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
Play Style	Narrative, Fiction-First, Playbook-Driven, Dark Fantasy, Grimdark, Horror, Mission-Based, Faction Play, Combat-Heavy, Deadly, Survival, Tactical, Resource Management, GM-Friendly	Tactical, Heroic, Combat-Heavy, Dungeon Crawl, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Grid-Based, Beginner-Friendly, Classic Fantasy, Lore-Heavy, 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.	Roll d20 + modifier against a target DC (for ability checks and saving throws) or AC (for attacks). Meeting or exceeding the target succeeds. Advantage rolls 2d20 and takes the higher; disadvantage takes the lower, replacing most situational modifiers.
Dice	d6 dice pool	d20
Complexity	High	Medium
Accessibility	Medium	High
Runnability	Very High	High
License	Forged in the Dark	CC BY 4.0 (SRD); core books proprietary
Cost	$$	$$$
Publisher	Evil Hat Productions / Off Guard Games	Wizards of the Coast
Year	2019	2024
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 adventures with tactical grid combat, deep character customization, and access to more published adventures and supplements than any other RPG.
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/disadvantage system simplifies most situational modifiers to a single mechanic. Extensive class and subclass options across 12 base classes with 48 subclasses in the 2024 PHB. The largest third-party content ecosystem in tabletop RPGs. Free basic rules and starter sets lower the barrier to entry.
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.	High-level play (tier 3-4) introduces significant spell interaction complexity and encounter balancing challenges for GMs. No official rules for non-fantasy genres. Three core books at $50 each represent a significant investment for the full rules.