Review: Blades in the Dark's Deep Cuts

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Deep Cuts is an expansion and set of alternate rules for Blades in the Dark, released late October 2024 and updated earlier this year, written by Blades author John Harper based on his evolving experiences with the game as it has matured over the past eight years. It contains a mix of setting and systems that expand on or tweak mechanics and lore, fleshing out a few more of the factions (and adding some new ones), new technology, and a lot more.

It is a fantastic resource - I’ll say that from the jump - it’s great, not just because of the content, but also the way it's presented as a series of individual tweaks and changes; it’s not an overhaul, it’s a la carte. 

The book is laid out clearly and effectively. After each module is a list of all the things in the core rules that would need to change - and, more importantly, how to change them - to fit the ruleset in the module. At the back is an extensive, module-by-module set of designer’s notes, going into a great amount of detail to justify why the module exists. It’s a great resource.

There is a decent amount of art; people, objects, maps, landscapes; all in the evocative, moody Blades style, especially in the first half of the book, and all thoughtfully positioned. Harper is very good at presenting his ideas, and it shows here just as much as in the core book.

My personal impression is that a) I like most of what’s here, b) I’ll be implementing some of it into my games, and c) there are a few things I’m just not interested in, generally because they don’t fit the way I enjoy the game, and having read Harper’s justification in the designers’ notes, I just don’t think that our playstyles align on that particular point.

From here on out, I’ll be diving into the book in some detail, so if you don’t want spoilers, take what I’ve said above and run with it. I’ll generally be looking at each of the system tweaks in isolation, which is how they’re presented, but I’ll also be giving some thoughts as to how they work together - which is how I think they’re expected to be used and were designed.

The book is structured into three sections, and we’ll look at each section in turn. This is halfway between a review and a let's-read, so each section will be its own article - though I’ll give an abbreviated version of my thoughts now in case you can’t wait. When the articles are out, simply click through each heading to find the full article.

Setting

  • Innovations - A number of new items with cool use cases, as well as some interesting ways to tie them to particular factions.

  • Factions - A mixed bag of interesting and dull factions, both returning from the core book and new to this one. Some of these really expand the fiction, others awkwardly crystallise it. This also includes a few maps and guidance that makes the GM’s life easier.

  • Catalyst - An adventure module by any other name. I bounced off of the substance of it, but it has really good bones to build your own adventure on top of.

Character Rules

  • Heritage & Background - A really extensive fleshing out of the different heritages and backgrounds, now with a lot more detail and variety to them. Nice if you struggle to conceptualise your character, but not very useful otherwise.

  • Harm & Trauma - A rework of the harm and trauma system, focusing on keeping PCs in play, and moving away from end-of-session xp. Has some nice ideas, but abrogates too much responsibility onto the GM’s shoulders for me.

  • Advancement - A sort of simpler, sort of more complicated system that is much better at modulating the rate that players get more skills and advances without messing with their xp gain. I like it in theory, but having crunched the numbers from my games, it doesn’t seem like it would have made much of a difference.

  • Downtime - A big rework of downtime that totally removes rolling in favour of static increases and paying Coin. Also sneaks a change to the way payoff works as well. Generally very solid but with a few frustrating changes.

The Threat Roll

  • A major change to the action roll and the core conversation of the game that is designed to speed up the flow of the game, but I don’t think does so in practice. An interesting idea that, for me, comes across a little half-baked and confusing.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Deep Cuts marries interesting additions with frustrating overcomplications. When it’s at its best, it reinvents rules in an inventive, evocative manner that adds to the playability and enhances the fiction. When it’s not, it’s stacking rules on rules for little tangible benefit - and sometimes even weakening the fiction.

It’s presented as a series of individual modules, but I’m not convinced it was conceived as such; there’s a lot that bleeds into each other, and it’s hard to know whether a particular module was built without the preconceptions of the others - and so it’s hard to recommend any module in isolation. Not impossible; most of the changes are fairly minor, but enough to give me pause. It’s hard to recommend something fun when it’s tied to something else that’s less fun - especially if it’s unclear how tied to it it is. 

It’s worth going through Deep Cuts and seeing what you like - not necessarily to use it, but to provoke the question of ‘is this system working for me? What do I want it to do? How could I change it for the better?’ for your own game. I’ll certainly be using some variant of several of these modules to answer that question in my own game; even if I won’t be adding the contents of the book wholesale. 


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