Night's Black Agents vs The Sprawl
Compare Night's Black Agents and The Sprawl side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Night's Black Agents | The Sprawl | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Cyberpunk, Sci-Fi |
| Tags | Investigation, Espionage, Character-Driven, Gritty | Mission-Based, Espionage, Heist, Noir, Gritty, Faction Play, Playbook-Driven, Fiction-First, Player-Only Rolls, One-Shot Friendly |
| Core Mechanic | 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. | When an action matches a move's fictional trigger, roll 2d6 plus Cool, Edge, Meat, Mind, Style, or Synth. A 10+ is a strong hit, 7-9 is a weak hit, and a 6 or less lets the MC make a move. |
| Dice | d6 | 2d6 |
| Complexity | Medium | High |
| Availability | Paid | Paid |
| Runnability | Book tools not listed | 4 of 5 book tools |
| License | GUMSHOE SRD (CC BY 3.0 / OGL) | Proprietary |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | No verified route found |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Pelgrane Press | Ardens Ludere |
| Year | 2012 | 2016 |
| Languages | English | English, French |
| Best For | Groups who want spy-thriller action fused with supernatural horror: burned agents unraveling a vampire conspiracy through investigation, chases, and tradecraft. | Groups who want structured heist-style missions with a hacking minigame and a growing web of corporate rivals across a campaign. It suits players who enjoy risky planning and personal ties that complicate the crew's loyalties. |
| Highlights | 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 | Countdown Clocks track legwork noise, mission alertness, and corporate attention on separate tracks, giving missions a visible pressure gauge instead of a single doom clock. Cyberdeck ratings and tiered ICE turn hacking into its own tactical minigame layered on the standard moves. The Legwork and Action phase structure lets intel and gear earned through investigation convert directly into narrated advantages during the mission itself. |
| Considerations | 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 | Combat and infiltration rely on fictional positioning and MC judgment as much as dice modifiers, so groups who want tightly defined tactical rules may find some outcomes settled by table discussion. Running an ongoing campaign means the MC tracks separate Countdown Clocks for every corporation, threat, and mission in play at once. Choosing how a character paid for their starting cyberware can permanently tie that character to being owned or hunted by a specific corporation. |