Mechanics to Steal: Crew Sheets
From Blades in the Dark
This post is part of a series on TTRPG mechanics that you can use in other games.
This is one of those mechanics that feels so obvious, that it’s a wonder more systems don’t implement it. Like the last post, it’s about building stronger bonds between the player characters. Often, in D&D, the players’ goals aren’t aligned, and it doesn’t feel natural for them to go on a quest together. Each player shows up at the table with a character sheet that doesn’t necessarily connect to the other players’ characters. What brings them together as a party? What if the party itself had a “character sheet”?
In Blades in the Dark, after choosing a character playbook (in D&D terms, a class), you collectively choose a crew type, which gets its own sheet. Just like a character, the crew can gain experience, acquire equipment, and unlock new abilities. In Blades in the Dark, the crew is a group of criminals, and the crew type indicates your specialty. You can be Bravos, mercenaries specializing in extortion and sabotage. Or you can be Shadows, thieves specializing in burglaries and espionage. Or you can be Smugglers, traders specializing in moving contraband. There are six different types to choose from or you can easily homebrew your own.
When it’s time to collect experience, your crew gains experience as well, which you can use to acquire new abilities, which apply to everyone in the crew. You can also acquire equipment that you can use in future scores. You can expand your lair or acquire cohorts you can hire/work with. All of these advancements make more sense at the crew level than at the character level.
Most importantly, when players decide what crew advancement to get next, they automatically start having conversations about their plans as a crew. It aligns the players’ objectives and answers the question of why these people are working together. If you ask players directly, “What are your goals as a crew?” they might find that difficult to answer. If, instead, you ask them, “Would you rather acquire a vehicle or expand your territory?” the players will only have to think about which option feels more fun.
Compare that with D&D, where if your party acquires a wagon or a ship or something, there isn’t a well-established place to list that. You could add it to some character’s equipment list, but listing an entire sailing ship next to 20 ft of rope feels out of place. Some parties might just create a custom sheet for shared equipment and traits, but it’s nice that Blades in the Dark provides that sheet from the start.
If you are designing your own system (or adapting an existing system) to have a crew sheet, here are some things you might include:
Equipment Upgrades: Shared equipment that everyone can use. For common items like rations and miscellaneous adventuring gear, it sometimes makes more sense to have a central stash rather than players carrying everything around individually.
Space Upgrades: Does the party have a shared space? In Blades, it’s called a lair, and it can expand or gain functionality over time. These could be physical upgrades like buildings or devices, or they could be more abstract improvements to the lair. For example, in Blades, you can acquire a fence, a merchant that helps you sell your contraband goods more easily. This is considered a lair upgrade.
Abilities: Some abilities make more sense at the crew level. For example, if your crew has some notoriety making it easier to do intimidation checks, this bonus should apply to the whole crew.
Connections: Maybe you hired some extra muscle during a mission. Maybe your crew has bribed a politician to leak information. Maybe your party gets cheap drinks at a tavern because you saved it from bandits once. These are connections for your crew as a whole rather than for any individual. You might want to list this on a crew sheet. For more examples, see Blades’s contacts and cohorts.
Status: How do people feel about your crew? How does the public feel about you? How do the authorities feel about you? Blades has reputation and heat to track the status of your crew. In your game, use whatever metrics are most important to your story.
Experience: What kinds of actions will award crew experience? In Blades, the crew gains experience for:
Executing a successful operation
Contending with challenges above their station
Bolstering the crew’s reputation or developing a new one
Expressing the goals, drives, inner conflict, or essential nature of the crew
— Blades in the Dark crew sheet
These criteria mechanically encourage players to be bold and a little reckless. Blades in the Dark is supposed to feel dangerous as your crew is always biting off a little more than they can chew. The experience system rewards this kind of play. If you implement this for your own game, think about what kind of storytelling you want to encourage and reward players for leaning into it.
Roles: What role does everyone play in the group? Is there a leader? Do people have different parts of the operation they are in charge of? Blades doesn’t have this mechanic, but it could bring a fun dynamic to the game. Different positions within the crew could come with corresponding benefits or responsibilities. Adding a little asymmetry makes the game more interesting.
Subclasses: Blades doesn’t subdivide the crew types beyond the initial six options; however, I would like to see a game go deeper into the crew progression system. It’s hard to know exactly what kind of crew you’ll be at the beginning of a campaign. Having a choice of a few different subclasses after you’ve played a few sessions would be a fun mechanic.
Sometimes it can take several sessions before a party has a sense of group identity. Crew sheets provide a mechanical way to get the party on the same page1. I tried to find other systems that use crew sheets, but I could not find any (besides games based on Blades in the Dark). I’m sure I’ve overlooked some important ones, so please leave a comment if you know of any.
ba-dum tss!