It’s a Dice Exploder EMERGENCY POD! Less than 24 hours ago as of recording, John Harper, designer of Blades in the Dark, released a brand new official supplement for the game: Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts. It’s 110 pages packed full of new setting and new mechanic ideas, and I really wanted to talk about it! I love Apocalypse World’s concept of “advanced fuckery,” and I’ve never seen such a good and extended example of it all in one place.
John Harper
Podcast Transcript: The Risk Sheet (Psi*Run) with John Harper
TranscriptCommentOn the season 3 premiere, I’m joined by John Harper, designer of many games featured on past episodes of Dice Exploder including Blades in the Dark, Lasers & Feelings, and Agon 2e.
John brought in the Psi*Run risk sheet, a fairly complex dice resolution mechanic, known generically as Otherkind Dice. The risk sheet is such an elegant piece of design, packing essentially a whole game onto a single sheet of paper, and being so clear in both how it works and how you might tear it apart for your own ends. If you’re a new designer, or even just looking to get back in touch with the basics, John and I agree that hacking this thing is a great place to look.