italian	English, French, Italian, German, Spanish
Best For	Groups who want a campaign-length military fantasy where the Legion as a whole is the protagonist: character death is expected, players cycle through different soldiers each mission, and strategic decisions about routes, supply, and intel are split across the table rather than held by the GM.	Groups who want heroic fantasy with configurable tactical combat, broad character options, and campaigns that span multiple levels.
Highlights	Players rotate through Specialist, Soldier, and Rookie playbooks across missions rather than playing fixed characters, so attrition lands without ending personal arcs: the Legion endures even when individual soldiers fall. Each player also holds a permanent Legion Role that drives the campaign phase, splitting army-management decisions across the table instead of leaving them with the GM. Time and Pressure clocks turn the campaign into a race against the Cinder King: advancing toward Skydagger Keep burns time, but lingering builds undead pressure that escalates the difficulty and lethality of future missions.	Advantage and disadvantage resolve common situational effects by selecting the higher or lower of two d20 rolls. Backgrounds, classes, subclasses, and feats distribute character choices across creation and advancement. Weapon Mastery gives qualifying weapon users distinct tactical effects without replacing the action economy.
Considerations	The campaign phase (mission generation, spy deployments, supply, advance roll, Lorekeeper annals) takes substantial time between missions and only works if every player engages with their Role. Building a deep personal arc for a single Legionnaire is structurally difficult because characters rotate between missions: emotional investment lives with the Legion rather than any one soldier. The campaign is built around a single fixed arc ending at Skydagger Keep, with a defined map, locations, and Chosen/Broken roster. There is no open-ended sandbox mode, and a full campaign runs 12–20 sessions.	Spell preparation, spell slots, class features, and conditions create several interacting resources for players to track. High-level characters combine many spells and features, increasing adjudication work for the DM. Bastions add a separate downtime procedure for campaigns that use the stronghold rules.