In other words, I really, really like Band of Blades. It’s a game that manages to be granular and personal and dramatic, but it also offers a grand sense of scale that’s not necessarily very easy to capture in a pen-and-paper role-playing g…
Stras Acimovic on August 22, 2019 So far our big games have mashed up genres I love (space opera) with systems that suit them well. In a way, that’s cheating—it’s low hanging fruit in the inspiration game. But what happens when you can’t do…
The Legion is in retreat following a failed battle against the armies of the undead. You are a member of the Legion, your bonds to one another forged in the dark by bone and blood. But time is running out as more fall to the indomitable for…
Stras Acimovic on July 8, 2019 There’s a strategy we have here at Off Guard Games: Minimum Viable Playtest. Whenever John and I get a game idea, we talk about it for a bit, and see how excited we are by the prospect. What catches our fancy
Stras Acimovic on July 8, 2019 There are two questions I commonly get about Forged in the Dark games: I’ve heard a number of answers to the first (It has phases! Or … it mechanises the crew sheet!)… but you can disprove a number of those by…
Scum and Villainy is a Forged in the Dark game about a spaceship crew trying to make ends meet under the iron-fisted rule of the Galactic Hegemony. Work with the members of your crew to thrive despite powerful criminal syndicates, warring n…
Stras Acimovic on June 15, 2019 One thing that John pushes me to do when we design games is to think about the world beyond the scope of the current adventure. To get Scum and Villainy off the ground, we just needed to know the streets of R…
How do you find inspiration, when the muse isn't giving it to you out of the blue? Find the things you're excited about in a design, and work from there. A short article by Stras featuring two games that didn't start with the core of a mech…
Our games are designed to captivate your attention and provoke wonder, possibility, and sometimes childlike joy. We spend a lot of time deciding how to blend fiction and mechanics in a pleasing way so that the story you tell with our games
Amazing Rando on May 1, 2020 Lock and load, runner. We have four minutes until that alarm system kicks back in and this place is swarming with guards. Fortunately for you, I’ve got all the augments to get in, get the goods, and get back out…
John LeBoeuf-Little on November 17, 2019 It is more than just darkness. It is a miasma that hates the light, devours flame, and warps the living. Somewhere in that hungry dark is a Nightwell, and near it a Shade—a creature born of the Murk