Chronicles of Darkness vs Night's Black Agents
Compare Chronicles of Darkness and Night's Black Agents side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Chronicles of Darkness | Night's Black Agents | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Tags | Atmospheric, Character Building, Character-Driven, Classless, Corruption, Drama, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Improvisation, Investigation, Strong GM Support | Investigation, Espionage, Character-Driven, Gritty |
| Core Mechanic | Build a d10 pool from an Attribute plus a Skill and count each 8, 9, or 10 as a success. Tens reroll, five successes are exceptional, and a pool reduced below one die becomes a chance die that succeeds only on a 10. | GUMSHOE engine. Investigative abilities auto-succeed: if you have the skill and there's a clue, you find it. General abilities (combat, athletics) roll 1d6 + spent points vs. difficulty 4. Point pools refresh between sessions, creating resource-management tension. Four play modes (Burn, Dust, Mirror, Stakes) tune mechanics to your preferred espionage tone. |
| Dice | d10 dice pool | d6 |
| Complexity | Medium | Medium |
| Accessibility | Medium | Medium |
| Runnability | Very High | High |
| License | All Rights Reserved | GUMSHOE SRD (CC BY 3.0 / OGL) |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Storytellers Vault | Not yet researched |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $ | $$ |
| Publisher | Onyx Path Publishing | Pelgrane Press |
| Year | 2015 | 2012 |
| Languages | English | English |
| Best For | Groups who want modern supernatural horror built around investigating mysteries, navigating personal consequences, and confronting threats before they overwhelm an ordinary life. | Groups who want spy-thriller action fused with supernatural horror: burned agents unraveling a vampire conspiracy through investigation, chases, and tradecraft. |
| Highlights | The investigation system can reveal an Incomplete clue on a failed roll, preventing a mystery from stopping at one check. Conditions, Aspirations, and Beats link consequences and personal goals to character advancement. Horror Anchors create investigative inroads for supernatural threats. | Investigation never stalls: clues flow automatically, Conspyramid campaign structure is a well-designed GM tool, four tonal modes let you dial in the spy genre you want, highly modular vampire creation system, works stripped of vampires for pure espionage |
| Considerations | The core contains detailed procedures for combat, chases, investigation, social maneuvering, and supernatural threats, so groups need to decide which rules to emphasize in a campaign. Damage, Integrity breaking points, and Persistent Conditions create lasting consequences. Social Maneuvering includes sexual goals and hard leverage, so players should back away from uncomfortable concepts. | NPC combat math can feel unbalanced against PCs, multiple point pools to track can bottleneck play, narrow genre focus limits reuse, requires significant GM prep for conspiracy networks |