Rules as Played

Darkness Reforged - SRD (Version 0.2)

DARKNESS REFORGED is a dark urban fantasy roleplaying game about people caught in a City that should not exist—an artificial reality forged from the Darkness by inhuman powers. Players portray professionals and outcasts who survive the City on its own terms while secretly navigating a second, supernatural life as some of the few who have seen behind the Veil: those who Hunger, those who Rage, and those who Will. Play is driven by tightly wound narrative loops—personal, supernatural, and communal—that generate pressure, fallout, and escalation through an alternating cycle of Nights and Daytime. Resolution uses a dice pool of d6s, every roll a wager with known risks and settled stakes. Success always comes at a price, failure leaves scars, and players quickly learn when to push through and when to take the loss. Things spiral, the group’s Cover is burned, and in the end the City always balances its Ledger. The characters must decide whether they will feed on it, break it open, or reshape it—knowing that every choice reforges both themselves and the world around them.

Rules Reference

This section is a quick reference to the rules of Darkness Reforged. It is written for use at the table, during play.

Core Ideas (At a Glance)

Core Concepts

A Power does not make the attempt more likely to succeed or less expensive - it just makes it possible.

A Bound can only be ignored so many times before the Character changes irrevocably.

A Dice Pool is always a fixed number of dice, although the GM might change their type according to the circumstances.

A Resource Pool has a fixed size and it can not 'go into the negatives', but there might be narrative consequences as long as it is depleted.

Daytime Actions are limited and therefore precious; you can take more at the risk of ceding the initiative to the City.

Loops

Your character is defined by what pulls them into trouble, what gets them out, and how they recover—until they get pulled back in again. This repeating pattern is called a Loop.

Every Loop has four parts:

The Loop also has a Dice Pool that reflects hard-earned experience, Scars earned during previous iterations.

When you act in a way consistent with the Loop, especially the Hook, you can roll its Dice Pool, lean on its Edge and spend from its Source.

A Character can be part of multiple Loops, individually or communally with the rest of the Group.

Loop elements are 'played first, then named'.

Example Loop: Secret Agent (4d6)

Making a Roll

When you attempt an Action with uncertain outcome:

  1. Describe the intended effect and how you make it happen, taking into account any relevant Loops, Powers and Bounds.
  2. The GM might offer immediate Success at a Cost; should you accept it you pay the necessary Resources and succeed.
  3. Otherwise, the GM sets
    the Risk — how bad failure gets (number of Risk dice, default 1),
    the Cost — how many successes are required to fully realize the effect (default 2), and
    the Consequences — how things might go wrong.
  4. Build a dice pool of d6s from the appropriate Loop.
    The GM replaces some Loop dice with Risk dice (d6s of a different color).
  5. Roll all the dice together and count the successes.
    For Loop dice:
    1–3 → 0 successes
    4–5 → 1 success
    6 → 2 successes
    For Risk dice:
    1–3 → -1 success
    4–5 → 0 successes 6 → 1 success

With high Risk, you might get a total of zero or even negative successes.

Interpreting the Roll

Failure (Total successes less than 1)

Choose one:

The Consequences from Accepting Failure is up to the GM—it might be purely narrative, it might involve paying Resources or burning Cover, or it might even be a new Bound that constrains the Character.

You do not gain a Cut for pushing through.

Only Cuts can be used to turn Failure into Success, not Resources.

Success (Total successes at least 1)

The intended effect happens, but you need to pay for any missing successes.

If your total successes are less than Cost, choose one:

Only Resources can be used to pay the Cost, not Cuts.

You must either cover the Cost in full or accept the Mark.

Small Marks (1-2 missing successes) might be resolved immediately by the GM. Larger Marks persist through the Night and, if not resolved by the end of it, escalate into Debt that goes on the Ledger.

If you naturally rolled higher than the Cost, the GM might translate the extra successes into additional effects.

Cuts and Scars

You start each Night with 0 Cuts.

At the end of the Night, all unspent Cuts become Scars.

Scars can be spent through Daytime Actions to:

Cover (Group Resource)

Lower Cover means:

Cover is restored through Daytime Actions.

The Flow of Play

Play alternates between two states, Night and Daytime, with Dusk and Dawn marking the transition between the two.

Dusk

Dusk is the point of no-return, when the Players and their Characters commit to an Objective.

Night

A Night is a continuous period of play focused on a single Objective.

A Night ends when the Objective is decisively resolved:

Dawn

Dawn is a moment of reflection.

The Players and the GM have some important book-keeping to do:

Daytime

Daytime is play in-between Nights, a period of damage control and recuperation.

Each player gets Two Daytime Actions for 'free'.

Common Daytime Actions:

After every Player has taken their free Daytime Actions, the GM rolls on the Ledger.

Typical Ledger entries:

A roll on the Ledger is another chance for the City itself to act and react.

Players may take additional Daytime Action rounds, but each one triggers another GM roll on the Ledger.

Some rolls on the Ledger can kick off a reactive Night, especially if the Cover is low, forcefully ending the Daytime.

The City

As one of those few who have peaked behind the Veil, the Characters are aware of certain key facts:

Hic sunt dracones.