Blades in the Dark is a tabletop fantasy role-playing game by John Harper, set in a fictional city of Doskvol, inspired by Victorian London and Gothic fiction. The game was crowdfunded on Kickstarter in 2015, raising US$179,280 from 3,925 backers. Description The default setting of Blades in the Dark, Doskvol, is a roughly 19th century level of technology combined with urban fantasy. An industrial world under perpetual night, long after some great catastrophe has relegated the sun to storybooks, and resulted in the ghosts of the dead lingering in the world. Players take the role of members of a criminal organization such as thieves, smugglers, or merchants of some illicit goods, and grind their way up the criminal underworld by seizing money, territory and infamy. Mechanics Player characters are chosen from a selection of broad character archetypes each with their own playbook, and each playbook has their own triggers for further character advancement points based on actions taken in play, encouraging the player to play the characters in a way that fits the narrative archetype. For example, the mechanist/alchemist character type the Leech receives additional points when addressing their challenges with technical skill, while the fighter character type the Cutter receives additional points towards advancement for utilizing violence or threats. The players are unified around a shared crew or criminal enterprise, having its own communal character sheet. The crew advances of its own in response to the player's abilities to accomplish capers and gain influence in the underworld providing a common set of boons to be invoked by the table. The crew can gain territory, advance in organizational tiers and gain special abilities. Just as the player characters have triggers for gaining advancement based on playing to their character type, the crew too encourages playing in a style befitting the narrative archetype of the criminal organization that they share. The basic conflict resolution mechanic is for players to roll a number of six-sided dice equal to the number of points in that character's matching action. A success or failure criterion is always the same and determined by the highest individual number rolled. Special focus is given to the fictional position of the characters to perform a given action, with explicit division of authority between game masters and players giving the players the final say in what character stats are rolled to address a challenge, while the game master is tasked