Blades in the Dark vs Savage Worlds
Compare Blades in the Dark and Savage Worlds side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Blades in the Dark | Savage Worlds | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Universal |
| Tags | Heist, Mission-Based, Faction Play, Playbook-Driven, Fiction-First, Dark Fantasy, Collaborative, Character-Driven, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Low-Prep | Cinematic, Fast-Paced, Tactical, Pulp Action, Heroic, Miniatures |
| Core Mechanic | Roll d6s equal to an action rating and keep the highest result. A 1–3 produces a bad outcome, 4–5 succeeds with consequences, and 6 succeeds fully. Multiple 6s produce a critical success. Before an action roll, the GM sets its position and effect to establish the danger and intended impact. Players can add a die by pushing with stress or accepting a Devil's Bargain. | Roll trait die + wild die (d6), keep the highest. Target number 4. Raises every +4. |
| Dice | d6 dice pool | d4–d12 |
| Complexity | High | Medium |
| Availability | Free quickstart | Free quickstart |
| Runnability | 5 of 5 book tools | 5 of 5 book tools |
| License | Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (SRD only) | Savage Worlds Adventurer's Guild |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Open license | Not yet researched |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Evil Hat Productions | Pinnacle Entertainment |
| Year | 2017 | 2018 |
| Languages | English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Ukrainian | English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Hebrew |
| Best For | Groups who want a continuing criminal-crew campaign with improvised heists and consequences that change their standing among rival factions. | Fast-paced pulp action across any genre. Great for large groups and mass combat. |
| Highlights | Flashbacks establish earlier preparation during a heist, allowing the group to enter the action without planning every contingency. Resistance lets players reduce or avoid consequences at a potential stress cost. Crew advancement changes the group's influence and resources alongside its relationships with rival factions. | Fast resolution, genre-flexible, handles large groups well |
| Considerations | Action outcomes depend on table judgments about fictional risk and effect rather than fixed difficulty numbers. Recovering harm and clearing stress compete with personal projects for limited downtime activities. Filling the trauma track normally forces a scoundrel into retirement or prison. | Exploding dice can produce extreme variance in outcomes, setting books vary in depth: some provide minimal mechanical content beyond a genre frame |