Blades in the Dark vs Dungeons & Dragons
Compare Blades in the Dark and Dungeons & Dragons side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Blades in the Dark | Dungeons & Dragons | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Heist, Faction Play, Playbook-Driven, Fiction-First, Dark Fantasy, Collaborative, Open Source | Tactical, Heroic, Dungeon Crawl, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Beginner-Friendly, Classic Fantasy, Lore-Heavy, Ascending AC |
| Core Mechanic | Roll a pool of d6s equal to your action rating; keep the highest. 1–3 is a bad outcome, 4–5 is a partial success with consequences, 6 is a full success, and multiple 6s are a critical with additional advantage. Before rolling, the GM sets position (controlled, risky, or desperate) and effect level, which determine the severity of consequences and the impact of success. Players can spend stress to resist consequences or trigger flashbacks to retroactively establish preparation. | 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 | Low | Medium |
| Accessibility | Very High | Very High |
| Runnability | Very High | High |
| License | CC BY 3.0 | CC BY 4.0 (SRD); core books proprietary |
| Cost | $$ | $$$ |
| Publisher | Evil Hat Productions | Wizards of the Coast |
| Year | 2017 | 2024 |
| Best For | Groups who want structured criminal heists with shared narrative authority, where the crew's reputation and entanglements matter as much as individual characters. | Groups who want heroic fantasy combining tactical grid combat with deep character-build options, scaling from one-shots up through long multi-tier campaigns. |
| Highlights | Flashback system lets players establish preparations retroactively instead of planning before a score. Position and effect framework gives the GM a structured way to set stakes on every roll. Detailed faction game tracks rival gangs, noble families, and institutions with their own agendas and territory. | Advantage and disadvantage collapse most situational modifiers into one mechanic: roll a second d20 and keep the higher or lower, so play rarely stops to total small bonuses. Each of the 12 classes offers four subclasses in the 2024 Player's Handbook, letting players reshape a class's role without multiclassing. Bounded accuracy keeps proficiency bonuses small, so low-level threats stay relevant in numbers and DCs read consistently across all tiers. |
| Considerations | Stress is the currency for flashbacks, resistance rolls, and special abilities, so characters who use these tools heavily accumulate trauma faster. The faction tracking layer between sessions requires more GM bookkeeping than the score phase itself. Downtime phase has several interlocking subsystems (payoff, heat, entanglements, vice, projects) that take time to internalize. | 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. |