What is this?
Keepers in the Dark is a roleplaying game that is designed to mimic a specific breed of action drama TV shows.
Specifically, the sort of TV shows where there is a team of highly skilled people who help random people who need help against some sort of powerful enemy. They generally operate outside the law and, strictly speaking, they are a bunch of vigilantes, committing a whole host of crimes to bring down people that the authorities won’t deal with.
Each episode, the teams pulls at least one caper, aka a complicated crime. Usually a heist or a con or some combinations of those, and the bad guy loses. Hopefully. There’s also some social interaction roleplay because not everything in a TV show is pure plot. Maybe there’s some overarching villain that you deal with at the end of the season in some big two-part episode.
If that sounds vague, it is because it is supposed to.. This system is not tightly integrated any setting. It comes with one, a time travel setting called Haven Zero, but it works equally well at mimicking a TV show set in the ‘real world’ such as Leverage, or letting you create your own.
The Mechanics for playing the game.
A optional setting of Haven Zero.
How to read this
The rules of this game are written towards the player, telling them how and what to do. There are a few different indicators used to make specific notes of things. Sometimes they come expanded, sometimes collapsed.
Other system
This is used to compare Keepers in the Dark with other TTRPGs, usually the Leverage RPG or basic Forged in the Dark.
Hint
This is non-obvious strategy about rule interactions, so players don’t have to painstakingly figure things out. It also calls out when players are likely to miss something to their advantage.
What’s this for?
It is to pretend you have asked an obvious question, so it can be answered.
Game Master
This is the rules talking specifically to the person running the game. Player can read this, it’s not a secret, but it is ‘how to run Keepers in the Dark’ instead of ‘how to play Keepers in the Dark’
Gameplay
GM Sections marked like this are examples of live gameplay. As this is just an example of those examples, I don’t have anything prepped here, how about people introduce themselves and their characters?
Minerva Well, okay, I’m playing Minerva, she’s a introverted hacker, really quiet, likes to sit in a corner reading, smart-ish and sneaky. And I am…I don’t have a name. I am just the unnamed player who plays Minerva.
Greg Technically, we’re all just Building a Team of a group that has been invented for gameplay.
Rueben But we don’t know we’re examples in-character, right?
GM Do you mean in-character as in the game as Reuben, or in-character as in the unnamed player that plays Rueben?
Reuben I honestly don’t know. Both, I guess. Do either of us know?
GM Um…hmm. We’ve basically lost the fourth wall entirely here. Um, I guess that’s a gather information check of some sort. You want to roll Understand, maybe?
Rueben As both myself and as the character of Rueben? Okay. Wait, how do I roll as myself?
Greg Hold on, unnamed GM, you aren’t in charge of what us player know about being examples, you’re just an example too! You are on the same meta-narrative level as the players!
GM That’s a really good point, the fourth wall breakage now includes me. This is untenable, we can’t play like this. I’m going to try to fix the fourth wall, using…Modify. Where’s my character sheet?