I’m curious about more TTRPGs like Blades in the Dark. I love how fleshed out the world is, and even more the amount of board game-y mechanics it has. I know a lot of TTRPGs claim to be low prep, but BitD has been one of the few where I’ve actually felt that thanks to its detailed setting, locations, NPCs, etc. And I think the board game-y mechanics offer so much play structure and immediate goals that can encourage emergent narratives.
THEME: Board-Game-y Games!
Hello there! I've strayed quite a bit from Blades, but I tried to keep a focus on board-gamey mechanics because I don't think I've really had a chance to do that kind of recommendation before. If you want more Blades-like recommendations, I definitely recommend you check out my System Overview of Forged in the Dark.
Affordance, by contakaidigon.
AFFORDANCE is a tabletop role-playing game where players use cards to affect their character’s actions, each other, and the mechanics of the scene itself. It is a narrative-focused game that encourages player agency and collaboration, and facilitates co-operative storytelling.
Players create their character by choosing a one of 15 Masks, arranging their skills, writing Tethers, and picking out their Traits and Moves. Play is framed around Scenes, which describe the type of action happening in the fiction, and which players can interact with in order to tweak their odds.
Affordance uses cards as its randomization and play interface, which does a lot to make any game feel somewhat like a board game. When you create a character, you choose a Mask that gives them thematic strengths and weaknesses, but you also customize them with traits, which give you mechanical advantages in certain situations - much like choosing a faction in certain kinds of board-games. There seems to also be some level of negotiation involved in the scenes that you play, similar to the conversation that happens in Blades when a player is getting read to make an action roll. In both cases, you're acting kind of like a writers' room, talking about what might be encouraged, discouraged, easier, or more difficult to achieve.
Little Wolves, by Dinoberry Press.
The story of Little Wolves is focused on The Enchanted Forest and the folk-lings that live within. It is a vast world filled to the brim with all manner of fae-born creatures and folktales come to life, even some you may have heard of.
As you explore this dense forest you'll meet the powerful and mysterious Queens and aid them, and their courts, through all manner of quests and favors. As a werewolf, you're uniquely gifted in traversing the forest, capable of making it to every edge of the woods, meaning that only you can learn its deepest secrets.
Little Wolves adds an extra dimension to dice rolls by assigning Elements to different sides of 6-sided dice, so that when you attempt to do something in the game, you need to roll a dice pool with the hopes of getting a result that matches your desired element. Similar to games such as Blades or the PbtA family, there are staggered successes with interesting events happening even on failures, but a twist to this game is the difficulty ladder. You need more than one success to succeed at certain rolls, which feels a little more reminiscent of games like World of Darkness or Scion 2e.
What is truly unique to Little Wolves is the crafting component; throughout the course of the game you will create and decorate paper masks that represent your wolf form - a fantastic hands-on addition that leaves you with a memento after play.
Dead Heat Heartbeat, by Jackrabbit Collective.
The Trumpet sounds and the world falls away. There remains only the track, the flags, and enough room for a champion at the very end. This is all that should matter as mares muscle for rank, but the hearts that ever faster beat do not stop yearning. Bonds both slight and sweet are forged and forgotten in those precious moments of the race. A sidelong glance can speak of the fiercest rivalries and the most longing of unrequited loves. More than speed or strength: heart decides the victor of these harrowed horses. Will their hearts beat to the gallop of victory, in time with another, or halt altogether?
What better game to feel particularly gamey than a competition? Dead Heat Heartbeat comes with a map of the race-track to help you keep an eye on how well your horse is doing; each section of the track is attached to a different-sized die, which you roll in order to propel your horse closer to the finish line. To further the story, horses that roll the same number at the same time navigate a narrative beat of some kind - a moment of mutual intensity, or perhaps a shared memory that tells us something about your relationship.
When you advance to new parts of the track, your horses gain Heat Tokens, which can be used to alter a single future roll. Any information about your horse is also determined through play, rather than decided ahead of time - even their name, which is only decided upon when your horse is the first of the pack to hit the new stage of the race!
Tāṅka's Noodle Co., by Cai Kagawa.
Welcome to Tāṅka’s Noodle Co. where our friendly staff of bears make the most delicious noodles in Kumatochi, the land of bears! Unfortunately, Tāṅka’s has fallen on hard times and we need everyone to band together to save our family restaurant! Let’s get cooking!
Inspired by close families, delicious food, and (of course) bears, Tāṅka’s Noodle Co. is a cooperative gave for 2-6 players where you play a family of bears trying to save their noodle business. The game utilizes mostly just a deck of cards to play and the playbooks which are provided.
Restaurant games seem to translate really well to board-gamey-like games, what with the processes built into food preparation. The physical components of Tāṅka’s Noodle Co. are tokens and playing cards, easy enough to find around the house. The conceit of the game is that you're bears making noodles, and to do so, you must collect three cards of the same suit. The more noodle dishes you make, the better your chances of staying in business.
There's more than just collecting cards in this game, however: you'll also play through phases in which your bears pass on rumours, help each-other out, or ignore their family members in the purpose of getting a job done. Your relationships to each-other are important in this game; you likely won't succeed without good communication.
Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall, by Wet Ink Games.
This is a collaborative, storytelling RPG about a Chinese family making their living by running a restaurant in one of America’s Chinatowns, circa 1920. Despite societal backlash and anti-Chinese laws, they have turned a profit and their quality of life has recently improved.
Night, however, brings a new terror.
Players take on the roles of members of the Chinese family (mostly from Guangdong province), spanning three generations, who face threats of jiangshi (hopping vampires) at night and racism by day. It has players balancing the responsibility of maintaining their family business with protecting themselves and their community from the dreaded Jiangshi. This is primarily a game about storytelling. Combat is limited, but horror, drama and sometimes comedy are the primary vehicles for driving the game forward.
The physical version of Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall is designed to feel somewhat like a board game: it's a box set with custom dice, three decks of cards, erase-able character sheets, and a restaurant board. It's absolutely gorgeous, and the plethora of tactile game pieces are sure to give you a satisfying play experience.
The Iron Murk, by tremor.pings.
Once the ultimate instrument of war, now an outcast and prey. You are a human, imprisoned in a symbiosis with a walking war machine. You are hunted by those who you served and protected before.
But you, compelled to a rusty cage, refuse to die.
The Iron Murk is a fast-paced, tactical game where players must weigh power against survival. The players' goal is to collect Plot points which give them a chance to overcome the raiding ARC units. It's a rules-light narrative game, built on the core mechanics of Cthulhu Dark, focusing on the action and interaction with limited systematic play.
I haven't read many Trophy games, so I wonder if many of them hav similar pieces to Blades in the way The Iron Murk does. Both games give you dice from various stats, and both look to the highest result from a dice pool to determine the outcome of a roll. Both games also have a mechancic that represents delayed repercussions that arise out of the continual use of a resource - in Blades it's called Stress, but in this game, it's called Surge.
There's some key differences however; in The Iron Murk your characters take consequences on a low roll, but don't automatically fail, not unless the GM or the player decides it's fitting. The endgame is also much more clearly defined; when you as a group gain enough plot points, you can decide on how to defeat your big adversary. However you slice it, there's plenty of different fiddly bits in this game to have a hoot with.
Dusk City Outlaws, by Scratchpad Publishing.
Dusk City Outlaws is a tabletop roleplaying game for 3-6 players, set in the sprawling city of New Dunhaven. In this game, the players take on the roles of criminals on the wrong side of the law, collectively known as the Right Kind of People to those who run in outlaw circles. These criminals come together to form a crew, and take on a Job, a criminal enterprise brokered to them by a third party.
Each member of the crew is a member of one of the eight cartels that rule over the city’s criminal underworld. These cartels each have their own turf, their own specialties, their own motives, and their own methods, but they are all bound together by the Arrangement, an agreement that the cartels entered into to preserve themselves against too much infighting. In short, the cartels agree that they have enough enemies without warring with one another, and that they all want the same thing: to get rich. The cartels agree to respect each others' turf, and while some bickering and fighting is allowed, large-scale conflict is forbidden, and revenge is frowned upon.
Another fantastically tactile game, Dusk City Outlaws mixes faction politics with dramatic and high-action scenes, also inside a box set that gives you plenty of tokens and sheets for easy set-up and satisfying play. While the original version of this game has been out for a while, Scratchpad Publishing is also currently working on a cyberpunk version, called Neon City Outlaws.
Pentagon Pizza Party, by LynxCat.
You own a small pizza shop near the Pentagon. You also moonlight as an international spy - a double agent, working both for the allies and for the opposition. So, when things are going slow, you decide to provoke an international incident to drum up more business… But beware - when DEFCON starts dropping down, things can quickly take a turn for the worse!
Pentagon Pizza Party is a darkly satirical take on profit in times of crisis and fear, and also a solo pen-and-paper game that is quick and easy to learn, requires no preparation, and allows for quick play sessions. It is somewhat inspired by Lasers & Feelings, in that it has a d6, both roll-under and roll-over mechanic, and has elements of worker placement and incremental games.
This rec is for the solo gamer, as well as for lovers of dark humor. Your spy has plenty of things to balance as they attempt to keep themself undercover; supplies, the risk of the working environment, and the money you make from operating your pizza business. Part of the game feels like a worker-placement, as you'll have crew members that you can assign to pizza tasks and spy tasks, and the game also culminates in a definitive end-state: when you hit DEFCON 1, and must prepare for imminent nuclear war. Will you die as the result of getting to involved, or will you make it out alive? Will you go bankrupt in the process?
Games I've Recommended In The Past...
Slugblaster, by Wilkie's Candy Lab.
Space Gerbils, by Penguin King Games.
Spectaculars by Scratchpad Publishing.
Sockgoblins, by poorstudents.
Under the Autumn Strangely, by Graham Gentz.
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