Blades in the Dark, by John Harper, casts a crew of scoundrels building a criminal empire in the ghost-haunted city of Duskvol. It launched a whole family of Forged in the Dark games, and the reason is its elegant dice engine: one pool of d6, one number that matters, and a result that is rarely a clean yes.
What dice Blades uses
Blades uses six-sided dice only — you never need a polyhedral set. When you take a risky action, you assemble a dice pool: usually one d6 per dot in the relevant action rating (such as Skirmish, Prowl or Sway), plus bonus dice from teamwork, position or a devil’s bargain. Keep a small handful of matching d6 to hand.
Crucially, you don’t add the dice up. You roll the whole pool and read only the single highest die.
How a roll resolves
Read the highest die in your pool against this ladder:
| Highest die | Outcome |
|---|---|
| 6 | Full success — you do it cleanly, no complication. |
| 4–5 | Partial success — you do it, but there is a consequence, cost or complication. |
| 1–3 | Bad outcome — things go wrong and the situation worsens. |
Two 6s in the same pool is a critical — an extra-good result. If your pool is reduced to zero dice, you instead roll two d6 and take the lower one, so a full success is impossible.
Two dials frame every roll. Position — Controlled, Risky or Desperate — sets how bad the consequences of a partial or failure are. Effect — Limited, Standard or Great — sets how much you accomplish on a success. A Desperate roll is dangerous but often grants better effect; a Controlled roll is safe but modest. Learning to trade one against the other is the heart of play.
Effective strategy
Change your position before you roll. Consequences are decided by position, so it is almost always worth improving it first. A setup action — one character creating an advantage — can bump an ally from Risky to Controlled or raise their effect, turning a coin-flip into a near-sure thing.
Take devil’s bargains with open eyes. The GM (or another player) may offer an extra die in exchange for an immediate complication — a betrayal, collateral damage, a rival tipped off. The bonus die is real, but so is the cost, which lands whether or not you succeed. Take bargains that create fun trouble, not ones that quietly wreck the score.
Use flashbacks instead of over-planning. Blades deliberately skips the tedious heist-planning session. You dive straight into the action and, when you need to have prepared something, spend stress to trigger a flashback showing you set it up earlier. Plan by playing, not by talking.
Push and assist. You can push yourself for an extra die by taking 2 stress, and a teammate can assist for a die by taking 1 stress and exposing themselves to trouble. Stress is a renewable resource — spend it to shape the odds.
When you are stacking teamwork and bargain dice into a big pool, it is easy to lose track; you can roll a pool of d6 in your browser and instantly see the highest die.
Beginner tips & common mistakes
- Read the highest die, never the sum. Blades is a “highest die” system. Adding your dice up is the single most common newcomer mistake.
- Expect partial successes. The 4–5 result is the most likely outcome of most rolls. “Yes, but…” is the normal texture of the game, not a failure.
- Set position and effect before rolling. Locking in the stakes first is what makes the consequences fair and the choices meaningful.
- Zero-dice rolls are grim. With no dice you roll 2d6 and keep the lower — you can only partial-succeed at best. Get a setup or an assist first.
- Don’t hoard stress. Stress is meant to be spent on pushes, assists and flashbacks. Refusing to use it just makes you weaker; watch your trauma track instead.
No dice at the table? Dice Drop rolls real physics dice in your browser — pools, exploding dice and modifiers built in.
🎲 Roll dice freeWant another modern narrative engine? See how two dice tell the story in our Daggerheart dice & strategy guide.