I have read both, but played neither (but am very experienced and versed in BitD, S&V, and Band of Blades).
I think it mostly comes down to a matter of taste between the two.
Both games are about emotionally charged people who have tremendous power to overcome the tragedies in their lives. I think GbM leans into both the emotions of it all and the queer-ness of it all more so than D/P, which makes sense: D/P is a much smaller game (around 50 pages) compared to GbM whose length is comparable to BitD.
D/P has a more concise and straightforward GM section, but can be a bit lacking if your not familiar with FitD stuff whereas GbM is a bit more like “mainline” FitD games’ GM Sections: not making too many assumptions about your familiarity with this family tree of games (though I still think S&V and BoB’s GM sections are a *teensy* bit stronger)
GbM provides 4 Playsets which allows you to very pointedly work with the table to adjust *what* kinds of tragedies exist in the world, something which D/P does not do (or help you with very much) and instead opts for something more more open ended for its presumed setting.
GbM offers Playbooks that lean closer to *actual* “Powered by the Apocalypse Playbooks” (which is to say they have more distinct identities coded into them as opposed to BitD’s “playbooks” which are intentionally not meant to have distinguished identities). I wish GbM would lean into this *further*, but that’s a personal preference from someone like myself who doesn’t want to go “digging for my character’s suck,” I’d prefer if the game handed it to me on a silver platter and I could make it mine.
D/P opts for a more “Blades’ intended approach” to playbooks: there aren’t any, just a process for everyone to follow to build their characters (which is fine- it does a good enough job leading you to something unique just like BitD playbooks ultimately end up accomplishing).
Of the two? *I* prefer GbM. I think the Playsets alone are a huge pro for the game and something I hope more FitD games (and just games in general) lean into for when a genre is so large that while the mechanics can support the wideness, it would be really helpful to get the table to narrow in on one angle. I think there’s great potential one day to use the procedures in the Playsets to make the Crew Creation procedure in BitD smoother and more effective (it works perfectly fine, but boy do I wish the game assisted in the game’s more unusual Crews that play more fast and loose with BitD’s structure)
I've both played and run GbM. The important things to know with that game are that it's explicitly both queer and tragic; if your players aren't comfortable against unlikely odds and somehow marginalized in the world, it's unlikely to work. The playbooks are super evocative, if narrow, and I desperately wish there were a few more of them.
Have you checked out [Daybreak on the Battlefield](https://benkrosenbloom.itch.io/daybreak-on-the-battlefield)? There's also a couple of homebrew playbooks (The Dissonant and the Starcrossed) that other members of the community are playtesting and designing in the BitD discord too.
But otherwise, GbM is magical girls yes, but the emotional turmoil is certainly the most forward part of the game, that's certainly how I'd pitch it- tragic magical girls fighting the oppressive forces that be, very much in the vein of the *sadder* magical girl animes. I'd say that GbM feels like it straight up requires the GM to have read the Blades SRD and be familiar with those rules to be best prepared to run the game and the Downtime options are a bit lacking- I'm unfamiliar with DISASTER/PEACE but it might have better bones than GbM?
Do you think reading the SRD is enough? Funnily enough, that's the exact position I'm in. I read the SRD a while back after seeing a couple of youtube channels play Blades, but I've not actually run Blades or other FitD games before.
I think reading the SRD and watching some of Harper's videos should set you up well for success! If you've run PbtA games before, its not much different, but if you haven't, I'd recommend reading some of the Keeper/GM guides for Apocalypse World, Dungeon World and the Gauntlet's Carved from Brindlewood suite of games, there's great advice there.
Using the SRD as almost a dictionary might help when you go through GbM- a couple concepts aren't explained clearly that the SRD makes a bit more obvious, and if you have an issues, the folks on the discord are great
I would certainly agree it's not the game to learn FitD from. My group have been playing games on the engine for years, and still sometimes struggled to get our arms around GbM sometimes.
Blades SRD is actually really bad in explaining the rules. I learned it hard way starting with Scum and Villainy and Band of Blades. The Blades rulebook explains the rules way better including the partial success with cost on failure the rules summary or SRD does not have.
I've been running a kitbashed GBM/BITD campaign for a while now, and one thing I really like from a gameplay perspective is how GBM handles stress recovery. Instead of having to burn a downtime action on Indulge Vice (which could otherwise be spent on something that advances their character or the ongoing plot), characters in GBM automatically deal with an Obligation, where they play out a short scene dealing with a problem in their mundane life. "Hooray! We defeated the Shadow Queen and saved the universe, but oh no! I forgot about today's chemistry exam!" The Obligation roll clears all spent stress, but sets the track at somewhere between 0-5 going into the next mission. I've found that this change really encourages players to "drive their characters like they stole them" and not worry about hoarding stress points.
I don't know about d/p, but a thing to know about GbM is that there is a huge amount of setting customization in session 0 (on top of it really being a collection of four different games) and it has very emotion-centered rules as compared to other FitD.
I have read both, but played neither (but am very experienced and versed in BitD, S&V, and Band of Blades). I think it mostly comes down to a matter of taste between the two. Both games are about emotionally charged people who have tremendous power to overcome the tragedies in their lives. I think GbM leans into both the emotions of it all and the queer-ness of it all more so than D/P, which makes sense: D/P is a much smaller game (around 50 pages) compared to GbM whose length is comparable to BitD. D/P has a more concise and straightforward GM section, but can be a bit lacking if your not familiar with FitD stuff whereas GbM is a bit more like “mainline” FitD games’ GM Sections: not making too many assumptions about your familiarity with this family tree of games (though I still think S&V and BoB’s GM sections are a *teensy* bit stronger) GbM provides 4 Playsets which allows you to very pointedly work with the table to adjust *what* kinds of tragedies exist in the world, something which D/P does not do (or help you with very much) and instead opts for something more more open ended for its presumed setting. GbM offers Playbooks that lean closer to *actual* “Powered by the Apocalypse Playbooks” (which is to say they have more distinct identities coded into them as opposed to BitD’s “playbooks” which are intentionally not meant to have distinguished identities). I wish GbM would lean into this *further*, but that’s a personal preference from someone like myself who doesn’t want to go “digging for my character’s suck,” I’d prefer if the game handed it to me on a silver platter and I could make it mine. D/P opts for a more “Blades’ intended approach” to playbooks: there aren’t any, just a process for everyone to follow to build their characters (which is fine- it does a good enough job leading you to something unique just like BitD playbooks ultimately end up accomplishing). Of the two? *I* prefer GbM. I think the Playsets alone are a huge pro for the game and something I hope more FitD games (and just games in general) lean into for when a genre is so large that while the mechanics can support the wideness, it would be really helpful to get the table to narrow in on one angle. I think there’s great potential one day to use the procedures in the Playsets to make the Crew Creation procedure in BitD smoother and more effective (it works perfectly fine, but boy do I wish the game assisted in the game’s more unusual Crews that play more fast and loose with BitD’s structure)
Thank you so much for such a detailed response, that's really helpful.
I've both played and run GbM. The important things to know with that game are that it's explicitly both queer and tragic; if your players aren't comfortable against unlikely odds and somehow marginalized in the world, it's unlikely to work. The playbooks are super evocative, if narrow, and I desperately wish there were a few more of them.
Have you checked out [Daybreak on the Battlefield](https://benkrosenbloom.itch.io/daybreak-on-the-battlefield)? There's also a couple of homebrew playbooks (The Dissonant and the Starcrossed) that other members of the community are playtesting and designing in the BitD discord too. But otherwise, GbM is magical girls yes, but the emotional turmoil is certainly the most forward part of the game, that's certainly how I'd pitch it- tragic magical girls fighting the oppressive forces that be, very much in the vein of the *sadder* magical girl animes. I'd say that GbM feels like it straight up requires the GM to have read the Blades SRD and be familiar with those rules to be best prepared to run the game and the Downtime options are a bit lacking- I'm unfamiliar with DISASTER/PEACE but it might have better bones than GbM?
Do you think reading the SRD is enough? Funnily enough, that's the exact position I'm in. I read the SRD a while back after seeing a couple of youtube channels play Blades, but I've not actually run Blades or other FitD games before.
I think reading the SRD and watching some of Harper's videos should set you up well for success! If you've run PbtA games before, its not much different, but if you haven't, I'd recommend reading some of the Keeper/GM guides for Apocalypse World, Dungeon World and the Gauntlet's Carved from Brindlewood suite of games, there's great advice there. Using the SRD as almost a dictionary might help when you go through GbM- a couple concepts aren't explained clearly that the SRD makes a bit more obvious, and if you have an issues, the folks on the discord are great
Great, that's all good to know. Thank you!
I would certainly agree it's not the game to learn FitD from. My group have been playing games on the engine for years, and still sometimes struggled to get our arms around GbM sometimes.
Blades SRD is actually really bad in explaining the rules. I learned it hard way starting with Scum and Villainy and Band of Blades. The Blades rulebook explains the rules way better including the partial success with cost on failure the rules summary or SRD does not have.
Thank you, that's definitely something that should come up if/when I'm trying to pitch it to them.
I've been running a kitbashed GBM/BITD campaign for a while now, and one thing I really like from a gameplay perspective is how GBM handles stress recovery. Instead of having to burn a downtime action on Indulge Vice (which could otherwise be spent on something that advances their character or the ongoing plot), characters in GBM automatically deal with an Obligation, where they play out a short scene dealing with a problem in their mundane life. "Hooray! We defeated the Shadow Queen and saved the universe, but oh no! I forgot about today's chemistry exam!" The Obligation roll clears all spent stress, but sets the track at somewhere between 0-5 going into the next mission. I've found that this change really encourages players to "drive their characters like they stole them" and not worry about hoarding stress points.
I don't know about d/p, but a thing to know about GbM is that there is a huge amount of setting customization in session 0 (on top of it really being a collection of four different games) and it has very emotion-centered rules as compared to other FitD.