I got to play a test of this game once and it was amazing. Partly I was playing with really cool people, but it is also a really, really good game.
For years I've loved stealth video games. Metal Gear: Solid, Tenchu, Splinter Cell, Thief... all of them were good in their own way (at least in their time). They all captivated me for one reason or another, and the stealth was at least enjoyable, if not the primary draw.
With roleplaying games, I've always felt that the mechanics of stealth were lacking. It doesn't FEEL like stealth, it feels like every other mechanic used to resolve success/failure. And for the most part, that's okay. If you only have one person with Stealth maxed out in your Pathfinder group, you really don't need a complex system just for their one skill. Stories revolving around stealth were cool, but it wasn't the mechanic that interested me, it was the story telling between me and the GM that made it cool.
Project: Dark has really cool stealth mechanics. Now I can play a stealth based game where the mechanics are interesting AND the group can tell a cool story. The cool thing is it plays well with 1 player, where it feels more like some of the aforementioned video games, or with 3-4 players, it feels more like a heist movie with specializations, it works well both ways.
I'm super excited for this game. He's planning to do adventures for the stretch goals and last I heard, possibly organizing them in series to help make an adventure path style product.
Right there with you. I got to play one demo and I think it may be my second favorite RPG of all time. Been chomping at the bit since.
Mythender, lucky for you it's free.
He's doing one last set of hand bound books this Friday evening. I've seen one he gave out for a different game and it was beautiful.
Got the beta kit, ran part 1 of the demo adventure for my group and had a blast. I probably made a lot of mistakes with the system, only had the document in hand for a few hours prior to playing, but it still ran well and was a lot of fun.
This may move into my #1 spot for favorite game ever.
Ran the demo for Pan (member on the boards here), which was my first time running it for a solo player. It went well and definitely changed the tone of the game, but the mechanics all flowed well and it played quite easily.
By necessity his tactics and strategies were different than a group of 4 thieves. Hopefully he'll jump in here and comment for himself.
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Dark works really well for a single player in my experience. The deck of cards mechanic is a neat change up from dice. There is just enough rules for the GM to run actions and encounters without there being too much confusion or it being too time consuming. I haven't gotten my hands on the rulebook yet, but there seems to be a good balance of crunch vs. rules lite system going on here.
I could see this working really well for multiple player groups and especially for split parties. Not only would it not be suicide for a player to go off on their own, but the rules allow the GM to run for players simultaneously without much trouble. Refreshing after so many decades of D&D crunchy stickin together-ness.
Look forward to more Dark, thanks again Irontruth.
-pan
This weekend I get to run a 16-hour game (spread over 3 days) of Dark. We're going to do a Ghost in the Shell-style game, covert police unit chasing after a shadowy mastermind who's manipulating information.
I also ran several sessions at GenCon, where I did a custom scenario. An employee of a noblewoman had been caught stealing from a rival, but he hadn't been identified yet, nor the original owner of the stolen good. The players had to steal the evidence before morning and prevent the employee from answering questions (break him out or assassinate him), so that no one was the wiser.
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Hey, this seems interesting. Irontruth, since you seem to have a lot of experience with this game, could you tell me a few things:
First of all, apparently a Stealth is the main focus in the game, and somehow it's handled so well it feels Stealthier than all the Stealths. How is Stealth handled in the game, mainly in contrast to other RPGs?
And secondly, how easy would it be to adapt the game's Stealth rules to another system altogether? Is it really tied to the game's specific system, or is it more of an underlying philosophy that is almost system neutral (like, for an example, GUMSHOE's investigative rules)?
The character: There are 2 ways to spend XP. One is adding new marks into skills, like knowledge, social or physical skills. Each mark increases your aptitude with that skill (you get more clues while casing the job) and reduces the target number of active tests by 1.
The second way is to unlock cards (it uses standard playing cards) and add them to your deck. You start with the ace through 4 of each suit, ace counts as 1. For a mark (one XP) you can add the 5 to your deck. Then for another you can add the 6. You can also add face cards, which can have special abilities, to your deck, for a mark each. They start with a value of 5 (you need the 5 unlocked first) and can be increased but only to the highest value card you have unlocked. So, if you have the 7 in your deck, you can spend 2 more XP to increase your Queen to a 7 also.
Stealth Level: when you're in a specific place, like a hallway, alley, rafters, closet, etc, that place has a stealth level. This is determined by the amount of ambient light and/or cover. This ranges from 2 to 6. 2 is broad daylight. 6 is (nearly) complete darkness. You can hold as many cards in your hand as the current stealth level.
Action: When you take an action, the GM determines the target number secretly. The normal value ranges from 2-12 (you can roll 2d6 to determine randomly if necessary). NPC's have traits from 1-6, typically you get the number by adding two of their traits together. A moderately trained (3-4) guard who is doing a moderate job (3-4) at keeping watch would represent a 6-8 difficulty in slipping past.
The player then gets to play cards. If the total number on the cards equals or exceeds the difficulty, they succeed. They can play cards face down for bonus effects. Cards with special abilities (jack, queen, king) can be activated, but that's all in the special ability text on how that happens.
There are no tests outside of a job/heist. While casing, you just declare what skill you're using and the GM tells you relevant clues (gumshoe style) about the job that might be useful. Sometimes it's very obvious how it's useful, sometimes it's not. The more skilled you are at something, the more you might reveal. Picking the right skill to ask your question with is important, since you usually only get one or two.
Combat uses the same action mechanic above. Enemies who are aware always deal their damage as part of the player's action, so it's very much in the player's interest to score a one-hit kill/knockout, which isn't hard to achieve, but does use up resources (cards).
I think someone will come up with better stealth mechanics eventually, maybe even something that is more portable conceptually to other games. I think this game is revolutionary in its approach to stealth though.
I've wracked my brain with how to introduce these concepts to other games, like PF or D&D, but it's largely eluded me. I tried it once with a player letting him roll his Sneak Attack dice before his stealth mission. He then set them aside and could add them to any roll he wanted, but once used they were gone. It worked okay, but wasn't that huge of a difference in overall feel (there were a few more restrictions/methods to how they spent, but I wasn't happy with it and it's been a while).
So whatever happened to that game?