Blades in the Dark vs When the Moon Hangs Low

Compare Blades in the Dark and When the Moon Hangs Low side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.

	Blades in the Dark	When the Moon Hangs Low
Genre	Fantasy	Horror, Fantasy
Tags	Heist, Mission-Based, Faction Play, Playbook-Driven, Fiction-First, Dark Fantasy, Collaborative, Character-Driven, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Low-Prep	Fear & Stress Mechanics, Dark Fantasy, Corruption, Investigation, Faction Play, Tactical, Solo-Friendly, Mission-Based
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 a pool of d6 equal to the stat tied to the skill and count successes, with each die succeeding on 5–6 when Untrained, 4–6 when Trained, and 3–6 when Mastered. The number of successes must meet or beat a Difficulty Value set by the Gamemaster. Bonus and penalty dice adjust the pool. A penalty die that rolls 5–6 cancels a success. Opposed checks compare success counts instead of a fixed Difficulty Value.
Dice	d6 dice pool	d6 dice pool
Complexity	High	High
Availability	Free quickstart	Paid
Runnability	5 of 5 book tools	3 of 5 book tools
License	Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (SRD only)	Proprietary
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	Isolation Games
Year	2017	2023
Languages	English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Ukrainian	English
Best For	Groups who want a continuing criminal-crew campaign with improvised heists and consequences that change their standing among rival factions.	Groups who want gothic-horror monster-hunting and investigation on a contract-driven mission structure, where characters carry a permanent curse that escalates as they lean on their powers. Also supports solo or GM-less play through the built-in Lone Hunter rules.
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.	Each of the twelve Marks grants a supernatural Boon paired with a Curse that advances a stage every time the hunter runs out of Resolve, so power comes bundled with an escalating personal cost. Influence earned by bluffing, charming, or intimidating a faction accumulates as a spendable resource that buys concrete favors from four rival powers, turning social play into a persistent currency. A full Lone Hunter mode replaces the Gamemaster's difficulties with a success-tier table and twist tables, letting the same character and dice run solo without a separate ruleset.
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.	A hunter's Mark is chosen at creation and can never be changed, locking in both its Boon and the eventual monstrous transformation the character is fated toward. The setting leaves its central mysteries, including the nature of the Bitter Sacrament and the buried ympir, deliberately unanswered for each Gamemaster to resolve or not. Most antagonists are Minions that never roll to Parry, Dodge, or Counterattack, so rank-and-file fights reduce to attackers rolling against a fixed number instead of opposed checks.